| This article is about the carbine wielded by The Boss. You may be looking for the Patriots, the secretive organization that controlled the United States. |
The Patriot was a carbine made specially for The Boss, who used it during the Cold War. After she was defeated by her protégé in combat, The Boss gave the Patriot to her successor, Big Boss.
Information[]
The Patriot was a modified version of the XM16E1, with a shortened barrel and the stock removed. It was designed in order to create a carbine that combined the feel and quick handling of a handgun with the force of a rifle. The relatively light weight meant that the Patriot recoiled heavily, and was notoriously difficult to aim. The fact that The Boss used it one-handed was a testament to her skill.
The Patriot used 5.56x45mm ammunition and was fitted with a hundred-round drum magazine, with the internal feed mechanism shaped like an infinity symbol (∞). The bullets didn't fly stably through the air; they flipped and twisted upon leaving the barrel. The sound of the bullets doing so was said to resemble a threatened rattlesnake, and that no one who heard the sound would live to tell the tale.
Use by The Boss[]
During Operation Snake Eater, The Boss used the Patriot to destroy Naked Snake's drone aircraft in Dremuchij, Tselinoyarsk, drawing the attention of GRU Spetznaz soldiers in an attempt to drive Snake away. Later, she used the Patriot to battle Snake at Rokovoj Bereg, making frontal attacks against her impossible and forcing Snake to attack her blindside.
Use by Big Boss[]
Naked Snake reluctantly prepares to fire the Patriot at its former owner.
Following her defeat, The Boss handed the rifle to Snake, which he subsequently used to end her life, at her request. The Patriot was the only weapon that Snake brought back home to the United States, due to his equipment being disposed of by Ocelot during Snake's escape from Tselinoyarsk. Rewarded with the title of Big Boss for defeating his former mentor, he later laid the Patriot upon The Boss's grave in respect.
Fifty years later, following the Guns of the Patriots Incident, Big Boss confronted Solid Snake with the Patriot at the same cemetery housing The Boss's grave. Holding the rifle in one hand, Big Boss initially brought the rifle to bear on his former subordinate and enemy, before dropping it to the ground.
Behind the scenes[]
The Patriot first appears in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. By completing the game it can be unlocked for use by the player in subsequent playthroughs. The Patriot returns as an unlockable weapon in subsequent games.
| Game | Patriot weapon description | Wt. | Icon |
|---|---|---|---|
| MGS3 | An assault pistol developed for The Boss. Uses 5.56mm x 45 ammunition. The feeder mechanism inside the drum magazine forms an "∞" shape. | 1.5kg | 
|
| MGS4 | A hand rifle, and the primary weapon The Boss used against Snake when he was dispatched to assassinate her. | ||
| PW | The assault pistol that The Boss, the Mother of Special Forces and mentor of Naked Snake, carried with her into her final battle. It is essentially a truncated M16 that has been fully revamped with custom parts. Because the Patriot fires rifle rounds from a pistol-sized frame, it is extremely difficult to control, bucking like a wild bronco in the user's hand. It never runs out of bullets - perhaps, as some say, because The Boss left a piece of herself inside it. | 2.5kg |
Design and presentation[]
The Patriot may be visually inspired by a somewhat obscure M16 variant called the M231 Firing Port Weapon, a weapon first produced in the 1980s and designed to be fitted to the hull gun ports of early Bradley IFVs. However, because of important mechanical differences between The Patriot and the M231, it is likely a modified XM16E1. These differences include The Patriot firing from a closed-bolt as opposed to the M231's open-bolt design, the presence of a forward-assist, a much shorter barrel fitted with a unique muzzle brake, and use of a modern "Beta C-Mag" 100-round drum magazine. While an M16/M4 may appear to have a stock while The Patriot doesn't, the stocks on AR platform rifles are usually auxiliary pieces, superficially attached to a buffer tube, which is itself integral to the firearm's upper receiver. Therefore, an M16/M4 carbine could be "turned into" The Patriot by removing the stock, replacing the buffer tube with a pistol buffer tube, replacing the barrel with a shorter, likely 7.5" barrel, and using a Beta C-Mag drum magazine.
The Patriot's tumbling bullets.
Bullets fired from The Patriot are seen tumbling erratically, end-over-end after exiting the barrel. In the director's commentary for the game, Hideo Kojima states that the tumbling effect is the result of its short barrel.[1] Naturally, bullets fired from an unmodified XM16E1 remain stable throughout their flight. The rifling on the inside of the barrel imparts spin onto the bullet as it moves through the barrel, greatly improving its aerodynamic stability and thus accuracy. The same principle is at work when one throws an American football, spinning it before launch. Every M16 barrel of a given length has an ideal "twist rate", that is, the distance it takes for the rifling to complete a full rotation, and thus rate at which it spins the bullet. Shorter barrels require much higher twist rates so that the bullet has sufficient spin for stable flight by the time it leaves the barrel, while longer barrels generally have lower twist rates, given that the bullet is in contact with it for a greater period of time. Thus, Kojima's statement holds true to real life: if you cut down a 20" XM16E1 barrel to 7.5", the lower twist rate could not sufficiently impart spin onto the bullet by the time it leaves the barrel, and it would tumble in flight.
