You have various actor messages at your disposal: You can set the completion percentage of an animation, you can set the time scale, you can set up timers... thats all you need really. You can start an animation at, lets say, weapon start, then set its completion to 30%, set its time scale to 50% set a timer of 1 second. After this timer wears out, you can stop the animation. Sounds pretty much the way you need it.
Just look at the actor events for the unit actor and the available events and messages.
You have various actor messages at your disposal: You can set the completion percentage of an animation, you can set the time scale, you can set up timers... thats all you need really. You can start an animation at, lets say, weapon start, then set its completion to 30%, set its time scale to 50% set a timer of 1 second. After this timer wears out, you can stop the animation. Sounds pretty much the way you need it.
Just look at the actor events for the unit actor and the available events and messages.
The answer to all 3 questions would be: Actor Events.