We take a look at the Big guns of Fallout, their real world counterparts or inspirations and look at the niche and less well known facts regarding these weapons!
You mentioned the way that items fired from the Rock-it Launcher/Junk Jet orient themselves. Well all I gotta say is firing a skull at someone's face and getting a follow cam in VATS is one of the funniest things in Fallout.
Theory: miniguns were designed in the fallout universe to be the main weapon for power armored troops, also could have been used as a riot suppression weapon by national guard called in. This would make sense for the lower caliber and weight.
@@GlitchedRed a second theory is the exact same thing happened with the assault rifle in fallout 4 it was meant to be used by power armor clad troopers as a secondary weapon due to its strange design.
@@redmoon256 also its editor Form ID is "Light Machinegun" indicating a rather last minute name change to Assault Rifle. Considering it as light machine-gun makes it slightly more reasonable although it still looks quite goofy.
Thats a fact my guy. In lore it specificly states that power armor was designed to carry heavy fire power to areas tanks couldnt reach as it was better and more efficent to send 1 man that is LITERALLY a tank and have him carry multiple heavy weapons then a tank. Tanks needed fuel which was running out but Im sure at some point they started switching some tanks out with fusion power which is why we se some n game so they werent entirely obsolete. Another thing is power armor could get to places tanks couldnt lol. So You could get heavy fire power where it was needed and lay it the fuck down on the enemy. T45 struggled but they then upgraded to T51b which just made this even better.
The CSRG 1915 was actually well liked in French service despite its quirks, automatic rifles of the time were all pretty terrible by modern standards but in WW1 they were a huge force multiplier. The bad reputation mostly comes from ChauChat guns that were hastily converted to 30.06 for the US Expeditionary Force who were desperate for automatic weapons for the upcoming US entry into the war. A large portion of the converted guns didn't work at all and they developed that reputation in the AEF which lives on today.
Whats even funnier Ian from Forgotten Weapons bought a 3.06 one and tested it. It operated for about 500 rounds after being carefully greased,and then jammed to high hell. So in theory it would be tested 50-100 rounds,the soldier would be trained on it for 2-400,and then the second it got to the field it would jam.
@@ToriusHeart No, it had plenty of problems. However the US one was just exponentially worse. So more like the US version ruined the reputation of an "ok" gun, or a decent gun of the time. The biggest issue that both guns had was within 100-200rds it would get so hot the recoiling barrel would expand, get caught in the shroud, and essentially lock in place jamming the gun. It would only be fixed once it cooled and spontaneously released with a distinct "Thoonk", this is why there are stories of soldiers slamming them against trees trying to get the barrel released, not knowing it just needed to be cooled down.
They say Big Guns are just for compensation, I say Big Guns are literal tons of fun. I'm a man who won't shy away from the Fat Bottomed Girls, because it's tons of loving.
@@Rad_King Yes, indeed. Companions are nice and some are amazing, but your best friend is the guns you carry. Why not flaunt them off by showing how big and mean they are?
@@Rad_King I just use companions as mobile backpacks. Though Boone plus ED-E makes you a killing machine, though Raul is an absolute beast espeically when you add in his ability to increase weapon durability.
Plus with it shooting 1000 rounds per second that would tear people up no matter what you put in it. 1000 rounds per minute is the fire rate for fast smg's, let alone per second.
Smaller bullet means smaller recoil which means better accurate fire. .22 is underrated for this reason. A hole is a hole and multiple holes with high speed, numeracy, and accuracy is not to be joked about. Might not kill them immediately, but have fun patching up 10 accurately placed holes that bounce around.
It’s like bees, a single bee is nothing, a couple aren’t that bad, but an entire hive, entire swarms can kill you No matter how tiny the bullet if enough of them are thrown at you they will kill you
I always thought that the reason why the "Miniguns" in fallout were 5mm and not 7.62mm Was that the recoil is too strong for a normal person . My thinking behind reason it was labeled 5mm and not 5.56mm was to distinguish it as a separate cartridge such as .220 swift
Yeah I thought that too because I've seen videos of handheld minigun that use 7.62 and the person tends to spin so they can only shoot for less than 3 seconds
This is definitely plausible. I would be interested to know what the round was intended to be like since all we know is the bullet diameter and nothing else. Maybe it has a lot of powder to be more useful in a wartime application so is necked down to 5mm. So many questions.
