China Lake

The China Lake is a pump-action grenade launcher that appears in Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Campaign
The China Lake is first used in S.O.G. in a tunnel area near the part with the mortared out forest and is later used on a jeep while destroying tanks. It is also seen in the mission Crash Site when in the crashed plane fuselage, with Woods questioning why the Russians would be using American weapons, and in the first weapons cache in Numbers. The China Lake in singleplayer has a four round capacity, unlike in multiplayer and zombies where it only has two rounds.

Multiplayer
It is the last weapon for the Create-A-Class, unlocked at Level 48. The China Lake has a two round capacity, and is pump-action. The pumping action is very slow, thus lowering the rate of fire as compared to a pump action shotgun, so most people use switch-out strategies when using this weapon.

The China Lake also has very poor mobility, similar to a LMG. When the player hip-fires it, the sights will be brought up before firing, similar to that of the Thumper in MW2, as well all other launcher-class weapons in Black Ops. Because of these traits, the player has to make sure that the first grenade kills, as otherwise they will have to deal with the long pumping animation while moving too slowly to avoid the enemy. It should also be noted that in multiplayer, the player pumps the launches significantly slower than in singleplayer, probably for balancing issues.

Also, the player will have to lead the shot due to the gun's delay between pulling the trigger and it actually firing. A good tactic is to reload immediately after first shot, as it takes less time and can be reload-canceled unlike pump-action. When using Scavenger Pro the player will start with two extra grenades in reserve (note: like all launchers, grenades will not be scavenged when using the regular Scavenger). With this extra ammo, it is important to note that reloading the gun after each shot is actually faster than pumping it (especially when using Sleight of Hand Pro).

Using this technique significantly increases the China Lake's rate of fire. The China Lake does 155-25 damage with a 7.5M blast radius. It drops about 17 damage per every meter meaning the lethal blast radius is about 3M. It is rare to find this online due to the very high level the weapon is unlocked at and that the grenade launcher attachment basically does the same thing, yet does not take up the secondary, reloads slightly faster, has easier accessibility, and does not require (technically, players are unable to do this) the user to aim down the sights to use it. Unfortunately, the Grenade Launcher attachment is an underbarrel, so that gives the China Lake a slight advantage over it.

Zombies
When Pack-A-Punched this gun is called the "China Beach." The China Lake is on every Black Ops Zombies map. It is very effective for clearing out large waves but disorients the user after firing too close, due to shellshock. While this drawback can be fixed by using PhD Flopper, it is still considered inferior compared to the M72 Anarchy in terms of ammo, utility and damage. Overall it is a poor choice for close-quarters combat.

The China Beach holds five grenades and cycles faster (but not when aiming down sight), and reduces explosive shellshock to the player. The China Lake is also available as a power-up in Dead Ops Arcade. Here it seems to be automatic, but it is still pump action as the player can see the character model pumping the weapon before firing, but much faster. The China Lake only goes a small distance before exploding which allows zombies to get close if the player is not aiming in the right direction. The China Lake is effective when firing into large masses of zombies on lower waves.

Trivia

 * For the first 15 seconds of an online match, any grenades from a grenade launcher will never explode.
 * When out of ammo it switches faster than normal.
 * Reloading takes the same amount of time as pumping.
 * It is wise to switch to this weapon after spawning as it has to be pumped before use.
 * The China Beach pumps/reloads at the same speed as a China Lake with Sleight of Hand in multiplayer.
 * The China Lake is the only proper grenade launcher in Black Ops as the attachment is an underbarrel.