The Magnificent Seven : That was one powerful gatling gun……

That one single gun, destroyed numerous people and buildings seemingly at the same time. It was like 10 guns.

The gun wasnt even close to the village. Wouldnt they have moved a little closer?

*beep* awesome

A crew served weapon should be back a bit from the point of contact, and on slightly high ground as it was. A fairly small arc to sweep across. In the Civil War they would have used cannon loaded with grapeshot for similar, but slower, effect. Gatling and Maxim machine guns changed warfare and the result was a WWI trench warfare environment. Some others may correct but usually these are more effective in defense, two or more in overlapping fields of fire, as most combat leaders don't like shooting their own troops.

It was shooting curving bullets since apparently there were holes in the faces of buildings on the street - despite the fact it can only shoot in a straight line in reality.

True,

At that range it would be a rainbow trajectory for 45-70 Gov't. You could probably arc them in like that. I had a friend with a .444 Marlin. At 100 feet, it would blow a 55 gallon drum full of dirt in half. At 100 yards, you had to aim several feet high. At 300 yards, you had to arc it and it became more like artillery. Of course, the Gattling gun has longer barrels so maybe it could shoot longer than a short rifle.

Too funny !!

It struck me as a lazy writers plot device "equalizer". In my mind it would have been more fitting to this script if Bode had tied dynamite to prairie dogs and sent them into the center of town.

I would love to know if, at say 1000 yards from a Gatlin, a .30 or even a .45-70 round would have had the power to literally shred buildings like they show in the film, and what kind of accuracy / grouping it would produce.

I think it's an unforgivable bit of bad writing that Goodnight didn't take up a concealed position and take out the operator when her discovered the Gatlin, but intstead in dramatic fashion, rides in yelling "get inside!" Then he remembers how to shoot again and decides to get out his rifle. LOL.

He's panicking. He's not thinking straight. He doesn't get calm until he sees Billy. Billy is the person that calms him down. I get panic attacks too. You have to find the "Hard Break" as I call it. Once I talk to the right person, I start thinking straight. Billy is his rock. Billy is the breakwater.

This 100%.

After he left, the whole time knowing he's coming back I assumed he would wait behind and somehow destroy their plans from being them. And you position all your men inside the village? and your children stayed in the basement when your goal was to draw them to the center of town? There were a lot of problems with that battle plan.

I had a hard time regarding the distance of that gun.

Trivia says:

The Gatling guns used in the time period of this film were chambered in .45-70 Government, which had a muzzle velocity of 1.600 feet per second, a 300-grain lead bullet and had a range of well over a mile. In fact, the Army's standard target at the time the caliber was used was a 6x6 wooden target at 600 yards, well over the distance shown in this film, and the .45-70 round was also used to shoot bison (buffalo) in the late 1800's. So modest cover would not have saved you and the range for the Gatling gun in the movie was more than accurate.