Heavy Assault Rifle

"With high velocity rounds, the Heavy Assault Rifle is ideal for hitting fast-moving targets."

- Arsenal description

Heavy Assault Rifle is a weapon featured in Doom (2016).

Based on the description and characteristics, the Heavy Assault Rifle is more like a heavy machine gun than an assault rifle by early 21st century standards. It fires from a closed bolt, but is belt fed. Additionally, it is stated that it fires a .50 caliber round. Judging by the cartridge's appearance, it is roughly equivalent to the .50 BMG round, which has historically only been used for heavy machine guns and sniper/anti-material rifles. It's size and powered might explain why it has been supplemented by the Plasma Rifle. However, at least some UAC soldiers utilize a form of power armor, which might allow a single user to fire the high powered, high capacity gun as if it were an assault rifle.

Tactical analysis
The Heavy Assault Rifle is a very well rounded weapon that can be useful is virtually every situation, but is rarely the best weapon for any particular situation. It has a medium rate of fire, higher than that of semi-auto or pump action firearms, but lower than of the Plasma Rifle or Chaingun. Its rounds rounds are relatively low power, but they have the highest velocity, as well as good accuracy. However, the Heavy Assault Rifle suffers from crosshair bloom during sustained firing, meaning the longer the trigger is held down, the less accurate each shot becomes. This means the user much restrict him or herself to increasingly smaller bursts the farther away a target is.

Ammunition
The Heavy Assault Rifle shares its ammo pool with the Chaingun. The player can increase his max ammo cap by using Argent Cells and allocating its power to "Ammo" subsystem.

Multiplayer
The Heavy Assault Rifle can be unlocked in the multiplayer at level 2 (it's also available to use in level 1 by choosing "Ambusher" default loadout). The player spawns with 100 bullets (120 is the max ammo). The weapon features two fire modes:
 * Primary Fire - Fully automatic assault rifle with a digital scope.
 * Weapon Mod - Enables the digital scope for extended range combat (Hold the Weapon Mod button).

Trivia

 * The weapon appears to be a belt fed machine gun (possibly based on the M249 Light Machine Gun).
 * If no ammo is available, the Heavy Assault Rifle's belt-fed cartridge will be visually empty.