Best dogfight gun?
Bjørnar Bolsøy
It takes time to wind up and has a small projectile, so how does
the M61 really stack up against, say, the BK27 og Giat 30mm as
far as dogfighting is concerned? Even with the PGU28?
Is shot density the primary factor to look at?
Regards...
Orval Fairbairn
"Bjørnar Bolsøy" <bbo...@nospam.nospam> wrote:
Major factors are:
1. muzzle velocity
2. bullet mass
3. rate of fire
They all have to work together to raise PK (probability of kill).
robert arndt
The M61 is a poor substitute for this bad baby:
http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/cannons/mauser2/mauser21.html
Rob
Chad Irby
teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
> The M61 is a poor substitute for this bad baby:
>
> http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/cannons/mauser2/mauser21.html
...if you don't mind only firing 1,700 rounds per minute as opposed to
about 6,000...
--
cirby at cfl.rr.com
Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.
John Cook
>In article <9b35beb1.03120...@posting.google.com>,
> teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
>
>> The M61 is a poor substitute for this bad baby:
>>
>> http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/cannons/mauser2/mauser21.html
>
>...if you don't mind only firing 1,700 rounds per minute as opposed to
>about 6,000...
Look at the spool up times ;-)...
Whats the avarage gun burst time in a dogfight...
Cheers
John Cook
Any spelling mistakes/grammatic errors are there purely to annoy. All
opinions are mine, not TAFE's however much they beg me for them.
Email Address :- Jwcook@(trousers)ozemail.com.au
Spam trap - please remove (trousers) to email me
Eurofighter Website :- http://www.eurofighter-typhoon.co.uk
Chad Irby
John Cook <Jwc...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 04:28:01 GMT, Chad Irby <ci...@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>
> >In article <9b35beb1.03120...@posting.google.com>,
> > teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
> >
> >> The M61 is a poor substitute for this bad baby:
> >>
> >> http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/cannons/mauser2/mauser21.htm
> >> l
> >
> >...if you don't mind only firing 1,700 rounds per minute as opposed to
> >about 6,000...
>
> Look at the spool up times ;-)...
If you forget to warm up your Gatling, you're probably the sort to
forget to arm the darned thing to begin with. The technical term for
that is "dead guy."
> Whats the avarage gun burst time in a dogfight...
Whatever it is, you're going to have to hold the trigger down for over
three times that to get the same amount of fire downrange.
Greg Hennessy
>> Whats the avarage gun burst time in a dogfight...
>
>Whatever it is, you're going to have to hold the trigger down for over
>three times that to get the same amount of fire downrange.
Given the that the designer of the mig-29 is on record as saying that he
should have halved the number of rounds carried for its gsh-30L. Tony
Williams has a table on his website which details why a single barrelled
cannon will get there 1st with the mostest when compared to a gatling.
greg
--
In the beginning. Back in nineteen fifty-five
Man didn’t know about a rock ’n’ roll show
And all that jive.
Scott Ferrin
wrote:
>On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 04:28:01 GMT, Chad Irby <ci...@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>
>>In article <9b35beb1.03120...@posting.google.com>,
>> teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
>>
>>> The M61 is a poor substitute for this bad baby:
>>>
>>> http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/cannons/mauser2/mauser21.html
>>
>>...if you don't mind only firing 1,700 rounds per minute as opposed to
>>about 6,000...
>
>
>Look at the spool up times ;-)...
>
>Whats the avarage gun burst time in a dogfight...
>
>Cheers
>
>John Cook
Cover all the bases and use a GAU-8 ;-) Takes a bit to wind up but
even those first rounds will count for something :-)
robert arndt
> In article <9b35beb1.03120...@posting.google.com>,
> teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
>
> > The M61 is a poor substitute for this bad baby:
> >
> > http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/cannons/mauser2/mauser21.html
>
> ...if you don't mind only firing 1,700 rounds per minute as opposed to
> about 6,000...
...when the M61 doesn't jam, that is. I prefer Mauser's BK-27
jam-proof linkless and up-coming dual feed version.
BTW, in close combat 6000 rpm bursts don't mean that much. A
1,700-1,800 rpm burst of 27mm fire from the single-barrel BK-27 will
ruin your day, especially with frangible ammo.
Now if only the Germans could fit the amazing 30mm RMK inside the
Typhoon... but I'm sure it will find its way onto the Tiger helo.
Rob :)
Chad Irby
> Chad Irby <ci...@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> > teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
> >
> > > The M61 is a poor substitute for this bad baby:
> > >
> > > http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/cannons/mauser2/mauser21.ht
> > > ml
> >
> > ...if you don't mind only firing 1,700 rounds per minute as opposed to
> > about 6,000...
>
> ...when the M61 doesn't jam, that is.
...which is pretty much all of the time. If the Gatling guns were prone
to jamming, someone would have mentioned it sometime in the last forty
or so years.
> I prefer Mauser's BK-27
> jam-proof linkless and up-coming dual feed version.
Here's a tip: No such thing as a "jam-proof" weapon that relies on ammo
feed of any sort. You're been reading the Mauser PR releases too much.
Ed Rasimus
>Chad Irby <ci...@cfl.rr.com> wrote in message news:<lPTzb.10242$b01.2...@twister.tampabay.rr.com>...
>> In article <9b35beb1.03120...@posting.google.com>,
>> teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
>>
>> > The M61 is a poor substitute for this bad baby:
>> >
>> > http://www.airforce-technology.com/contractors/cannons/mauser2/mauser21.html
>>
>> ...if you don't mind only firing 1,700 rounds per minute as opposed to
>> about 6,000...
>
>...when the M61 doesn't jam, that is.
Carried an M61 in the F-105 and the F-4E for 250 combat missions.
Carried the SUU-16 and SUU-23 on F-4Cs for four years. Carried the
SUU-11 mini-gun on AT-38s and fired literally hundreds of thousands of
rounds over 23 years of tactical experience. Never experienced a
single M61 variant jamming. Never saw on jam in any flight that I was
on. Never heard anyone talk about one jamming in any squadron I was
in. Doesn't sound, based on a limited empirical sampling like a
problem.
> I prefer Mauser's BK-27
>jam-proof linkless and up-coming dual feed version.
Should we note that the drum-fed internally carried M-61 is linkless?
>BTW, in close combat 6000 rpm bursts don't mean that much.
You're correct. "Close combat" is stupid. It means you screwed up at
several earlier decision points. But, if you reach that point, why
don't 6K RPM bursts mean much? Would a 1K RPM burst be more
meaningful? Or were you suggesting that more RPM would be desireable.
If the burst will be on the target for .2 seconds, would it be better
to have more rounds or fewer during that interval?
> A
>1,700-1,800 rpm burst of 27mm fire from the single-barrel BK-27 will
>ruin your day, especially with frangible ammo.
How about HEI instead of "frangible"? I'm not worried about
frangibility, as I would be if discharging a .45 ACP at a burglar in a
mid-town apartment. I'm worried about damaging the airframe and that
means HEI or maybe HEI/API mix.
>Now if only the Germans could fit the amazing 30mm RMK inside the
>Typhoon... but I'm sure it will find its way onto the Tiger helo.
Going from .50 cal to 20mm to 25mm to 30mm, etc, always incurs a
weight penalty. There are trade-offs between weight, ballistics,
accuracy, burst density, etc. Consider that one round of 155mm would
surely result in a kill, do we than suggest mounting artillery in the
nose of fighters? Clearly hyperbole for argument's sake.
Consider further that a gun will be carried on every sorties for the
life of the aircraft and for most aircraft will never be fired at
another aircraft in anger.
"Hoser" said, "There's no kill like a gun kill...." but, that may be
because gun kills are so damn rare.
>
>Rob :)
Chad Irby
Ed Rasimus <ras...@adelphia.net> wrote:
> On 5 Dec 2003 07:42:43 -0800, teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
>
> >...when the M61 doesn't jam, that is.
>
> Never experienced a single M61 variant jamming. Never saw on jam in
> any flight that I was on. Never heard anyone talk about one jamming
> in any squadron I was in. Doesn't sound, based on a limited empirical
> sampling like a problem.
Well, Ed, you have to remember you're talking to Arndt. As fas as he's
concerned, everything important ever invented for aviation was invented
in Germany, all German-made machinery is the best in the world at
everything, and all American equipment is simply terrible and unreliable.
Which is why he's touting a weapon with less than one-third the firing
rate, and claiming that it's immune to mechanical problems...
Lyle
>In article <tae1tvg7p1g3lki1k...@4ax.com>,
> Ed Rasimus <ras...@adelphia.net> wrote:
>
>> On 5 Dec 2003 07:42:43 -0800, teut...@aol.com (robert arndt) wrote:
>>
>> >...when the M61 doesn't jam, that is.
>>
>> Never experienced a single M61 variant jamming. Never saw on jam in
>> any flight that I was on. Never heard anyone talk about one jamming
>> in any squadron I was in. Doesn't sound, based on a limited empirical
>> sampling like a problem.
>
>Well, Ed, you have to remember you're talking to Arndt. As fas as he's
>concerned, everything important ever invented for aviation was invented
>in Germany, all German-made machinery is the best in the world at
>everything, and all American equipment is simply terrible and unreliable.
>
>Which is why he's touting a weapon with less than one-third the firing
>rate, and claiming that it's immune to mechanical problems...
dont forget that the gatling is designed for longterm use unlike a
single barrel cannon. each barrel is only shooting 1/6, 1/7 etc of the
time. what is the lifecyle of the single barrel cannons compared to
the m61/Gau-8/Gau-25
John Cook
The weight penalty of the multi barrels is a major drawback, its not
like the cannon is the primary weapon anymore....
The BK-27 has a good reputation, same as the M61!, the question
remains which is the most accurate and is a better dispersal an
advantage or not???.
Which has the Higher PK?.
Tony Williams
> On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 07:45:39 GMT, Chad Irby <ci...@cfl.rr.com> wrote:
>
>
> >> Whats the avarage gun burst time in a dogfight...
> >
> >Whatever it is, you're going to have to hold the trigger down for over
> >three times that to get the same amount of fire downrange.
>
> Given the that the designer of the mig-29 is on record as saying that he
> should have halved the number of rounds carried for its gsh-30L. Tony
> Williams has a table on his website which details why a single barrelled
> cannon will get there 1st with the mostest when compared to a gatling.
This is from 'Flying Guns: the Modern Era' by Emmanuel Gustin and
myself, due to be published in March next year:
"There are three competing philosophies when it comes to gun design
for fighter aircraft. One is the US rotary; fast-firing but (to date)
only 20 mm in calibre, and a very bulky system. The second is the West
European preference for a 27 – 30 mm revolver cannon; no lighter, but
slimmer and hard-hitting. The third is represented by the Russian GSh
301; a minimalist gun but with an equally hard-hitting performance.
The twin-barrel GSh-30 also deserves mention, even though it has not
been used in fighter aircraft. It weighs about the same as the western
guns at 105 kg, but fires powerful 30 mm ammunition at up to 3,000
rpm.