@@Rad_King It could have been an all-purpose weapon for power-armored troops. The real-world 5.7mm round used by the FN P90 and FN Five-seveN was designed for its armor penetrating capability, low recoil, high capacity magazines, and light weight. The potential for a 5mm minigun round in the Fallout universe being a power armor troop's primary all-purpose weapon, effective against body armor, unarmored targets, and even light vehicles, makes a certain amount of sense.
Since the Assault rifle in Fallout 1&2 is explicitly called the AK-112 and explicitly called a Russian design, I just assumed that Fallout's "5mm" is their world's equivalent of the 5.45x39mm round.
You would think with the amount of weapon customization in Fallout 4, that there would be some kind of way to make a early-game heavy weapon for people that are doing a heavy weapons build.
I think the light support weapon from fallout 2 wouldnt be bad. Maybe even that cut industrial weapon from Van Buren which was designed to be an early game big gun. It fired railway spikes or some such iirc
@@benbannon5605 yes but if used as intended, you use up most of your ammo on the deathclaw, and the raiders, and 5mm is not a common ammo type like .38 or even .45. The minigun also has pretty weak damage scaling, and is best used as a massive chainsaw rather than an actual gun with the shredder barrel
7:38 We actually do have a real-life equivalent to the Red Glare called the Fliegerfaust which was a multi-barreled rocket launcher that fires 20mm rockets. The later version had 9 barrels and during the firing sequence the first 4 rounds from every other barrel were fired immediately, while the other five fired with a 0.1 second delay. Some sources, however, state that the barrels were fired individually with a delay of 2 seconds between each ignition.(From Wikipedia lol)
Note: keep in mind that wikipedia started off as an unreliable source of information and took many years of effort before being acknowledged as a reliable source only to become even more unreliable (and politically biased in spreading lies and slander) then when it first started. Like when it first started up I used wikipedia to get at the source information (the studies performed) in a project for school, the teacher asked how I got the information and the source for the information I explained that I used wikipedia to get basic information and using that site as a spring board to get at the source to get proper information that wasn't just a basic interpretation that the site used at the time.
Looking at the M2 design in 76 as an M2 operator is sheer pain. The reload animation should be a good clue as to why the placement of the front handle would be an absolutely terrible idea. The top cover is known to fly off and smash into the faces of operators who are not prudent enough with properly calibrating the headspace and timing. And that would be from just the power of a .50 BMG round alone, when given too much space. Resting the ENTIRE weight of the weapon on that thing seems "slightly" stupid. More so when they decided to attach the entire fricken mounting cradle of the M3 tripod to the weapon for it to basically serve no purpose other than holding the ammo box. If they had attached the front handle to the cradle, the damn thing would at least have more of a point being there. And then - how is one meant to operate the trigger? This being a WW2 PT boat version of the gun, the trigger would be the latch on the backplate. Which would be operated in a twin mounted configuration, and as such, require some extra attachments to properly work with it. Anyway, to operate the trigger it needs to be pressed downward. Downward, as in pushed away from the rear grip which they thought was a good idea to attach to the rather flimsy buffer tube on the backplate which itself is a part one might not want to have the weight of the weapon hanging from. Sure, the traditional dual grips are also attached to the backplate in standard configuration - but those assume the weight of the weapon is either mounted on a vehicle, or at least fixed onto a tripod, and that the worst the backplate would have to endure, is the recoil and being pushed against the operator, not having the weight of this monster of a weapon hanging from it while firing.
On the subject of small ammunition for the miniguns (5mm in particular), the real world 5.7mm ammunition used by the FN P90 was designed for its ballistic profile being capable of more easily penetrating personal body armor. A smaller projectile with higher velocity can more easily damage and penetrate ceramic plates used in military body armor, as well as kevlar and other woven fiber body armor, making it ideal in counter-terrorism situations where the potential threats could be using improvised or standard style body armors. Another potential benefit to smaller projectiles at higher velocities is a longer effective range and less recoil impulse on the user, both of which could easily benefit a minigun or heavy weapon as much or more than a submachine gun or personal defense weapon.
Regarding the P-90 5.7 comment, sorta. It was meant to penetrate soft body armor like Kevlar, but the round will fragment apart against anything more solid, because the weapon was to be used as a PDW for VIP protection, etc. so the idea was, you didn’t wanna overpentrate walls and kill some civilian through a wall.
