Add to it weight of the gun itself, the need for additional ammo, inability of taking a sidearm...
Uum...38 KG for everything combines...ATM..that's not much - special forces go into battle with 80kg of equipment.
not to mention that you can probably shave a few kg of weight with some improvements
No he wasnt. The weapon could jam after few shots. And than you need to hide for 5 minuts to unjam the gun- sound too long if you ask me, but if the engine jams there could be bigger problem
The 5 minute number was for regular chain. That's why linkless chain was introduced. God knows what new things they'll come up with 80 years from now.
spekaing of which - if a gun jamms, that's why your sidearm is for. That's why your teammate cover is for.
Well, no. Like I said, they just contain more vague theory and irrelevance.
WTF? Vauge theories? Did you even read the stuff?
The VHS air coushin system for recoil reducing? Gas powered rotation for faster spin up and RoF? Lightweight polymers? And that's only stuff from the top of my head - there are probably more techs/methods I forgot or don't know about now. Not ot mention 80 years form now.
All of that is vague to you?
Which is still far too much for an effective urban conflict weapon. Hell, the SPW version of the Minimi, which is the sort of thing PHALANX would use, is only 5.75kg fully loaded with 200 rounds. And if you think any military force would give a troop ruinously expensive powered armour solely so that they can fire an oversized and clumsy machine gun that's useless in exactly the areas where PHALANX will be operating the most, cancelling out all the inherent speed and mobility advantages of a powersuit, you are wrong.
And you're the one to define what makes a effective weapon? You're the one to define when and how the weapon is supposed ot be used? Pffft.
What makes you think it's a clumsy weapon? What makes you think such a weapon would cancel the mobility of a power armor? Since when are you immobile with 30kg (or less) of weight?
And since when do PHALANX troops fall under a "normal military force"? They have access to power armor, unlike regular soldiers. Why not make use of everything that armor offers (namely more firepower)?
Exaggeration. A 4.73mm caseless round, like the one I used in my example, is around 40% the size of a 5.56mm round. 40% of an ammo backpack so large and unworkable that they never even tried it on still leaves you with something larger than the original 1000-round pack which was also considered so large and weighty that it was unfit for purpose. The 4.73mm pack would actually end up heavier because of the greater number of rounds in it.
More like 50%. But you could use other calibers too (4.6 for example).
A 2000 round backpack would be roughly the same volume and weight as the microgun backpack (around 10 Kg).
Note that the microgun backpack was never "too large and weighty". I don't get where you get this stuff...please, give me some source for this redicolous claim.
Weight of the weapon or the backpack were never the reason the microgun wasn't used. The inability to fire at full RoF without setup was.
Again you say this without any facts or figures to back you up. And you forget that heavy recoil thrown at any human being at the speed a minigun does means accuracy gets thrown out the window. This is a massive no-no for modern militaries where accuracy has become everything.
Where are your figures? I gave you link to articles and pointed you where to look. The microgun can be fired WHILE STANDING UP at roughly half the RoF (50 bullets per second). More than that and the kickback becomes too much.
And you really think that in 80+ years, with recoil reducing techniques and power armor stabiltiy you couldn't get around that.
I bet that in time of the first choppers, when they were falling down because of the lack of rear rotor, you'd be the first one to tell anyone that they will have no future and are stupid to consider as military weapons...
[qutoe]
Most of it is either entirely theoretical or has no bearing on your argument. That little article you posted about the recoil-decreasing mechanism, for example, has little relevance because it would have far more of an effect on single-barrel rifles and machine guns, thereby making the machine gun even more preferable over any kind of minigun.[/uote]
And what's wrong with theoretical stuff? (note that most if it isn't theoretical)
And what makes you think the same system can't be used for multi-barrels? Speaking of which, accuracy is for assault rifles and snipers.
You cannot, CAN NOT, hold a position against a superior hostile force with nothing but sidearms while you're switching backpacks and relinking your bloody minigun. Never mind the fact that extra backpacks are again 10kg of load on top of (possibly even in place of) their other equipment.
You're saying you can hold a position against a superior hostile force with another weapon? Like an assault rifle?
a) 10kg isn't that much for an elite soldier. They aren't made of jello
b) What part of team/squad are you forgetting. Whoever carriers a minigun/rocket launcher/sniper rifle is never alone. You got other squadmates to cover you while you realod. Assuming you need a reload. I barely ever reload ANY weapon in UFO:AI.
Name one situation, even one, where you could possibly need that much lead in the air. There's nothing a minigun can do that can't be handled by a machine gun or other weapon that a squad is already likely to be equipped with.
I did mentionedt them. holding a passage/hallways, defending a fortified position, providing continuus fire support. Aliens are highly resistent to normal bullets b.t.w., so the more bullets in the air, the better.
I had aliens survive a full auto from a MG. From a minigun? Never.
Really, just think of a squad of infantry being told to seek and destroy a specific target in a densely-populated system of narrow Iraqi alleys, without harming any civilians or causing lots of damage. What would you have them do with a minigunner? Make him stand and wait outside while the rest of the team carry out the mission? He can't really go in there without banging his oversized weapon into everything, and he certainly won't be able to fire it. And this is the situation that PHALANX is in all the time, constant close-in work sweeping buildings and UFOs. There is essentially no open-ground combat where a minigun, even if it could be made workable, would be remotely useful.
Why do you bring a weapon to a mission if it doesn't suit a mission profile? If you do, you're either stupid of complacent. You don't use the minigun to hunt aliens within a building anymore than you would use a rocket launcher.
Speaking of which, I find a minigun highly useful in my current game. There is enough open ground for that.
Why not? That's what you've been telling everyone here. Positive thinking is not an alternative for practical solutions, and there are no practical solutions that will fix all the things that make the minigun such a terrible infantry weapon.
Denying facts and possibilities is even worse, mind you. For you it's negative thinking all the way.
And as I said before, a minigun is a SUPPORT weapon. You constantly keep comparing it with an assault rifle. Talk about a logical black hole.
You seem to have plenty of stuff that don't exist to day in the humans arsenal b.t.w.
Wow, all that education, and you still have no idea about the military uses of miniguns and why they're not applicable to infantry?
Apparenlty, neither do you
Well, everything I knows tells me you're wrong, and I've told you why. Your technical solutions are dodgy and you completely ignore the tactical implications of using a minigun in tightly-packed densely-populated urban areas, especially for an organisation whose main purpose is to save and defend civilians.
ERm...you're using high-yield plasma granades with
twice the AoE range and deadliness of normal granades..you use rocket launchers and incindiery ammo. Do you see something wrong with your statement?
*also there were instances of gattling guns used in urban areas..mostly in Somalia.
Simply put, we're not putting an implausible weapon into a plausible game. It would run counter to all the difficult design choices and hard work we've put in so far and it would cheapen the game as a whole.
UFO: AI isn't plausable, not in the least. Now if you said it "feels" somewhat realistic, there I could agree with you.
Cheapen? I would say improve.
After all, you're not making the RL simulator 3000 - too many aliens (b.t.w. I use this opportunity to say I'm dissapointed with aliens autopsy description. Every single one of them seem to be a bio-engineerd warrior with redicoouls resistance. Even the think "greys". What happend to soft and squishy like humans? Why are humans the most vulneralbe of all species in the universe?)
I guess the only thing we can agree on is that we disagree