The merits of the 27 mm BK 27 revolver as opposed to the M61A1 can be
clearly demonstrated. In the first 0.5 seconds of firing, the M61
fires 18 rounds massing 1.8 kg in total weight of projectiles, the BK
27 fires 14 rounds weighing 3.7 kg. In the first full second, the M61
fires 68 rounds weighing 6.9 kg, the BK 27 fires 28 rounds weighing
7.4 kg. In weight of fire, as well as the destructiveness of the
individual projectiles, the Mauser clearly has an advantage, albeit
one that the faster-accelerating M61A2 reduces somewhat. This is
significant in that dogfights frequently permit only the briefest of
firing opportunities, and although a skilled pilot anticipating a
firing opportunity can 'spin up' a rotary in advance, such notice
cannot always be guaranteed.
The Mauser projectiles are also relatively heavier, resulting in a
sectional density (SD) of .507 compared to .363 for the 20 mm, which
means they will retain their initial velocity out to a greater range.
The 30 mm GSh-301 offers similar performance to the BK 27 with about
half the weight. On paper, this is an impressive fighter gun, although
its maintenance requirements have been criticised. The choice of a
heavy projectile (with an SD of .616) at a moderate velocity for the
Russian 30 mm guns implies that ground attack has a higher priority
than aerial combat in Russian thinking.
The ideal gun for aerial combat will of course combine the best of all
worlds: a high rate of fire, instantly achieved; a high muzzle
velocity to minimise flight time; and projectiles large enough to
inflict serious damage with each hit (requiring a calibre in the 25 –
30 mm range). The optimum weapon among those currently developed may
well be the new GIAT 30M791 revolver, although its weight means that
two GSh 301s (or a GSh-30) could be carried instead, with a higher
rate of fire. If the Russian guns' 30 x 165 ammunition were loaded
with lighter projectiles for a higher muzzle velocity, its aerial
combat capabilities would be improved, at the cost of some loss of
ground attack effectiveness."
Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/
Chad Irby
John Cook <Jwc...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> The weight penalty of the multi barrels is a major drawback, its not
> like the cannon is the primary weapon anymore....
The BK27 weighs about 100 kilograms, the lightweight version of the M61
(used in the Raptor) weighs about 100 kilograms. Kinda hard to call
that much of a penalty.
Hog Driver
> even those first rounds will count for something :-)
Amen brother! The API round will go in one end of an aircraft and out the
other without slowing down.
A lot of people are forgetting about range and bullet dispersion. The GAU-8
can reach out and touch someone at twice the range of most cannon, without
the huge loss in bullet density.
If you actually ever get into the dreaded knife-fight in a phone booth, the
other guy is going to have second thoughts about screwing with an A-10 when
the nose erupts in a huge cloud of smoke well beyond the range he can employ
his gun.
Paul F Austin
"Tony Williams" <Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk> wrote
>
> The merits of the 27 mm BK 27 revolver as opposed to the M61A1 can be
> clearly demonstrated. In the first 0.5 seconds of firing, the M61
> fires 18 rounds massing 1.8 kg in total weight of projectiles, the BK
> 27 fires 14 rounds weighing 3.7 kg. In the first full second, the M61
> fires 68 rounds weighing 6.9 kg, the BK 27 fires 28 rounds weighing
> 7.4 kg. In weight of fire, as well as the destructiveness of the
> individual projectiles, the Mauser clearly has an advantage, albeit
> one that the faster-accelerating M61A2 reduces somewhat. This is
> significant in that dogfights frequently permit only the briefest of
> firing opportunities, and although a skilled pilot anticipating a
> firing opportunity can 'spin up' a rotary in advance, such notice
> cannot always be guaranteed.
Tony, why have none of the Gatling guns been designed to be "armed" and spun
up with the ammunition feed disengaged and "fired" at full rate by engaging
the ammunition feed? It seems obvious enough. There are some obvious issues
in inertial loads in the ammunition train but a "burst's worth" of rounds
could be decoupled from the main ammo tank.
B2431
<snip>
>The merits of the 27 mm BK 27 revolver as opposed to the M61A1 can be
>clearly demonstrated. In the first 0.5 seconds of firing, the M61
>fires 18 rounds massing 1.8 kg in total weight of projectiles, the BK
>27 fires 14 rounds weighing 3.7 kg. In the first full second, the M61
>fires 68 rounds weighing 6.9 kg, the BK 27 fires 28 rounds weighing
>7.4 kg. In weight of fire, as well as the destructiveness of the
>individual projectiles, the Mauser clearly has an advantage, albeit
>one that the faster-accelerating M61A2 reduces somewhat.
You shoot your own argument down. The BK27's projectile weight has no effect if
you don't actually strike the target. A 27 mm projectile that misses is not as
efective a 20 mm projectile that hits. In your example above the M61 has more
projectiles in the air at any given time than the BK27 giving a greater
probable hit with the M61.
Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired
Chad Irby
Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk (Tony Williams) wrote:
> The merits of the 27 mm BK 27 revolver as opposed to the M61A1 can be
> clearly demonstrated. In the first 0.5 seconds of firing, the M61
> fires 18 rounds massing 1.8 kg in total weight of projectiles, the BK
> 27 fires 14 rounds weighing 3.7 kg. In the first full second, the M61
> fires 68 rounds weighing 6.9 kg, the BK 27 fires 28 rounds weighing
> 7.4 kg. In weight of fire, as well as the destructiveness of the
> individual projectiles, the Mauser clearly has an advantage, albeit
> one that the faster-accelerating M61A2 reduces somewhat. This is
> significant in that dogfights frequently permit only the briefest of
> firing opportunities, and although a skilled pilot anticipating a
> firing opportunity can 'spin up' a rotary in advance, such notice
> cannot always be guaranteed.
This skips one of the big advantages of a faster-firing gun.
When your target is crossing your sights, having twice the "cycle time"
puts bullets into the other plane twice as often. Skeet shooters use
shotguns instead of rifles. Weight of fire is nice, but heavier bullets
don't help much if the other plane gets missed altogether due to not
having enough of them on target.
Note also that the Mauser install in the Typhoon holds about 1/3 of the
ammo that the M61A2 in the Raptor will, so things come out pretty even
as far as throw weight and firing time, with a small advantage for the
Mauser in promptness, and a small one the other way for the M61A2 in
overall bullet weight in the aircraft (eight one-second bursts versus
five for the Mauser).
Now, if you're shooting at tanks and other ground vehicles, that Mauser
sure has an advantage, but the F-22 probably won't be spending a lot of
time at that...
(The British Typhoons aren't even going to have guns in them after the
first tranche, BTW. Bad idea.)
Chad Irby
"Hog Driver" <cNaOnSdPrA...@comcast.net> wrote:
> If you actually ever get into the dreaded knife-fight in a phone booth, the
> other guy is going to have second thoughts about screwing with an A-10 when
> the nose erupts in a huge cloud of smoke well beyond the range he can employ
> his gun.
Didn't some Warthogs chew up some F-15s in an exercise that way, once?
Sit in the weeds, wait for the Eagles to get in "close," and gun kill
them from a couple of miles off...
WaltBJ
never fired either of these weapons, and probably have never fired on
either an aerial or ground target with any weapon. Spool-up time on a
M61? Have you ever heard one shoot? You sure as hell can't hear it
spool up. I've fired them in the air and on the ground in the firing
butts - all you hear on the ground is a very loud BRRRRR with the
individual shots indistinguishable from the first one. Watching the
gun itself you see it go from 'stop' to 'blur' instantly. The only
difference I ever noted was that the SUU23 pod gun had a slight
'tail-off' as it fired itself dry when you released the trigger. Note
that the 100 rps in the hydraulic driven M61 (25HP motor) in the
F4/14/15/16/ give these aircraft a real high-deflection (actually,
all-aspect) capability - and if a fraction of a second spin-up makes a
difference between a hit or a miss all I can say is the shooter
didn't see the opportunity in time. Even in the electric drive (15HP,
67 rps) gun in the 104A I've seen gun camera film which showed that if
the M61 gun had been firing the other aircraft would have take two
dozen rounds, from nose to tail, crossing at 70+ degrees with the
shooter pulling max G attainable in the situation, just not enough to
track him but enough to get a good shot in at close range - about 100
yards. How do you do this? You start shooting early and hose him as he
sails past. BTW that 104A installation had a 3-mil dispersion - I've
seen that proven in the firing-in butts, too.
Walt BJ -
John Keeney
"Tony Williams" <Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk> wrote in message
news:e64faab.03120...@posting.google.com...
> The ideal gun for aerial combat will of course combine the best of all
> worlds: a high rate of fire, instantly achieved; a high muzzle
> velocity to minimise flight time; and projectiles large enough to
> 30 mm range). The optimum weapon among those currently developed may
> well be the new GIAT 30M791 revolver, although its weight means that
> two GSh 301s (or a GSh-30) could be carried instead, with a higher
> rate of fire. If the Russian guns' 30 x 165 ammunition were loaded
> with lighter projectiles for a higher muzzle velocity, its aerial
> combat capabilities would be improved, at the cost of some loss of
> ground attack effectiveness."
Is there more behind the "requiring a calibre in the 25-30 mm range"
than hand-waving to dismiss 20mm guns? Granted, bigger is better,
but why isn't 40mm required or 20mm enough?
Richard Brooks
One thing I've not thought of before and that's the gyroscopic effects
of a fast rotating drum on the directional abilities of an aircraft ?
It can't be that much of course or it would not have been used at all. I
assume that the drum is relatively low mass ?
Richard.
Paul F Austin
"John Keeney" <jdke...@iglou.com> wrote in message
news:3fd16...@news.iglou.com...
One reason is range but that's a mug's game, trying to compete with SRAAMs.
The other reason, lethality, is driven by the fact that fighters are a lot
tougher targets now than they were fifty years ago. In a progression of
lethality, during WWII, .50cal machine guns were adequately lethal against
fighter sized targets but not against bombers. With the advent of jet
propulsion, increased air speed required stronger structure and fighters got
physically tougher, so 20mm was optimum against fighters in the late forties
and early fifties. Supersonic fighters are tougher still, mostly because of
increase design dynamic pressure but also because they are stressed for
larger loads and higher g-loads, so the thought is that 20mm rounds have
inadequate Pk (given a hit).
Of course, gun installations are questionable now because the SRAAMs have
gotten so good and because guns in general pose a significant cost in
reliability (the firing forces become the design environment for all the
electronics in the vicinity) and a significant maintenance burden.
Emmanuel Gustin
news:3fd16...@news.iglou.com...
> Is there more behind the "requiring a calibre in the 25-30 mm range"
> than hand-waving to dismiss 20mm guns? Granted, bigger is better,
> but why isn't 40mm required or 20mm enough?
It's a compromise between lethality of individual hits (bigger
is better), number or rounds (bigger tends to be slower-firing)
and weight efficiency (the bigger calibre guns tend to have more
killing power per weight, because less overhead). Bulk also
matters, there is not that much room in a modern fighter that
can be set aside for a cannon and its (usually more substantial)
ammunition tanks.
The preference for 30 mm developed during the 1960s. Fighters
were becoming sturdier than their predecessors because they had
to be built to take greater aerodynamic loads, and there was also
a significant threat of nuclear-armed jet bombers. A pair of 30 mm
cannon was normal for some time (the Hunter, with four 30 mm
Aden, was an exception).
