Tripod-Mounted Heavy Machine Gun

For other uses, see Machine Gun (disambiguation).

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Tripod-Mounted Heavy Machine Gun
Production information
Faction	Hazardous Environment Combat Unit Black Ops
Type	Mounted heavy machine gun
Technical specifications
Damage	12
Ammo	Infinite
Max ammo	Infinite
Modes	Automatic
Ammo type	Linked .50 BMG
Rate of fire	Fast
Recoil	None (Mounted)
Accuracy	High
Range	Short to long
Usage
Used by	HECU Marines Male Black Ops Gordon Freeman Adrian Shephard Barney Calhoun
Game information
Entity	N/A (the weapon itself is named func_tank)

 

The Tripod-Mounted Heavy Machine Gun is a heavy machine gun used by the HECU and the Black Ops along with the Half-Life protagonists in several areas of Black Mesa.

Overview

Male Assassin manning a Machine Gun in Opposing Force.

Manned by a single person, the Heavy Machine Gun is used on a tripod to provide fire support and/or fortify crucial points, such as important locations of the Materials Transport or other areas of Black Mesa. Most of the time sandbags around the tripod and armored shields on the barrel provide additional protection to the gunner. Although the weapon has virtually infinite ammo, the turret imposes a limited firing arc, and one is exceedingly vulnerable from the lanes that the gun is unable to cover.

The Heavy Machine Gun is sometimes used along a Gun Emplacement.

Tactics

Enemies using Tripod-Mounted Machine Guns are easy to kill, as they are immobile while using it. A Fragmentation Grenade or a Submachine Gun grenade is enough to kill the weapon controller in one shot.

The presence of a Machine Gun usually indicates a likely wave of enemies. The machine gun should be manned as soon as possible as it is extremely powerful; only three or so shots are required to kill a soldier or a Vortigaunt. However, one should always be ready to get off the gun when overwhelmed by enemy attacks or when being attacked from behind.

Appearances

During Half-Life, Gordon Freeman uses the Machine Gun on several occasions, notably in the Materials Transport during the chapter On A Rail, and near the end of the chapter "Forget About Freeman!", where it is used both against the HECU and the Xen invaders.

In Opposing Force, the Black Ops use it against Adrian Shephard on the surface.

In Blue Shift, a Machine Gun is hidden in a crate on a train car in the Freight Yard, with ".50 cal Mounted Machine Gun" written on it. Barney Calhoun uses it against many soldiers before resuming his search for Dr. Rosenberg.

Behind the scenes

The Heavy Machine Gun is inspired by the real world M2 Browning machine gun.

In the Half-Life 2 leak, a converted version of the Heavy Machine Gun is used as a placeholder weapon mounted to an APC in a City 17 tunnel where it is meant to be used to fend off a Manhack ambush. Appearing untextured and with some slight dimension alterations, it otherwise functions similar to how it performed in Half-Life. In the final game, it is replaced by a set of Combine Emplacement Guns.

Gallery

• 

  Machine Gun and soldiers at the rocket launch site.

• 

  Machine Gun in the Topside Motorpool area.

• 

  Machine Gun mounted on top of the M1A1 Abrams.

• 

  Barney killing soldiers with a Machine Gun in the Freight Yard.

• 

  Machine Gun crate found in the Freight Yard.

• 

  In Uplink.

• 

  Placeholder Machine Gun found in the Half-Life 2 leak.

• 

  Firing the placeholder Machine Gun.

List of appearances

Main games

• Half-Life (First appearance)
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Half-Life: Blue Shift

Other

• Half-Life: Uplink (Non-canonical appearance)