# 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.

Contents

1 Generation
2 Rate of fire
3 Strategy
4 Origin

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

Wikipedia has an article about:
Heavy machine gun 

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 - a large weapon weighing approximately 100lbs and intended to be fired by a small crew from a stationary tripod, the Browning 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.