Later, with bombers becoming scarcer and missiles growing ever
more important, guns became short-range weapons only expected
to be used in dogfights, and a preference developed for slightly
smaller calibres. The Soviets had their GSh-23, the F-15 would
have had a very advanced 25 mm cannon if the development of
this weapon had not run into problems, and the British tried to
develop the Aden 25. The USMC of course have the GAU-12/U
on the AV-8B. Mauser developed the BK 27. The Soviets are
now again using 30 mm in their fighters, but the GSh-301 is
an extremely light and compact gun for its power.
With guns being of secondary importance anyway, the USAF
decided keep the M61. It is now at last selecting a bigger gun;
the JSF was to have an Americanised 27 mm Mauser BK 27
(which was considered the most effective gun in existence,
but as usual it had to be "made in America" before it could be
considered acceptable) but apparently this ran into technical
and political troubles (the gun was originally to be built by a
division of Boeing!) and apparently JSF will now have a 25 mm
GAU-12/U.
--
Emmanuel Gustin
Emmanuel.Gustin -rem@ve- skynet dot be
Flying Guns Page: http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/
Scott Ferrin
Which brings up something I've always wondered. Why doesn't the
compressor and turbines of a jet engine have that effect but on a much
larger scale? I imagine the gyroscopic effects of the rotor in an
F110 on an F-16 would be nothing to sneeze at.
Keith Willshaw
"Scott Ferrin" <sfe...@xmission.com> wrote in message
news:fcs3tv0oqjvo5jsbg...@4ax.com...
For one thing the modern aircraft have a greater ratio of mass
of aircfraft as a whole to the engine. The PW-200 series
engine weighs in at around 3400lb or rather less that 10%
of the F-16's all up weight and only a fraction of that is rotating.
In contrast the engine of a Sopwith Camel weighed around
300 lbs and was ALL rotating when the aircraft all up weight
was less than 1000lbs.
Then again the control authority of modern aorcraft is higher
and the fly by wire control system can compensate for
gyroscopic forces rather better than a human being.
Keith
Guy Alcala
> "Scott Ferrin" <sfe...@xmission.com> wrote in message
> news:fcs3tv0oqjvo5jsbg...@4ax.com...
> > On Sat, 6 Dec 2003 11:23:25 -0000, "Richard Brooks"
> > <richar...@kdbanglia.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Which brings up something I've always wondered. Why doesn't the
> > compressor and turbines of a jet engine have that effect but on a much
> > larger scale? I imagine the gyroscopic effects of the rotor in an
> > F110 on an F-16 would be nothing to sneeze at.
It can be a problem at very slow speeds, which is why the Pegasus engine in
the Harrier has its two spools (low and high pressure) counter-rotate.
Offhand, I can't remember if the F100 or F110 do as well, but then a/c like
the F-15 and F-16 are unlikely to spend much time slow enough for it to
matter (thrust-vectoring nozzles can help there). OTOH, the engines for the
F-35 probably have to counter-rotate.
Guy
Smartace11
>> > compressor and turbines of a jet engine have that effect but on a much
>> > larger scale? I imagine the gyroscopic effects of the rotor in an
>> > F110 on an F-16 would be nothing to sneeze at.
>
>It can be a problem at very slow speeds, which is why the Pegasus engine in
>the Harrier has its two spools (low and high pressure) counter-rotate.
>Offhand, I can't remember if the F100 or F110 do as well, but then a/c like
>the F-15 and F-16 are unlikely to spend much time slow enough for it to
>matter (thrust-vectoring nozzles can help there). OTOH, the engines for the
>F-35 probably have to counter-rotate.
>
>Guy
>
In general, engined have counterrotating spools for efficiency not gyroscopic
effect. Most Brit engines use thhis approach but it is hell on bearings because
of the higher rotaional speeds. The three spool RB211 is kind of the ultimate
in that regard.
I'd guess that gyro effect isn't really an issue with the airframe guys since
with most engines since the mass is concentrated more in the center of the
rotors instead of in the periphery whless gyroscopic and centrifugal forces are
generated.
From what I recall from my involvement in the F100-220 and F110-100 engines,
the engine bearing and structural guys are the most concerned because of loads
and load paths during throttle transients. Didn't come up during the
airframe-engine integration meetings. Don't recall it as an issue in my J79
flying days either.
My memory is hazy on this but I think the F119 in both the F-22 and F-35
versions does not employ counter-rotating spools either. Now what forces the
lift fan generates to the airframe is a different story I an sure.
Steve
Tony Williams
> In article <V_2dnaXzq-q...@comcast.com>,
> "Hog Driver" <cNaOnSdPrA...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > If you actually ever get into the dreaded knife-fight in a phone booth, the
> > other guy is going to have second thoughts about screwing with an A-10 when
> > the nose erupts in a huge cloud of smoke well beyond the range he can employ
> > his gun.
>
> Didn't some Warthogs chew up some F-15s in an exercise that way, once?
> Sit in the weeds, wait for the Eagles to get in "close," and gun kill
> them from a couple of miles off...
The problem with a GAU-8/A as a fighter gun is that the weapon and its
ammunition tank are so enormous that the plane has to be designed
around them, and they would use up a substantial part of the internal
volume of a fighter aircraft. Better to go with the Oerlikon KCA,
which fires equally powerful ammo in a much more compact package.
Tony Williams
The M61 is an extremely reliable and long-lasting gun. However, the
little 20mm shells only weigh 102g compared with 180g for the 25mm
GAU-12/U, 260g for the 27mm BK 27, 270g for the 30mm GIAT 30M791 and
390g for the Russian 30mm guns. This means that the M61 has to score
many more hits than 30mm guns to have the same effect on the target (I
have read an estimate of around 20 hits needed to bring down a modern
fighter).
This lack of hitting power was recognised by the USAF as early as the
1960s and led to the development of the 25mm GAU-7/A, which was
intended to replace the M61 as the standard fighter gun, and was
planned for installation in the F-15. This fired 200g projectiles for
a considerable increase in effectiveness. However, the advanced,
combustible-cased ammo ran into technical difficulties which could not
be solved in time so the gun was scrapped and the M61 soldiered on.
Its survival for so long can only be put down to the fact that fighter
guns are much less important nowadays with the development of better
missiles, so it hasn't been worth the cost of developing a new one.
More recently, as has been pointed out, the 27mm Mauser was selected
by both of the JSF contenders as providing the optimum balance of
characteristics for an aircraft gun, despite being a foreign design
produced by a country which is not even a member of the JSF consortium
- that tells you how good it must be compared with the home-grown
product.
Incidentally, there is still some mystery about the current situation
- I have it on good authority that GD (given the job of integrating
the BK 27 to the F-35) have proposed using the GAU-12/U instead
(allegedly for cost reasons), but every publication I have seen on the
F-35 still mentions the BK 27. Can anyone point to a definitive
reference?
Brett
GD's web site? "The 25mm GAU-12/U system produced by General Dynamics
Armament and Technical Products (GDATP) was recently selected for the
Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)..."
http://www.gdatp.com/products/lethality/gau-12u/gau-12.htm
Chad Irby
Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk (Tony Williams) wrote:
> The problem with a GAU-8/A as a fighter gun is that the weapon and its
> ammunition tank are so enormous that the plane has to be designed
> around them, and they would use up a substantial part of the internal
> volume of a fighter aircraft. Better to go with the Oerlikon KCA,
> which fires equally powerful ammo in a much more compact package.
Well, for a fighter-only gun, versus the GAU-8, yeah. But for a
ground-attack weapon, the GAU-8 is pretty cool for air-to-air.
(Three times the firing rate, and seven times as much ammo in the plane.)
Paul J. Adam
<ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
>In article <V_2dnaXzq-q...@comcast.com>,
> "Hog Driver" <cNaOnSdPrA...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> If you actually ever get into the dreaded knife-fight in a phone booth, the
>> other guy is going to have second thoughts about screwing with an A-10 when
>> the nose erupts in a huge cloud of smoke well beyond the range he can employ
>> his gun.
>
>Didn't some Warthogs chew up some F-15s in an exercise that way, once?
>Sit in the weeds, wait for the Eagles to get in "close," and gun kill
>them from a couple of miles off...
Going slow and turning with an A-10 is about as smart as "turning with a
Zero" used to be in 1942.
Unfortunately, the A-10 doesn't have many ways to prevent an adversary
using energy tactics, and can't do more than dodge and pray in that
fight.
--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill
Paul J. Adam MainBox<at>jrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk
Chad Irby
"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Going slow and turning with an A-10 is about as smart as "turning with a
> Zero" used to be in 1942.
>
> Unfortunately, the A-10 doesn't have many ways to prevent an adversary
> using energy tactics, and can't do more than dodge and pray in that
> fight.
Actually, the Hog does, if it knows what direction the other guy is
coming from.
Turn into the oncoming fighter, and open fire from a mile or so further
out...
Paul J. Adam
<ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
>In article <Gr4$sSRuv00$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>,
> "Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> Going slow and turning with an A-10 is about as smart as "turning with a
>> Zero" used to be in 1942.
>>
>> Unfortunately, the A-10 doesn't have many ways to prevent an adversary
>> using energy tactics, and can't do more than dodge and pray in that
>> fight.
>
>Actually, the Hog does, if it knows what direction the other guy is
>coming from.
That's an extremely large "if", given the extensive air-to-air sensor
suite fitted to the A-10...
>Turn into the oncoming fighter, and open fire from a mile or so further
>out...
Are you keeping your ordnance for this turn? How long does it take to
get the nose pointed at the target while still having time to get that
shot off? (driving your required detection range). How much airspeed do
you have left at the end of it, which has a serious effect on your
ability to escape the wingman? And what happens when you discover the
attacking aircraft was firing a missile, rather than making a gun pass?
If this analysis was accurate, the F-15 and F-22 would be screaming for
27mm or 30mm guns...
Ron
>coming from.
>
>Turn into the oncoming fighter, and open fire from a mile or so further
>out...
I have been setting up some scenaries with the LO-MAC "Lock On- Modern Air
Combat" Sim/Game,
involving A-10s vs Su27/33, and it often is not too pretty for the Su's in a
head on merge..The A-10s gun does a good job of reaching out and touching
someone :) But if the Su survives that, then the A-10 is at a bad
disadvantage.
Yes I know it is a sim/gam..But it is sure fun to set up and watch.
Ron
Pilot/Wildland Firefighter
Chad Irby
"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <qbIAb.25811$b01.5...@twister.tampabay.rr.com>, Chad Irby
> <ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
> >In article <Gr4$sSRuv00$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>,
> > "Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> Going slow and turning with an A-10 is about as smart as "turning with a
> >> Zero" used to be in 1942.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, the A-10 doesn't have many ways to prevent an adversary
> >> using energy tactics, and can't do more than dodge and pray in that
> >> fight.
> >
> >Actually, the Hog does, if it knows what direction the other guy is
> >coming from.
First, you're addressing a more "average" scenario than the one I was
talking about (no missiles for the F-15, A-10 ready for the incoming
threat).
