An LMG in Shadowrun is really close to being the same as an AR with Extended Barrel, Heavy Barrel, Extended clip (Drum, 100rd), Recoil Comp (of some rating) and Bipod.

You could mod an AR to get close or just get the LMG.

The other differences like the ability to fire fairly reliably while caked with carbon (adjustable gas regulator on the m249 being a good example), the faster ROF of an open bolt design, the fact a barrel can melt if not reinforced and the quick release of the barrel so they can be changed as well as the way IRL weapon weight contributes to recoil comp doesnt really matter in the artificial mechanics of SR.

Reality is best left in the valet parking.

"Hello, welcome to my RPG, please check your reality at the door."

I wouldn't call them underpowered. Modern day LMG's use the same calibers as modern day assault rifles. They don't do any more "damage" or penetrate armor any better than an assault rifle. So in that regards, they should be pretty much exactly the same, and they are.

The reason why the infantry squads are designed around an LMG is sustained rate of fire. That means the ability to go full auto and keep up that fire rate for an extended period of time while the riflemen actually use marksmanship to eliminate opposing infantry. Assault rifles are more of a "point" fire weapon, with the ability to suppress in a limited form. LMG's are all about area suppression to support an assault or retreat.

You kind of hit the nail on the head, saying that an LMG is just an AR with longer range and belt feed option, but that's just stat wise. As far as fulfilling their primary purpose, the LMG does its job admirably. Try to use an AR for sustained suppressive fire and you'll run out of ammo real fast. A belt fed LMG allows you to do just that, though. That's the niche that its suppossed to fill.

Ezz

Basically in an infantry squad in SR mechanics (4 riflemen+1 LMG)

LMG IP-Suppresive fire 20 rds (with 100 rd belt, fires for 5 combat turns.
The 4 Riflemen fire Burst fire at selected targets of oppurtunity during X combat turns depending on ammo capacity. (30 rds= 10 3 shot bursts, 5 Long bursts, and some combinaiton thereof)

10 3-shot bursts = 10 simple actions = 5 IPs (though many attacks will be held to engage opportunity targets while the LMG reloads)

I don't think you read my post. The main difference between SR and RL is that ARs can have "recoil compensation" in SR, which allows them to be used like LMGs are today.



You normally only fire short bursts with an LMG. "Full auto" is for very specific situations, like night time firing from a preset tripod. LMGs are all about killing enemies, that's why they're good at suppression - you make it sound like the two are opposites.

If by "support assault" you mean the LMGs are the primary anti-infantry weapons and your maneuvers revolve around bringing them to bear, you're right. In some cases, like CQB, LMGs can be at a disadvantage and will mostly be used to cover the riflemen moving in, but overall, LMGs are your workhorses. Your gunners are your stars, the only guys in your squad that does pretty much nothing else but train at operating their weapon, the only guys that don't have secondary functions (I have no personal experience with designated marksmen which aren't used in the Danish army, maybe they're the same).

I think it is all these FPS games where LMGs are balanced with other weapons that have really made people underestimate them.

and as has been pointed out already several times, those same modifications made to an LMG will push the LMG ahead once more.

That may be how they do it in the Danish Army. I believe (someone in the US Marine Corps or Army can correct me on this) US doctrine is that during an assault on an enemy position, the SAW operator lays down covering fire for the other troops to advance into better positions to take out the opposition.

Yeah, you can get 10 points of recoil on an AR in SR, negating the need for a SAW in most situations. But when range is a factor, the LMG is a better choice. For longer sustained fire, the LMG is a better choice.

In the end for a runner though the AR is a better weapon. Why?
1. Compactness:LMG's are harder to conceal and carry.
2. Cost.
3. Skillset:(Automatics/Firearms) as opposed to heavy weapons.

The only reason to take the LMG IMHO is really the sustained rate of fire. I.E. a mission that involves going hot and heavy vs a numerically superior force.

