Fat Man (Fallout 3)

The Fat Man is a handheld tactical nuclear catapult found in Fallout 3.

Description
The Fat Man appears only in Fallout 3, and can be found in various places in the game. Because of its nuclear payload, it is by far the strongest V.A.T.S. enabled weapon in the game, perfect for taking out multiple enemies or heavily armored units - and in normal use, you'll be encountering both. The Fat Man has an estimated range of 150+ yards and will fall if shot in the air; be aware that the blast zone will be irradiated for a short time.

It should be noted that the Mini Nuke projectile is very heavy, and if simply fired straight ahead in a straight line, it will travel less than a couple dozen feet before falling to the ground and detonating (causing you to be caught well within the very damaging mini-nuclear blast). For best results, the Fat Man should be fired only in V.A.T.S. mode at high skill levels (which automatically compensates for the projectile's downward trajectory), or at an upward angle to catapult the mini nuke further so that it impacts at a farther, safer range.

Item Locations

 * The first location one may find this gun is right outside of GNR, during the "Following in His Footsteps" quest by picking it up from a dead Brotherhood soldier. With this, the player can acquire the Fat Man fairly early in the game. Note that this Brotherhood soldier is found by the fountain near where you fight with the Super Mutant Behemoth you encounter during this quest, along with 8 mini nukes.
 * The corpse of the Brotherhood soldier will not appear if, by any of the many ways, the normal GNR quest is skipped and Sentinel Lyons is not encountered.


 * A Fat Man can also be found in Evergreen Mills, in the basement armory of Germantown Police HQ (behind an average locked door), or at the Talon Company fort.


 * In the Armory at National Guard Depot, behind a door that requires a passcode, you can find the Experimental MIRV version of the Fat Man which can fire only, no more or no less than, 8 Mini Nukes at once. Obtaining this special Fat Man is no easy task, as all 5 of the Keller Family Transcripts must first be found. Note: You can get inside the bunker without getting the transcripts. To do so, walk into the corner made by the door and bunker access terminal. Then crouch, go into third person view, and twirl the camera around until it says "activate electrical switch". The trigger is very small, but should appear on the door or the door frame, a little higher than the player's head. Activate it, and the bunker door will open. This is a brilliant time saving method and should be used if you don't want to bother hunting down the transcripts. (Confirmed on PS3, PC and 360)


 * One can be found at the end of the Old Olney Sewers (Along with Prototype Medic Power Armor) after battle with a number of Deathclaws.


 * One can also be found in Fort Constantine alongside the T-51b Power Armor and two Mini Nukes. You will need all 3 of the special keys from the You Gotta Shoot 'Em in the Head Quest to access the room.


 * One can also be found in the ruins of the White House near a skeleton. Next to the Fat Man are three Mini Nukes. The White House can be accessed from a utility manhole south of the building on Penn Ave.


 * Flak in Rivet City has also been known to sell one at times.


 * Another can be found equipped by Talon Mercenaries in the Capitol Building during or after the fight with the Super Mutant Behemoth


 * In a Random Encounter, a dead scavenger is carrying a Fat Man and a Mini Nuke.


 * Shrapnel in Rivet City carries one in which you can provoke him into a fight where you can knock the Fat Man out of his hands.

Operation: Anchorage

 * Towards the end of Operation: Anchorage (quest) four American Soldiers with T-51b Power Armor will pull out Fat Men that can be knocked out of their hands and kept using the inventory glitch, thus adding 4 new Fat Men into the game.
 * If you have a high enough sneak level these four Fat Men can be pick pocketed from the soldiers, while they are using Miniguns (before you disable the pulse field). They will then revert to their previous behavior after disabling the pulse field, again pulling out 4 new Fat Men which you can then shoot out of their hands. (Unconfirmed)

Bugs

 * V.A.T.S. incorrectly calculates extra damage for a headshot. The Fat Man does not do extra damage with headshots.
 * Sometimes, sounds can started muddling just after hiting anything (ps3 version).
 * If you equip the Fat Man with a mini nuke loaded, then drop all mini nukes in your inventory, the nuke will still be loaded into the Fat Man. Although the weapon still cannot be fired.

Controversy

 * The name and image of this weapon are references to the Fat Man atomic bomb that was dropped in Nagasaki, Japan. Because of it's relation to the real historic event, the weapon was renamed to the Nuka Launcher in the Japanese version of Fallout 3. It is, however, still referred to as the Fat Man in dialogue. Mr. Burke was also removed from the game, and therefore the quest for destroying Megaton was removed as well.

Trivia

 * The launch mechanism of the Fat Man is pneumatic. Coupled with the heavy projectile, this accounts for the short range of the weapon. This type of launch system was first pioneered by the British PIAT anti-tank weapon of WWII, where the projectile was launched from a similar cradle-like contraption using a mechanical spring system (though in the case of the PIAT, was used to detonate a small propelling charge), which had the similar properties of short range and lack of accuracy. This system is known as a spigot mortar.
 * Fat Man was the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan by the United States on August 9, 1945, at 11:02 a.m. It was the second of just two nuclear weapons to be used in warfare and was the third man-made nuclear explosion. The name also refers more generically to the early nuclear weapon designs of U.S. weapons based on the "Fat Man" model. It was an implosion-type weapon with a plutonium core. Early artwork for the Fat Man also included a minature version of the B-29 bomber the 'Enola Gay' attached to the top of the Mini-Nuke, the 'Enola Gay' being the plane which dropped the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.
 * The weapon was made in the pre-war era as it appears in the Operation:Anchorage add-on. It is used by a squad of Powered Armored Soldiers to destroy a large gate of a Chinese outpost.
 * The Fat Man is likely based off of an actual weapon, the M-388 Davy Crockett, developed by the United States during the Cold War.

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