M41 Vulcan

Rate of Fire : 450-550 per minute Fire Mode    : Automatic Ammunition   : 12.7x99mm armor penetrating rounds Damage per Hit: Medium Range        : Medium to long Accuracy     : Medium to High Magazine Size : drum feeding, no known magazine capacity Maximum Ammo : unlimited Scope        : none, 3rd person view

Summary


The M12 Warthog LRV's M41 LAAG gun is a three-barreled, electric-powered, linkless, drum-fed weapon. It fires 450 to 550 12.7x99mm armor penetrating rounds per minute. Turret traverse rate is 100 degrees per second and weapon elevation rate is 60 degrees per second. Recoil from sustained fire is prodigious and negatively impacts accuracy at long range.

In Halo 3
In the recent Halo 3 ViDoc: Is Quisnam Protero Damno!, a blue Spartan wielding what seems to be the M41 chain gun can be seen at 0:23-0:24 of the trailer. However, close inspection revels that this gun is different, and Frank O'Connor recently seemed to confirm that it is not the M41 in a Bungie Weekly Update, commenting, "... [those viewing the ViDoc saw] a new weapon. I saw it referred to as the 'chain gun' but I ain't talking. Although I will tell you that no, you can't pull the chaingun off the back of a Hog."

This seems to preclude its being the M41, but bear in mind that the Weekly Updates are often designed to conceal the truth. Merely because it has been confirmed that you cannot pull the chaingun off the back of a Hog does not mean that the "chain-gun" is not, in fact, the M41. It might work in the same manner as the Sentinel Beam, which can only be taken from the wreckage of Sentinels: only once the Warthog is destroyed can the gun be salvaged. However, this would severely limit its options of use tactically speaking, as you would be forced to destroy a vehicle, wasting ammunition and the vehicle itself, in order to gain the weapon. This sort of limitation, when combined with the difference in appearance, must lead one to conclude, at least for the time being, that the 'chain-gun' is not the M41 LAAG on the M12 LRV Warthog.

This also seems unlikely because although Halo is a video game, the designers for the most part keep in mind realism. In this respect, the weapon being from the Warthog is not possible. The recoil from firing the weapon would be impossible for even a Spartan to withstand, and the rate at which it consumes and caliber of ammunition are both too great for anything but a massive drum with a link feed- the kind seen on the Warthog- for the weapon to be used practically. Not only is it unlikely that Bungie would allow for this ridiculous physical impossibility, but the weapon in the screenshot is much smaller than the M41 in addition to lacking the drum and linked feed as well as the bullet shield.