Earliest invention and deployment of fully automatic machine gun

Taking a POD of before 1900 but after 1750, what's the absolute earliest that a fully automatic machine gun based on the same or similar principles of the Maxim gun (or any other possible automatic loading mechanism) can be invented and soon after adopted by major militaries, mass produced, and put into use in a major conflict?

How does this affect the 19th century geopolitical trajectory of all the different powers? How would it affect the development of military tactics in anticipation of this technology coming into use so early?

What are the possible wars that see major changes due to earlier use of the machine gun, or are there any butterflied conflicts or any other events?
 
use search, this subject has been done several times i think

I searched and found nothing that discussed the things I was particularly interested in, particularly how the trajectory of military history and conflicts would be affected and how early.

On a related note, how early can we push back the invention of smokeless propellants for cartridges?
 
you need a whole bunch of inventions/principles
1. interchangeable parts
2. precision manufacturing
3. robust enough alloys
4. smokeless powder (which needs nitric & sulphuric acid, and most important it needs stabilising agents/ the main reason why the introduction of smokeless powder took so long since it was invented)
5. fulminate (for the percussion caps)
6. metal cartridges

if i remember correctly, the conclusion was could do it 10 yrs earlier max

smokeless powder can be invented earlier, it is the stuff to stabilise it that makes it tricky.
without that, guncotton has the tendency to go unstable and self ignite
 
if i remember correctly, the conclusion was could do it 10 yrs earlier max

And what specifically makes this pretty arbitrary number justified?

Remember, with the way I structured the AHC there can be several PODs starting from the first British Industrial Revolution such that all these specific discoveries and inventions can be made earlier, essentially compressing the timeline of events preceding eventual invention of a Maxim type gun. I'm sure that we can plausibly decide that some scientific discoveries or inventions can be made earlier by OTL figures, or if the butterflies build up enough, we can ignore OTL innovators and have entirely ATL ones or OTL ones who are completely different if that makes any sense.

I'm not interested in being conservative with just a single POD or anything since the more interested thing would be to see how early machine guns affect geopolitical balance in the world as well as the development of military doctrine.

How would machine guns work in a time where transport on the battlefield was mostly horse-drawn? Is it possible to have a machine gun mounted on a war carriage and fired while mobile? What would be the battlefield purpose of such a contraption?
 
the machineguns are going to be the smallest change. all the tech pods needed for such an early development are going to influence everything also. for example the metallurgic stuff. steam might appear early too then
military doctrine will go pretty much same path as otl, just a lot speedier. development of trench warfare etc.
also machineguns need the modern type bullet, with round bullets they are worthless, assume these modern bullets, the bullets and metal cartridges will also be use din rifles etc.
the big change will be colonial warfare, with machineguns you will also have repeating or self-loading rifles, which will make things a lot more onesided.


transport on horse or on dog carts (as used otl)
otl:
11.png
 
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