Just because of what they're expected to be effective against, and the fact that they are as effective against it as a single short-range missile, I have long assumed that what the game calls machine guns are not in fact machine guns, but are in fact, in real-world terms, small autocannons—similar to the M203 chain gun on the Apache attack helicopter, say, or any number of aviation cannons developed during WWII.

I base this logic on the fact that, in Real Life™, you can shoot at an MBT all day with even a very-high-rate-of-fire machine gun, e.g., a Minigun, and all you'll do is spoil the paint job. You're never going to overwhelm the armor with volume of fire, you're basically just sandblasting it. MDC structures, man. I therefore have to assume that, although the game does say they're principally antipersonnel weapons, for a 'Mech's machine guns to even be capable of damaging another 'Mech, however slightly, they must be throwing some form of explosive ordnance.

If you assume that, then a ton of "MG" ammunition being dangerously volatile suddenly makes a lot more sense, simply because of the sheer number of rounds involved. A ton of, say, 30mm HE chain gun ammo is probably going to have a larger percentage of propellant and explosive in it, and a smaller percentage of inert metal, than a ton of 120mm cannon shells. I would further think it's going to be more sensitive to forces that can cause it to cook off, thanks to the much greater surface area available for those forces to act upon. Packed by weight, not volume, as they say. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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