M41 Vulcan

From Halopedia, the Halo wiki

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

Promotional image for Halo: Combat Evolved featuring Avery Johnson firing the M41 Vulcan on John-117's M12 Chaingun Warthog. Screenshot of the level Halo  from the Halo: Combat Evolved press kit.

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.[1] 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

File:OMG!.jpg
A Spartan wields the 'chain-gun' it in Halo 3 multiplayer

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. That would make the Warthog still important even after being destroyed, as then any surviving crew would at the very least give the enemy hell until the battery is depleted.

Sources

  1. ^ Halo: The Flood, page 72