M247H machine gun

The M247H Heavy Machine Gun is a heavy weapon used extensively by the United Nations Space Command ground forces. It is a variant of the widely used M247 General Purpose Machine Gun.

Design details
The M247H is an air-cooled, gas-operated, electrically fired, linkless-fed weapon that fires 12.7mm cartridges. It can be used in both anti-personnel and anti-vehicle roles. It is most often seen mounted on stationary tripods and used as a defensive weapon, but can also be carried by those strong enough to efficiently operate it. An M247H is mounted on either side of the UH-144A Falcon.

Like many other support weapons used by the UNSC, the M247H is fitted with a metal shield near the rear of its barrel to protect the user. Some versions, including the one mounted on the UH-144A Falcon, lack this feature.

Trivia

 * Compared to its Halo 3 counterpart, it has less accuracy and can overheat when mounted, but does not need to spool-up before firing.
 * Chief Warrant Officer Jorge-052, a SPARTAN-II commando, utilized this weapon throughout the Human-Covenant War. His customized M247H lacked the shield plate, which was replaced by a heat cover over the barrel and many other smaller differences.
 * The M247H is erroneously labeled as the AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun in Bungie.net game stats. Similarly, the weapon's description on the official Halo: Reach website erroneously claims that the M247H uses 7.62mm cartridges, which would classify it as a medium machine gun.
 * It is prone to overheating in Halo: Reach unless it is removed from its mount, which somehow enables it to fire without overheating until all ammunition is expended.
 * When firing, the weapon makes the exact same sound as the AIE-486H HMG, including the sound of the gun spooling up.
 * Like the AIE-486H HMG featured in Halo 3, if the Infinite Ammo setting is active, the detached turret will not have unlimited ammunition. However, if the bottomless clip setting is enabled, detached turrets will have infinite ammunition.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Reach