Helicopter miniguns issues

I've noticed this a bit and was proven right again last night. How accurate are the miniguns on the AH-9? I can tell you....not very. I set up multiple gun runs on a platoon of infantry fully expending my 5000 rounds. I walked my rounds THROUGH the platoon who were both standing and prone. Kills = 0. I don't get it. Sure I know its difficult with two converging miniguns however when you get the hang of it, you can place rounds exactly where you want, however its ridiculous that you can't hit anything with this...especially given I'm firing approx 4000 rounds/minute directly at a platoon of infantry with light body armour. I did NOT miss.

Is there some variable that decreases the damage or increases the spread of rounds or something? Has anyone had better success than me?

OR are we able to outfit the AH-9 with just rockets instead? those things are deadly against inf and light skinned vehicles.

Miniguns aren't especially accurate weapons.

Manufacturer's documentation for the real M134 states that the weapon has dispersion characteristics such that 80% of rounds fired from a fixed mount will fall inside a dispersion angle of 6.5 mils. This equates to 80% of rounds falling within a 3 meter diameter circle at a range of 500 meters; which isn't very precise at all so far as mounted weapons go. Obviously a moving platform such as a helicopter will result in even greater dispersion - I once met the crew chief of a MH-53 Pavelow who joked that their miniguns were "accurate to about two feet".

Picking a single point to fire at from a reasonable distance and putting lots of rounds into that general area before breaking off seems to be more effective than walking fire in lanes as you fly directly over a target.

I find it easier to kill from farther back from the target.

it's a suppression weapon dude.... its like a LMG, Do you seriously expect every shot to hit when you hold the trigger? I sure as hell hope not. Now answer me this, if an AH-9 came screaming down on you with its miniguns going, what would you do? I sure as hell hope you run like the devil himself is trying to sodomize you with a stick made of magma.

guys, I agree with (most of) your comments however I fired almost point blank into a platoon of infantry....a PLATOON of infantry who (probably because some trigger hadn't been actioned) were just standing there stationary. I put 5000 rounds into that tiny area or probably 90% of those rounds...even if I was blind and half drunk and taking into account dispersion rates and stuff...I STILL SHOULD HAVE HIT SOMETHING. Diff if I just killed 2 out of 30 and complained...I got nil. Something definitely not right there.

I've watched minigun runs in Kiowas in Afghanistan and they're pretty powerful. Having them synchronised helps to reduce that dispersion however if I fire rounds into my synchronised point (be it say 300m ahead), I'm still placing say 500-800 rounds on that point. If said point is in the middle of a platoon of soldiers...i should hit something.

prove me wrong....fire up the editor, place a platoon of enemy inf at kamino firing range and do some gun runs using the AH-9. If you kill a couple, you won't hear from me again (a youtube video would be nice). Thats all I want..to see that its probably ME thats doing something wrong...not the game.

Well, regardless of the accuracy of the weapons, if you put 5000 rounds into an area, you should have hit something. This means that the problem is not the accuracy of the weapon. Therefore, we must conclude that you weren't able to aim at a target effectively, or the troops were resisting your hits.

As with other comments in the thread, I find it really hard to hit point targets from close in, and much easier to hit if I let go a long burst at an area target. In close, you have to aim for individuals. If you are not aiming at individuals, you are spraying and praying. Out farther, because of the beaten zone, you are able to be more effective shooting at area targets like whole squads.

Totally agree. I should have hit something. I'm not the best shot but hell....

Thats why I'm hoping someone can prove me wrong and that there's no bug or glitch or anything...just either my bad shooting or just plain 'thats how it is...dispersion rates, platform stability, moving targets, etc etc'. I love flying that little bird (yes even getting shot out of my cockpit lotsa times) so I'd like to know if I need to improve on my shooting, etc.

Well make a mission where you put a squad down and give them a far off waypoint to make them move, then try to shoot them. See if you can kill anything.

Do these weapons actually have dispersion now? I couldn't hit anything last time I used them because they were suddenly as accurate as if resting on concrete benches.

You weren't actually firing 4000rpm. The engine can't handle that many rounds at once. Instead there are less rounds with more damage.

In my game there is 0 dispersion on the miniguns, there used to be a lot in the alpha.

In a fairly empty scene, landed on the ground i fired 1500 rounds in a minute. So each minigun would be firing around 750rpm.

Just did a quick test, a rifleman can take 4-5 shots in the leg before dying, the same as the 6.5mm rifles.