I believe you forgot the light machine gun in fallout 76. Which could possibly be an MG42 or an MG3. The MG3 makes more sense making it's way to America, possible in the hands of NATO troops. Unless WW2 veterans from west Virginia were just really good at hiding contraband.
Another thing that backs up it being an MG3, is that it fires 308. Which is considered to be somewhat interchangeable with 7.62x51mm NATO that the MG3 was chambered for. I consider it likely to be in the inventory of Commonwealth Military forces in the fallout universe and possibly was shipped to the USA as a sample for evaluation prior to Military adoption.
In my knowledge 308. is 7.62.51mm the only difference is system and name 308. (imperial?!) 7.62 obviously metric system and 308 is civilian ithink and 7.62 is military grade with different powder loads Like 223 and 5.56
The fact that the minigun is called a "chaingun" in Fallout 1 is probably a Doom reference. Such a weapon uses the basic pistol ammo there. And if I had to guess? The Avenger minigun being inferior both stat-wise and design-wise could be tongue-in-cheek, based on overdoing military weapon designs. I recall a scene from a movie called Pentagon Wars, which goes over the Bradley Fighting Vehicle's development, and how its performance was bogged down by too many features.
@@heliveruscalion9124 Ah, is it? To be honest, I've only ever seen that scene I mentioned. Is the whole movie an exaggeration of the real events? Or am I taking your reply too literally?
@@raziyatheseeker no, like, the main character in pentagon wars irl is a crotchety old man that thinks advanced technology like gps and active protection is useless, that old tech vehicles like ww2 era tanks make "better soldiers", and got angry at the Army making a better Bradley because "it wasn't fair" when he was trying to make his own design
Late reply but yeah, the Bradley has proven very effective in every conflict where the US has used it. The Pentagon Wars movie really misrepresents things. It acts as though the concept of an IFV (vehicle that carries infantry but also has a sizable gun and missiles) was some kind of absurd bungling, ignoring the fact that the Soviet Union and West Germany were already fielding their own successful IFVs by that point. The movie also leaves out the actual controversies of the Bradleys development, such as the firing port saga and the protracted doctrinal debate over what mechanized infantry should do in the first place.
I wish there were power armor exclusive weapons, like ones that are simply too heavy and bulky for an unaided person to wield. Most of the big guns would be in that category, and maybe some of them could couple to the armor in some way, like them locking into a mounting point.
2:51 4.7 mm rounds do have a real life counterpart, the H&K MP7 fires 4.6 x 30mm ammo. It's an SMG/PDW who's purpose was designed to pierce armor better than 9mm/45ACP submachineguns and pistols at the time.
So I personally think there little flashy lights probably tell the rockets when to detonate if shot too far out of range or to detonate on impact instead of penetrating the target.
Weapons such as the RPG-7 self-detonate after a certain distance as a safety measure, so I don't see why something like that wouldn't have a similar thing.
I like the oddity of the Shoulder mounted Minigun, probably not going to see it again though, Bethesda's modular weapons systems guide them towards using fewer shared animation sets and the odd weapons Don't fit into that scheme
@@vahlok1426 its certainly implemented in a lazy way. Its a shame because the way it works (I've done some rooting around the Creation Kit) has some really useful and complex features. It really feels like a system Bethesda has but doesn't understand or at least appreciate what it can do and what it *shouldn't* be used in place of.
Shame. That thing was friggin awesome. It used 10mm ammo so it was insanely easy to get ammo for. With jurry rigging you could repair it easy enough. All in all it was tons of fun. Well worth getting the upgrades for.
@@MediumRareOpinions My main issue is that they eliminated many weapons from the game by making others able to do the same thing. No need for a 10mm SMG since you can just make the pistol auto for example. But the worst, worst thing it did was it made there be an objectively "best" weapon in every category. Unlike FNV for example, where one could finish the whole game with say, the .22 pistol with a proper build. Now, sure you could do the same with 4's system(s), but you're still gimping yourself if you don't use the best thing possible, and fully invest in gunsmith/blacksmith. It's the same issue I have with how crafting in Skyrim went. You were seriously outmatched if you didn't invest in either or both Blacksmithing and/or Enchanting. In both games' cases it made the discovery of unique weapons, or new legendaries pointless since I could just make what I already have better in most cases.
