The M134 in reality.
The M134 "Minigun" is a 7.62mm NATO, multi-barrel rotary machine gun with a high rate of fire (up to 6,000 rounds per minute), employing Gatling-style rotating barrels with an external power source. In popular culture, the term "minigun" has come to refer to any externally-powered Gatling gun of rifle caliber, though the term is sometimes used to refer to guns of similar rates of fire and configuration, regardless of power source and caliber. Specifically, minigun refers to a single weapon, originally produced by General Electric. The "mini" of the name is in comparison to designs that use a similar firing mechanism but larger shells, such as General Electric's earlier 20mm M61 Vulcan Gatling Cannon. The M134 is found on many American aircraft, including the UH-60 Black Hawk.
Battlefield 2
The M134 Minigun appears in Battlefield 2 aboard the UH-60 Black Hawk. It has an extremely fast rate of fire, making it a very suitable weapon to neutralize groups of infantry as well as other soft targets such as other aircraft and light vehicles. However, it must be spun up before it can fire at its fullest potential. Because of this, it is recommended to keep the M134 spooled up at all times. This can be performed by pressing the fire button (MOUSE1 or Spacebar on default controls) in rapid succession.
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Battlefield: Bad Company
The Minigun is mounted on the Russian Mark V patrol boat Bad Company uses to travel through the Caspian Sea. It is never available to the player and is only manned by Haggard for that brief moment. It is also mounted on both sides of the UH-60 Blackhawk seen in the beginning of Par for the Course.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
This weapon makes an appearance in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 aboard the UH-60 Black Hawk. It has an extremely high rate of fire and surprisingly good accuracy, however, it is far easier to shoot someone when out of zoom to account for the movement of the helicopter. Also, the miniguns are capable of destroying every destructible piece of cover in the game, allowing the use of Destruction 2.0 with relative ease. Surprisingly these miniguns can damage and even destroy light tanks like the BMD-3 or Bradley.
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Battlefield Play4Free
The M134 returns in Battlefield Play4Free as the weapon system for seats two and three on-board the UH-60 Black Hawk. It fires 1200 rounds per minute and holds 200 rounds. It takes eight seconds to reload. It is also the primary weapon on the AH-6 Little Bird, in a fixed forward-firing mounting operated by the pilot.
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Battlefield 3
The M134 Minigun returns to make an appearance in Battlefield 3. It is seen in Kaffarov mounted on his personal KA-60 Kasatka. It is usable in multiplayer , the weapon is mounted on the UH-1Y Venom and Ka-60 Kasatka. It does not need to be spun up to fire and is a good weapon to use against infantry, but it can overheat if fired too long. It fires 2000 rounds per minute and causes moderate damage to other helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.
The M134 mounted on the UH-1Y Venom
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Trivia
- In the features list on EA's Battlefield: Bad Company 2 homepage, the miniguns mounted to the UH-60 Black Hawk are referred to as 'railguns' which is extremely inaccurate and misleading.
- If a player gently squeezes the RT Trigger on Xbox 360, or lightly taps the R1 button every 2 seconds on Playstation 3, the gun will 'spool up' and begin firing but the gun itself will spin very slowly. This has no effect on the gun's capabilities.