Gatling Good: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

The gatling gun is likely to function as a significantly more powerful version of a regular machine gun, requiring hulking mountains of muscle to move them, or some kind of vehicle mount. If one gets used, you can expect it to give a nice steady buzz as it spews a constant stream of death.

Modern superfast Gatling guns actually make a strange, deafening buzzing sound in the bass register (5000 rounds per minute equals 83.3Hz). Some of them, like the Phalanx anti-missile cannon, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgpQBZF2sZQ sound even weirder,] because they start at a lower rate of fire and then spin up to a higher one in distinct steps (in such designs they do not actually begin spinning the barrels until it fires the first shot and they require a moment to come up to speed), giving two or more separate "notes". Instead of a [[Dramatic Gun Cock]], the sign that a Gatling is preparing to fire tends to be the sound of it spinning up.

According to [[Cracked]], owning one of these things is [http://www.cracked.com/article_17016_7-items-you-wont-believe-are-actually-legal_p2.html perfectly legal].

== Anime & Manga ==

* ''[[Zoids]]'' had the Hibilt Vulcan cannon, a massive six-barreled beam Gatling weapon. Oddly enough, the anime would often inconsistently depict it as a projectile weapon instead. There are too many Zoids that can equip it to list here, but we will mention Karl Shuvaltz in ''Chaotic Century'', who was known for having all his [[Ace Custom]] units being armed with one.

** His brother Caribou also carries one inside of him.

** Monev the Gale uses a pair of wrist-mounted Gatlings powerful enough to tear through buildings, then switches to an even larger one that can destroy a bank vault.

* In the ''Stargate SG-1''/''X-COM: UFO Defense'' crossover ''[[XSGCOM|XSGCOM: Goa'Uld Defence]]'', the Tau'ri make a gatling staff weapon.

* [[Toy Hammer (Fanfic)|A Warhammer 40,000 fanfic]] has the main character and his allies [[More Dakka|create a literal wall]] of gatling guns ([[Shout-Out|shouting out]] to [[Modern Warfare 2]] while they were at it) as the first stage of their counterattack against a charging horde of {{spoiler|daemons}}.

* ''[[The Life of the Legendaries]]'' features 20 mm gatling guns in the relatively mundane but vital role of point-defense.

== Film ==

** ''Terminator Salvation''. The T-600s robots have Gatling guns attached to their arms.

* ''[[Predator]]'' features the famous GE M134 minigun 'Old Painless' wielded by former Navy SEAL, former Pro Wrestler and later Minnesota Governor [[Jesse Ventura]], and was the first handheld minigun ever to be used on film (or in any fiction for that matter). The actors firing that thing had to be braced just offscreen, lest the recoil knock them on their ass. And that was just firing ''blanks''. They also had to connect it to an external power source offscreen, via a wire that went down his pants.

** Jesse himself has stated that while the gun was suspended from an offscreen crane in early takes, later he actually managed to fire it without. According to him: 'You just had to grit your teeth and hold on. It's like firing a chainsaw. It's fucking ridiculous. Why the fuck would anyone want to use something like that?'

* ''[[The Sum of All Fears]]'' has a scene where a 20mm Vulcan cannon in a [[Anti-Air|Phalanx mounting]] on the USS ''John C. Stennis'' is used in an attempt to defend the ship from a missile attack.

* A criminal uses one in ''[[Superman Returns]]'', [[Shooting Superman|to no effect]].

** In the sequel the War Machine armor also sports a Gatling gun, which Rhodes uses to great effect against the Hammeroids.

* In the epilogue of ''[[Grindhouse]]: Planet Terror'', Cherry Darling has replaced her rifle-leg with a minigun. There's also a motorbike-mounted chaingun in the ''[[Machete]]'' trailer.

* One of the more awesome scenes in ''[[Black Hawk Down]]'' involved one of the MH-6 Little Bird helicopters obliterating a group of Somali RPG gunners using mounted miniguns.

* In ''[[The Last Samurai]]'', the Japanese government purchases a battery of Civil War-era Gatling Guns from the United States. These weapons quickly and efficiently wipe out the remnants of the Samurai during their final [[Desperation Attack]].

* During a car scene in ''[[Last Action Hero]]'' a door on a van suddenly opens, and a goon steps out with a mounted short-barreled minigun and proceeds to fire it at Arnie's car. Which, of course, remains untouched, but the premise of the movie means this actually makes sense.

* ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]''. Bruce Wayne conducts a ballistics test using Gatling guns. Since they only fire ''a single round at a time'' there is absolutely no reason to have them other than [[Rule of Cool]] and [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]] - which entirely fit Wayne's persona.

* ''The War Wagon'' (1967). Western starring [[John Wayne]] and [[Kirk Douglas]], who plan to rob an armoured stagecoach (owned by a villainous [[Land Baron]]) that is armed with a turret-mounted Gatling gun. Since the wagon effectively amounted to a horse-drawn tank the [[Invulnerable Horses]] trope had to be in full effect as well.

* Guess what's bolted to the port side of [[Cool Car|that black truck]] in ''[[Tango and Cash]]''. Right, a 20mm Gatling.

* In the [[Clint Eastwood]] vehicle ''[[The Outlaw Josey Wales]]'' the Redlegs used Gatlings mounted on the back of a wagon {{spoiler|to kill all the bushwhackers that had just surrendered to them and turned their own guns in}}

* Spoofed in ''[[Carry On|Carry On up the Khyber Pass]]''. The heroes turn a hand-cranked gatling-type on the horde of rampaging Burpers, only for it to play music instead. They open the drum magazine [[Rule of Funny|to discover a gramophone record]].

* The Rojos in ''[[A Fistful of Dollars]]'' steal a shipment of gold by posing as American soldiers, using the Hand-cranked Gatling Gun the real soldiers they'd already ambushed and killed had brought along.

* There seems to be a pattern of Machine Gun use by villains in [[Spaghetti Western|Spaghetti Westerns]]. In ''The Grand Duel,'' The Saxons use a water-cooled machine gun against a group of settlers sitting on a silver claim.

* The [[Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon|long-nine bow cannons]] on the [[Pirates of the Caribbean|''Flying Dutchman'']] had three rotating barrels.

* In ''[[Rango]]'', the moles are seen riding on bats mounted with civil war-style gatling guns. In addition, Rattlesnake Jake has a gatling gun [[Arm Cannon|where his rattle should be.]]

* In ''[[Death Race]]'', four out of the ten cars present in the film have rotary guns - most M134 miniguns, but one has two M61 vulcans.

* In the novelization of ''[[Rambo]]: First Blood Part II'', one of these guns shows up on a helicopter. Every fourth bullet is a tracer bullet, leaving a column of fire from the weapon's mouth, leading to the weapon's nickname of "The Dragon", which is [[Truth in Television]].

* In the ''Armageddon Trilogy'' by [[Robert Rankin]], this is [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] with a running gag that characters going into a fight say they wish they had 'an amazing rotary machine gun like Blaine had in Predator'. This exact phrase is used consistently until [[Elvis Impersonator|Elvis]] correctly identifies it as the M134 General Electric mini-gun.

* The [[Western]] series ''Gatling'' by Jack Slade had as its hero an operative for the Maxim Gun Company named Gatling. The series hook was that the title character used period automatic weapons, including gatling guns.

* The titular mercenaries in [[David Drake]]'s ''[[Hammers Slammers]]'' novels use revolving energy guns called "Tribarrels". Even though they don't fire projectiles the point is the same: three rotating barrels to avoid overheating.

== Live Action TV ==

** They also used the minigun on at least two other occasions: Once, to see if incendiary rounds could blow up a gas tank (busted), see if you could chop down a tree with bullets (confirmed) and blow up a propane tank (confirmed).

* The penultimate episode of ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'' had a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqSX3rEuUxg#t=4m14s scene of a Wraith being strafed] by an A-10. Also, ''The Daedalus Variations'' showed us that the Tau'ri ship-mounted railguns are gatlings.

* G3-X from ''[[Kamen Rider Agito]]'' has the handheld [[BFG|GX-05 Cerberus]], which is utilized as a [[Finishing Move]].

* The Giga Streamer from [[Tokkei Winspector]] is a handheld energy Gatling Gun. Recoil and vibration makes it impossible to use effectively without the user wearing a [[Powered Armor|Crash Tector suit]] - and even then, it has a steep learning curve.

* ''[[Andromeda]]'''s assault bots are armed with ''six'' Gauss Gatling guns, each firing guided rounds.

* Gabrielle's descendant used one in [[Xena: Warrior Princess|"The Xena Scrolls]].

* Used in an elimination challenge during Season 3 of ''[[Top Shot]]''; the goal was to cut through a group of telephone poles.

