Assault shotgun

In Deus Ex, the assault shotgun is an automatic shotgun used by security forces worldwide. It's high rate-of-fire allows the user to quickly destroy multiple targets in close quarters and in urban combat.

The assault shotgun is first found in the MJ-12 base under the UNATCO HQ. In addition, it can be found in the hands of MJ-12 troops, French police, and MiBs.

It appears to be based on a mixture of a SPAS-12 and a Striker/Protecta shotgun.

Tactics
The assault shotgun does less damage per pellet than the sawed-off shotgun, making it do less damage per shot. If you don't aim for the head, it's very likely that your target will survive. Even if you do aim for the head, there's still a real chance that he could survive, especially if your if Rifle skill is low. For best results, try and him at the upper body. The assault shotgun's large spread should make it so that at least one pellet hits the enemy's head.

With sabot shells, the assault shotgun is effective against small robots, such as the Spider Robot. It's automatic fire can shred through them quickly, allowing you to save your explosives for bigger robots. It can also be used to destroy cameras, but the shotgun's large spread can make it difficult to make enough pellets connect before it sounds the alarm.

An unmodded assault shotgun is not nearly as powerful as it seems. While it's magazine and automatic fire should allow you to shred through enemies with ease, it's recoil makes it impossible to use past extreme short range, and even then a pellet or two might miss. In addition, it's reload time makes you vulnerable for 4.6 seconds, which is too long in combat.

A modded assault shotgun is much better, though still not as good as a sawed-off shotgun for anti-personnel purposes. A large amount of recoil mods will make recoil bearable, allowing you to kill two or so targets with medium difficulty. Reload mods can make the reload time acceptable for combat.

Ingame Description
The assault shotgun (sometimes referred to as a ´street sweeper´) combines the best traits of a normal shotgun with a fully automatic feed that can clear an area of hostiles in a matter of seconds. Particularly effective in urban combat, the assault shotgun accepts either buckshot or sabot shells.