> That's an extremely large "if", given the extensive air-to-air sensor
> suite fitted to the A-10...
It's called a "radar warning receiver," and it tells you which direction
you're being radiated from. If the other guy isn't using radar, they're
proabably not going to see you in the weeds at all from any rational
distance.
> >Turn into the oncoming fighter, and open fire from a mile or so further
> >out...
>
> Are you keeping your ordnance for this turn? How long does it take to
> get the nose pointed at the target while still having time to get that
> shot off? (driving your required detection range).
Lots of time, in the case I was originally talking about (F-15s on the
way back from an air-to-air sortie going after an opportune A-10
target). If you allow missiles for the F-15s and no cover for the A-10,
it's a turkey shoot. But we were talking about gun tactics...
> How much airspeed do you have left at the end of it, which has a
> serious effect on your ability to escape the wingman?
Not as such, since the only reason you need a lot of energy going into
this sort of fight is to match someone else with a similar weapon. If
you're up against someone who can blow you out of the sky from a mile or
so further out than your weapon can reach, and who can fly below treetop
level for a good part of the engagement, it's a whole different ballgame.
> And what happens when you discover the
> attacking aircraft was firing a missile, rather than making a gun pass?
Not in this scenario. Sorry you came in late.
> If this analysis was accurate, the F-15 and F-22 would be screaming for
> 27mm or 30mm guns...
...or more bullets. It's a very narrow scenario, and in this case, the
A-10 isn't the helpless target you seem to want it to be.
Tony Williams
> "Tony Williams" <Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk> wrote:
> |
> | Incidentally, there is still some mystery about the current situation
> | - I have it on good authority that GD (given the job of integrating
> | the BK 27 to the F-35) have proposed using the GAU-12/U instead
> | (allegedly for cost reasons), but every publication I have seen on the
> | F-35 still mentions the BK 27. Can anyone point to a definitive
> | reference?
>
> GD's web site? "The 25mm GAU-12/U system produced by General Dynamics
> Armament and Technical Products (GDATP) was recently selected for the
> Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)..."
>
> http://www.gdatp.com/products/lethality/gau-12u/gau-12.htm
Many thanks - that wasn't there last time I looked!
Tony Volk
> Combat" Sim/Game,
> involving A-10s vs Su27/33, and it often is not too pretty for the Su's in
a
> head on merge..The A-10s gun does a good job of reaching out and touching
> someone :) But if the Su survives that, then the A-10 is at a bad
> disadvantage.
I have to get that game myself, but it brings up an important point.
What are the avionics behind the gun? I'd imagine that an A-10 would lack
an accurate a-a mode for aiming its gun. The same thing applies to the
other guns mentioned in the debate. A gun's merits are important, but they
don't mean squat if it's impossible to hit anything with it! The
laser-rangefinders on the latest Russian jets (e.g., Su-27 series, Mig-29
too I believe) stand out as an excellent example of using superior avionics
to make a gun more effective. Anything similar on the Rafale, Grippen,
Raptor?
Tony
WaltBJ
I'd say it would take some pretty selective hit location to place 20
hits on any fighter (well, maybe a Frogfoot) and still have the target
perform at any level close to its pristine capability. Since the M61's
shells are coming in trail about 50 feet apart they will be clustered
- meaning the hit damage will accumulate pretty much in the same area.
Bye-bye wing surface, and now control that airplane! Of course, if the
shot comes in from the six o-clock, the length of the fuselage is
subject to damage. Nowadays a gun shot is so rare that the shooter
will most likely hold the trigger down to see what happens, instead of
the half-second burst most good shooters use in a smooth tracking pass
when firing on the dart target. In that case, the armor may survive
but nothing else will after say 50-150 hits.
Walt BJ
The Enlightenment
> A few comments on recent posts:
>
> The M61 is an extremely reliable and long-lasting gun. However, the
> little 20mm shells only weigh 102g compared with 180g for the 25mm
> GAU-12/U, 260g for the 27mm BK 27, 270g for the 30mm GIAT 30M791 and
> 390g for the Russian 30mm guns. This means that the M61 has to score
> many more hits than 30mm guns to have the same effect on the target (I
> have read an estimate of around 20 hits needed to bring down a modern
> fighter).
>
I suspect it may be possible to fit proximity fuses to 27mm/30mm class
amunition to improve Pk and open up engagement envelope. Los Alamos
Labs developed single chip radars sever years ago and combined with
new explosives and fragmentation methods migh make such munitions
usefull.
Here is a swedish 'radar on a chip' program:
http://www.ek.isy.liu.se/2003/radaronchip/
Also laser beam riding guidence similar to the guided darts on the BAE
starstreak MANPADS missile could be integrated into 27mm/30mm class
munitions.
There have been a number of guided cannon shell projects. The Italian
OTO Malera companies efforts on is 76.2mm cannon (laser beam rider I
think) and then efforts by the USAF for the 105mm howitzers on the
AC130 gunships (laser spot homming to open up range) and USN work on
its 5 inch rocket boosted shells and US Army work on its 155mm
howizers. (GPS and/or laser homming)
Actuators relying on piezioelectric forces working on nose twisting
simplify such shells.
Such development smigh extend the effective range of cannon by a large
amount (out to 3-4 km I suspect) and favour big 30mm cannon such as
the Oerlikon KCA used on the Viggen.
On the other hand a turreted or tail sting 30mm cannon of ADEN sized
recoil firing guided munitions might make possible some interesting
defensive/offensive concepts.
Urban Fredriksson
Keith Willshaw <keit...@kwillshaw.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Then again the control authority of modern aorcraft is higher
>and the fly by wire control system can compensate for
>gyroscopic forces rather better than a human being.
And assymetric recoil as well I assume, but I think I read
that test firing of the F-22's gun induced yaw, but little
enough that the pilot easily could compensate, which must
mean the FCS doesn't try to.
--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
Things that try to look like things often look more like
things than things do.
Tony Williams
I understand that the SAAB Viggen armed with Oerlikon KCA has an
'AutoAim' system which effectively takes over the autopilot and aims
the plane at the designated target to ensure that the gun is properly
aimed. This enables engagement at up to 3,000m in a head-on attack.
Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Military gun and ammunition discussion forum:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/
Scott Ferrin
wrote:
>In article <bqte1a$c3e$1$830f...@news.demon.co.uk>,
>Keith Willshaw <keit...@kwillshaw.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Then again the control authority of modern aorcraft is higher
>>and the fly by wire control system can compensate for
>>gyroscopic forces rather better than a human being.
>
>And assymetric recoil as well I assume, but I think I read
>that test firing of the F-22's gun induced yaw, but little
>enough that the pilot easily could compensate, which must
>mean the FCS doesn't try to.
The would really surprise me as the thing tries to use control
surfaces to account for little bumps and gusts on the runway :-)
Scott Ferrin
Williams) wrote:
>"Tony Volk" <avolkremove...@planetavp.com> wrote in message news:<br02o0$273tir$1...@ID-209907.news.uni-berlin.de>...
>> > I have been setting up some scenaries with the LO-MAC "Lock On- Modern Air
>> > Combat" Sim/Game,
>> > involving A-10s vs Su27/33, and it often is not too pretty for the Su's in
>> a
>> > head on merge..The A-10s gun does a good job of reaching out and touching
>> > someone :) But if the Su survives that, then the A-10 is at a bad
>> > disadvantage.
>>
>> I have to get that game myself, but it brings up an important point.
>> What are the avionics behind the gun? I'd imagine that an A-10 would lack
>> an accurate a-a mode for aiming its gun. The same thing applies to the
>> other guns mentioned in the debate. A gun's merits are important, but they
>> don't mean squat if it's impossible to hit anything with it! The
>> laser-rangefinders on the latest Russian jets (e.g., Su-27 series, Mig-29
>> too I believe) stand out as an excellent example of using superior avionics
>> to make a gun more effective. Anything similar on the Rafale, Grippen,
>> Raptor?
>
>I understand that the SAAB Viggen armed with Oerlikon KCA has an
>'AutoAim' system which effectively takes over the autopilot and aims
>the plane at the designated target to ensure that the gun is properly
>aimed. This enables engagement at up to 3,000m in a head-on attack.
From what I've read (albeit it was years ago) the KCA hits damn near
as hard as the GAU-8. It just doesn't have the rate of fire.
Hog Driver
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.military
Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: Best dogfight gun?
> In message <qbIAb.25811$b01.5...@twister.tampabay.rr.com>, Chad Irby
> <ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
> >In article <Gr4$sSRuv00$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>,
> > "Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >> Going slow and turning with an A-10 is about as smart as "turning with
a
> >> Zero" used to be in 1942.
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, the A-10 doesn't have many ways to prevent an adversary
> >> using energy tactics, and can't do more than dodge and pray in that
> >> fight.
> >
> >Actually, the Hog does, if it knows what direction the other guy is
> >coming from.
>
> That's an extremely large "if", given the extensive air-to-air sensor
> suite fitted to the A-10...
Well, using AWACS and mutual support tactics, the A-10 pilots are going to
have an idea where to pick up the tally. Once that happens, it isn't the
best 'suite' that is going to win the fight, it's the best BFM to get to the
WEZ.
>
> >Turn into the oncoming fighter, and open fire from a mile or so further
> >out...
>
> Are you keeping your ordnance for this turn? How long does it take to
> get the nose pointed at the target while still having time to get that
> shot off? (driving your required detection range). How much airspeed do
> you have left at the end of it, which has a serious effect on your
> ability to escape the wingman? And what happens when you discover the
> attacking aircraft was firing a missile, rather than making a gun pass?
It all depends upon the situation. Hopefully the A-10 pilot(s) pick up the
tally at least 3 or 4 miles out near 3 or 9 o'clock, coming out of a good
RMD. Then they only have slightly more than 90 degrees to get the nose to
bear. Even with all the ordnance still on the jet, at the most a six to
seven second turn in the A-10 not including reaction lag time. Again,
depending on lots of factors, they may get nose-on in time to hose off a
sidewinder and open up with the gun around or slightly inside 9,000' (no
peacetime TRs to worry about). Most likely it will be a beak-to-beak pass
with the A-10s not getting a shot off, which they will try to drive to a
one-circle if the idiot(s) hang around. If bad guy decides to go vertical,
the engaged A-10 may go with him energy dependant and hose off a sidewinder
to give him sometime to think about, even with an opening Vc. Smart A-10
driver won't continue uphill, instead try to keep tally and get a circle of
hogs going.
If the A-10s get any ordnance off prior to the merge, it might coax the bad
guy into thinking twice about keeping his fangs out. Since the primary A-10
role is to kill them by the bushels instead of one at a time, most A-10
pilots won't hit the emer jett until they get wrapped up with the guy for
180 degrees of turn. Again, situation dependent, lots of 'what ifs' that
you can't know about until you are there.
Or, the possibility exists that he shows up at 6 o'clock and the first
indication is the wingman calls a break turn and chaff and flares. Get the
jet moving, start puking out stuff, and at the earliest opportunity hit the
emer jett. Do best defensive BFM, try to get nuetral or in the best case
reverse or have the wingman schwack him (if the wingman isn't already tied
up with the bad guy's #2).
