M41 Vulcan

"Man! This thing rips stuff up!"

— Marine Gunner

The M41 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun, nicknamed the "Vulcan",^[1] is a United Nations Space Command Defense Force vehicle-mounted machine gun. It is used as the primary armament on the standard M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle.

Background

The M41 LAAG is the standard weaponry of the M12 Warthog LRV, although similar on the M312 Elephant HRVs, the Elephants fire rate is slightly faster. It is a triple-barreled, electric-powered, linkless, belt-fed weapon. It fires 450 to 550 12.7x99mm armor penetrating rounds per minute.^[2] 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. It also works quite well for taking out Banshees and other lightly-armored vehicles.

Ammunition

As stated above, the M41 uses 12.7x99mm rounds, also known as the .50 BMG round, or .50 caliber. The name BMG comes from the 20th-century M2 Browning Machine Gun the cartridge was designed for. It is well known for its legendary stopping power. It is normally considered an anti-materiel round, as it can take out both light armor and infantry at great range. The bullet is even capable of stopping a car dead in its tracks, shooting a round right through its engine block.

The 12.7x99mm rounds is capable of exerting upwards of five times as much damage as the 7.62x51mm rounds used in the MA5 series of assault rifles, and the M41 is a relatively accurate example of its power compared to the smaller 7.62mm round. This was only evident in Halo: Combat Evolved, as damage per-hit in Halo 2 was dramatically less powerful. To balance this out, the rate of fire on the M41 was increased to roughly 900 rounds per-minute, and accuracy was increased significantly from the Halo: Combat Evolved version.

Trivia

This weapon bears a close resemblance to the GAU-19/A machine gun used by the United States military. In addition to other superficial similarities, both are triple-barreled Gatling-style machine guns. Both weapons also fire the 12.7×99 mm round.
The M41 is also found on the Elephant, and its armored cover is the only part of the Elephant that can be damaged.
The M41 LAAG takes a second to spool up, so it is slow but gradually gets faster the longer you hold down the trigger, so it's always a good idea to just prime the trigger when you're on the turret, since you don't waste any ammo.
The armor plating can be shot or beaten off in Halo 2 and Halo 3.
In Halo Wars trailers, renders, and cutscenes, the M41 is shown with four barrels. It is unknown if this is a graphical change or a different weapon altogether.
In Red vs Blue: Relocated, Simmons falsely surmises the rate of fire for the LAAG at "ten thousand rounds per second".
Halo 3 MythBusters proved that one can perform a Superbounce in Halo 3 using a detached Warthog turret from a destroyed Warthog.
A stationary version of the M41 LAAG, as well as the M68 Gauss Cannon, appears in Halo 3: ODST.
A variant of the M41 LAAG, titled "M41 ELAAGat", is mounted on the back of the OF92/EVA Booster Frame. This version fires Depleted Uranium rounds.^[3]^[4]
The M41 LAAG will overheat with continuous fire in Halo: Reach.
Vulcan is the Roman name for the Greek god Hephaestus, God of fire and forgery, and the name of several current-day high-caliber gatling guns.
In Halo: Reach, the M41 LAAG takes a few seconds to spin up, whereas in Halo: CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3, the spin-up was instantaneous.

Gallery

The four-barreled LAAG on a Halo Wars-era Warthog.
The LAAG on the Halo CE-era Warthog.
The LAAG on the Halo 2-era Warthog.
Snow Warthog.jpg

The LAAG as seen on the snow camo Warthog from the Halo 3 multiplayer map Avalanche.
The LAAG on the Halo 3-era Warthog.
The LAAG mounted on a stationary turret in Halo 3: ODST.
An overheating LAAG on the Halo: Reach-era Warthog.
The 12.7x99mm Armor-Piercing Round the M41 fires.