WW1 'Gast' German Twin Barrel GPMG

[Braith-Wafer]

Found this beast, Roumoured to have an extremely rapid rate of fire.
http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/7459/gastoe7.jpg

[Bombardier]

Interesting post, I remembered reading something about the GAST principle once and this post reminded me of it so I looked into it via google and found the following which may go some way to explaining the reasons for its rate of fire.

the Gast principle developed by German engineer Karl Gast of the Vorwerk company in 1916. It is a twin-barreled weapon in which the firing action of one barrel operates the mechanism of the other. It provides a much faster rate of fire for lower mechanical wear than a single-barrel weapon, although it cannot match the rate of fire of an electric Gatling gun like the M61 Vulcan. The Gast principle has been little used in the West, but was popular in the former Soviet Union on a variety of weapons.