In answer to your airspeed question, the A-10 will be headed downhill the
entire time to maintain corner velocity, and if he's coming out of RMD, he
should know what's coming so he'll probably be carrying extra knots for the
initial turn at the merge.
The smart A-10 pilot will be flaring and chaffing early and often in
anticipation of that missile shot you are talking about...and keeping the
jet moving.
> If this analysis was accurate, the F-15 and F-22 would be screaming for
> 27mm or 30mm guns...
I think we both know that the possibility of air-to-air gun fighting today
is highly unlikely. Lessons learned from the past would behoove us to have
them on our jets, or in the case of the A-10, use them to really screw up
the bad guys on the ground.
The initial question asked was how multi-barrel and single barrel cannons
stack up, and the subject is best dogfight guns. Just because the A-10 is
built around the GAU-8 doesn't mean it is any less of an effective dogfight
gun, especially with the high rates of turn the A-10 is capable of, small
bullet dispersion over the tac effective range, and relatively high rate of
fire.
ATTACK!
Hog Driver
Superior avionics do not make a superior pilot.
The A-10 uses three different A-A sights, and these sights use pilot inputs
of enemy aircraft airspeed, wingspan, and fuselage length. These inputs are
usually set up pre-mission (they can be set in the air as well, just
time-consuming) and the pilot can cycle through the presets in flight. All
three sights are displayed on the HUD at the same time.
The reason for the three different sights is the required lead isn't
computed by a radar, so depending on aspect (simplified definition:
difference in fuselage alignment between the two aircraft) the pilot must
choose the proper sight to use. It just so happens that if the A-10 pilot
is pulling the proper lead, and is 'in plane' with the target (two of the
three requirements for a gunshot to work), then the proper sight picture
usually develops and the high-aspect and medium-aspect sights will line up
over the target (those are the two most commonly used sights, since your
target will most likely be maneuvering).
Smart A-10 pilot will pull slightly too much lead, open up with the gun,
then ease off slightly on the lead to 'rake' bullets through and reduce
inaccuracies in the sight. Hammer down until the enemy aircraft explodes,
just like you see in WWII gun camera footage.
A-10 pilots who go through weapons school and get to shoot at the dart
(towed target) say the gun is deadly accurate out to the A-A tac effective
range, which is a lot farther than an M61A1. Granted, it's not a
maneuvering target, but it does prove the sight(s) works.
ATTACK!
Ron
>driver won't continue uphill, instead try to keep tally and get a circle of
>hogs going.
Exactly what one of my Viper friends was faced with, going up against some
Battle Creek A-10s....Never was able to get a shot off
Ron
Pilot/Wildland Firefighter
Hog Driver
"Ron" <ms...@aol.com362436> wrote in message
news:20031208132301...@mb-m16.aol.com...
> >Smart A-10
> >driver won't continue uphill, instead try to keep tally and get a circle
of
> >hogs going.
>
> Exactly what one of my Viper friends was faced with, going up against some
> Battle Creek A-10s....Never was able to get a shot off
I have some great guncamera footage of an A-10 saddling up on a Viper who
had two full bags of gas and decided to stick with the Hog and slow
down...the A-10 driver was also tuned into the F-16s VHF air-air freq, and
the Viper driver says, "I don't believe it...I'm about to get gunned by a
Hog!" Sure enough, a few seconds later guns-track-kill by the Hog on the
floundering Viper.
ATTACK!
WaltBJ
pipper would start to move down on the target about half a second
after firing began, but it was easily compensated with a little aft
pressure in the stick. I once fired a 3-second burst (doing a little
pre-combat research) beginning at 4500 feet from the ground target
(acoustic scorer) and scored 100 hits. FWIW the pod gun's dispersion
was such that it would make a good 'shotgun' for the
knife fight'. The SUU23's shot pattern was about 8 mils in elevation
and about 10 in azimuth; still a pretty concentrated pattern at 100
yards - the length of an American football field, and a familiar
distance to most US fighter pilots.
The 366th Wing at Danang had an F4E (call sign Chico) with two
wing-mounted SUU23s plus the nose gun. It was hogged by the 0-6s who
took it out on troops-in-contact calls. Would have made a heck of a
dog fighter because you could take any kind of shot with a good chance
of a kill - including those hairy head-on passes.
Walt BJ
Tony Volk
Certainly not, but all else equal, they make a superior weapons system!
> The A-10 uses three different A-A sights, and these sights use pilot
inputs
> of enemy aircraft airspeed, wingspan, and fuselage length. These inputs
are
> usually set up pre-mission (they can be set in the air as well, just
> time-consuming) and the pilot can cycle through the presets in flight.
All
> three sights are displayed on the HUD at the same time.
> A-10 pilots who go through weapons school and get to shoot at the dart
> (towed target) say the gun is deadly accurate out to the A-A tac effective
> range, which is a lot farther than an M61A1. Granted, it's not a
> maneuvering target, but it does prove the sight(s) works.
My take on this would be that you're using gun sights that are 40's-50's
era in their accuracy against maneuvering targets. I would think that would
put you at a serious disadvantaged (especially when couple with the lower
a-a training of attack pilots vs. fighter pilots). How flexible would the
preprogrammed sites be for fighting a Viper vs. a Turkey or Eagle (with much
larger wingspans and lengths- or a Mig-29 vs. Su-27)? Also, assuming he'd
be slashing from the vertical, what would that do to lessen the range
difference (his bullets with gravity, yours against?).
I appreciate that a good pilot is worth more than a
super-duper-great-jet, and I also appreciate that there are circumstances
when a Hog could be a nasty opponent. I just think that against an equally
good pilot in a fighter jet, the Hog would be in serious trouble. But
that's just an opinion from an armchair pilot with no time under his ass in
either a Hog or a fighter. Thanks for your comments Hog Driver, they're
most appreciated. Regards,
Tony Volk
p.s.- 74th squadron or not, all Hogs should have shark mouths (or hog
tusks)!
Paul J. Adam
<cNaOnSdPrA...@comcast.net> writes
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>
>> That's an extremely large "if", given the extensive air-to-air sensor
>> suite fitted to the A-10...
>
>Well, using AWACS and mutual support tactics, the A-10 pilots are going to
>have an idea where to pick up the tally.
Again, AWACS is situation-dependent, and there's that oft-quoted
statistic about 80% of surviving pilots wondering who shot them down
(tracking that statistic to a source is probably good for a PhD thesis -
anyone up for funding it? :) )
>Once that happens, it isn't the
>best 'suite' that is going to win the fight, it's the best BFM to get to the
>WEZ.
Depends what weapons the assorted combatants brought to the fight: for
many engagements, the A-10 is totally defensive and manoevering against
RWR indications. (Does it have any IRWR gear? It's a natural platform to
get some sort of missile-warning gear over RWR)
Again, for real life this isn't much of a problem because the A-10
operates in total air supremacy and has never had an enemy aircraft ever
get a chance to shoot at it (rendering the preparations of the A-10
crews to fight back untested).
>> Are you keeping your ordnance for this turn? How long does it take to
>> get the nose pointed at the target while still having time to get that
>> shot off? (driving your required detection range). How much airspeed do
>> you have left at the end of it, which has a serious effect on your
>> ability to escape the wingman? And what happens when you discover the
>> attacking aircraft was firing a missile, rather than making a gun pass?
>
>It all depends upon the situation. Hopefully the A-10 pilot(s) pick up the
>tally at least 3 or 4 miles out near 3 or 9 o'clock, coming out of a good
>RMD. Then they only have slightly more than 90 degrees to get the nose to
>bear. Even with all the ordnance still on the jet, at the most a six to
>seven second turn in the A-10 not including reaction lag time. Again,
>depending on lots of factors, they may get nose-on in time to hose off a
>sidewinder and open up with the gun around or slightly inside 9,000' (no
>peacetime TRs to worry about). Most likely it will be a beak-to-beak pass
>with the A-10s not getting a shot off, which they will try to drive to a
>one-circle if the idiot(s) hang around. If bad guy decides to go vertical,
>the engaged A-10 may go with him energy dependant and hose off a sidewinder
>to give him sometime to think about, even with an opening Vc. Smart A-10
>driver won't continue uphill, instead try to keep tally and get a circle of
>hogs going.
Good to hear some of my WAGs confirmed :)
I guess you could describe my position thusly... A-10s engaged by modern
fighters are in bad trouble, but have a few cards to play (low altitude,
high turn rate and large countermeasure magazines come to mind) while
they can give over-aggressive enemy fighters some very nasty problems to
solve.
>If the A-10s get any ordnance off prior to the merge, it might coax the bad
>guy into thinking twice about keeping his fangs out. Since the primary A-10
>role is to kill them by the bushels instead of one at a time, most A-10
>pilots won't hit the emer jett until they get wrapped up with the guy for
>180 degrees of turn.
Do you have options short of "full jettison"? I freely confess that my
flying experience is limited to civil propjobs and computer games, but
does the A-10 have (for instance) any option to jettison A/G ordnance
while keeping outboard pylons (Sidewinders and jammer pods)?
>Again, situation dependent, lots of 'what ifs' that
>you can't know about until you are there.
This is too true, sadly, and imposes all sorts of limits on open debate.
>In answer to your airspeed question, the A-10 will be headed downhill the
>entire time to maintain corner velocity, and if he's coming out of RMD, he
>should know what's coming so he'll probably be carrying extra knots for the
>initial turn at the merge.
Trouble with that is, how do you get that energy back, especially if you
started out low? Bear in mind that if there are enemy fighters up and
flying, their IADS is probably still operational complete with
radar-guided SAMs.
(And, given recent experience, what if the Bad Guys have orders that
"anything you can shoot at is hostile" while their fighters have stern
orders to stay high and fast no matter how tempting the diving target?)
But then, this keeps coming back to Bad Guys who can mount a credible
air threat. Not sure where to find a likely enemy that can seriously
sustain any sort of counter-air operations against the US...
>The smart A-10 pilot will be flaring and chaffing early and often in
>anticipation of that missile shot you are talking about...and keeping the
>jet moving.
Again, that's keeping the A-10 defensive rather than having it turn and
fight an attacking Su-27 or similar... just because
>
>> If this analysis was accurate, the F-15 and F-22 would be screaming for
>> 27mm or 30mm guns...
>
>I think we both know that the possibility of air-to-air gun fighting today
>is highly unlikely. Lessons learned from the past would behoove us to have
>them on our jets, or in the case of the A-10, use them to really screw up
>the bad guys on the ground.
I hate to be contrarian... all right, I don't. I _like_ being
contrarian. Lessons from the past suggest that getting missiles working
and crews trained is a better path to dead enemies for air-to-air work.
Air-to-ground, guns pull you into IR-SAM range and even for A-10s that
isn't healthy.
>The initial question asked was how multi-barrel and single barrel cannons
>stack up, and the subject is best dogfight guns. Just because the A-10 is
>built around the GAU-8 doesn't mean it is any less of an effective dogfight
>gun, especially with the high rates of turn the A-10 is capable of, small
>bullet dispersion over the tac effective range, and relatively high rate of
>fire.
