M134D

An Intimidating Machine-Gun

Machine-guns have always been popular weapons, because they allow one
gunner to put out a lot of bullets, usually something on the order of 400-600
rounds a minute (taking into account time needed to reload.)
That popularity has increased over the last decade, as cheaper, lighter and more reliable multi-barrel machine-guns became available. One of the more useful of these has been the Dillon Aero M134D. This is a electric ( battery or vehicle)powered, six barrel 7.62mm machine-gun. The gun itself only weighs 29 pounds. Add the drive mechanism to spin the six barrels, and you have a 66 pound system.

Since the M134D fires 3,000 or 4,000 rounds perminute, you need a lot of ammo handy. And that much ammo is heavy, fora thousand rounds of 7.62mm cartridges weighs 63 pounds. Add the weightof the magazine to hold the bullets, and it comes to 125 pounds for afull 1,500 round magazine, and up to 295 pounds for 4,400 rounds. Sinceyou are firing 66 rounds a second, a 4,400 round magazine lasts about aminute.

The barrels do not overheat, a common problem withmachine-guns, because there are six of them taking turns putting outthe bullets. Each barrel is good for 100,000 rounds, and the entiresystem has, on average, one failure for every 500,000 rounds. However,there tends to be one jam every 30,000 rounds. In helicopters, theM134D is particularly effective, because of the longer ranges theweapon is fired from. With all those bullets going out, you can cover alarge area with a few seconds worth fire.

On the ground, that much firepower enables you to blast through many
buildings, and shred unarmored vehicles. Under those circumstances,
the M134D is intimidating to the enemy, and that’s a valuable battlefield advantage.