== Manhwa ==

== Music ==

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' loves these, from the "assault cannon" on Space Marine Terminators and Dreadnoughts, the Tau's [[Energy Weapon]] Burst Cannon, through the tank-shredding Vulcan Mega Bolter and Gatling Blaster, and right up to the Imperator Titan's Hellstorm cannon -- a Gatling [[Energy Weapon]] ''the size of a skyscraper''.

* Many mecha and vehicles in ''[[Rifts]]'' are adopting [[Rule of Cool|rotary railguns]] as antipersonnel weapons.

* The evil rat-like Skaven in ''[[Warhammer]] Fantasy Battle'', ever on the cutting edge of technological development, have gatling guns. Naturally, they're called ratling guns.

* ''[[GURPS]]'': Ultratech has gatling versions of just about everything which are at the low end of the high power weapons but have four times the rate of fire and about twice as many shots.

* [[Iron Kingdoms|Warmachine]] has two warjacks wielding gatling guns, both part of Cygnar's armies. The first is the [http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/warjacks/sentinel Sentinel], a light warjack sporting a gatling gun for its right arm and a shield on its left and second is its bigger brother, the [http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/warjacks/cyclone Cyclone] heavy warjack. Cygnar also have [http://privateerpress.com/warmachine/gallery/cygnar/units/trencher-chain-gun-crew chaingun teams among their ground troops.]

* Gatling guns exist in [[New Horizon]]. They're quite powerful, but extremely expensive.

== [[Video Games]] ==

** ''[[Return to Castle Wolfenstein]]'' has a Gatling-like gun, the Venom, that charges for a bit before opening fire. And if an enemy (except [[Demonic Spiders|the really strong ones]]) takes too many bullets, it explodes into [[Ludicrous Gibs]].

* ''[[Quake II]]'' features the "chaingun", a gatling gun which is one of few examples of this trope played straight in games. It has very high damage output and ''tremendous'' rate of fire, high enough to literally mince most enemies in a blink of an eye and deplete all player's bullets within few seconds of continuous firing.

* ''Outlaws'', the Wild West Themed FPS from the good old days of Lucasarts, had a gatling gun as a weapons. Due to it being mounted on a tripod, you had to be stationary to use it.

* ''[[Command and Conquer]]'' makes fair use of these. The [[First-Person Shooter]] ''Renegade'' had mini-Gatling armed foot soldier for both GDI and Nod, with a few more scattered here or there on various weapons. In ''Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge'' Gatlings became their own weapon, and fired a steady stream of bullets that sped up the longer the gun fired on a single target (or another nearby). These were later given to the Chinese in ''Generals''. One of the chinese subfactions in ''Zero Hour'' gives them to the standard infantry, making them incredibly powerful.

** ''Tiberium Wars'' continues the proud tradition of gatling weapons, now in the hands of the Forgotten mercenaries. GDI also had gatling weapons mounted on the Hammerhead gunship in the ''Kane's Wrath'' expansion.

* ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' occasionally features the absurd hand-held minigun.

* In ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'', one of the most powerful enemies is J.J, a huge guy with a belt-fed minigun, a later-stage counterpart to Dr. Salvador, the earlier "huge guy with a chainsaw." Lucky for you, it takes an obscene amount of time for him to spool up the barrels, fires it without much regard as to your location, and stops shooting as soon as a bullet connects with you. He also tends to appear in places with extremely convenient cover.

** In ''[[Resident Evil 5]]'', you can unlock a gatling gun for Chris once you fully upgrade the first machinegun. It comes with a huge vision-obscuring backpack and Chris can't move as fast while equipped with it, but after a brief moment to spin it up, he can give everything in his path a dose of hot lead, and the backpack is bulletproof.

* An alien "chaingun" appears in ''[[Perfect Dark]]''. It's got [[Chainsaw Good|sharp edges]] too.

* ''[[Cosmic Break]]'' has three well-known weapons: Large Gatling, Buster Gatling and a Bazooka Gatling.

* ''[[Universe At War]]'' has the minigun-wielding Colonel Moore as a hero.

* ''[[Makai Kingdom]]'' has gatling guns as equippable weapons.

* ''[[Serious Sam]]'' can use a <s>chaingun</s> rotary gun while running and not lose any accuracy. The Arachnoid enemies also have an [[Arm Cannon]] version. In [[Serious Sam]] II, one of the enemies carries a minigun too.

* One of the purchasable weapons in ''[[Army of Two]]'' is an M134 Minigun.