Sure, just as a modern bayonet is a miserable weapon compared to a Light
Infantry sword (a proper sword that just happened to have fittings to
mount onto a Baker rifle... beat _that_ for close quarters combat! Other
than by eschewing melee and throwing in a grenade, or shooting the
enemy, or otherwise cheating...)
One 2Lt Patton wrote the US Army's last swordsmanship manual... doesn't
make swords a useful weapon, whatever the advantages his technique had
over the enemy's _code duello_, if you find yourself trying to use a
sabre against an enemy with a pistol (or, worse, an enemy luring you
into the beaten zone of a machinegun)
I'd hazard that where a credible air-to-air threat might exist then the
A-10's Sidewinder and countermeasure fit becomes of more importance than
its gun loadout, however reassuring the gun is as a weapon of last
extremity.
Alan Minyard
Much better to go with an M-61 variant that actually works, is combat proven,
and has a useful rate of fire.
Al Minyard
Paul J. Adam
<aminy...@netdoor.com> writes
>Much better to go with an M-61 variant that actually works, is combat proven,
>and has a useful rate of fire.
Trouble is, this gets you back where the US was in 1950; the M3 .50" was
a superb gun in terms of reliability, ballistics and rate of fire and
was a thoroughly proven weapon. Trouble is, nobody convinced the MiG-15s
of that fact, so they soaked up a _lot_ of hits where a larger-calibre
weapon would have made the F-86 versus MiG-15 kill ratio even _more_
impressive.
Kevin Brooks
"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:gMaGFuciWQ1$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk...
> In message <vY2dncUGve7...@comcast.com>, Hog Driver
> <cNaOnSdPrA...@comcast.net> writes
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>
<snip>
> >
> >I think we both know that the possibility of air-to-air gun fighting
today
> >is highly unlikely. Lessons learned from the past would behoove us to
have
> >them on our jets, or in the case of the A-10, use them to really screw up
> >the bad guys on the ground.
>
> I hate to be contrarian... all right, I don't. I _like_ being
> contrarian. Lessons from the past suggest that getting missiles working
> and crews trained is a better path to dead enemies for air-to-air work.
> Air-to-ground, guns pull you into IR-SAM range and even for A-10s that
> isn't healthy.
Paul, doing away with a tool from your kit without a compelling reason to do
so, along with having a danged foolproof method of handling the situations
that said tool could handle, is unwise. As to air-to-ground use, I believe
the resident Strike Eagle driver has already provided a reason for retaining
a strafe capability, i.e., recent operations in Afghanistan. During Anaconda
the need for up-close-and-personal support (read that as well within the
danger-close margin) was reported. You can't *always* use your LGB's or
JDAM's, which is why the grunts liked the cannon armed aircraft during that
fight. Yes, it brings the air in within MANPADS range--but that is a risk
those guys are willing to accept when the fight on the ground gets hairy
(and thank goodness for that). Arguing that they can't (or never should)
face such a risk is a bit illogical--if all services followed that thought
process, we'd stop issuing rifles to infantrymen because in order to use one
you have to close to within the effective range of the other guy's weapons.
>
> >The initial question asked was how multi-barrel and single barrel cannons
> >stack up, and the subject is best dogfight guns. Just because the A-10
is
> >built around the GAU-8 doesn't mean it is any less of an effective
dogfight
> >gun, especially with the high rates of turn the A-10 is capable of, small
> >bullet dispersion over the tac effective range, and relatively high rate
of
> >fire.
>
> Sure, just as a modern bayonet is a miserable weapon compared to a Light
> Infantry sword (a proper sword that just happened to have fittings to
> mount onto a Baker rifle... beat _that_ for close quarters combat! Other
> than by eschewing melee and throwing in a grenade, or shooting the
> enemy, or otherwise cheating...)
>
> One 2Lt Patton wrote the US Army's last swordsmanship manual... doesn't
> make swords a useful weapon, whatever the advantages his technique had
> over the enemy's _code duello_, if you find yourself trying to use a
> sabre against an enemy with a pistol (or, worse, an enemy luring you
> into the beaten zone of a machinegun)
But there are tasks for which that bayonet is oh-so-much better than say, an
M16A2 with state-of-the-art night optics. I saw a fair amount of peanut
butter spread with bayonets; had we had to use our M16's for that it would
have been rather messy. Now that is I admit a rather extreme example, but
again it points out the wisdom of retaining those tools we have even in the
face of longer ranged/more lethal options.
Brooks
<snip>
Tony Williams
I understand that pressing the firing button for the off-centre gun in
the F-16 and F-15 automatically adjusts the rudder to compensate for
yaw.
Tony Williams
Incidentally, a three-barrel lightweight version of the GAU-8/A was
developed, firing the same ammo at 2,000 rpm. It was known as the CHAG
(compact, high-performance aircraft gun IIRC) and would I expect have
been fitted to modern fighters instead of the M61 if the gun had
remained more important in air combat.
Tony Williams
The 30x173 cartridge for the GAU-8/A was actually 'borrowed' from the
KCA, the most obvious difference being that the KCA's ammo is
steel-cased rather than aluminium alloy. The power of the HE rounds is
exactly the same. The KCA was adopted by the USA as the GAU-9/A, in
case the 8A failed (the A-10 would have had two KCAs).
As I've posted elsewhere on this thread, as well as the podded
four-barrel GAU-13/A version of the GAU-8/A, a lightweight
three-barrel CHAG version in 30x173 was also produced, firing at 2,000
rpm. That would have been interesting....
It's worth noting that the current Russian 30x165 ammo isn't that much
less powerful than the 30x173, and they do make a six-barrel rotary,
the GSh-6-30, which fires at 5,000 rpm and weighs only 160kg (M61 =
114 kg, GAU-8/A = 281 kg). If you really want bang for your buck, you
can't do much better than that, but the Russians only ever fitted it
to the MiG-27 for ground-attack.
Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Scott Ferrin
>As I've posted elsewhere on this thread, as well as the podded
>four-barrel GAU-13/A version of the GAU-8/A,
I saw a picture once of the original Strike Eagle with three of those
babies on it. :-)
Scott Ferrin
Williams) wrote:
>Scott Ferrin <sfe...@xmission.com> wrote in message news:<5659tvg3br65nfu3q...@4ax.com>...
>> On 8 Dec 2003 10:14:03 +0100, gri...@canit.se (Urban Fredriksson)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >In article <bqte1a$c3e$1$830f...@news.demon.co.uk>,
>> >Keith Willshaw <keit...@kwillshaw.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> >
>> >>Then again the control authority of modern aorcraft is higher
>> >>and the fly by wire control system can compensate for
>> >>gyroscopic forces rather better than a human being.
>> >
>> >And assymetric recoil as well I assume, but I think I read
>> >that test firing of the F-22's gun induced yaw, but little
>> >enough that the pilot easily could compensate, which must
>> >mean the FCS doesn't try to.
>>
>>
>> The would really surprise me as the thing tries to use control
>> surfaces to account for little bumps and gusts on the runway :-)
>
>I understand that pressing the firing button for the off-centre gun in
>the F-16 and F-15 automatically adjusts the rudder to compensate for
>yaw.
I know it does on the F-16 but I don't know if it does on the -15
Nele VII
of twin-barrel GSh-23 used on MiG-21, 23...) and fires around 7,000-8,000
RPM. The same gun is installed into MiG-31 for AA, carried internally and
deployed on a movable gun-bay when used. What is interesting about this gun
is that it is, although Gatling-type gun, it is gas-operated (don't ask me
how!) and therefore so light. On trials it achieved some 10,000 RPM (!!!)
but it is tuned-down for practical use on MiG-27 and MiG-31.
The -other- Russian gatling gun GSh-6-30 You were talking about is not in
use yet (at least I do not know which aircraft carries it)
Nele
NULLA ROSA SINE SPINA
Tony Williams wrote in message ...
Ron
Talk about optimism!
Ron
Pilot/Wildland Firefighter
Chad Irby
> The -other- Russian gatling gun GSh-6-30 You were talking about is not in
> use yet (at least I do not know which aircraft carries it)
I saw some references to the MiG-27 using the -30...
--
cirby at cfl.rr.com
Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.
Chad Irby
"Nele VII" <nele...@SPAMvipTRAP.hrTRAP> wrote:
> Wrongo. Mig-27 has elevation-movable GSh-6-23 that uses 23mm ammo (same ammo
> of twin-barrel GSh-23 used on MiG-21, 23...) and fires around 7,000-8,000
> RPM. The same gun is installed into MiG-31 for AA, carried internally and
> deployed on a movable gun-bay when used. What is interesting about this gun
> is that it is, although Gatling-type gun, it is gas-operated (don't ask me
> how!) and therefore so light. On trials it achieved some 10,000 RPM (!!!)
> but it is tuned-down for practical use on MiG-27 and MiG-31.
The only problem is that the GSh-6-23 is *heavy*, running almost 200 kg,
and on the MiG-31 it only has 260 rounds... giving it about two seconds
of full-rate (7000 per minute) firing.
Other than that, it seems like a heckuva scary piece of iron.
Nele VII
Article from Military Parade July-August '97, Salamander book "MiGs" with a
nice photo of the gun, from what is obvious it is(they are) 23, NOT 30mm
barrel(s).
-30 is the newer gun that belongs to -30mm "family" that includes
single-barrel GSh-301 (MiG-29/Su27), single-barrel 2A42 (choppers) double
barrel GSh 30 (Su-25) and 30K, six barrel GSh-6-30...
Nele
NULLA ROSA SINE SPINA
Chad Irby wrote in message ...
Alan Minyard
>In message <v1h9tvc1dn7k9tdgt...@4ax.com>, Alan Minyard
><aminy...@netdoor.com> writes
>>Much better to go with an M-61 variant that actually works, is combat proven,
>>and has a useful rate of fire.
>
>Trouble is, this gets you back where the US was in 1950; the M3 .50" was
>a superb gun in terms of reliability, ballistics and rate of fire and
>was a thoroughly proven weapon. Trouble is, nobody convinced the MiG-15s
>of that fact, so they soaked up a _lot_ of hits where a larger-calibre
>weapon would have made the F-86 versus MiG-15 kill ratio even _more_
>impressive.
And who out there is going to use significant numbers of unreliable, heavy, slow
cannon to oppose a US Force? The rate of fire of the .50 was not enough to
make up for the somewhat smaller calibre, that is not the case with the M-61.
Al Minyard
Chad Irby
(Top posting repaired)
> Chad Irby wrote in message ...
> >"Nele VII" <nele...@SPAMvipTRAP.hrTRAP> wrote:
> >
> >> The -other- Russian gatling gun GSh-6-30 You were talking about
> >> is not in use yet (at least I do not know which aircraft carries
> >> it)
> >
> >I saw some references to the MiG-27 using the -30...
> No. My sources are, among others is website "Russian Aviation Museum",
> Article from Military Parade July-August '97, Salamander book "MiGs" with a
> nice photo of the gun, from what is obvious it is(they are) 23, NOT 30mm
> barrel(s).
...from a six year old article.
Meanwhile, the *current* FAS site mentions the -30 in the MiG.
<http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/row/mig-27.htm>
...along with:
<http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/vvs/mig27-01.htm>
And others.
