M-134 (Was Anybody know this weapon?)

[Targan]

Sounds like bullsh*t to me. The accuracy of an M240 and an M134 would be quite similar in my opinion, assuming both are being fired under the same conditions (for instance they and being fired from some kind of fixed pintle mount). Any accuracy difference would be due to the operator. By that I mean that if you are on target with the M134 you will hit the target with more rounds in a second because more rounds are being fired before the weapon has time to drift off target. Also the M134 has more overall mass, and the mass of a weapon helps to tame its recoil.

If both weapons were being bench tested I would be willing to bet that the inherent accuracy differences would be minimal.

[Legbreaker]

My thoughts are the M134 would likely be less accurate as you've got more mass moving about in it that a M240/MAG 58.
If however both were bolted down to something immovable, and you're taking recoil and movement out of the equation (and ignoring wind, humidity, etc), the weapon with the longer barrel is likely to be more accurate.
Weapon wear and tear is also likely to effect accuracy and as the M134 hasn't actually been produced in many years and is therefore likely to be much older....

[kato13]

Question about the M134. Does the spinning barrel cause any sort of gyroscope effect? I know it is only 500 rpm but I would think that might help accuracy.

[Legbreaker]

Hmm, good question!
My thoughts are that the diameter is a bit too small for such a slow RPM to have much of an effect.
More research required!

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Weapon wear and tear is also likely to effect accuracy and as the M134 hasn't actually been produced in many years and is therefore likely to be much older....

Original M134s are old but I think the Dillon M134 is a newer, slightly improved and lightened version and as far as I know is currently in production.

Originally Posted by kato13

Question about the M134. Does the spinning barrel cause any sort of gyroscope effect? I know it is only 500 rpm but I would think that might help accuracy.

Maybe but any benefit is likely to be counteracted by coriolis effect.

[Matt Wiser]

The weapon's in use: the USAF and Navy Combat Search-and-Rescue helos use 'em for suppressive fire when making rescues, and the Army's 160th Aviation Regiment also uses minis on their Blackhawks. When you're trying to make a pickup behind enemy lines and the bad guys are coming to (a) stop you, and (b) get as many potential POWs as possible, a minigun or two on a helo are mighty useful to have.

[Legbreaker]

The Australian army trialed an M134 mounted on an M113 in Vietnam. It was discarded as overkill - it was like ten M60s all firing at the same point...

As an aircraft weapon it's ideal. The movement of the aircraft and the generally longer ranges makes ordinary GPMGs rather inadequate while the higher volume of a gatling type, well, it's a bit harder to miss when you're pumping out several thousand rounds a minute....
Besides, as I understand it, aircraft weapons, at least helicopter door guns etc aren't exactly meant for pinpoint accuracy but more for supressing enemy by volume of fire.

[kcdusk]

To answer some questions, from what i heard in the show.

The Dillon 134 is brand new.

Re the spinning barrell, they said the new version improved accuracy (rather than degraded it).

Accuracy theory was they are both as accurate as one another, except since the 134 fires 4x as many bullets then everything being equal it should hit 4x as many times. But in practice, it hit something like 8 or 9x more often (see point above about spinning barrel and other improvements helping accuracy somehow).

[O'Borg]

A couple of mins Youtubing gets : Helicopter mounted M134 vs M240

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Targan

Sounds like bullsh*t to me. The accuracy of an M240 and an M134 would be quite similar in my opinion, assuming both are being fired under the same conditions (for instance they and being fired from some kind of fixed pintle mount). Any accuracy difference would be due to the operator. By that I mean that if you are on target with the M134 you will hit the target with more rounds in a second because more rounds are being fired before the weapon has time to drift off target. Also the M134 has more overall mass, and the mass of a weapon helps to tame its recoil.

If both weapons were being bench tested I would be willing to bet that the inherent accuracy differences would be minimal.

There's a very old lesson MS I (freshman) ROTC cadets are taught: the "fuzzy-wuzzy fallacy." (No, I don't remember why the name.) You'd think that if you threw twice the troops at a target, you have twice the combat power, if you double the volume of fire, you double the firepower, etc. Doesn't work out that way. In general, if you double the troops, volume of firepower, explosives, etc, you have the square root that number of times of firepower --twice the troops = sqrt2 times the combat power, three times the troops, sqrt3 the combat power, etc. it's a rapidly-decaying average. So if your M-134 is putting out four times the volume of fire, you only get twice the firepower.

And right now, my cheeseburger tastes like Flonase -- damn, I hate that!

[Legbreaker]

I suppose it's got something to do with how that power is applied.
A high rate of fire from one barrel/weapon for example can only be applied to one location at a time. Even if it's firing off a ten thousand rounds a minute, there's not exactly a large increase in useful firepower.

Now firing off that same ten thousand rounds from twenty individual machineguns spread out across the battlefield IS going to have a HUGE impact. It also allows the commander many, many more options than with just one weapon - they can move around and take advantage of terrain, enemy disposition, etc.

Same concept applies to adding extra soliders, even if armed with bolt action rifles. After all, it only takes one bullet to remove the average enemy (or friendly for that matter) soldier from the fight, and with say one thousand riflemen firing ten rounds a minute you're able to cover and dominate a VERY large area.

That said, I still like my M60....

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

That said, I still like my M60....

I've said that so many time to the youngn's here. For a relatively short soldier like me (in the Army, 5'8" and 145 pounds or so), it was perfectly sized.

[Legbreaker]

I was the same weight but had about an inch extra height on you.
Amazing how much a small person can carry - 10.43kg M60, 600 belted 7.62 (approx 18kg) plus all the extras commonly issued and required to be carried in your webbing (at least another 10kg, but usually MUCH more).
And then as I rarely had a No2, I had the spare barrel to haul as well. Once they even threw the 77 set at me in addition to all that! ("combat" load was almost more than my own bodyweight!)

Still, a properly maintained M60 is a thing of beauty and I wouldn't trade one for anything (well maybe a couple of porters to carry all the extra gear!)