Mini-Gun

[spn]

Does the new HUEY have the chain gun option as a weapons choice? The mini-gun was designated as the M134.

[Sundowner.pl]

I'm not familiar with any weapon system for UH-1 that would incorporate a chain-gun. Even the XM-140 30mm gimbaled dual cannon system - was belt fed. Chain-feeding is pretty much only the AH-64 thing with its M260 weapon system.

[spn]

I'm not familiar with any weapon system for UH-1 that would incorporate a chain-gun. Even the XM-140 30mm gimbaled dual cannon system - was belt fed. Chain-feeding is pretty much only the AH-64 thing with its M260 weapon system.

 

Take a look at the following website. They used the M134 in the late 60's

 

Minigun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[joey45]

Do you mean a belt feed machine gun like the M-60?

Edited May 5, 2013 by joey45

[wess24m]

I think he's refering to

. I really hope this is going to be in the Huey's "roadmap", those 60's aren't cutting it.

[spn]

Take a look at the following website. They used the M134 in the late 60's

 

Minigun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The M134 was a General Electric,6 barrel, electric fed,

 

U.S. Air Force rotary-wing crewman fires a minigun in 1968, during the Vietnam War.

 

In order to develop a weapon with a more reliable, higher rate of fire, General Electric designers scaled down the rotating-barrel 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannon for 7.62×51 mm NATO ammunition. The resulting weapon, designated M134 and known popularly as the Minigun, could fire up to 4,000 rounds per minute without overheating. The gun was originally specified to fire at 6,000 rpm, but this was later lowered to 4,000 rpm.

The Minigun was mounted on OH-6 Cayuse and OH-58 Kiowa side pods, in the turret and wing pods on AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, on door, pylon and pod mounts on UH-1 "Huey" Iroquois transport helicopters, and on many other helicopters including the H-53 (MH-53 Pave Low) and the common H-60 family (UH-60 Black Hawk, HH-60 Pave Hawk, etc.).[citation needed]

Several larger aircraft were outfitted with miniguns specifically for close air support: the A-37 Dragonfly with an internal gun and with pods on wing hardpoints, and the A-1 Skyraider also with pods on wing hardpoints. Other famous gunship airplanes were the AC-47 Spooky, the AC-119 gunship, and the AC-130 gunship.[citation needed]

[RIFLE_JTAC_TRAINING]

The Canadian CH-146 Griffon (although not a Huey but a upgrade less engine) was equipped with both door firing mini guns.

 

I would love to see this added to the gunners seats as it was for Afghanistan. It would be nice to have that option.

 

63

[spn]

The M134 was a General Electric,6 barrel, electric fed,

 

U.S. Air Force rotary-wing crewman fires a minigun in 1968, during the Vietnam War.

 

In order to develop a weapon with a more reliable, higher rate of fire, General Electric designers scaled down the rotating-barrel 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannon for 7.62×51 mm NATO ammunition. The resulting weapon, designated M134 and known popularly as the Minigun, could fire up to 4,000 rounds per minute without overheating. The gun was originally specified to fire at 6,000 rpm, but this was later lowered to 4,000 rpm.

The Minigun was mounted on OH-6 Cayuse and OH-58 Kiowa side pods, in the turret and wing pods on AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, on door, pylon and pod mounts on UH-1 "Huey" Iroquois transport helicopters, and on many other helicopters including the H-53 (MH-53 Pave Low) and the common H-60 family (UH-60 Black Hawk, HH-60 Pave Hawk, etc.).[citation needed]

Several larger aircraft were outfitted with miniguns specifically for close air support: the A-37 Dragonfly with an internal gun and with pods on wing hardpoints, and the A-1 Skyraider also with pods on wing hardpoints. Other famous gunship airplanes were the AC-47 Spooky, the AC-119 gunship, and the AC-130 gunship.[citation needed]

 

I have seen some Vietnam history footage of where they had one mounted on both sides of a Huey. Lot of lead flying

[Sundowner.pl]

The M134 minigun is modeled, mounted on the dual M21 weapon system in forward position. If that's what you're asking. There are screenshots of it, a lot of them.

 

Although still not working entirely like the real thing - on the real M21, if the guns were traversed out of sync, the gun that could still track - would double fire rate to compensate for the other one not firing (as it reached gimbal limits).

Edited May 4, 2013 by Sundowner.pl

[spn]

The M134 minigun is modeled, mounted on the dual M23 weapon system in forward position. If that's what you're asking. There are screenshots of it, a lot of them.