Emmanuel Gustin
news:br3nuf$hc6$1...@fegnews.vip.hr...
> The -other- Russian gatling gun GSh-6-30 You were talking about is not in
> use yet (at least I do not know which aircraft carries it)
MiG-27, with 260 rounds, instead of the GSh-23L of
the MiG-23.
--
Emmanuel Gustin
Emmanuel.Gustin -rem@ve- skynet dot be
Flying Guns Page: http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/
Emmanuel Gustin
> -30 is the newer gun that belongs to -30mm "family" that includes
> single-barrel GSh-301 (MiG-29/Su27), single-barrel 2A42 (choppers) double
> barrel GSh 30 (Su-25) and 30K, six barrel GSh-6-30...
That the GSh-6-30 is carried in the belly pack of the MiG-27 is
confirmed by the manufacturer's own website --
http://www.shipunov.com/eng/str/cannons/gsh6_30.htm
BTW every good source I have ever seen, including Belyakov &
Marmain's "MiG OKB", identifies the MiG-27 cannon as the
GSh-6-30. The -30 appears to have entered service several
years _before_ the -23.
Tony Williams
Possibly, possibly not. The bigger the target is, the more damage you
have to inflict to down it. A MiG-15 weighed under 3,800 kg empty, a
Su-27 around 18,000 kg - nearly five times as much. A 20mm shell
weighs only just over twice as much as a .50 bullet. You can double
its effectiveness in recognition of the HEI content, but even so you
are still left with a pretty even match between the .5/MiG-15 and
20mm/Su-27 in terms of destructive effect compared with target weight.
Tony Williams
> Article from Military Parade July-August '97, Salamander book "MiGs" with a
> nice photo of the gun, from what is obvious it is(they are) 23, NOT 30mm
> barrel(s).
>
> -30 is the newer gun that belongs to -30mm "family" that includes
> single-barrel GSh-301 (MiG-29/Su27), single-barrel 2A42 (choppers) double
> barrel GSh 30 (Su-25) and 30K, six barrel GSh-6-30...
Sorry, but I must disagree with you. It may be that some MiG-27s were
fitted with the GSh-6-23, but the GSh-6-30 is the more common fit.
This is from 'Flying Guns: the Modern Era':
"Later the USSR decided that the MiG-23 fighter would be a good basis
for a modern Shturmovik, and ordered a dedicated attack development
that was designated MiG 27. After some debate, supersonic performance
was retained, to enable the aircraft to get in and out of the fighting
area quickly, but the engine installation was considerably simplified.
The MiG 27 had a flat "duck nose" with navigation and attack systems
instead of fighter radar. The lower nose allowed redesign of the
cockpit, with a much better forward and downward view and armour to
protect the pilot. The aircraft also received a system that
pressurised the fuel tanks with inert gas, and stronger landing gear
for rough-field operations. The GSh-6-30 cannon was installed instead
of the GSh-23L.
The MiG-27 is the sole confirmed carrier of the GSh-6-30 (although
there are reports that it has been fitted to some versions of the
MiG-31 and Su-25), a six-barrel rotary gun firing the powerful 30x165
cartridge at up to 5,000 rpm. The vibration and recoil of this potent
weapon caused MiG considerable installation problems. Only 265 rounds
are carried, limiting the firing time to 3.2 seconds. The gun was at
first left totally exposed, but on the MiG 27M later the breech was
given a cover to protect it from debris thrown up by the tires, and
gas deflector vanes were added. On the wing SPPU-22-01 gun pods, with
guns that can be depressed for ground strafing, can be carried."
Incidentally, I don't know where the figure of 200 kg for the GSh-6-23
came from - possibly for the whole installation, but the gun weighs
only around 75 kg. Even the GSh-6-30 weighs only 160kg as a bare gun.
Paul J. Adam
<ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
>In article <ETa$CK1lr10$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>,>> >Actually, the Hog does, if it knows what direction the other guy is
>> >coming from.
>
>First, you're addressing a more "average" scenario than the one I was
>talking about (no missiles for the F-15, A-10 ready for the incoming
>threat).
Pretty extreme, then...
>> That's an extremely large "if", given the extensive air-to-air sensor
>> suite fitted to the A-10...
>
>It's called a "radar warning receiver," and it tells you which direction
>you're being radiated from. If the other guy isn't using radar, they're
>proabably not going to see you in the weeds at all from any rational
>distance.
Are there no AWACS? And does nobody use eyeball-shooter tactics?
I can easily construct highly scenarios where enemy tanks down attaking
Warthogs with accurately-thrown dinnerware, but that doesn't make
cutlery into a generally useful anti-aircraft munition...
>> Are you keeping your ordnance for this turn? How long does it take to
>> get the nose pointed at the target while still having time to get that
>> shot off? (driving your required detection range).
>
>Lots of time, in the case I was originally talking about (F-15s on the
>way back from an air-to-air sortie going after an opportune A-10
>target). If you allow missiles for the F-15s and no cover for the A-10,
>it's a turkey shoot. But we were talking about gun tactics...
I'm reminded of some of Jeff Cooper's rules.
I'm also considering that if you're engaging A-10s, you'd do so to
maximise your strengths and their weaknesses; which among other things
means staying off their nose.
>
>> How much airspeed do you have left at the end of it, which has a
>> serious effect on your ability to escape the wingman?
>
>Not as such, since the only reason you need a lot of energy going into
>this sort of fight is to match someone else with a similar weapon. If
>you're up against someone who can blow you out of the sky from a mile or
>so further out than your weapon can reach, and who can fly below treetop
>level for a good part of the engagement, it's a whole different ballgame.
>
>> And what happens when you discover the
>> attacking aircraft was firing a missile, rather than making a gun pass?
>
>Not in this scenario. Sorry you came in late.
>
>> If this analysis was accurate, the F-15 and F-22 would be screaming for
>> 27mm or 30mm guns...
>
>...or more bullets.
What's the point of more ammunition, if you can't get into range to use
what you already have?
>It's a very narrow scenario, and in this case, the
>A-10 isn't the helpless target you seem to want it to be.
You misspelled "is", against any sort of capable air opposition.
Fortunately, the A-10 has always operated under air supremacy and
there's no sign of that changing soon.
Paul J. Adam
<broo...@notyahoo.com> writes
>"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:gMaGFuciWQ1$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk...
>> contrarian. Lessons from the past suggest that getting missiles working
>> and crews trained is a better path to dead enemies for air-to-air work.
>> Air-to-ground, guns pull you into IR-SAM range and even for A-10s that
>> isn't healthy.
>
>Paul, doing away with a tool from your kit without a compelling reason to do
>so, along with having a danged foolproof method of handling the situations
>that said tool could handle, is unwise.
Sure, but insisting on keeping kit because it used to be essential and
still might be useful is equally risky: especially when it can't be
jettisoned.
>As to air-to-ground use, I believe
>the resident Strike Eagle driver has already provided a reason for retaining
>a strafe capability, i.e., recent operations in Afghanistan. During Anaconda
>the need for up-close-and-personal support (read that as well within the
>danger-close margin) was reported. You can't *always* use your LGB's or
>JDAM's, which is why the grunts liked the cannon armed aircraft during that
>fight.
Are there no gun pods? This has always been a capability that can be
bolted onto aircraft as necessary.
>Yes, it brings the air in within MANPADS range--but that is a risk
>those guys are willing to accept when the fight on the ground gets hairy
>(and thank goodness for that). Arguing that they can't (or never should)
>face such a risk is a bit illogical--if all services followed that thought
>process, we'd stop issuing rifles to infantrymen because in order to use one
>you have to close to within the effective range of the other guy's weapons.
More like issuing lances to tankers so they can run down enemy
soldiers...
>> Sure, just as a modern bayonet is a miserable weapon compared to a Light
>> Infantry sword (a proper sword that just happened to have fittings to
>> mount onto a Baker rifle... beat _that_ for close quarters combat! Other
>> than by eschewing melee and throwing in a grenade, or shooting the
>> enemy, or otherwise cheating...)
>>
>> One 2Lt Patton wrote the US Army's last swordsmanship manual... doesn't
>> make swords a useful weapon, whatever the advantages his technique had
>> over the enemy's _code duello_, if you find yourself trying to use a
>> sabre against an enemy with a pistol (or, worse, an enemy luring you
>> into the beaten zone of a machinegun)
>
>But there are tasks for which that bayonet is oh-so-much better than say, an
>M16A2 with state-of-the-art night optics.
True, but how much does a bayonet weigh and what else can you use it
for? I notice that while the bayonet I was issued for use with L1A1 was
strictly and firmly only for fixing to the muzzle and jabbing enemy
with... probing for mines was a grudgingly acceptable alternative. But
Nothing Else! Hence even when I was issued a bayonet I at least had a
good lock knife for utility task.
The other allowable uses of a good stout sharp knife have grown
steadily: I was always amused that the cheap copy of a K-Bar I carried
on my webbing was much mocked at the start of an exercise and much
demanded by the end. Now, bayonets are having their utility as tools
rated as important as their ability to become improvised spears.
But the knife bayonet is a small, light, handy item that can replace
what a soldier would carry anyway (not many of us carried knives to
fight with, certainly not in peacetime, and I'd certainly not have
bothered with both bayonet and K-bar-clone). The analogy for air combat
is nearer to a full-size sword, lance or pike: a large, hefty item that
weighs as much as several magazines for your rifle or a day or two's
rations, even if it's more lethal in hand-to-hand combat.
And can you _guarantee_ that soldiers will never find themselves in
close-quarter battle? Would you have them carry puny knives, or would
you give them mighty swords, spears and/or axes to smite their foes with
as a permanent addition to their CEFO? Okay, they don't fight like that
too often... and it's more weight for them to carry... but there will
always be cases where soldiers find themselves fighting at arm's length,
so wouldn't issuing everyone a sword or axe be useful then?
>I saw a fair amount of peanut
>butter spread with bayonets; had we had to use our M16's for that it would
>have been rather messy. Now that is I admit a rather extreme example, but
>again it points out the wisdom of retaining those tools we have even in the
>face of longer ranged/more lethal options.
Depends on a lot of factors. For instance, the F-15E both kept a gun
that isn't ideal for its primary mission of ground attack (shell too
light, slant range on the short size, rate of fire derated for strafing)
and halved the ammunition supply. It's not a bad decision because it's
quick and saves money, but it reflects the low priority.
If you were designing the capability from scratch, would you insist on
the M61? Consider a larger-calibre weapon with more A/G punch like a
KCA? Or go for fuel and/or lightness, and hang a podded gun for 'danger
close' missions?
Trouble is, stories of "F-15E bravely makes strafing passes" deservedly
get headlines. "F-15E really regrets having to call skosh fuel and leave
station" don't: but an internal gun is getting on for a thousand pounds
of fuel, which translates to more loiter time or range. And it isn't
negotiable.
Chad Irby
"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Chad Irby <ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
>
> >First, you're addressing a more "average" scenario than the one I was
> >talking about (no missiles for the F-15, A-10 ready for the incoming
> >threat).
>
> Pretty extreme, then...
