From Team Fortress Wiki

“ — Cow Mangler 5000 publicity blurb A deadly device by any measure, the Cow Mangler will quantum disentangle Cows, Sheep, Humans and even Demomen! ”

The Cow Mangler 5000 is a primary weapon for the Soldier. It is a large, shoulder-fired, retro-futuristic ray gun. Several portions are team-colored, and arcs of electricity appear periodically on the frontal nodes.

This weapon can fire up to four blasts of team-colored energy that, compared to the default Rocket Launcher, deal 80% less damage to buildings. The blasts fired function similarly to rocket projectiles; as such, rocket jumping can be performed without hindrance, and the shots can be reflected by enemy Pyros. Projectiles fired from this weapon have the same speed as one from the Rocket Launcher at 1100 Hammer Units per second, or roughly 76 km/h. The Cow Mangler 5000 features a "Mangler" bar in the HUD which serves as an indication of its ammunition clip. After the bar is depleted, it can be recharged through a reloading process in which the lever on the side is cranked. The weapon does not incorporate the traditional ammo reserve used by other weapons and hence gives it unlimited ammunition, a feature shared with the Righteous Bison, Pomson 6000 and Manmelter.

When the Mangler bar is full, pressing the secondary fire button (default key: MOUSE2) will cause the weapon to begin charging up. During this process, the entire Mangler bar is consumed and the Soldier's movement speed is reduced to a third (from his standard 80% of normal speed to roughly 27%). This charging period lasts for two seconds, after which a single charged shot is fired with both the speed and blast radius of a typical blast. This shot deals mini-crit damage to players and will cause them to suffer six seconds of afterburn damage at the same rate as the Flamethrower. This can affect the Soldier who fired it if that Soldier is close enough. The charged shot can destroy enemy stickybombs and also disables any enemy buildings hit for four seconds. However, damage dealt by secondary fire will be reduced by any items that offers explosive or fire resistance.

Granted or earned critboosts to the Cow Mangler 5000, such as via the Kritzkrieg's ÜberCharge or a Power Up Canteen, will be converted into mini-crits instead, and it cannot deal random critical hits.

Enemies killed by the Cow Mangler 5000 suffer a distinctive death by vaporization: they turn black, hover in mid-air while surrounded by team-colored particles, and then disappear into ashes while a loud, distinct vaporization sound plays. Like backstabs and headshots, there is a 25% chance that opponents will perform a specific disintegration animation if killed in this way. If killed by a charged shot, the victim is gibbed and the gibs vaporize individually whilst flying towards random directions.

Damage and function times

Damage and function times Shot type Projectile Damage type Explosive Ranged or Melee damage? Ranged Damage Maximum ramp-up 125% 112 Base damage 100% Players: 90

Buildings: Maximum fall-off 52.8% 48 Point blank 105-112 Medium range 50-90 Long range 24-48 Critical 270 Mini-crit 122-151 Afterburn 4 / tick

48 total Afterburn (mini-crit) 5 / tick

60 total Splash damage Minimum splash 50% 9.1 ft Self-damage 27-89 Self damage (rocket jump) 27-46 Function times Attack interval 0.8 s Reload (first) 0.92 s Reload (consecutive) 0.8 s Afterburn duration 6 s Values are approximate and determined by community testing.

Item set

Demonstration

Strange variant





Crafting

Blueprint

As a crafting ingredient

Related achievements

Backdraft Dodger

Kill a Pyro who has airblasted one of your rockets in the last 10 seconds.

Death from Above

Rocket jump and kill 2 enemies before you land.

Duty Bound

While rocket jumping kill an enemy with the Equalizer before you land or just after landing.

For Whom the Shell Trolls

Bounce an opponent into the air with a rocket and then kill them with the shotgun before they land. Mutually Assured Destruction

Kill an enemy sniper with a rocket after he kills you.

Tri-Splatteral Damage

Kill 3 enemies with a single critical rocket.

Where Eagles Dare

Get the highest possible rocket jump using jump and crouch.









Crock Block

Survive a direct hit from a critical rocket.





Eagle Eye

While using The Classic, kill a rocket/grenade jumping enemy in midair with a full charge, no-scope, headshot. Jumper Stumper

Kill a rocket or grenade-jumping enemy in midair with your Sniper Rifle or the Huntsman.





Mutually Air-Sured-Destruction

While rocket jumping, use a rocket to kill a rocket jumping enemy who also kills you with a rocket.

Unused content

In the VPK files there is an unused alternate sound for a charged shot resembling some of Quake sounds listed as cow_mangler_over_charge_shot. There is also an unused idle sound and some alternative explosions sounds.

Bugs

The weapon will fire a charged shot even if the charging process is interrupted by getting stunned, or the Soldier's team losing.

A Soldier killed by the Mangler's afterburn after being damaged by an enemy.

If the player changes from the Cow Mangler 5000 to another primary weapon using a Resupply locker while charging a shot, they will be stuck with the slower moving speed until they change classes, die, or switch back to the Cow Mangler 5000 and fire another charged shot.

Rarely, after a moment of not firing, the Soldier will automatically reload the weapon's clip, regardless of the player's auto-reload setting.

When minimizing the game with this weapon equipped, the ammo portion of the HUD may disappear. Looking at the scoreboard may fix this.

The weapon does not glow when mini-crit boosted.

Killing a player with a charged shot may not display the crit death icon if it was a direct hit.

If the Soldier dies from their own Cow Mangler 5000, the vaporization effect uses the RED version regardless of the team.

Several Pyro achievements can be earned using the afterburn of the charged shot.

Primary and secondary fire shots are not affected by the Vaccinator's damage resistances, however the ÜberCharges do.

If the player dies while carrying and having the Cow Mangler 5000 as an active weapon, the weapon's particle effects will still appear when spectating players while the player is waiting for their respawn.

Trivia

The name Cow Mangler is a reference to the association of alien contact coinciding with cattle mutilation. This originated from American science-fiction movies of the 1950s in which aliens would use laser and plasma weapons to cause mutilation to livestock.

Unlike other weapons that have two separate VTFs for team colors, the Cow Mangler 5000 uses the same method that is used to paint cosmetic items to give the weapon team colors. A small number of Cow Manglers were painted due to a schema update that resulted in Cow Manglers being marked as paintable for a short period of time. As a result, there exist around 7 to 12 Cow Manglers with differently-colored models. Interestingly, the only paints which were able to be applied to the Cow Mangler were team-specific coloured ones (e.g. Team Spirit, Cream Spirit, Balaclavas are Forever, etc.). Before the July 10, 2013 Patch, particles were affected by painting as well. This doesn't happen anymore since the particles were re-done and now only come in BLU and RED colors, instead of the white colors that the painted color had attributed to it. During this patch, the beam's texture and shape were both changed. Originally, the beam acted like a laser-beam with a continuous trail, unlike the current burst-type design.

The weapon's design seems to be inspired from the "Pearce 75 Atom Ray Gun", a model sold at Weta Workshop's online store.

Gallery

RED first-person view.

BLU first-person view.

RED projectile.

BLU projectile.

Old RED projectile.

Old BLU projectile.

Early particle effect concept for the Cow Mangler 5000.