Heavy machine gun

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Name	heavy machine gun
Appearance	heavy machine gun
Damage vs. small	1d2
Damage vs. large	1d2
To-hit bonus	-4
Weapon skill	firearms
Size	two-handed
Base price	2000 zm (+10/positive enchant)
Weight	500
Material	iron

A heavy machine gun is a firearm that appears in SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM. It is a two-handed launcher that can fire bullets at a very high rate, and is always on full automatic mode.

Generation

Yendorian army lieutenants have a ¹⁄₂ chance of generating with a heavy machine gun, and captains have a ¹⁄₄ chance of generating with one.

Rate of fire

The heavy machine gun's rate of fire depends on its enchantment and skill of the user.

Enchantment	Unskilled/basic	Skilled	Expert
-7 to -6	8	8	8
-5 to -3	8	8	1d2+7
-2 to +2	8	1d2+7	1d3+7
+3 to +5	1d2+7	1d3+7	1d4+7
+6 to +8	1d3+7	1d4+7	1d5+7
+9	1d4+7	1d5+7	1d6+7

Strategy

The heavy machine gun is generally not a viable weapon - at 500aum, it weighs the same as a loadstone and takes up half of a vanilla NetHack character's maximum carrying capacity; even in SlashTHEM, where the maximum is set much higher, its better rate of fire is offset by its weight and bigger to-hit penalty. Submachine guns and assault rifles in both games offer a comparable rate of fire with smaller to-hit penalties and less than 1/10th of the heavy machine gun's weight.

Origin

The term "heavy machine gun" has historically been used to refer to several different classes of weapons; in modern usage, it generally refers to weapons such as the World War I-era M2 Browning. The Browning is a large weapon weighing approximately 100lbs and intended to be fired by a small crew from a stationary tripod; it is also found mounted on aircraft and tanks.

Note that real-life heavy machine guns actually tend to have a lower rate of fire than their smaller counterparts: their heavy construction instead enables them to fire heavier ammunition, and to fire for longer periods of time without overheating.