AA-12

The AA-12 (Atchisson Auto Assault-12) is a select fire shotgun considered to be the first shotgun directly designed for military and law enforcement use. It fires at 350 RPM (400 RPM ingame), and accepts an 8 round detachable box magazine, a 20 or 32 round drum. It is also capable of firing explosive FRAG-12 ammunition. Its biggest rival is the versatile, and extremely popular Russian Saiga 12KS-K select fire shotgun. The AA-12 is unlocked at level 18 in Modern Warfare 2's Multiplayer.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
The AA-12 is a unique shotgun as it is fully automatic. It has an 8-round magazine capacity, which is doubled when Extended Magazines is attached, which balances the weapon's power and speed, but may have a capacity of 70 extra shells. The AA-12 empties its magazine far more quickly (650 RPM singleplayer) than it reloads as the magazine needs to fit onto the magazine support, and then slide up into the magazine well, though this is slightly offset when the Sleight of Hand Perk is utilized. Since it uses magazines rather than individual shells, it is the fastest empty loading shotgun in the game.

In multiplayer, the AA-12 has only one extra magazine, so it is advised to use it sparingly, unless Scavenger is used. It has moderate recoil unless firing full-auto, and very poor range, even when compared with other shotguns. This means players using the weapon will have to get fairly close to enemies to use it effectively. However this trait makes it a highly useful weapon for clearing rooms, or areas full of enemies. Using Extended Mags will increase the capacity to 16 shells, allowing prolonged fire. Using Extended Mags (With this attachment, there will be no extra mags, unless using Scavenger) combined with Scavenger it can make it a highly useful weapon, and has made some players use it as a "primary" weapon. Many players avoid this weapon due to its bad range, but a recent update makes it seem to have the same range of the Armsel Striker shotgun. Using a suppressor with this weapon is almost completely useless, as it shortens the range to roughly 5-10 yards, which means getting incredibly close to enemies to actually be able to hit them. The AA-12 is very effective on sabotage or demolition matches as it can clear out a room with ease due to its rate of fire.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized
In game, the AA-12 is used in the U.S. Marine missions, and can be found in the weapons room in the mission Training. It comes with a 32-round drum magazine by default, more damage and slightly slower automatic fire than the console and PC version. It is the second to last weapon to be unlocked for the USMC/SAS multiplayer faction.

Trivia

 * The AA-12 fires faster, has much more range, and lower recoil in singleplayer than in multiplayer.


 * The AA-12 has a different reload when the Heartbeat Sensor is equipped (only available in single player); the empty magazine will actually be thrown away when reloading, instead of disappearing off-screen as is the case with other attachments. The Heartbeat Sensor is also very visible even when aiming down the sight, a characteristic that is shared with multiple weapons including the TAR-21 and the L86 LSW.


 * The AA-12 in singleplayer fires at about 2 times the fire rate as its real life counterpart. In game, it fires at 550-650 RPM, and in reality, close to 300 RPM. In multiplayer the fire rate is much more realistic, but the range in Singleplayer is closer to the real-life weapon.


 * The AA-12's extended magazine attachment in-game doubles its ammo capacity to 16 shells. Strangely, as with most "extended mags", there has been no record of a 16 shell magazine ever made for the AA-12, although 20 and 32 shell drum magazines do exist in real life. It's unknown why Infinity Ward didn't decide to have the 20 shell drum magazine as an extended magazine, but it is possibly for balance reasons, or for the fact that normally only 16 shells are carried to begin with, meaning that a 20 shell magazine would start with four missing shells.


 * In real life, the AA-12, as well as many other shotguns, is capable of firing 12 gauge but there is also the specially designed FRAG-12 round which explodes on impact.


 * In Modern Warfare: Mobilized, the AA-12 has a Drum magazine. In the console version, it is not possible to equip the AA-12 with a drum magazine.


 * In the Spec Ops mission, Acceptable Losses, you start off with the AA-12 with three different attachments, the Red Dot Sight, Silencer and a Heartbeat Sensor. This cannot be achieved in multiplayer.


 * The AA-12 Shotgun is the only weapon of its type that requires the player to pull a charging handle during an empty reload.
 * The AA-12 with FMJ is perfect for spraying through bomb plant sights to kill a bomb planter/defender.

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