@@vahlok1426 I think that's a fair take, what things I liked about the system are really only used by Modders to achieve some really nice aesthetic options. I suppose I'd like to see a perfect world where we still have a full range of guns but kept the modularity for accessories and attachments. I understand the annoyance though. I absolutely hate the Combat Rifle taking up the slots of many weapons. The DKS-501 is conspicuously absent an in its place a Combat rifle sniper configuration is there.
I see a lot of people make the assumption that the 5mm that the Minigun uses is the same, or at least very similar to the 5.56! I think they are wrong (yes that includes the developers). Having seen the in-game model of the 5mm in FO4, it appears that it is actually a way longer round than 5.56 (and depending on the game version even longer than .308). This leads me to believe that unlike what New Vegas would have you believe, that is not actually an intermediary round, but a specialized armor piercing round. I believe it is a narrow solid bullet made by using a hard metal of some sort (either hardened steel, tungsten, or even depleted uranium), with massive amounts of powder behind it, inside an oversized case! For reference have a look what the germans were using in early WW2 against tanks. This in theory results in hella powerful round, taking the concept of the 5.56 and turning it up to 11. Which primarily relies on velocity to deal damage. And the velocities here would be inconceivable and murderous. Effectively making the Minigun into an anti everything weapon. From lightly armoured ground troops, to Power Armor, Robots, and even low flying aircraft! This thing would shred the shit out of everything.
I'm pretty sure the "5mm round" in Fallout is supposed to be the 4.85x49mm round, it was a British derivative of 5.56 that uses a narrower bullet, exactly 5mm in diameter, and a longer cartridge neck. The result is the projectile itself is launched significantly faster than a standard 5.56 round, which improves penetration while actually reducing recoil. The reason I think this is the case is the similarities in the cartridge, as well as the existing lore for the 5mm round stating it was originally developed as an assault rifle cartridge that got rejected in favor of 5.56, which is what happened to the 4.85x49mm in real life, additionally one of the few weapons to use the 4.85 round was the XL70e3, which appears in Fallout 2 using 5mm rounds.
3:40 You do actually see this with other weapons, specifically the Gatling Laser has what looks to be a battery pack on the user's back, but the gun actually fires the ECP cells.
Even though the Red Glares buttons don’t seem to correspond to anything in game I’d have to assume lore wise they are for adjusting the sight for zeroing in and potentially the angle of the rocket if it can be adjusted lore wise.
19:30 i think the extra harpoons on the weapon are more like Shotgun shells held at the side of the rifle, for more convenient reloading, rather than being able to shoot more without reloading. tho ofc in the end my guess is as good anyone elses, seeing as its a low res picture and the gun wasnt ever made to be used by players in that "version" of the harpoon gun, so we wont ever know for sure. overall very interresting vid, it once more shows just how insanely deep the Fallout Lore actually is ^^ absolutely awesome ^^
Ironically, I found your 'please don't unsub because I mentioned FO:BoS' plea to be incredibly amusing, and made me want to watch even more of your vids. I randomly found your channel, and have been enjoying listening all day at work, keep up the good work!
I'm gonna nitpick now. How come you did not mention the XM-214 "microgun" when talking about the minigun. This was the M-134 scaled down to 5.56 caliber but was found too ineffectual to have any military use, so it was never fielded.
@@RhizometricReality Are you sure? Fallout series is full of experimental weapons that were never fielded, some of them have been mentioned in other videos, others will be mentioned in future ones. Also let me remark that the way minigun is depicted in F3 is almost the same as the XM-214 GE Six-Pax system: the weapon, plus a backpack containing the battery and 2x 500 round ammo magazines. All in a man-portable 85 lbs package.
I think the reason behind the miniguns generally being in 5mm is because the smaller the bullet, the more armor it can penetrate. The AP power of rounds does also depend on the case length and how much powder is behind it.
Still confused to why if fallout was so advanced in terms of warfare- Why it still used inferior ammo for most their weapons and why they didn't develop anuthing further past 1986.
17:52 There are a number of .44" caliber cartridges in our universe. For example, the .44-40 Winchester was the first centerfire metallic cartridge from that company and was designed for use in rifles.