* The relatively obscure FPS games ''Mace Griffin: Bounty Hunter'' and ''[[Alpha Prime]]'' both feature assault rifles with 6 rotary barrels. This doesn't seem to be so much for practical functionality as it is for [[Rule of Cool]].

* ''[[Halo]]'' featured the Warthog, which was essentially a jeep with a gatling gun mounted on the back. In ''[[Halo 3]]'', the player could fire a stationary turret-version of the gun, and then [[Removable Turret Gun|rip]] ''that'' gun off its stand and carry it.

* In ''[[Call of Duty]] 4: [[Modern Warfare]]'', the player gets to use the 25mm GAU-12 Equalizer and a M134 Minigun in different stages. When you do, you can tell the developers were ''not'' scaling back the rate of fire. In-game cars take multiple bullets [[Made of Explodium|to blow up]]. This particular gat'ler accomplishes this goal nigh-instantly.

* ''[[Modern Warfare]] 2'' follows after Call of Duty 4 by giving you several instances where you can use a Minigun with incredible effectiveness. You can literally cut apart concrete monuments while taking out SAM sites; that's just how many bullets you're shooting with these things. Unlike the ''CoD4'' Gatlings, there's no heat buildup to account for, so you can literally fire the Minigun for as long as you're in control of it.

** It also appears from care packages in Multiplayer, but with about half as much ammo, preventing it from being a [[Game Breaker]].

** In most of the [[Nazi Zombies]] maps, there is a way to get the Death Machine. And it has [[Bottomless Magazines|infinite ammo]].

* The first ''[[X-COM]]'' game has the multi-barreled Autocannon, a decent early game heavy weapon.

* The titular tanks of the ''[[Metal Slug]]'' games use side-mounted gatling guns as their primary anti-infantry weapon. Many other vehicles in the series use similar weapons.

* In ''[[The Matrix]]'' game ''Path of Neo'', the player controls the helicopter's minigun for a level.

* ''[[Total Annihilation]]'''s [[Expansion Pack]], ''The Core Contingency'', added Gatling artillery emplacements to each side. They wiped out your power reserves in a matter of seconds, but could erase an enemy base even faster.

* In ''[[Rise of Legends]]'', the Vinci hero Lenora rides a flying machine with a massive Gatling gun mounted on the bottom. Of course, it's not nearly effective as it should be.

* Subverted in ''[[Escape Velocity]]'', where the mass driver, described as "the modern-day equivalent of the ancient gatling gun," has only an average rate of fire and its shots travel far slower than the standard [[Frickin' Laser Beams]], which also have the advantage of being primary weapons.

** ''[[Escape Velocity]]:Nova'''s chaingun follows the trope straight, however, with a fire rate (while firing, as it fires in bursts of 20) of 1800 rounds per minute (the maximum allowed by the game per gun). Additionally, it has a longer range and tends to deal more damage than medium-range blasters (and can out-damage the heavy blasters).

** ''Turok: Evolution'' took it to a more ridiculous level. Instead of being three or so spinning barrels, its three spinning groups of six barrels each (which also spin). And it mulches dinosaurs like nobody's business.

* Although the quad, tri-barrel mass drivers of the ''Vengeance''-class frigate in ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Empire At War]]: Forces of Corruption'' don't actually spin in-game, the layout of the barrels hints at them doing so, thus making them ship-mounted [[More Dakka|bullet spam]] cannons that ignore shields.

* Most of the levels in ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' has a mini gun that is bolted to the ground and is found only in crescendo events and finales (but none are present in Blood Harvest).

* ''[[Hitman]]'' 47 uses this to kill the 48 clones in the final level. In ''Contracts'', the gun is carried around by a mental patient

* The second ''[[Battle Tanx]]'' game introduced the Rattler, a small tank built around GAU-8 gatling cannon, giving it considerable punch for its size.

* The boss of the [[Wild West]] chapter in [[Live a Live]] (O.Dio) uses a Gatling gun. If he hits with it, it's pretty much an instant KO, though its limited firing arc makes it easy to avoid.

* ''[[Descent]]'' features a Gatling gun in the form of the Vulcan Cannon, and the sequel ups the ante somewhat with the Gauss Cannon, a Gatling shotgun which uses the same ammo as the Vulcan cannon, albeit dealing MUCH more damage per round. The third game combines the two into the Vauss Cannon.

* ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'''s Vulcan Fury [[More Dakka|and its upgrades]].