 

Although still not working entirely like the real thing - on the real M23, if the guns were traversed out of sync, the gun that could still track - would double fire rate to compensate for the other one not firing (as it reached gimbal limits).

 

I was originally thinking of the door mounted M134 variant but this works. Thanks

[Robin_Hood]

It would probably be nice to have the door-mounted variant at some point, cause those door guns are not very efficient IMO (though they're real fun to use)

[EvilBivol-1]

The M134 minigun is modeled, mounted on the dual M21 weapon system in forward position. If that's what you're asking. There are screenshots of it, a lot of them.

 

Although still not working entirely like the real thing - on the real M21, if the guns were traversed out of sync, the gun that could still track - would double fire rate to compensate for the other one not firing (as it reached gimbal limits).

Seems to be working correctly to me. Testing by counting the number of rounds fired per cycle (I used 5 seconds). The number is the same (+/- some error of course) when firing both guns or a single gun traversed past the firing limit of the second one. Meaning, the single gun doubles its rate of fire to produce the same number of rounds fired per cycle as when both guns are firing.

[Sundowner.pl]

Maybe I'm missing the effect, can't really notice the gun spooling up. Although it's not my SOP to use the flex guns with the co-pilot sight, I prefer the RAAF way of using them as fixed guns and aiming them with the whole helicopter.

 

I can only hope, that with time the co-pilot will engage targets by himself (plus would like some gun pods to throw some lead myself while the flex guns do their thing).

[EvilBivol-1]

Ah, yes, I can imagine that the difference in spool up may not be modeled. Actually I think there is a mistake in that the fire rate of a single gun in stow mode also doubles when only the left/right gun is selected manually by the switch. As far as I understand from the docs, this should not happen.

[MikeSinn]

While on the subject of the mini-gun, I've noticed that there is about a.5 - 1 second delay from when I pull the trigger to when lead starts going down range. Is this expected and if so what causes the delay? For someone that hasn't yet mastered the whole straight and level flight yet, this makes aiming all the more challenging. I end up just holding down the trigger and letting my lack of flying skill hose down the entire area...

 

This doesn't seem to happen when firing the 2.75 rockets.

[Lucas_From_Hell]

Guns spooling up perhaps? :)

[AlphaOneSix]

The M134 doesn't spool up, it goes from zero to hero immediately. Of course, there may be something else in the system causing a delay...

[HuggyBear]

Just got off the phone with my old AFS (Aerial Fire Support) Troop Commander, he doesn't recall any delay from 'squeeze to noise'.

 

I've submitted the bug report.

 

- Bear

[Sundowner.pl]

Only in video games and movies Gatling guns spool up before first shot. All they need in real life is to get the first barrel with chambered round reach firing position. If you would take a ready minigun, and rotate barrels by hand - it will fire.

Same with changing rate of fire - what I call spooling up is basically a sudden change of pitch in noise.

 

Now what happens on the trigger release is where Gatlings behave differently among each other - M134 and GAU-19 since they're fired mechanically, will keep firing till the barrels assembly stops moving. In 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon - since the barrel assembly have much higher inertia, and rounds are fired electrically - there are few rounds going through the gun that are not fired during the spooling down (which takes more or less - one revolution).

[Sundowner.pl]

Now what I did not know about when writing above post was, that someone could actually intentionally wire both the feeder clutch, and gun drive independently, which would make it work similar like the M61A1 Vulcan, and that's how the M21 on RAAF gunships behaved !

 

 

There is a 0.3s time period after firing on which the gun is still rotating, but not feed any ammo.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Sundowner.pl

[Stratos]

(plus would like some gun pods to throw some lead myself while the flex guns do their thing).

 

The UH-1H carried gun pods in the stern position?

[Sundowner.pl]

The MA-4A bomb rack on UH-1 could accept anything that could be mounted on a bomb rack and weighed 750lbs or less. This include gun pods:

 

As for particularly UH-1H variant carrying gun pods - one thing has to be made clear here: US used the Hotel variant purely as Slick. Only Australians, South Vietnamese and later Philippines were using them as gunships, and neither of them had access to XM18 or XM14 gun pods (or in one instance, even rocket launchers - that's why in the Apocalypse Now you see Huey carrying and "firing" French SNEB 68mm FFARs). So far I've only seen Argentines using gun pod on the Hotel Huey, FN Herstal 7.62mm:

 

Edited May 13, 2013 by Sundowner.pl