I think thats a pretty narrow minded view of things.

Look at this way. A helicopter is a large and noisy thing, and by your logic it shouldn't be able to surprise anyone right? After all its big and noisy. Yet it happens all the time.

This has nothing to do with actually firing the weapon. It has everything to do with moving to a point with a weapon silently. Its hard to maximize suppressive fire and maneuver if you can't get into position.

No firing is involved here. I"ll say it one more time, just for anybody who is missing it, the weapon is not being fired, yet. Once its fired it doesn't matter what its noise profile is. At that point the team will have achieved superior positioning which will give them clear interlocking fields of fire. Its getting to that position thats the hard part.

Does that make it any clearer?

Yeah I pretty much posted this in hopes of attracting Raygun and his brand of Gun-fu.

Thats a bit extreme for me. I see it as a rule that simply has failed (In my case, and maybe in yours as well, but overall it serves its purpose) and that now needs a bit of logical thought, and updating.

If anything I refuse to accept the idea that technology has regressed in the SR world. That just doesn't jive with my game concept.

I am not intrested in reducing the rate of fire, hell I am not intrested in firing at all. It just makes sense that an elite unit utilizing this weapon may modify it so they can utilize it better, and under different conditions.

Okay, I'll take your word on that. I didn't know the guy or the community well enough (Anymore anyways...) to catch that. Thanks for clarifying for me!

That is your right.

I absolutely agree, especially considering it is being used in conjunction with a Max Gyromount.

Do keep in mind though automatic weapons are used in a variety of applications. As a former Marine infantryman I could bore you with stories about people using weapons like these in a number of ways that don't seem to jibe too well with the gamer police that seem to be pretty frequent posters around here. (The "That's so not shadworun" crowd. I get a kick out of people who presume to quantively judge other people's fictitous games.But I digress...) Sufficient to say Shadowrunners are not normal people, and the circumstances surronding them are also not normal as well. Otherwise we'd have opposed rolls for doing the dishes. (Hey its your game too, if that flips your switch, then have at it I say.)

Uhmmm, the Vindicator is an LMG. What you mean is a more conventional weapon is likley to see more use for a variety of reasons? Is that what you intended. In which case I would agree with you that the "M60" is much more likley to see use in your everyday "SpecOps" team for ease of use, training, modular supply, etc...

What you've never made a character who does something flawed? Or played a PC who has a favorite weapon? This just happens to fit in with this particular players character.

Actually, it's very Shadowrun. You see trolls dragging Assault Cannons and Vindicators around all the time per SR canon. I was really saying it's a fairly unrealistic approach for a professional to take, barring very unusual and exacting circumstances well beyond what a normal run, operation, mission, etc would call for.

Technically, yes, go ahead and call it an LMG. I should've clarified that I mean something along the lines of a squad automatic weapon; something relatively basic, still potent, and man portable, really. So, yes, something along the lines of a real life M60 or M249 or whatever was what I had in mind.

Shut up. I'm perfect.
Ok, ok, that's fair.

Incidentally, you did have me confused over your use, hence why I found the request kind of silly. The line about an elite unit being able to modify the weapon seemed to point in the direction of this being applied to some sort of special operations unit. This does make more sense.

Raygun is a busy man, you usually get a boatload of replies from us fanboys before you get the real thing. That way the people who know the answers to the easy questions can answer those, and the people who know the answers to the hard ones can concentrate on them.

Like Arethusa implied, I too refuse to accept the idea that technology has regressed in the SR world. However, if you try to think of any Shadowrun canon weapons in RL terms, you simply cannot draw any other conclusions. Your options, then, are to: 1) Not think about canon Shadowrun weapons in RL terms, and simply accept them as part of a not-extremely-realistic game. 2) Ditch canon Shadowrun weapons and several rules in order to make a more realistic game where guns can be thought of in RL terms.

However, since you apparently aren't particularly interested in how the weapon would work within Shadowrun rules, let's look at the logical side of things first:

Yes, all miniguns are extremely likely to be capable of changing their RoFs, and thus rotation speeds, with a thought when smartlinked/rigged. Even now this doesn't require any overcharging of the motor, the weapon can accommodate a large variety of RoFs within standard operational parameters. I doubt even the absolute maximum RoFs are limited so much by the electric motor as they are by the operation of the weapon -- the feed system, I believe, does cause some problems once you go into the 5-digit RoFs.