So the ah-9 miniguns are too accurate, shoot far to slow and don't do enough damage.

ah so there is something there...understand re each inf taking 4-5 shots before dying however that seems a bit excessive doesn't it?

---------- Post added at 04:40 ---------- Previous post was at 04:35 ----------

Also, I'm assuming nobody knows anything about re-equipping the helicopters eg. the Little Bird with all rockets instead of 24 DAGRs and 2 almost useless miniguns??

The engine can only handle one shot per frame, afaik, so if you're doing 30 fps that's 1800 rpm.

I wonder why they chose to put a 6.8mm weapon on an aircraft. That seems a bit light to me.

This is the wiki on the M134 which is what the Kiowa uses (best example, I guess):

Cartridge 7.62×51mm NATO

Caliber 7.62 mm (0.308 in)

Action Electrically driven rotary breech

Rate of fire Variable, 2,000–6,000 rpm

Muzzle velocity 2,800 ft/sec (853 m/s)

Maximum range 3,280 ft (1,000 m, 1,093 yd)

Feed system Disintegrating cartridge belt or linkless feed; dependent on installation [500-5,000 round belt]

Sights Dependent on installation; no fixed sights

I think most of us are aware of the caliber of the real thing. In ArmA 2, the minigun would kill almost anyone with one shot, so mowing down a group of badguys was no real problem. The fictional Gatling guns on the fictional AH-9 use fictional 6.8mm caliber (I think) caseless ammunition. It's like half way between a minigun and a microgun, but caseless.

It's definitely not caseless, you can see cases being ejected.

It's listed as: 2x M134 Minigun 7.62 mm

If the engine can't handle more than one shot per frame then they should simulate more by adding splash damage, increasing hit damage and increasing the amount of ammunition used per shot.

They did that in ofp and it sucked that way too.

In the configs, the weapon uses 6.5x39mm ammunition, regardless of what the fluff text says. You can hear cartridge cases being ejected from the caseless rifles as well.

Ah, you're right. I see that the cased ammunition is a sub class of caseless.

personally I would prefer if they just gave the miniguns higher dispersion(since miniguns are mainly meant to saturate a targeted area with a ridiculous amount of fire) and up the damage to reflect what would be expected from the weapon system, if they keep it chambered for 7.62 nato that is. After all not much reason for nato to change the caliber of their aircraft armament to go along with what contemporary ground forces are using.

A AH-9 or a single mounted minigun in a chopper would cut infantry to pieces if they were in the open, in ArmA3 not so much and I did a heap of testing making my minigun video in the alpha.

Actually, they are VERY accurate (Obviously not as accurate as a sniper rifle... but for it being a minigun and used to just annihilate and suppress the hell out of targets). You just need practice and a rudder pedal. Once you get the side slip and funnel going over a target, you just need to counter the side slip with your rudder pedals (or flight stick with yaw movement which I am terrible at).

To make it easier to understand, use the X and C keys while shooting so you will be spraying left and right on the targets. I mentioned the X and C keys to give you the idea of what I am trying to say, if you use the keyboard for yaw you are going to have a bad time... Rudders and trackir makes flying night and day, for the better.

It is indeed not killing targets as it did in A2, its waaaay harder. I dunno if its missing targets or the damage is low but i don't like as it is, hope it will change later.

I think the accuracy is fairly good, it is the aircraft that's hard to pinpoint at target accurately for longer than 2 seconds as it picks up on speed too quickly.

The miniguns still feel weak though, probably due to sound feedback. They should feel little more ..nasty as their current sound is, IMO nothing like miniguns firing 2k rounds per min.

Also, I need to see some video reference but I imagine the bird would shake a little firing that many rounds?

You can use my Fire-Fight Improvement System to use the Pawnee's miniguns for suppression.

I believe the problem is the damage, not the accuracy of the weapon. I have had many instances where I witnessed enemy soldiers being hit multiple times without going down by the M134s on the AH-9, although I haven't tried this out for awhile (since maybe 10 dev builds ago). I would recommend just plopping down some OPFOR in the editor, give them some HOLD waypoints with "never fire" and "careless" parameters, and light them up with the M134s. If you feel its an issue, you could report it on the feedback tracker.

Problem is the arma2 ah6 minigun were using multiplier= 3; while arma3 ah9 is using multiplier= 1;

this basicly means that arma 2 ah6 minigun were more effective because of that , also ah6 had lowROF and highROF modes