AIE-486H machine gun

The AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun (abbreviated AIE-486H HMG or simply HMG), more commonly referred to as the Heavy Machine Gun Turret, is a United Nations Space Command ground weapon effective against infantry and light vehicles. It fires armor piercing rounds at a high rate of fire.

When detached it provides a portable high-powered machine gun with 200 rounds.

Overview


The AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun is a standard Gatling-style heavy machine gun in use by the UNSC for offensive and defensive purposes. It is also more powerful than the UNSC's former turret, M247 GP Machine Gun.

For defensive purposes it can be mounted on a tripod but when used for assault it can be detached from its tripod by a SPARTAN-II's or Elite's brute force. This can be done by pressing B while using the turret in its mounted position. Once detached, the player will appear in a third-person point of view. It has an infinite ammo capacity while stationary, but removing the turret limits the capacity.

In its unmounted form and variation it has a limited ammunition capacity of 200 rounds and takes about a second to "spin up" before reaching its highest rate of fire before going critical. Pulling the trigger once will cause the gun to fire a maximum of two rounds at a moderate rate; holding it down builds up the rate of fire to a higher rate. The gun slowly climbs during automatic fire like the SMG, but its recoil is lessened by the gun's tremendous weight. Also due to the weapon's weight, the user's speed is decreased, and turning takes more time. Also, the user's rate of elevation is low, there is a maximum angle of fire, and the user is stationary, exposed, and unable to react quickly to close-range scenarios. While wielding the gun in its standalone form, the player cannot melee, use grenades, equipment, or binoculars. Unlike most mini-guns in other games, the gun cannot overheat, which is more realistic, as one of the designs of a mini-gun is to have multiple barrels, so that one barrel does not overheat due to the fire rate. Having three barrels disperses the heat equally to all three barrels.

When the player picks up this weapon they still keep their other weapons, even if they are carrying two, in the same way as flags, bombs and skulls. However, they must drop the HMG before using their other weapons, grenades or equipment.

Trivia

 * The AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun, belonging to the Halo 3 exclusive class of weapons known as "Support Weapons," is one of the four third-person view weapons. The other weapons are the M7057 flamethrower, the Missile Pod, and the Plasma Cannon.
 * When hefting a support weapon, you do not lose the two weapons you were carrying. Your primary weapon will be shunted to the secondary slot, while your previously secondary weapon does not appear on the HUD or on your body. Instead, it is kept somewhere unseen, and goes in a "tertiary" slot.
 * Like the M41 LAAG, the AIE-486H bears a striking resemblance to the GAU-19/A machine gun used by the United States military. The GAU-19 and AIE-486H both share the same distinctive suppressor.
 * In the Halo 3 Beta, when you go to rip a machine gun turret from its tripod the tripod is still connected and you are seen walking around with the full turret as if the player just picked the whole support weapon up.
 * The AIE-486H appeared in early footage of pre-Xbox Halo as the mini-gun.
 * During Forge matches, the mounted AIE-486H can be picked up, moved, and rotated, even while another player is using the turret. If the other player rips the turret from the base while this is happening, the player will duplicate the turret. This can be used to arm an entire team with turrets. These traits also apply to plasma turrets.
 * The HMG can carry more than 200 rounds when detached, through a glitch.
 * Its recoil causes it to "climb" much like the M7 Caseless Submachine Gun.
 * Brutes will occasionally utilize Heavy Machine Guns against players and allies.
 * It is possible to use the machine gun mounted in the back of a Pelican in Halo 3 by killing the NPC manning it (without destroying the turret) and getting into the drop bay.
 * The machine gun, like teleporters, has no gravity.
 * In Halo 3's Forge mode, there is a glitch that allows players to go through invisible walls, chain link fences, and other solid barriers using the turret. Be warned though, as most of these areas contain death zones.
 * A way of moving faster with the turret can be done by constantly dropping and picking up the turret. Pressing 'Y' to change guns while holding right bumper to pick the gun up again. This, while looking like your dribbling the gun, allows almost normal movement, though be careful around dropped guns though, as it might pick on of those up instead.
 * On Forge, even if you set the machine gun's spare clips to 2, it will still hold only 200 rounds. In addition, even if the infinite ammo option is turned on during a match an unmounted turret will still only have 200 rounds of ammunition. This applies to all support weapons, with the exception of the flamethrower.
 * On the base of the bullets, The words Chief-EGX can be seen.
 * This Machine Gun inflicts slightly less damage then the ones mounted on vehicles
 * On the front cover of the Halo 3 instruction manual, SPARTAN-117 is weilding a AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun.

Character Compatibility
(Stationary)

Marines

Brutes

Spartans

Elites

Grunts (Uses Plasma Cannon animation)

(Detached)

Spartans

Elites