A sliding, continuous control of the RoF does not sound very likely. There could be a dozen different settings (from 600rpm to 6,000rpm in steps of 500, or something like that) and the operator could change between those on the fly. I do not see a technological problem with allowing a change of the RoF while firing, although it would take (a rather insignificant amount of) time to accelerate to the new RoF.

As a sideline from that, all miniguns are/should be capable of firing immediately when you depress the trigger, starting at a "low" RoF of perhaps ~600rpm for the first few shots and accelerating quickly into the high RoF in the span of well under a second -- I think 0.2-0.5 seconds depending on the weapons and required RoF. The sound of rotating barrels/the electric motor should not ever be an issue because of that alone. The noise created by the electric motor could probably be muffled to be almost inaudible, but it usually drowns under the shots fired anyway.

I'm assuming Paul is considering the use of light miniguns by personnel in a role similar to LMGs? (I doubt many people would ever call a minigun a LMG IRL, regardless of the caliber.) There are a whole number of reasons why this doesn't happen IRL, and those reasons are very, very likely to still be around in 60 years. Weight/size, difficulty of handling, inaccuracy, ammo consumption and recoil I think are the central problems.

Weight/size: Even the smaller RL minigun I'm aware of, the experimental 5.56x45mm caliber XM214, weighed 15kg empty without a power source. The length of such a weapon is well over a meter, and it's around 4"-5" wide/high. The GE Vindicator is listed as 15kg with a power source in the Cannon Companion. That's one hell of a heavy weapon to be lugging around, compared to 5-7kg LMGs or even 7-10kg MMGs. You can make the weapon lighter by limiting the max RoF, but that largely defeats the purpose of a minigun.

Handling: A 15kg, 1-meter steel penis on your hip doesn't help you move much. It would never be carried if the operators were expected to have to fight within a confined space. Even in a forest or similar area it makes moving a lot more difficult. And now if you have to tack a gyromount on it, your maneuverability is the infantry equivalent of a B52. Without a gyromount, you cannot possibly fire the weapon at any meaninful rate.

Inaccuracy: Most applications of miniguns rely on the "shotgun effect" of an inaccurate weapon firing at an insane RoF. This makes miniguns very useful for firing at fast-moving objects, such as aircraft and missiles, or for anti-personnel (or anti-vehicle with really large guns) fire from a moving platform that does not suffer from weight, size, handling or recoil problems (read: helicopters and sometimes aircraft). These two applications cover about 99% of all minigun-use in modern armies. An infantryman might not be thrilled by the fact that the inherent inaccuracy will spread the bullets over a 2-meter diameter area at 500 meters.

Ammo consumption: At 100 rounds per second, we could be looking at a kilogram of ammunition being fired per second -- and that's with very light ammunition, such as polymer-cased equivalents of 5.56x45mm. 9x19mm cartridges weigh at least as much. Even at 50 rounds per second we're looking at insane amounts of rounds. If you get much lower than that, you might as well get a high-quality regular LMG modified to fire at ~1500rpm.

Recoil: A gyromount might get rid of most of the swaying of the weapon and spread the force of the recoil over a large area, but the gun is still pushing the firer straight back with the same amount of force. With an AR-caliber minigun at 6000rpm, you'd have to take a well-supported stance with your weight well forward before you start firing. Moving while firing, or even changing your facing while firing, could prove all but impossible. Again, you can get rid of this problem for the most part by reducing the RoF, but that still means you're also giving away the very reason why anyone would use a minigun in the first place.

In addition to all this, special forces personnel on the ground are extremely unlikely to ever require the special abilities afforded by miniguns. A LMG or MMG does most stuff just as well or better. Even for suppressive fire a lower RoF is more practical, and infantry won't need to shoot down many low-firing aircraft or missiles. Combined with everythin above, this completes the AE List Of Reasons Why Miniguns Aren't Über-Infantry Weapons.

I can tear into the rules-aspect of miniguns next, if anyone wants me to. There the most important aspect of Miniguns vs One-Barreled Conventional Automatic Firearms is how you handle Fully Automatic fire in your games.

[Edit]Forgot calibers and barrel length.

A minigun in a pistol caliber is, IRL, almost totally useless. At the ranges where a pistol caliber weapon is useful, the inherent problems of miniguns (mainly weight, size and handling) are crippling. With a minigun, you usually want to be as far away from the enemy as you can.