Interestingly enough, the US Marine Corps is looking at replacing the SAW with the a variant of the H&K 416. There is some resistance in the infantry side of the house, but the contract for the IAR

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/06...utomatic-rifle/

Of course, like this article suggests, they may have done the testing to try and snag a new generation carbine to replace the direct impingement M16 and M4 systems.

Was pointed out a couple of times, but this isn't always true.

If you are advancing the Firearms skill group, then yes ARs are better.

If you take the skill separately, they're mechanically not quite as good, at least as far as efficient skill point usage.

The Automatics skill covers Assault Rifles, Carbines, Machine Pistols, Submachine Guns. Of the four, the only two "carbines" in the game are actually Submachine Guns, and there's only two Machine Pistols. SMG are situationally useful, but more folks tend to use Pistols.

Assault Rifles are used when you just don't care about the legality anymore. In that case, you might as well use an Machine Gun.

The Heavy Weapons skill covers Assault Cannon, Grenade Launchers, Guided Missiles, Machine Guns, and Rocket Launchers. It's got a lot more variety of weapons.



-karma

Arsenal adds an other 3.

But i agree, pistols+Heavy weapons is pretty good shoice if your taking invidual weapon skills.

I'm happy with machine pistols and SMGs. Under the current weapon class/skill rules. The Crusader is pretty incredible, esp. for the price.

Besides, who needs more than one weapon in a given category? There's usually 1 (maybe 2) stand-outs, and a bunch of barely-different clones.

In that scenario I'm fairly sure that one SAW lays down covering fire so the other SAW can move into a better position. ARs are quicker to respond if while moving they need to stop and fire, but other than that they really are inferior weapons.

Shadowrun basically does a shit job of sorting out the fact that it takes you longer to reload an AR than it takes you to blow the magazine if you're going cyclic; between fishing the new magazine out of your vest, jamming it into the rifle, and having the smartlink drop the bolt for you, it still takes less time to empty an AR (at 600-900 rounds a second, 2-3 seconds with a 30 round mag) than it takes someone to reload it under normal circumstances... and this is assuming you're not running the usual Pink Mohawk ™ 3 spare mags in the trenchcoat pockets reload style.

Systemically, sure... there's plenty of reasons to use an AR rather than an LMG, the most obvious of which is that the Automatics skill gives you anything that sprays bullets from large pistol sized to big fuckin' AR sized, with the same capacity as an LMG. If you can get your head outside of the system for a moment, the reasons for an LMG instead of an AR (and vice versa) have been debated for decades of real time. Most folks in SR can't even find a reason to upgrade from SMG to AR, much less LMG (and honestly... the SMG has a lot going for it too, if you're inside of 10 meters). Or maybe that's just my old gaming group, for whom a hunting rifle was a massive improvement over the usual.

The increased recoil thing... hey, not everyone knows what they're talking about.

My personal favorite is a Praetor P93 E with a High Velocity mod, barrel-mounted GV3 and a cyberlimb with 10+ strength + cyberlimb gyromount.

That's 1 integral recoil compensation + 1 integral electronic firing RC + 1 integral RC from the stock + 3 Gas Vent RC + 3 RC from the cyber gyro + 2 RC from strength, which all comes together for shooting completely recoilless 12-round full-auto bursts from an SMG with a 50rnd mag... one handed.

Obliviously you get a second gun and hand nad then shoot two of those at the same time

You shouldn't get the RC from the stock if you use the weapon one-handed. If you use two, don't shoot four bursts, shoot one each. That way you do not need to split the dice pool and you get the bonus for the smartlink.
Unless you want to use two of them, the Ares Alpha is at least an equally good platform for RC reduction and HV.

I once tried to make a Troll Adept who could dual-wield HV modded Ares Alphas in order to engage 8 targets per pass for 4 IPs a CT.

Sadly, old Trolls Akimbo couldn't quite come up with the dice to be able to gun down 32 mooks every 3 seconds...

Do suppressive fire with one hand and aimed fire with the other?

