- 10 Talk
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Chain Gun
| "Sarge?...I hurt."
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- "Someone get on that turret!"
- — Dominic Santiago, to his fellow Gears, aboard the Derrick in Tip of the Spear
The Chain Gun was a heavy machine gun employed by the Coalition of Ordered Governments. It was usually mounted on vehicles as an offensive weapon, such as on the King Raven, the Assault Derrick, and was seen on the Tyro Pillar. It could also be used as a stationary emplacement gun for defense. It employed the Gatling-gun principle, in which six revolving barrels rotate around the firing axis. This arrangement allowed the individual barrels to cool between shots.
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Background
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The Chain Gun's action was driven by an electric motor, unlike the hand-crank system of the Mulcher. This feeds ammunition and rotates the firing mechanism. As it rotates, the barrels close into the bolt for firing, then withdraw to extract the spent cartridge case and feed in a fresh round. The entire process happens very quickly; when the Chain Gun was fired, the sounds of the individual shots blured into a continuous, rippling roar.
Much of the Chain Gun's length was in its barrels; the actual firing mechanism is quite compact for such a powerful weapon. The weapon only had rudimentary iron sights; the gunner is expected to observe the stream of fire's fall and adjust their aim accordingly. To keep up with the Chain Gun's voracious appetite for ammunition, it was normally fed from enormous ammunition boxes, with ammo fed to the weapon via a flexible metal chute.
Because of the Gun's size and mass, it was far too big to be moved about by any one soldier. Instead, it was normally seen as a vehicular or aircraft weapon - it was particularly well-suited for being a helicopter door gun, its high rate of fire making up for the relative lack of accuracy that came from using a flying helicopter as a firing platform. It was also sometimes seen mounted on a tripod or base for use as a powerful defense weapon.
Tactical UseEdit
The Chain Gun was the COG answer to the Locust Troika. Though it's not quite as powerful as its Locust contemporary, it's was still an incredibly powerful weapon that could tear even the most brutal of enemies to shreds. The times you'll actually get to use the Chain Gun are rather rare; the only time the weapon appears in Gears of War 1 is on the Tyro Pillar, during Act 5; you see it both during the segment wherein you must down Reavers, and the notorious RAAM fight.
In Gears of War 2, it's used first in Act 1: Tip of the Spear, mounted on the Derrick that Delta Squad rides. It is easily the best way to deal with the Nemacyst that appear early in the chapter, and the best way to deal with the scores of Reavers and worse you encounter as the mission progresses. The next time you'll use the Chain Gun is in Aftermath, where the weapon is used for repulsing the attack by a swarm of Reavers on the Comm Tower in Jacinto Plateau.
In general, the Chain Gun is functionally identical to the Troika. It isn't as powerful (since it fires fewer bullets), but it's considerably more accurate. Like the Troika, it has a front-mounted shield that protects the user from small-arms fire. Also like the Troika and Mulcher both, it uses a cooling system that can flush the weapon with coolant should it overheat (accessed with the RB Button). Note that because the Chain Gun, like the Troika, is electrically-operated, its clutch stops the barrels cold if you stop firing to flush the gun with coolant. Because of this, it's advised that if you must stop firing, completely reduce the gun's heat before starting it back up.
Behind the ScenesEdit
Though named the Chain Gun, this weapon is actually a Gatling type weapon. The difference between the two weapons is that a chain gun uses a single barrel and is chain-driven as opposed to operated by recoil or gas blowback. A Gatling gun, on the other hand, uses multiple barrels which revolve as the weapon fires, similar to the way a revolver's cylinder rotates as it is fired. A Gatling gun may be operated by any number of mechanisms, from electric motors to gas systems to simple hand cranks, and use relatively complex timing to ensure that each barrel and breech fires, loads ammunition, and ejects spent casings at precisely the right moment.
In the terms of functionality, the Chain Gun is very similar to the Dillion M134 Minigun, which serves a similar purpose as a helicopter door gun, vehicle-mounted weapon, and emplaced defensive weapon, for use against most soft targets [ie: infantry] and lightly armored or unarmored vehicles.
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