This "tumbling" hugely reduces accuracy at any range, and all but eliminates any penetration capabilities of the bullet. The tumbling also causes the bullets to impart unique, "key-hole" shaped wounds on impact. Because the bullet is tumbling, its surface area can be greater at the moment of impact, which equates to less penetration but results in more immediate delivery of kinetic energy. Put simply, the energy of the bullet is "punching" or ripping the flesh apart rather than cleanly piercing it. It is also worth noting that, due to the much shorter barrel, the bullets would travel about 33% slower than they would from a 20" barrel, somewhat diminishing the lethality despite the "hollow-point-like" effects it would gain.
A major caveat when using a weapon like The Patriot (in a real-world scenario) is that the tumbling effect virtually eliminates the bullet's chances of penetrating even soft body armor. When dealing with body armor, a bullet requires good penetrative capabilities, which can be inversely correlated to lethality. To penetrate armor, great speed and a small surface area at the point of impact, in effect a "sharper" bullet is required. For example, it would be far easier to penetrate a kevlar vest with a needle than with a pen. The problem being that, while the needle easily penetrates the vest and target, it is far less likely to hit and/or sufficiently damage a vital organ than a pen, could the pen penetrate the vest at all. For this reason, when dealing with soft, lesser-armored targets, armor penetrating rounds can offer a disadvantage. With all of that being considered, The Boss's deadly accuracy and likely propensity to aim for the relatively unarmored heads of her opponents surely made this unconventional weapon extremely effective in her hands.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater[]
When Naked Snake receives The Boss's weapon in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, he identifies it as "a Patriot", implying that there may be more than one in existence. On the other hand, Sigint mentions in a radio call that the Patriot is "one-of-a-kind." A footnote for the codec call in the Master Collection, in regards to the infinity shaped feed, implied that the bit was a subtle reference to the Infinity Bandana.[2]
After completing the game and beginning a new playthrough on the same difficulty, the Patriot will appear in Snake's backpack. Calling Sigint with the weapon equipped prompts him to ask where Snake got it (since The Boss is still alive and using the Patriot), with Snake responding that he shouldn't worry about "the details." In-game, the Patriot has infinite ammo and never needs to be reloaded, which, according to Snake, is due to the shape of the internal feed mechanism (∞).
The Patriot handles very similarly to the XM16E1; however, it is lighter, slightly noise-suppressed, demands less stamina, has infinite ammo, and the front sight and fire selectors have been removed. The Patriot can only be fired on full-automatic mode. While the Patriot does indeed have noticeable recoil, it is strangely lighter than the XM16E1's, the AK-47's, and even the Scorpion's. This is probably because the Beta C-Mag weighs it down. The already-light recoil can be controlled by crouching or going prone.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots[]
Big Boss holding the Patriot for the final time.
The Patriot can be unlocked for use by Old Snake in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots after earning the Big Boss Emblem, then saving the endgame data ("Epilogue: The End"); the weapon will be available in subsequent playthroughs using the corresponding save file. It can also be acquired through a certain password in the Extras Menu (pkhhnwhsjt). When it is used, a part of the "Snake Eater" theme can sometimes be heard.
Although Big Boss possesses the Patriot in the game's ending, it is unclear whether he had previously used it in combat. An unidentified assault rifle is wielded earlier in the series by Big Boss in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.
During the two year and three year anniversaries of Metal Gear Online, as well as the day of its shut down, all participating players were granted use of the Patriot.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker[]
The Patriot in Peace Walker.
In Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, the Patriot can be developed from design specs held by Kazuhira Miller, which are obtained during the "Date with Kaz" Extra Op. The description also references its infinite ammunition, although with a notably different explanation for it: claiming that it was because The Boss left a piece of herself inside it. In terms of the overall mission order, not counting the Monster Hunter related missions, the Patriot is also the last weapon/item to be developed in the R&D menu. Its development requirements after unlocking the design specs are an R&D level of 99, the completion of the M16A1 (w/shotgun) rank 4, and a member of R&D with the "Patriot" skill.
Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater Pachislot[]
Pachislot "Battle Win" screen featuring the Patriot.
The Patriot reprises its story role in the Pachislot adaptation for Snake Eater and features as one of the "Battle Win" screens in the game's various modes.
Appearances[]
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
- Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker