AvP: M41A Pulse Rifle

**Name**: M41A Pulse Rifle
**Model**: Armat Battlefield Systems M41A Pulse Rifle
**Type**: Assault rifle w/under-barrel pump action grenade launcher
**Scale**: Character
**Skill**: Firearms
**Ammo**: 99-round detachable box magazine (10×24mm Caseless ammo)
**Weight**: 3.2 kg empty; 4.9 kg loaded
**Fire Modes**: Fully automatic & Four-round burst & Semiautomatic
**Range**: 1-120/300/600 meters
**Damage**: 5D

**Special**

* Underbarrel Mounted U1 Grenade Launcher

**Description**: Lightweight and rugged, the M41A is constructed largely from ultra-light alloy precision metal stampings, with a titanium aluminide alloy outer casing and high-impact, temperature resistant plastics for many of its internal parts. The M41A is fully sealed against corrosion, dirt and moisture and its electronics are hardened against TREE and background radiation, making it perfectly usable even in a vacuum. By itself the rifle weighs only 3.2 kg, although this increases to 4.9 kg when including the sling and fully-loaded magazine, and is built around a 24.7 cm long barrel.

The M41A uses an electronic pulse action to fire, controlled directly from the trigger and powered by a battery located in the carry handle. The internal mechanism, including the rotating breech, is mounted on free-floating rails within a carbon-fiber jacket and the entire assembly is recoil dampened to reduce the effects of muzzle climb during burst and fully-automatic fire. Even so, the weapon's recoil is fairly significant. A thumb selector allows the firer to switch between selective, four-round burst or fully automatic firing modes. A manual charging handle on the right hand side of the receiver allows the user to check for rounds in the chamber or clear the breech in the event of a stoppage. The standard M41A ammunition magazine stores 99 rounds in a 'U' bend conveyor. Rounds are fed mechanically into the weapon's rotating breech. While the magazine weighs 1.5 kg when fully loaded, standard practice is to only fill it to 95% capacity (95 rounds) to prevent jamming.

The M41A generally mounts the underbarrel U1 Grenade Launcher, comprising a barrel, breech and four-round internal magazine, fired using a trigger just in front of the rifle magazine, the housing for which doubles as a grip during grenade firing. While this launcher was integral to initial versions of the rifle, later models (specifically the M41A MK2) featured a modular system that allowed the launcher to be swapped out for a different unit at the user's discretion. Grenades must be hand-loaded into the launcher's four-round magazine, which are then loaded into the breech and primed to fire from a pump action.

Sighting is made down a groove in the top of the carrying handle, with an adjustable tangent leaf backsight in the rear aperture. The rifle can also be fitted with a 3x power AN/RVS-52 CCD television sight to allow for accuracy at range and under low light conditions. A spring-loaded extendible stock allows the gun to be used in either a carbine or rifle format while an LCD ammunition counter display just below the receiver informs the user of the remaining ammunition supply at a glance. This display can be dimmed for night operations, although it is not uncommon for cautious Marines to cover it entirely with electrical tape, as enemy snipers have been known to zero in on its glow. The carrying handle also contains the gun's Lithium battery; providing power for motor mechanism it is good for 10,000 rounds before requiring recharge from a rifle rack or portable power pack.

**Variants**

* **M41AE2 Heavy Pulse Rifle**: Undergoing trial runs with select rifle and recon platoons, the M41AE2 is essentially a standard M41A with the grenade launcher removed and replaced with an 8cm longer, removable barrel, an elongated barrel shroud and a folding bipod. The E2 is intended to function as a light support weapon, providing greater rates of sustain fire at longer ranges, feeding from an 'L' bend 300-round ammunition capacity.
* **M41A Pulse Rifle MK2**: The third series of Pulse Rifles and an immediate successor to the M41A. Notably issued to the Marines aboard the USS Sephora. It is slightly smaller than its predecessor, with a corresponding reduced magazine capacity of 40 rounds, but offers up far greater modular and customization options, including various optics, underbarrel attachments, and an extended 60-round magazine.
* **M41A/2 Pulse Rifle**: The fourth series of Pulse Rifles, issued to Marines during the incident on BG-386. This version features minor alterations such as new front and rear iron sights to make aiming easier without the use of an auto aiming assist.
Problems concerning the weapon's grenade launcher were finalized. The grenades, while doing significant damage to targets on impact, often killing them in a single hit, now have a "shockwave" effect that stuns nearby targets close to its blast radius rather than doing standard fragmentation damage. While injury at very close range is still high, the survivability of a grenade fired in close quarters is significantly better than what could be expected with earlier models.
This version also fires stronger armor-piercing rounds capable of penetrating the armor of a Praetorian, though a large number of rounds are still needed to kill such a creature thanks to its high endurance
* **M41E**: The M41E is a successor series to the M41A during the Xenomorph invasion of Earth. This updated version has an effective range of about five hundred meters, although the underslung 30mm grenade launcher cannot fire accurately beyond one hundred meters. Marines are known to hate the range on the launcher, saying the "sights are for shit". At close range the weapon can deal serious damage to any target with anything below class VII spidersilk armor.
It has a weight of 4.8 kilos, making it a lighter and more compact version of its predecessor, as noted by users of older models when handling the M41E. It has different ammunition capacities when using different types of 10mm rounds: one hundred rounds with both the armor-piercing and anti-personnel, or seventy-five rainbow tracer rounds.

**Source**

* Xenopedia: M41A Pulse Rifle
* Aliens: Game Over v0.8 (page 29)
* thedemonapostle