Shortening the barrels might help handling in tight spaces slightly, but it would also shorten the range of the weapon, which is Not A Good Thing, like above. In tight spaces a minigun is an inferior weapon anyway, so you might as well concentrate on the advantages that it does have -- ie keep using it in vehicles, and give infantrymen more practical weapons.[/Edit]

Fortunately IRL the electric whirring is a non-issue because of several reasons I mentioned above. People noticed 50 years back that firing 100 bullets at the enemy per second is a lot more effective a method of scaring them than an electric whirring.

Paint it orange. Most people in America will think it is a toy because the laws being passed saying that toy guns have to painted to look fake so police will stop shooting kids.

Hmm... Reminds me of a conversation not too long ago with a manager in Toys'R'us. A 'green' director suggested we could get our guns from a toy-shop but he was told that it was not an option. Toys'R'Us just doesn't sell anything bordering on realistic...

Depressing, when I remember being able to buy realistic cap-guns. One that sticks out was a half-scale minigun. It ran from batteries and you could feed strip-caps into it. Probably had a RoF around 120 pops/min but I always thought it would make an interesting addition to my collection. It got withdrawn from sale (for some reason, perhaps people were scared it might get used in a bank hold-up) before I could buy one though.

I think the constant flame is there with the smaller caliber miniguns, too. Below cannon calibers, miniguns rarely have any sort of flash hiders, so the muzzle flash from a single round is much more pronounced than on an assault rifle. Since the RoF doesn't get any bigger with the larger miniguns, the rate of flashes per second remains the same and thus the flame is present on all miniguns as long as the RoF is set high enough. Can't say what the limit RoF is for the human eye to see a constant flame.

The size of the flame is likely to be constant relative to the size of the gun, or close to it.

The picture on the top of this page shows what I think is an M134 7.62x51mm minigun. The muzzle flash is quite big enough.

You can check e-bay (make a search for "replica") for neat looking guns. I still damn the fact you can't import replicas here in Canada, cause it seems like the kind of props that might liven up a game!

Absolutely.

Beautiful.

Well, it isn't the idea that's novel (as noted in that last link, the idea was first proposed in the 1930's) but, rather, the effectiveness of his particular design.

For what its worth you are doing a great job. I just don't want to go down the road you are heading. I agree pretty much with everything you've said so far. I figure I'll let you cover that side of the things.

A great analysis (I will spare us posting the whole of it again) by the way!

Along with the idea of using magic I totally just forgot to look at that angle of the fix for the problem. Thanks to all of you.

I had a PC in one of my games, a minotaur combat decker and rock guitarist, who had put together a custom, um, thing that he called "the Axe", that was a combination electric guitar, cyberdeck, and concealed assault rifle, all melee-hardened. It had its own built-in amp, speakers, and power pack, and the guitar pickups and speakers were connected to I/O ports on the deck, so it was also its own digital recording studio, webcasting setup, and digital effects box. The assault rifle was DNI-controlled and smartlinked, and had no physical controls, so the only external signs of it were the barrel opening in the neck of the guitar and the magazine port in the body. The PC was, about the time the game broke up, investigating setting it up to do active noise cancelling using the deck for signal processing and the amp and speakers for output.

Incidentally, the minotaur running around with his combat guitar had very much earned his Distinctive Style flaw...

The real point, though, was that all miniguns fire immediately. If you squeeze the trigger on a non-rotating minigun, there is no more delay before the gun fires the first time than there is with other sorts of conventional firearms.

The M61 Vulcan on an F16 takes 0.4 seconds to get from 0 to 6000rpm when the pilot presses the trigger. That might be 0.1 seconds between the first and the second shot (representative of 600rpm), then 0.08 between 2nd and 3rd, 0.065 between 3rd and 4th, 0.05 4th and 5th, 0.04, 0.03, 0.02, 0.015 and then 0.1. The tenth round, fired at 0.41 seconds from the depression of the trigger, would be the first one at 6000rpm. For a rigger with an init of 35 one Initiative Pass is 0.75 seconds in length, in which time an M61 could go from 0 to 6000rpm and fire 43 times.

Destructive interference might be interesting when used with a suppressed weapon firing subsonic ammunition. The microphones could be planted on the outside of the suppressor. Without suppression, destructive interference might make the blast slightly less loud, but I doubt it could completely cancel out a sudden, violent, 160+dB noise. Not very useful for miniguns, to say the least...

I always thought that HV weapons could not have barrel mounts.