Suppressive in one hand, grenade launcher in the other.

Core Rulebook, Ranged Attack Modifiers:
Attacker Using a Second Firearm - Characters can use two pistol- or SMG-class weapons, one in each hand, firing both with a single Simple Action.

Ergo, the Alpha cannot be dual-wielded. The dice-pool midifications always confused me - they don't seem to have a fluff reason for disallowing the Laser-/Smart-bonus. Oh well, just load your clips with 1/3 Tracers.

This is one of those situations where you just point your GM to this video

Correction, you cannot fire two Ares Alphas simultaneously. You could with the dice pool modifier from Arsenal have one AR in each hand and shoot one burst with each, one after the other.
With that mode you get two long bursts, full dice pool -2(-1 for trolls) with each hand and can use smartlink etc.

And your GM will reply "Good Sir, logic has no place on the Roleplay-field!" Everyone laughs. "No, really. Don't make me THOR you again."

That aside, I agree - to a point. The guy in that clip isn't firing ~15/rounds from each gun every o.75 seconds while at the same time (probably) ducking return-autofire and sprinting. While a PC in Shadowrun would be. Believe me, I'd like my PhysAd to switch from point-blanking SMG's to firing HMG's in melee, but it screws with game balance.
Of course, nothing stops my Martial-Artist Rigger from customizing a walker with two articulated re-inforced Weapon Mounts...

Plus, by Shadowrun standards the guy was wielding 2 SMG's with Extended Barrel and Box Mag. ;p


EDIT:

Core Rulebook, Ranged Attack Modifiers:
Long bursts only take a Simple Action, but only one long burst can be fired in an Action Phase. An attacker could, however, fire a long burst and a short burst in the same Action Phase (or vice versa).

I've been looking into this recently.

Additionally, Arsenal has this rule:

ARs 162: Using Two-Handed Firearms: Large firearms(anything rifle sized and larger) are typically used with two hands. A character wielding a large firearm with only one hand will suffer a -2 dice ppol modifier to ranged attacks (-1 for trolls).

Its under the Advanced Combat Rules, which means its Optional and needs GM approval - but it does make sense.

It's come up a few times now but...

Isn't suppressing fire alone worth buying and LMG for? Well out of the box suppressing fire until the cows come home.

If the GM enforces this rule, even though all other shooting rules are per weapon, use HV weapons instead or shoot one long burst with one weapon and a short one with the other.

Unless you have extremely long and thus unwieldy belts an AR can be modified to have similar capacity. Inserting two magazines takes just as long as installing a new belt. You may even be able to reduce the magazine loading time with adept powers, I'm not sure.

Don't forget that trolls only get a -1 for using 2-handed weapons 1-handed.

MG can have box-magazines holding 250 round belts, i would like the see the AR you modified for that capasity.
Also dont forget that can be doubled to 500 rounds with the extra magazine mod.

Where did you get that? In my Arsenal machine guns have a capacity of 50 or 60 ( c ) / belt. Those from the core book even have 50 ( c ) / 100 (belt). The only "housed" ammunition is the "clip".
You could extend the "clips" and add another one, giving you a capacity of 2*62. That's not so much better than a modded Ares Alpha with 2*53 shots. Assuming you can take bullets from either magazine in FA mode, this is only one more period of suppressive fire. The Nemesis LMG has more capacity but lacks the capability to use belts.

OK, I stand corrected. I still assume that 200 or 250 shot boxes are too large to use on a handheld weapon.

And yet, the M249 SAW(an LMG by anyone's standard) that's in use by multiple armies are often used with 200-round boxes even while on the move. Guess they all must have superhuman strength or gyromounts or something to lift such a large and heavy thing.

If you're expending more than a hundred rounds out of one gun, it's not really a shadowrun anymore, is it?








-karma

"Sometimes the mission just demands the gentle touch of a minigun on a crowded mall"

"There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved with the suitable application of high explosives or fully automatic fire."