Automatic weapon

An automatic weapon is a ranged weapon (be it a fictional directed-energy weapon or real-life firearm) that fires more than one shot when the user pulls the trigger. A fully automatic weapon can fire indefinitely on a single trigger pull, stopping only when its mechanism jams or it runs out of ammunition. The first automatic weapon was developd in 1884 by Hiram Stevens Maxim in 1884. The advent in Automatic weapons had a major effect on tactics, rendering massed charges opsolete as was demonstrated at the Battle of Omdurman in 1889 in which ten british maxims decimated over 15,000 cavalrymen and latter durring the Great War.