Hotchkiss 37 mm revolving cannon and Field Carriage

Similar in concept to the earlier rotary gun designed by Richard Gatling, the Hotchkiss was designed by fellow American Benjamin B. Hotchkiss. A cluster of five barrels were equally spaced around a central shaft and supported by an outer frame. This was attached to a breech casing that housed the firing mechanism. Each barrel was screwed into a heavy circular breech plate with frontal support provided by a similar muzzle plate of lighter weight. This whole assembly was rotated by revolving a crank handle (not fitted) on the right-hand side of the unit, firing each barrel in turn similar to the earlier Gatling gun.

It was the inefficiency of the French Mitrailleuse (a type of volley gun) during the Franco-Prussian war (1870-1871) that prompted Benjamin B. Hotchkiss to devise a superior weapon to both this and the Gatling gun. As a master mechanic in Hartford's Colt factory in America he was well placed to undertake such a task. Beginning in 1871, by 1873 had had invented

a gun and metallic cartridge ammunition that could provide a continuous fire of armour-piercing, canister, or explosive shells at long range, and which had with minimal recoil to maintain accuracy.

The Hotchkiss was adopted by the French navy in 1876 and subsequently by

the navies of Holland, Greece, America, Chile, Argentina, Russia and Denmark as a defence against torpedo boats.

Although the Royal Navy trialled the Hotchkiss against the Nordenfelt it to be inferior due to a shell jamming in the barrel and broken firing pins. This example of the Hotchkiss gun was taken into the service of the Guatemalan Republic in 1900, under President Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898-1920).