i can only see using the sling on a M249 as stabilization if it's hip-fired... and yeah, the mkII barrel is kinda crappy, but in its defense, not entirely. the main problem i see with it is that the barrels get burned out faster since they removed the gas collar and stuck that solid piece of drek on there.

at short range with any weapon on burst, yeah, the likelihood of a first-round hit is very high. i dont see it doing much extra damage though if that's the only round that hits. granted, it does still reduce dodge due to hot lead on either side of the poor bastard, but if the gun jumps too much to provide follow-up hits, why fire sustained at all, unless to provide suppressive fire?

two very important truisms i live by:
1) the deadliest thing on the battlefield is a well-aimed shot
and 2) consistency = accuracy

Coming From personal experience, There is no doubt about any of this...

word, y0

Peace Out, Brother... Semper Fidelis

Reminds me of something I heard in my various martial arts training. It isn't the fast or the strong punch that gets you, it is the punch you don't see.

Lilt:

I still stick w/ my point... it's drek. It's a needless complication, doesn't add much of anything for reality that a wide burst doesn't already do. It needlessly slows down the game and again, automatics are already the best catchall weapons group in the game. (you have pistol sized MP's, 1/2 handed SMG's, and 2handed AR's spanning it).

Look at the wide burst rules... for every dice you remove. The attacker loses a reaction dice. This means you can quickly reduce his pool to 0 if you fire enough bullets. And you don't lose the first dice equal to RC. If you hit, you do base weapon damage just as if you only hit w/ one bullet. The nasty thing is... in many cases wide bursts can do more damage than narrow bursts (more net hits increase DV, and narrow DV increase doesn't count for the test against armor rating).

Rolling two colours of dice, then only counting the second if you need it, IS MECHANICALLY NO DIFFERENT THAN ROLLING EDGE AFTER THE FACT.

I roll 7 dice... I don't get enough hits... I lost 4 from RC... I now roll 4 more blue dice. No difference.
I roll 7 dice... I don't get enough hits... I now roll 4 more edge dice... (keeping them seperate so I can reroll 6's).

Put another way, you're giving automatic weapons users... a special kind of edge which isn't spent and never needs refreshed.