Machine Gun

The Machine Gun is the quintessential anti-infantry weapon, issuing a stream of bullets at a high rate of fire to cut down opposing soldiers, while still being effective at damaging BattleMechs. Vehicular-scale machine guns mounted on BattleMechs can lay low entire platoons in just a few passes thanks to their high rate of fire, though they are more commonly found on Combat Vehicles and ProtoMechs. These weapons are much heavier than those typically carried by infantry, but can be used by them when placed on a static mount, where they are called Support Machine Guns. Battle Armor can also carry machine guns, typically upgraded versions of infantry-support weapons, which can rival their larger vehicular-scale cousins.

Beyond the "standard" models Clan Smoke Jaguar was the first to create Light Machine Guns and Heavy Machine Guns, which the other Clans and the Inner Sphere eventually fielded as well. The Federated Suns were also the first to mount multiple machine guns on the same linked platform creating the Machine Gun Array.

Additionally, to their feature of being brutally effective against infantry units, Machine Guns can be reconfigured to spray a significantly higher amount of bullets at the cost of heat. This by default consumes triple the amount of ammo measured against the actual damage applied (regardless of if this hits or not). This in turn enables them to do a notable amount of damage to armor as a result of simply throwing more bullets at the problem. This unfortunately doesn't make these types of weapons any more damaging against infantry however.

Ammo Handling
BattleMechs and vehicles (massing more than 5 tons) allot Machine Gun ammunition in half-ton (100 "round") as well as full ton (200 "round") lots. Powered Armor (of all types, including BattleArmor) and vehicles massing less than 5 tons are alloted ammo in 5 kg lots that are consumed in a single "round" or turn of fire. This sheer amount of stored ammunition is exceptionally dangerous to have loaded into a 'Mech or Vehicle, and many Mechwarriors will opt to forgo the use of Machine Guns on their 'Mech especially if the 'Mech doesn't have CASE.

Models
The Machine Gun is manufactured on the following planets:

General Motors MiniGun
Usually called the GM MiniGun.

M100 Heavy
The M100 Heavy Machine Gun is a 12.5mm weapon typically used to deter infantry attacks against Phoenix Hawk, Crusader and Exterminator BattleMechs.

The M100s is powerful enough to punch right through any body armor, though Elemental armor could withstand multiple hits with no problem.