Originally posted by GrOuNd_ZeRo
Miniguns look great and dramatic in movies and games but they are highly impractical as an individual weapon in real life.

The main uses are for aircraft, the M61A1 and A2 'Vulcan' 20mm guns are primarilly used for air to air while more practical they are still only used as last resort or for strafe missions on ground targets.

The 30mm GAU-8 'Avenger' gun on the A-10 is quite famous for it being used in strafe missions with great effect and is one of the best applications of such.

Other practical uses are in weapon systems like the CIWS (Close-in Weapon System) on ships, essentially a M61 Vulcan designed to shoot down incoming missiles.

In the future rifles will likely be a variation of a railgun or gauss gun shooting at very high velocity to negate the advances in body armor (ala Masterchief).

Another reason for high-cyclic weapons being impartical for infantry use is the incredible rate they use up ammunition, supplies are always a challange and you can only carry so much, most rifles not uses as a supression weapon (like machineguns like the M240 or M249) fire primarilly in semi-automatic unless they are supressing the enemy, otherwise firing weapons in full-auto is a waste of ammo.

Even if a minigun firing at a 1000 RPM would be light enough to be used or even on a powered exo-skeleton it would be yet another waste of ammo with very little use and probably would increase collateral damage.

It would be more practical to shoot a grenade or a 25mm round in a building rather than ventilating it with a minigun.

Well! is this is different story if it against extranormal threats(other than Zombies of course)?

If using something like a exo-skeleton it is theoretically possible to acuritely shoot a mini-gun as long as it had certian options in the suit.
Making the feet longer than the wearer to improve stability
Making it only able to fire full burst in certain positions like dominant leg forward leaning into it
using a smaller round 22 or 22lr to reduce recoil
using a tracking system that adjust for movement
locking the skeleton when fireing

just a note special forces have deloyed with a manpack type minigun like predator. the problem was not the mini gun it was the weight of the ammo to be carried. 2500-3000 rounds weighs alot and would slow down a team/squad/platoon considerably. These guys do take serious notes of hollywood movies and try to deploy the outlandish ideas in combat. hell i remember when terminator salvation came out in iraq not more than 3 days from watching it we got a frago on sticky bombs(remember when the main character ran through the magnetic mine field). I laughed so hard i thought it was a joke but they were serious and we had to walk around vehicles to check for these magentic/sticky bombs before leaving compounds/towns/ entering fobs.

miniguns are not for front lines combat on the foot solider. now some real ideas would be
smart mortars/artillery guided by uav's to guarantee hits on targets
Smart heat seaking bullets that when fired locate the heat or heartbeat of a target and fine tune the hit.
adding non line of site capability to the tank its theoretically possible but not currently implemented eliminating the need to call up artillery for battalions that lack them but have tanks or the MGS.
adding a small lightweight but rugged gps system to every soldier and smart weapons that when targeted at blue forces prevents the ability to fire eliminating the fratricide problem. this could somehow be eventully implemented into personal soldier weapons m4/saw/240 etc...
laser range finders on all crew serve weapons on tripods or bipods increasing the chance of a first time hit.
Thermal imaging systems instead of night vision ive found its much better than night vision but currently impractical because of battery consumption
practical laser range finders that link to UAV/f16's/a10s navy ships. to give acurate fast target locations elimanating the time it takes to call in airstrikes etc..

How about Giving Miniguns Chainsaw grip for reducing recoil when used as Handheld Weapons for people like guys with powered Exskeleton?

Originally posted by masonicon
How about Giving Miniguns Chainsaw grip for reducing recoil when used as Handheld Weapons for people like guys with powered Exskeleton?

Honestly if you were going to have a large weapon like that mounted on a fairly large exo-skeleton I think you would be better off mounting the weapon to the exoskeleton to keep the arms free for a smaller weapons system or to perform other tasks. Personally I think if it is a large mech-suit the M242 Bushmaster 25mm cannon is an excellent choice it has insane power and great versatility with it's dual feed system allowing the gunner to remotely switch from armor piercing or high explosive rounds on the fly. It's three modes of fire also add to it's excellent versatility, the modes are semi-auto, low rate automatic roughly 100 (+/- 20%) rounds per minute, and high rate automatic roughly 200 RPM (+/- 20%) allowing to conserve ammo especially over Gatling type machine guns. The bushmaster is also extremely accurate and reliable.