@@Rad_King Oh hey! I didn't expect you to reply, nice surprise! I got here from your power armor video, and it's making me curious as to what your analysis on the less techy armors would be. For one thing I always strained myself trying to decipher what exactly the parts making the plating on 3 and NV's metal armor came from, or what purpose those weird cables serve, as I doubt it's extra protection
Fun fact about the Rock-it launcher. Plates and dishes are very likely to decapitate is V.A.T.S at the head, similar to the Railroad rifle Number 2. If you fully modify a K9000 then upgrade to FIDO, it sticks. (Also I've been able to get 2 K900s)
There is a 5.56 "gattling gun" but the XM214 is referred to as a "Microgun" and was made for aircraft originally but was never adopted by the US military and you can find a more modern versions of that some have made called "Suitcase" miniguns
The GE Sixpack was an experimental man portable 5.56 minigun based on the 7.62 operational mini gun talked about in the video. Still a static hmg type thing in use, but inspired hollywood and obviously Fallout's concept.
just a thought about the cannon, it's still wildly impractical of course but i remember hearing something about "rocket ball(s)" that have the charge needed to shoot it is in the ball itself. so they may be an idea but that still sounds like a good way to have that mag cause a chain explosion with all the powder around given how much you would need for full sized cannonballs. of course this is a video game so gotta just let it be crazy sometimes i guess :P
There are infact gas operated miniguns (in 7.62), they are just only really used by Soviet Helicopters. IIRC the Soviets even made a 30mm galling gun that rotates the barrels by venting gas from barrel ports or muzzle breaks. Also I believe a chain gun could theoretically have multiple barrels, it just means the weapon is externally powered and operated by a chain instead of recoil or gas operated. So you could have an electric motor attached to a chain driving a gatling gun instead of the motor doing it directly.
as a fun fact for the M2 HMG, theres actualy a record of a man jury rigging an aircraft version by putting a rifle stock and trigger on it, he then carried it into combat in the pacific campaign against the japanese
When speaking about a 5 mm round in the mini gun, it could be more for armor penetration. A smaller diameter around at a higher velocity and penetrate armor just as if not more effective way but I heavier slow around. Also it would have less weight therefore able to carry more rounds per pound.
The broadsider is a odd ball in my eyes because it’s a navel cannon that you run around with in the commonwealth and maybe the harpoon gun compresses air when you reload the weapon.
17:33 i dont know much about guns but my bet its the dev fanfic for making "smg" that would shoot 44s instead of 9mm. There was still that old weird magnum 44 "meme?" in those years. It was always that or desert eagle that was "op pistol"
If you are looking for a real life counterpart to New Vegas’ shoulder mounted machine gun, I stumbled upon a quota article discussing the practicality of it. Unlike a bazooka, the kickback from automatic weapons aren’t as great as a rockets, from what I read. A backpack like those used for the K900, FIDO, Minigun, and the grenade machine gun would work better on the shoulder mounted, but it doesn’t have that. Hope this helps for Big Guns Part 2! If you need the Quora link I can send you it
About the 5mm ammunition the CZ-53 minigun uses: there are several weapons in Fallout described as using 5mm ammunition, one of which, the XL70e3 is actually real and indicates to us what that ammunition might be. The XL70e3 was chambered in the 4.85x49mm round, which was a variant of early prototypes for the 5.56mm and designed to be lighter weight, lower recoil, and more armor piercing (a smaller bullet can actually penetrate armor more easily when given the same propellant charge as the reduced mass means it can get up to higher speeds and it has a smaller hole it needs to poke in the target). The lore that we do have for Fallout's 5mm ammunition describes it as an experimental assault rifle cartridge that lost out to 5.56 but found a new lease on life in heavy weapons where the reduced weight and recoil proved useful, it's likely that the name 5mm is taken from the fact that the 4.85x49mm round actually did use a bullet that was exactly 5mm in diameter. Also another oddity: the cyberdog guns, like all cyberdogs in Fallout New Vegas, have their brains modeled on human brains rather than dog brains. A dog's brain isn't actually shaped like that, but they presumably went with the more human appearance to make it obvious that it was a brain in the jars.
I did not know that the Harpoon gun had been on the Resolute. I’m assuming it’s the same Resolute that was salvaged and made into desks one of which sits in the Oval Office of the White House. Now I need to know!!
The panel on the rockets red glare may be some sort of programing panel rhat allows you to optimise the weapon to a particular range and may also be used to select specific targets only.
