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The Armacham HV Hammerhead is a heavy flechette driver found in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.
Monolith Timeline
PDA listing
- Main article: Hammerhead
The Armacham HV Hammerhead is the successor to the HV Penetrator. Firing hardened 14mm depleted uranium spikes, the Hammerhead is devastatingly effective against armored targets. Its stability and high rate of fire are offset by its considerable weight.
Description
The Armacham High Velocity Hammerhead is a deadly weapon encountered in the mid-to-latter part of the game, essentially being the Heavy Armor's equivalent to a standard assault rifle. The Hammerhead is highly accurate and fitted with an optic reflex sight for longer-ranged fire, along with a side-mounted illuminated ammo counter visible when firing from the hip. The rate of fire is rapid enough to suppress all but the toughest targets and bring down any regular enemy in a short burst of fire. The HV Hammerhead retains the HV Penetrator's signature ability of pinning unfortunate targets to nearby surfaces, and the glowing flechettes remain visible for a while after being fired.
Most of the Hammerhead's power comes from a formidable ability to penetrate armor, dealing over twice the effective damage per shot of the Patten PK470 Assault Rifle to a Replica Heavy Armor, due to its large projectile that has more punch despite slower than normal bullets. With Slow-Mo, the Hammerhead can even be used against stronger foes like REV6 Powered Armors and Replica Assassins. The weapon is not recommended against targets with no armor, such as Abominations and Remnants, and in those instances is comparable in power to the pistol or assault rifle. However, due to its base damage, its still very devastating to weak and unarmored foes, and Remnants are probably the only example capable of surviving the entire magazine from the Hammerhead, while others will die in few shots. On higher difficulty, the Hammerhead is a very important weapon, as the tough enemies can take lots of rounds from the assault rifle before going down; when used correctly, the Hammerhead will take them out quickly. At the same time, keeping the player from taking lethal damage.
Ammo is fairly common in the latter part of the game, though not to the extent that the HV Hammerhead could become the player's primary weapon; there's usually plenty available if the player is about to be faced with a tough foe or a protracted firefight, however. If used carefully, the Hammerhead can replace the assault rifle, a tactic that will give the player the edge in Hard difficulty. The HV Hammerhead is first encountered in Interval 05 - Nurses's Office, when Michael Becket finds two in the hands of a pair of Replica Heavy Armors in the schoolyard. As with the Raab KM50 Sniper Rifle, when used against Becket, the HV Hammerhead deals damage to both his armor and health rather than depleting his armor first, making it especially deadly in enemy hands.
Achievement / Trophy
Pin 10 enemies to walls using the Hammerhead to get the Achievement / Trophy "Stick Around." The Achievement is worth 15 Gamerscore points.
Trivia
- According to the intel report, Hammerhead is manufactured by HV industries, a division of Armacham Technology Corporation.
- HV stands for "High Velocity," however, the projectiles fired by the Hammerhead travel noticeably slower than those fired by its predecessor, the HV Penetrator.
- While the weapon's power is far too great for this to be entirely plausible, the Hammerhead appears to be a pneumatic rifle, accelerating its projectiles with a compressed, inert gas, rather than gunpowder. The upper section of the stock appears to house a large gas canister, and gas escapes from a vent near the weapon's muzzle during the reload animation. (It may be intended to be a light gas gun)
- Fired flechettes have glowing bands on them; however, depleted uranium does not glow (very few radioactive compounds do[1]) and in fact looks very similar to steel.
- "Successor" is an odd choice of term, considering that the setting of F.E.A.R. 2 means both the Hammerhead and HV Penetrator were deployed among Replica forces at the same time. The original Penetrator may have been in the process of being phased out, or the Hammerhead may have been undergoing field trials prior to widespread adoption.
- The Hammerhead is more effective than its original game counterpart, however it is harder to find in game compared to HV Penetrator.
- Both the HV Penetrator and Hammerhead are based very loosely on the flechette weapons developed by the SPIW Project. Unlike their F.E.A.R. counterparts, these weapons proved startlingly inaccurate, with the lightweight darts able to be deflected by objects as insubstantial as raindrops.
- The projectiles depicted in the game, if they are made entirely depleted uranium and are not hollow, would have a mass of approximately 600g (0.27 lb). A loaded magazine for the weapon would therefore weigh at least 15 kg (33 lb) and the weapon's recoil would be on the order of fifteen times greater than an assault rifle.
- The Achievement name is most likely a reference to the 1987 movie Predator, in the scene where the protagonist, Major "Dutch" Schaefer, throws a large bowie knife, pinning a man to a beam while telling him to "stick around."
- When dropped by an enemy or the player, the ammo readout on the weapon is always "09," no matter how long they had been firing it.