AA-12

The AA-12 is a fully-automatic shotgun featured in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized.

Singleplayer
The AA-12 is an uncommon gun to see in singleplayer, and it appears in the campaign levels "S.S.D.D," "Contingency," "Loose Ends," and "Just Like Old Times." It also appears in the Special Ops missions O Cristo Redentor, Acceptable Losses, Estate Takedown, and Wetwork. It is also seen being used by Shadow Company soldiers. Its fire rate is far faster in singleplayer than multiplayer and can waste ammunition, which makes it a powerful, yet unreliable gun to use.

Multiplayer
The AA-12 is unlocked at Level 18.

The AA-12 is unique as it is fully automatic and utilizes a box magazine. It has an 8-shell magazine capacity, which is doubled when the Extended Magazines attachment is used, which balances the weapon's power and speed. The AA-12 empties its magazine far more quickly than it reloads, though this is slightly offset when Sleight of Hand or Extended Magazines are utilized.

Tactics
In multiplayer, the AA-12 has only one extra magazine, so use it sparingly unless the player has Scavenger Pro. It has moderate recoil unless firing full-auto (but recoil for shotguns is not much of an issue, as they are often hip-fired), and poor range, even when compared with other shotguns. This means that players using the weapon will have to get fairly close to enemies to use it effectively. However, within that range, it is extremely powerful and is a very useful weapon for clearing rooms, or areas full of enemies. While short range would be a major drawback for other shotguns, pump-action or even semi-automatic, it is not quite the case with the AA-12. Because of its ability to fire all eight shots in around 1-2 seconds, a target just within the hit range can be easily killed because of the multitude of shots being put out.

Using Extended Magazines will increase the capacity to 16 shells, allowing prolonged fire but the player will burn through ammo reserves. Using Extended Mags in conjunction with Scavenger and/or its Pro version (as otherwise, with Extended Mags, users spawn with no extra magazines) can make it a highly useful weapon, and has made some players use it as a "primary" weapon. Using a Silencer with this weapon makes it almost completely useless, as it shortens the range to roughly 5-10 feet (about the range of Commando), which means that the user must get incredibly close to enemies to actually be able to hit them, at which point a player would in most circumstances be better to just melee their opponent instead. It is also notable that with the Grip attachment, the AA-12's switch time is noticeably quicker than without the grip.

As with all other shotguns, it is highly recommended to hip fire the AA-12 (even without Steady Aim, which is actually sometimes a hindrance because precision for the AA12 is usually unnecessary), as the spray does the job, and the iron sights are very large, obstructing a lot of the player's view. Stopping Power is not particularly needed for Shotguns, however it makes each pellet do more damage and this can help conserve the very limited ammo by killing targets more rapidly, as well as making the AA-12 lethal over a greater distance where it would otherwise simply damage (but not kill) a target.

Many players frown upon the use of this weapon due to how devastating it is in close-quarters, and how most of the drawbacks of the gun can be fixed with Scavenger and Extended Mags. Many players consider it overpowered.

Weapon Attachments

 * Red Dot Sight
 * Heartbeat Sensor (Special Ops only)
 * Silencer
 * Grip
 * FMJ
 * Holographic Sight
 * Extended Magazines

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Mobilized
The AA-12 appears as one of the two shotguns available in Modern Warfare: Mobilized, the other being the SPAS-12. Though the AA-12 seems similar to the AA-12 in Modern Warfare 2, there are many differences between the two. First of all, the AA-12 is a frequent starting weapon in the later levels of campaign mode; is used in the U.S. Marine missions most frequently. It also comes with a 32-round drum magazine by default, much greater damage per shell, a greater one-shot kill range, near infinite pellet range, and a much lower and controllable rate of fire than the Modern Warfare 2 version.

Singleplayer
In single player, the AA-12 is a versatile weapon, having a near infinite range, high damage, and a large 32 shell drum magazine. The extremely high range allows the player to make a kill at any distance, though the pellets will spread apart as the distance between the player and the target increases, negating the one-shot kill effect and decreasing accuracy considerably. Combined with the high damage, large shell capacity and near infinite range, one can fire multiple shells to make a kill at long range if needed. As mentioned before, the AA-12 is found in the later levels of campaign mode as a starting weapon, more specifically, in the levels "Training", "Closing In", "To the Rig", and "Oil Rig Confrontation".

Multiplayer
In multiplayer, the AA-12 is the second weapon to be unlocked for the Coalition multiplayer faction, taking 150 kills with the Coalition faction to earn. Unlike the single player counter-part, the multiplayer is much weaker, needing at least 3 hits at close range to achieve a kill.

Trivia

 * The AA-12 has a different reload when the Heartbeat Sensor is equipped (only available in Special Ops); 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.
 * In the Spec Ops missions "Acceptable Losses" and "O Cristo Redentor", players can use the AA-12 with three different attachments, the Red Dot Sight, Silencer and a Heartbeat Sensor. This is impossible in multiplayer, as the player can only equip one attachment at a time (two with Bling Pro as a perk), and it is impossible to attach a Heartbeat Sensor to a shotgun. This may mean, that like SMG's, it was possible to attach Heartbeat Sensors to shotguns but was removed from multiplayer
 * In Modern Warfare 2, the AA-12 has the smallest magazine size of any fully-automatic weapon throughout the entire Call of Duty Series.
 * The AA-12 has the coding to be a Primary and equipped with camouflage. This is evidence that Shotguns were originally planned to be Primary weapons in Modern Warfare 2, but were changed to Secondary weapons for an unknown reason.
 * In Modern Warfare: Mobilized the AA-12 ejects pink shells. This happens also with the SPAS-12.