MG4

The MG4 is a light machine gun featured in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: Defiance.

Campaign
The MG4 is a rare weapon that only appears in the Task Force 141 campaign. It is seen being used by Shadow Company in "Just Like Old Times", and can be found and used in "The Only Easy Day... Was Yesterday", "The Gulag" and "Contingency". It has a lower rate of fire than its multiplayer counterpart and can only hold a maximum of 200 rounds spare. For these reasons, other weapons are usually better alternatives. It never appears with any attachments.

Multiplayer
The MG4 is unlocked at level 16, making it the third LMG available. It is a three shot kill with Stopping Power; a four shot kill without. It has a moderate rate of fire with low recoil. It has the lowest damage per second out of the light machine guns and its iron sights are slightly misaligned. The MG4 also still appears on the radar when equipped with a silencer and fired, a trait also seen on the M9 and M240. For these reasons, it is one of the least used and most underestimated light machine guns in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The MG4 can, however, be a very effective weapon. The low recoil means that it is effective when fired full auto even without the Grip. Without a grip, it is about as accurate as the M4A1. Otherwise, when used with a Grip, it is essentially a LMG version of the ACR, with no damage loss over range, larger magazines, a slightly higher rate of fire, and the slower handling of a LMG. Even with the ACOG, this weapon can be fired full auto with minimal loss of accuracy. These qualities mean the MG4 is outclassed at short and medium range. It excels at longer range battles, where accuracy regularly trumps power.

Since LMGs have no damage drop off with range, the MG4 will kill in as many bullets as one of the higher damage assault rifles (the SCAR-H or the TAR-21 for example, with or without Stopping Power) but it has lower recoil with a Grip, and has a higher rate of fire than both of those weapons. Conversely, because of the lack of damage drop off or increase, using a silencer - with or without Stopping Power, is extremely ill-advised, as it still takes either four or five shots to kill, meaning much like the M240, the player will be overwhelmed by all the SMGs, most Assault Rifles, or even other LMGs. Since it has almost as little recoil as the ACR, the MG4 actually can be much more useful at long range because of its higher damage at longer ranges and its slightly higher rate of fire, along with the 100 round capacity.

Unfortunately, the MG4's iron sights are slightly off, as the rear sight is lowered compared to front sight. Bullets will land at the top of the thicker part of the sight. This problem is easily solved through the use of any optic besides the iron sights. Most players consider Bling with Grip and a Red Dot Sight, Holographic Sight, or ACOG. The Thermal Scope can be surprisingly effective on certain maps such as Underpass, Estate, or Wasteland as the recoil is still quite controllable.

Many players may be bothered by its slow reload (as it is tied with the RPD as the slowest in the game) of 9.7 seconds, but there are a few options to mitigate it. Sleight of Hand is one of the obvious perks to counteract the slow reload, also the benefit from Sleight of Hand Pro decreases the time to aim down the sight. One Man Army is actually faster than reloading the MG4 with the added benefit of replenishing ammo and equipment. Using the Extended Mags attachment for the weapon is another solution; giving the MG4 all 200 rounds in one large magazine and thus no reload (unless more ammunition is picked up, or the player uses Scavenger Pro).

It is to be noted that when FMJ is equipped with the weapon, the title for the weapon reads "MG4 Explosive Rounds". This does not grant the weapon any extra damage, nor does it grant it any splash damage, FMJ with the MG4 is like FMJ on any other weapon, but the title is just different.

Weapon Attachments

 * Grip
 * Red Dot Sight
 * Silencer (Ineffective in Multiplayer)
 * ACOG Scope
 * FMJ (called Explosive Rounds during gameplay)
 * Holographic Sight
 * Heartbeat Sensor
 * Thermal Scope
 * Extended Mags

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized
The MG4 appears in Modern Warfare: Mobilized as one of the two LMGs in-game. The MG4 shares the same basic appearance as its Modern Warfare 2 counterpart, but the ammunition is stored in a box as opposed to a cloth bag. The MG4 has a higher rate of fire, as well as a higher damage per bullet. The MG4 is only used by the Insurgency in the levels Interception, Needle in a Haystack, To the Rig, Winter Assault, and Last Chance.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: Defiance
The MG4 returns in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3: Defiance. It has the same model and stats (except it now has recoil) of Mobilized, but when aiming down sights all the weapon turns into an M249 SAW strangely. In Gun Game, the MG4 is the eighteenth weapon tier.

Trivia

 * When a sight attachment is being used with the MG4, the reload is slightly different than an MG4 without the sight.
 * It appears to have sway, but this is actually just the idle animation. When shooting, it will always hit the center of the screen.
 * The MG4 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the first machine gun in the Call of Duty series that uses a cloth ammo pouch.
 * The MG4 has the same third-person firing sound as the M60E4 from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
 * An MG4 ammo pouch is seen in the weapons caches in S.S.D.D.
 * The MG4 without camouflage has a dirty finish.
 * When the MG4 is reloaded, the charging handle isn't moved at all.
 * At certain points in single player, the MG4 will have its iron sights zoomed in nearly twice as much as normal. This is not seen in Multiplayer.
 * The pick-up icon for the MG4 has a carrying handle and a Reflex Sight.
 * In Modern Warfare 2 the MG4 with FMJ is incorrectly labeled as MG4 Explosive Rounds on the pick up message.

MG4