I've thought it since Fallout NV, but a shoulder-mounted MG is a bad fuckin idea.
Lemme put on my imagination cap.
This particular gun may not be the best, but the concept of a shoulder-mounted squad weapon could probably be made to work in real life. First obvious problem I see with this would be the heat. Her face is just inches away from those heat fins; that's a big no. You wouldn't want to have a running belt-fed mechanism possibly whipping you in the shoulder if you accidentally slouch either.
The biggest problem I see is recoil. The main benefit of a shoulder weapon is being able to hold the weapon up with your back, and thus carry more. That benefit is lost if you have to deliver continuous fire and take a lot of recoil. I'd imagine even a healthy soldier would be completely spent in seconds trying to hold down a big machine gun like that when it's firing, if not injured outright.
I wonder if a front-heavy gun handles recoil better than a rear-heavy or bullpup style gun. My guess is it would probably be better if the weapon's center of mass was somewhere between the shoulder and the arm/trigger, rather than putting the entire weight on the shoulder and back.
You wouldn't want to have a running belt-fed mechanism possibly whipping you in the shoulder if you accidentally slouch either.
now that you mention it, it looks like the rounds belt is between her and the gun, that means there's a gap between her body and the gun. If that's the case that means either she has some kind of shoulder support attached to the gun or she's putting the entire weight on her arms. If it's the latter, she got an arm strength of SheHulk
The biggest problem I see is recoil. The main benefit of a shoulder weapon is being able to hold the weapon up with your back, and thus carry more. That benefit is lost if you have to deliver continuous fire and take a lot of recoil. I'd imagine even a healthy soldier would be completely spent in seconds trying to hold down a big machine gun like that when it's firing, if not injured outright.
I thought the main advantage of shoulder mounted weapons was that the ass-end of the thing could be open so you could make it "recoilless".
I'm guessing there's no tag for Russell S. Robinson's Model 14, eh?
Might as well.
"The gun shown is Russell S. Robinson's Model 14 over the shoulder fired HMG. This weapon was designed in Australia as a proof of concept for the Robinson's idea for a HMG that was shorter, lighter, and had much less recoil than the standard AN/M2 these gun proof-of-concepts were known as the Constant Reaction Gun."
I thought the main advantage of shoulder mounted weapons was that the ass-end of the thing could be open so you could make it "recoilless".
That too in general, but I'm not sure that applies. Correct me if I'm wrong because this is just a guess, but I thought you could only make a weapon have a recoilless barrel if the ammunition was caseless or otherwise self-disposing; things like rockets, personal artillery, or grenade launchers. I don't think you can make a recoilless machine gun because you need a lot of return energy from recoil to cycle rounds.
That too in general, but I'm not sure that applies. Correct me if I'm wrong because this is just a guess, but I thought you could only make a weapon have a recoilless barrel if the ammunition was caseless or otherwise self-disposing; things like rockets, personal artillery, or grenade launchers. I don't think you can make a recoilless machine gun because you need a lot of return energy from recoil to cycle rounds.
Exactly, thats why this is a dumb idea since so many parts of the design just don't work upon further analysis.