* ''[[Will Rock]]'' has the Machinegun, which is weak but can shoot up to 1000 bullets (its whole reserve) without reloading and later the Minigun, which is far stronger, but can shoot only 100 bullets per round and then must be reloaded.

* In ''[[House of the Dead]]'': Overkill, the main characters find some miniguns "just lying around" that are used to take on the final boss. After beating the Director's Cut mode, the same minigun can be purchased for use in regular play.

* ''[[Eve Online]]'': Several guns in the game are gatling guns. The largest of which shoots 220mm shells at rapid fire rates. There are also Gatling Pulse Lasers and 75mm Gatling Railguns.

* The ''[[Ghost Recon]]: Advanced Warfighter'' series has several rail shooter sequences where the player mans a Blackhawk mounted gatling gun. A few seconds of sustained fire is able to shred infantry and cut armored vehicles apart. However, unlike its real life counterpart, the gatling gun in the game is prone to overheating after continuous fire.

* In ''Warhammer 40,000: Soulstorm'', in the campaign, the Tau Commander's starting weapon is an energy gatling gun.

* The ''[[Star Trek Elite Force]]'' games feature a [[Beam Spam|Tetryon]] Gatling gun.

* The Vulcan Cannon in ''[[SaGa 2|SaGa 2 / Final Fantasy Legend II]]'' is one of these, although it did not reach its awesome Dakka potential until the DS remake, where we could finally see it in all its glory.

* Alisa Amiella in ''[[Gods Eater Burst]]'' wields the red gatling gun Raging Lore as the gun part of her Swiss Army Weapon. Later on, the player can create the very same gun, or a blue version, named Silent Cry.

* The [[Mini-Mecha|Elite Powered Armor]] from ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|FEAR 2]]'' and its successor the Enhanced Powered Armor from ''FEAR 3'' are equipped with infinite-ammo gatling guns capable of reducing most enemies to [[Ludicrous Gibs]]. The player must use caution when using them however, as holding down the trigger too long will cause the guns to overheat.

* In the ''[[Naval Ops]]'' series, gatling guns can be mounted to defend against enemy missiles and aircraft. Rather larger gatling cannon (up to 406mm) can be used as a battleship's main armament.

* [[Armored Core]] 5 has a melee-version of this. A giant weapon consisting of 6 chainsaws that can either be positioned adjacent to each other to rip stuff to pieces, or in a circular fashion resembling a gatling-gun. The weapon is simply named the "Grind Blade", and is, according to a customization-trailer revealed to be the strongest weapon in the game, being able to rip even the strongest enemy mecha to pieces with only a few hits. It's also one of the biggest, bulkiest and heaviest weapons, thus making it less ultimate. But it's still a pretty awesome weapon.

* ''[[X 3 Terran Conflict]]'' has the OTAS Venti starfighter. [[Unfortunate Names|Despite sounding like a coffee]], this is a seriously badass ship with twin wing-mounted gatling lasers.

* In ''[[Alpha Protocol]]'', if you hire Steven Heck to provide fire support for a mission in the Taipei subway, he mounts a miningun inside a subway car and performs a drive-by on the station platform where you're pinned down. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMAhGRVDCvM No, seriously.]

== Web Animation ==

== [[Web Comics]] ==

== [[Web Original]] ==

* In ''[[AH Dot Com the Series]]'', Dave Howery's Canada-Destroying Mechs have Gatling gun arms, and enemy captain Ward has also been known to use a Gatling version of the standard plasma rifles (purely for [[Rule of Cool]]).

* [[Global Guardians PBEM Universe|Global Guardians]] villain Caliber, a member of [[Hard Corps]], wears a suit of [[Powered Armor]] whose primary weapon is a huge minigun mounted on his right shoulder.

* [[FPS Russia]] has showcased a M134 Minigun in one of his videos. At the end he shows that while it's possible to fire it by hand it's still [[Awesome but Impractical]]

== Western Animation ==

** ''[[Transformers Cybertron|Cybertron]]'' Megatron's Death Machine Gun.

** ''[[Transformers Animated|Animated]]'' Swindle actually has such a "chaingun" ''[[Chest Blaster|in his chest]]''.

*** Likewise his brother Dreadwing.

* Both of the ''[[Clone Wars]]'' cartoons feature the Z6 rotary blaster cannon, a standard-issue ''laser'' gatling gun for the Clone Troopers. It's as awesome as it sounds.

* An ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' episode featured a search for a potato-based one of these, in the old hand-cranked version.