Man-Portable Mini-Guns?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by HANS

GE intended it to be used "in vehicles, small boats, or emplaced on the ground." It was offered on a tripod, but together with the tripod and the standard 1,000-round ammo can it weighed 38.6 kg. Your mileage may differ, but I don't consider that manportable. At best it means you can lift it off a lorry and put it in a prepared position.

The Microgun would have made slightly more sense as a handheld weapon than the Minigun because of the reduced recoil, but it would still be stupid.

Cheers

HANS

Do you not believe in infantry HMG teams? As a concept?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by HANS

GE intended it to be used "in vehicles, small boats, or emplaced on the ground." It was offered on a tripod, but together with the tripod and the standard 1,000-round ammo can it weighed 38.6 kg. Your mileage may differ, but I don't consider that manportable. At best it means you can lift it off a lorry and put it in a prepared position.

It's about the same weight as an M2, which is a man portable squad support weapon (yes, it's carried by 2 people; same would go for the XM214). The question is whether it's worth the cost (money, transport, personnel), and it appears every military it was offered to decided the answer was 'no', but that's not the same as calling it not man portable.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Do you not believe in infantry HMG teams? As a concept?

Does the standard loadout for such weigh in at 85 lb (for a whole 10-20 seconds of use)? Asking honestly, because it's a little difficult to tell which Gunner (Machine Guns) weapons in HT are man-portable HMG's and which are exclusively emplaced/mounted weapons.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Do you not believe in infantry HMG teams? As a concept?

If they have to be moved by hand, I think large MGs are usually disassembled (eg. taking off the tripod), transported by several soldiers, then reassembled at the firing position. Cinematic chainguns are often fired from the hip and that is iffy even with smaller MGs. And even smaller MGs are usually operated by at least a two-person team who can share the load of weapon and ammunition and share mechanical tasks like replacing barrels.

Edit: here is Gun Jesus going through the procedure on a Browning M2HB which has already been set up on its tripod but with the barrel removed https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=rsuGLHGcuik

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Does the standard loadout for such weigh in at 85 lb (for a whole 10-20 seconds of use)? Asking honestly, because it's a little difficult to tell which Gunner (Machine Guns) weapons in HT are man-portable HMG's and which are exclusively emplaced/mounted weapons.

Probably more than that for, say, the M2 Browning. I see a 128-lb listing for gun + tripod with T&E. You'd likely have that split between at least two if not three soldiers and then the ammo carried by additional team members.

You'd certainly want to add additional ammo cassettes to the basic load described, carrying the 6Pak around with only 1000 rounds would be at least a bit sillier than carrying it around with 5-10,000 rounds.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's about the same weight as an M2, which is a man portable squad support weapon (yes, it's carried by 2 people; same would go for the XM214). The question is whether it's worth the cost (money, transport, personnel), and it appears every military it was offered to decided the answer was 'no', but that's not the same as calling it not man portable.

While we made 0331s hump with the M2 in training, in practice it is either vehicle mounted (as a CAAT team) or vehicle deployed. There's a reason Weapons Company gets HMMVs.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Steadi-cam harness?

Based on a Steadi-Cam, but closer to the shooter's body and center of gravity. Perhaps mount the battery pack in the baseplate and/or allow the baseplate to attach to LBE or body armor.

In the videos that King Leonidas posted, you can see that mini-gun shooters are really straining to control recoil while "shooting from the hip."

Attach the gun to a pintel mount attached to a hinged scissors suspension mounted on a padded cuirass to absorb recoil, take some of the gun weight and provide a bit of extra armor. Make the scissors mount detachable from the cuirass so that the user can go prone or ditch the gun as needed. Make it possible to turn the scissors mount into a regular bipod/tripod. The user controls the gun using twin rear-mounted "shade" grips with rear trigger like it's a WW2-era aerial gun. It might just work IRL, at least as a movie prop.

And, sure enough, the cosplay folks and the US Army are way ahead of me: authentic TL8 prototype weapon harnesses.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Based on a Steadi-Cam, but closer to the shooter's body and center of gravity. Perhaps mount the battery pack in the baseplate and/or allow the baseplate to attach to LBE or body armor.

In the videos that King Leonidas posted, you can see that mini-gun shooters are really straining to control recoil while "shooting from the hip."

Attach the gun to a pintel mount attached to a hinged scissors suspension mounted on a padded cuirass to absorb recoil, take some of the gun weight and provide a bit of extra armor. Make the scissors mount detachable from the cuirass so that the user can go prone or ditch the gun as needed. Make it possible to turn the scissors mount into a regular bipod/tripod. The user controls the gun using twin rear-mounted "shade" grips with rear trigger like it's a WW2-era aerial gun. It might just work IRL, at least as a movie prop.

And, sure enough, the cosplay folks and the US Army are way ahead of me: authentic TL8 prototype weapon harnesses.

The problem is that while it might be able to smooth out the recoil and generally make it nicer, a minigun is still recoiling with 5-10 times the force of a GPMG, and that momentum has to move something. So the shooter is still going to be forced backwards or toppled over unless they can brace themselves sufficiently. I suspect they'd find themselves firing short bursts and recovering between them, which negates some of the RoF advantage of a minigun because it has to spin up for every burst, costing rate of fire.

A man-portable minigun is very much a solution in search of a problem.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Do you not believe in infantry HMG teams? As a concept?

Nobody really has since the 50s. The Germans got on the GPMG wagon in the 30s, and it was a really solid idea that has taken over universally.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Rupert

. I suspect they'd find themselves firing short bursts and recovering between them, which negates some of the RoF advantage of a minigun because it has to spin up for every burst, costing rate of fire.

.

There might be one advantage to the gatling even in such limited uses. I saw a stat once that conventional machineguns put 7% of their rounds on target (however they were defining that) but electric gatlings put 9% on target.

Apparently the framework holding the 6 barrels in place makes the brrwels more rigid.

That looks to e like a 10 round burst from a conventional gun had a 0.7% chance of getting 1 round to hit but the gatling in a 100 round burst would put 9 rounds where you wanted them to go. Even if you have to throttle the gatling down to ROF 30 that's 2.7 hits.

This might be mostly an argument for the Gauss Needler gatlings in UT of course but at least there's "something" there.