It's not clear whether or not the development of the R-23M for space-based applications contributed to the secrecy surrounding the weapon or if it was chosen because it was so closely guarded to start with. That conflict between Chad and Libya, in general, was an intelligence bonanza for the West. An actual example did not reportedly fall into Western hands until one was recovered from the wreckage of a Libyan Tu-22 that French forces had shot down over Chad in 1987. This helped keep the very existence of the gun largely secret until the first Blinders were exported to Iraq and Libya in the 1970s. In the end, the Tu-22 was the only aircraft to be armed with the R-23. Delays in the development of the cannon meant that the first Blinders entered service years before their tail guns were ready. The Tupolev Tu-22 Blinder bomber was the first aircraft to be designed to carry the R-23, with one of the guns to be mounted in a remote-controlled, radar-directed turret in the tail. The general concept behind ammunition of this type is to shorten the overall length of the round, and, by extension, the weapon that fires it, without any significant loss of performance over a gun firing a similar traditional round. This means that the projectile is nestled completely inside the cartridge case, rather than sticking out of the front. On top of that, the R-23 uses unique 23x260mm cartridges that have a so-called telescoped configuration. This places the feed mechanism in the center of the gun, helping to shorten its overall length. However, Rikhter's gun, unlike most other revolver cannons, feeds ammunition from the magazine backward into the cylinders, rather than from the rear or the side. This feed mechanism, which is similar in some very broad respects to Gatling-type designs, allows for a higher rate of fire than can be achieved with more conventional single-barrel guns. The R-23 is a so-called revolver cannon, which, as its name indicates, feeds ammunition into the firing position by way of a number of revolver-like cylinders.

Russian over under rifle shotgun