Leonardo da Vinci sketched an organ gun with 33 small gun barrels arranged in three rows.
The weapon belongs to the family of volley guns, which fire multiple barrels in succession or together. Leonardo’s arrangement placed the barrels on a frame resembling the pipes of a musical organ, giving rise to the English name “organ gun.” The design aimed to increase the rate of fire compared with a single muzzle-loading cannon.
Its three rows could be angled so that one row was fired while another was being reloaded. That arrangement was intended to make battlefield use more efficient, although the weapon would still have been heavy, difficult to move, and slow to prepare by modern standards.
The organ gun is not the same invention as Leonardo’s large crossbow or his armored vehicle. It was a gunpowder weapon based on multiple barrels, whereas the crossbow used tension and the armored vehicle relied on protective armor and artillery.