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RedSonGamble t1_j61bi99 wrote

Reply to comment by Landlubber77 in TIL that World War II Spitfires only had about 20 seconds of 'gun time' before running out of ammo, making most movie depictions wildly inaccurate by TimmyIsBaller

Why don’t they just not fire so many bullets that fast

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yasunadiver t1_j61m86o wrote

You may only get a brief chance to actually get a good shot on an adversary and basically the more rounds you can put downrange in that fleeting moment the better odds you have of hitting.

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Landlubber77 t1_j61c8sh wrote

I don't know, maybe it has something to do with the tracer rounds which help show where they're firing. Like it has to be that rate of fire to accurately show where the rounds are going? Or maybe something to do with the mechanism and having to fire that fast to have enough force to withstand the fact that the thing firing the rounds is traveling 1500 miles per hour, as is the thing it's firing at? It's also important to keep in mind I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about.

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nuxi t1_j61h1m1 wrote

Slower rate of fire puts more space between each bullet which results in a gap that the enemy aircraft can safely pass through. The goal is to basically make a box of bullets in front of the enemy plane that is tight enough that the enemy plane has to hit one and large enough that the enemy plane can't avoid passing through it. Decisions like rate of fire are an attempt to balance these factors.

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nuxi t1_j61jc0w wrote

If it helps to imagine it, think back to this scene from Captain America: Civil War. The impacts keep ending up all around our hero but never actually hitting him. Each time he passes across the minigun's line of fire, there is no bullet because of how slow the rate of fire is. Far, far slower than a real minigun fires.

Compare that to The Matrix where the minigun is depicted as firing so rapidly that not even an Agent can dodge it. This is a much more realistic depiction of the firing speed. (Althugh the rate of fire depicted varies considerably within the clip)

Bonus: In the Captain America clip you can see the minigun spin up to a speed much faster than it is actually depicted as firing.

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whiffitgood t1_j62n98q wrote

wow, I haven't watched any marvel movies in a while. that was really shitty

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