Only for a "first day," "first hour" war. But yes, it's odd, which is
why I've mentioned it as such two or three times so far.
> I can easily construct highly scenarios where enemy tanks down attaking
> Warthogs with accurately-thrown dinnerware, but that doesn't make
> cutlery into a generally useful anti-aircraft munition...
If you're comparing forks and knives to 30mm HEI at a couple of thousand
yards, we can tell where your argument has gone.
Chad Irby
"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Are there no gun pods? This has always been a capability that can be
> bolted onto aircraft as necessary.
"Hey, Bob, there's a couple of MiGs between us and the base, I'm a
little low on fuel, no missiles, and we've got no guns."
"Better strap one on, then..."
The "missiles will rule" argument is coming back, I see. But McNamara
is still alive and well...
Kevin Brooks
> In message <zP8Bb.1038$Zq2.9...@news2.news.adelphia.net>, Kevin Brooks
> <broo...@notyahoo.com> writes
> >"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:gMaGFuciWQ1$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk...
> >> I hate to be contrarian... all right, I don't. I _like_ being
> >> contrarian. Lessons from the past suggest that getting missiles working
> >> and crews trained is a better path to dead enemies for air-to-air work.
> >> Air-to-ground, guns pull you into IR-SAM range and even for A-10s that
> >> isn't healthy.
> >
> >Paul, doing away with a tool from your kit without a compelling reason to
do
> >so, along with having a danged foolproof method of handling the
situations
> >that said tool could handle, is unwise.
>
> Sure, but insisting on keeping kit because it used to be essential and
> still might be useful is equally risky: especially when it can't be
> jettisoned.
And I suppose designing that feature in and then doing away with it because
of its (relatively slight) increase in unit cost, as was done with the RAF
Typhoon, is not risky?
>
> >As to air-to-ground use, I believe
> >the resident Strike Eagle driver has already provided a reason for
retaining
> >a strafe capability, i.e., recent operations in Afghanistan. During
Anaconda
> >the need for up-close-and-personal support (read that as well within the
> >danger-close margin) was reported. You can't *always* use your LGB's or
> >JDAM's, which is why the grunts liked the cannon armed aircraft during
that
> >fight.
>
> Are there no gun pods? This has always been a capability that can be
> bolted onto aircraft as necessary.
Let's see, which would I rather have orbiting about in the CAS stack,
aircraft that are capable of both without requiring special ordinance
request, or a requirement for the FSE and ALO to put their heads together
and route a request for such specialized ordnance to be fitted...? I believe
the former wins.
>
> >Yes, it brings the air in within MANPADS range--but that is a risk
> >those guys are willing to accept when the fight on the ground gets hairy
> >(and thank goodness for that). Arguing that they can't (or never should)
> >face such a risk is a bit illogical--if all services followed that
thought
> >process, we'd stop issuing rifles to infantrymen because in order to use
one
> >you have to close to within the effective range of the other guy's
weapons.
>
> More like issuing lances to tankers so they can run down enemy
> soldiers...
No, you were arguing that use of the gun is dumb because it brings the CAS
platform down lower into the MANPADS envelope. That is not something we
would prefer to have happen, but when the situation requires it, the risk
may have to be accepted. If you are going to argue the necessity of CAS
*always* staying outside the bad guys response envelope, then the "can't
issue rifles to grunts because they will have to get within the bad guy's
engagement range" is the groundpounder's equivalent solution. Neither of
them makes much sense to me.
Well, you always have that nifty wire-cutting feature for the latest US
bayonet in combination with its scabbard (though I am not sure how effective
it really is in that role)...
>
> >I saw a fair amount of peanut
> >butter spread with bayonets; had we had to use our M16's for that it
would
> >have been rather messy. Now that is I admit a rather extreme example, but
> >again it points out the wisdom of retaining those tools we have even in
the
> >face of longer ranged/more lethal options.
>
> Depends on a lot of factors. For instance, the F-15E both kept a gun
> that isn't ideal for its primary mission of ground attack (shell too
> light, slant range on the short size, rate of fire derated for strafing)
> and halved the ammunition supply. It's not a bad decision because it's
> quick and saves money, but it reflects the low priority.
Low priority and outright elimination are two different things. ISTR reading
that those 10th LID guys in Anaconda were *very* happy to have strafe
support from F-15E's, A-10's, and even AH-64's.
>
> If you were designing the capability from scratch, would you insist on
> the M61? Consider a larger-calibre weapon with more A/G punch like a
> KCA? Or go for fuel and/or lightness, and hang a podded gun for 'danger
> close' missions?
That depends. Since cost is always a factor at some point, the use of the
M61 may be the best solution (you still retain an inherent marginal strafe
capability at minimal cost, and if you want more punch you can still *add*
those pods you keep talking about). Or maybe use a 25mm weapon, or the
Mauser 27mm. Details are rather unimportant to the current question at hand
(courtesy thread drift), which is, "Gun versus no gun". You say no gun, I
say if possible retain the gun and remain more flexible by doing so.
>
>
> Trouble is, stories of "F-15E bravely makes strafing passes" deservedly
> get headlines. "F-15E really regrets having to call skosh fuel and leave
> station" don't: but an internal gun is getting on for a thousand pounds
> of fuel, which translates to more loiter time or range. And it isn't
> negotiable.
We have KC's that refuel TACAIR. If you are talking the CAS mission, which
we are now doing, then it is reasonable to accept that those assets will be
doing their thing relatively close to the EA. And stop acting as if a
thousand pounds of fuel is the end of the world--that works out to what, a
whopping 125 gallons? If your CAS effort is dependent upon a 125 gallon fuel
margine you are likely in deep do-do already.
Brooks
Tony Williams
> In article <M2StL8lCuk1$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk>,
> "Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> > Are there no gun pods? This has always been a capability that can be
> > bolted onto aircraft as necessary.
>
> "Hey, Bob, there's a couple of MiGs between us and the base, I'm a
> little low on fuel, no missiles, and we've got no guns."
>
> "Better strap one on, then..."
>
> The "missiles will rule" argument is coming back, I see. But McNamara
> is still alive and well...
This is from 'Flying Guns: the Modern Era':
"Podded guns have the advantage that they don't need to be lugged
around unless the planes are in circumstances in which a gun is likely
to be needed. Like any other piece of hardware, they can be fitted
according to requirements. The downside of this is that you first have
to make sure that the gunpods are available when required, you have to
be psychic to determine when they might be useful, they use up a
hardpoint which would otherwise be available for fuel or other
weapons, they take some time to harmonise – and keep harmonised – when
fitted, and even then are less accurate than integral guns. Gunpods
generate more drag, usually affect handling and are also much less
"stealthy" than integral guns; a factor likely to be increasingly
important as stealth measures are leading to the internal carriage of
all weapons. This solution is therefore very much second best, but it
is better than nothing. The installation of weapons in
purpose-designed conformal pods fitted directly to the fuselage and
intended to be more or less permanent fixtures does reduce or avoid
some of the above problems."
phil hunt
>
>And I suppose designing that feature in and then doing away with it because
>of its (relatively slight) increase in unit cost, as was done with the RAF
>Typhoon, is not risky?
How much does a Mauser BK 27 cost, I wonder? I bet removing it would
save them no more than the cost of one plane, over the entire
programme.
--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: <zen2...@zen.co.ku>, but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).
John Keeney
> In message <zP8Bb.1038$Zq2.9...@news2.news.adelphia.net>, Kevin Brooks
> <broo...@notyahoo.com> writes
> >the resident Strike Eagle driver has already provided a reason for
retaining
> >a strafe capability, i.e., recent operations in Afghanistan. During
Anaconda
> >the need for up-close-and-personal support (read that as well within the
> >danger-close margin) was reported. You can't *always* use your LGB's or
> >JDAM's, which is why the grunts liked the cannon armed aircraft during
that
> >fight.
>
> Are there no gun pods? This has always been a capability that can be
> bolted onto aircraft as necessary.
Gun pods are great draggy things that really cut in to performance.
> If you were designing the capability from scratch, would you insist on
> the M61? Consider a larger-calibre weapon with more A/G punch like a
> KCA? Or go for fuel and/or lightness, and hang a podded gun for 'danger
> close' missions?
The problem is that those danger close missions tend to be unpredicted
by their nature otherwise we would simply avoid the great majority all
together. And in many cases arming up a plane specifically to fly one
-say in Qatar- and getting it on station -oh, over Afghanistan- is going to
take too long.
Nele VII
Tony Williams wrote in message ...
>
>Sorry, but I must disagree with you. It may be that some MiG-27s were
>fitted with the GSh-6-23, but the GSh-6-30 is the more common fit.
>This is from 'Flying Guns: the Modern Era':
<lots of good stuff snipped>
I have nothig to say but to agree with You and Mr. Gustin. I have been on
Indian military site and they also state GSh-6-30 -only one correction-it is
6,000 RPM, not 5,000 (they were licence-building MiG-27M, so I assume they
know better). However, I have also read about problems with the MiG-27 gun
installation (vibrations!), but that gun was GSh-6-23 (sorry I cannot give
reference, the link is dead). I assume that they've tried '23 gun first,
went on short production, but discarded it for more 'docile' 30 mm gun.
GSh-6-23 is installed in Su-24 Fencer and MiG-31. I am surprised that such a
light and powerful gun was not installed in other figters. Its construction
is ingenious-it requires no external power source (gas-operated!), fires
10-12,000RPM (which probably can be reduced) and have a good ammunition.
Urban Fredriksson
Tony Williams <Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk> wrote:
>I understand that the SAAB Viggen armed with Oerlikon KCA has an
>'AutoAim' system which effectively takes over the autopilot
But actually only the pitch and yaw channels.
>and aims
>the plane at the designated target to ensure that the gun is properly
>aimed. This enables engagement at up to 3,000m in a head-on attack.
And letting the pilot look at something other when firing.
--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
There is always a yet unknown alternative.
Urban Fredriksson
Scott Ferrin <sfe...@xmission.com> wrote:
>The would really surprise me as the thing tries to use control
>surfaces to account for little bumps and gusts on the runway :-)
The article in Flight International was quite clear on the
matter with a quote that didn't leave room for
interpretation. I'm still trying to figure out exactly why
it doesn't (if the information is right), apart from the
reason it's not told the gun is fired because that's not
something which happens often.
--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
A boundary between the known and the unknown always exists.
Alan Minyard
Are you familiar with the concept of guided missiles? If you get into gun range
you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last ditch, desperation
weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight on a honking great,
slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.
Al Minyard
Kevin Brooks
Yeah, a terrible tradeoff...right up to the point where you (or, more
accurately those you are supporting below who are locked in a very nasty
"knife" fight that precludes use of JDAM or an LGB) need it, as was found
during Anaconda.
Brooks
>
> Al Minyard
Ed Rasimus
<broo...@notyahoo.com> wrote:
>
>"Alan Minyard" <aminy...@netdoor.com> wrote in message
>news:o7betvgolt04oha37...@4ax.com...
>
>> Are you familiar with the concept of guided missiles? If you get into gun
>> range you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last ditch, desperation
>> weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight on a honking great,
>> slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.
>
>Yeah, a terrible tradeoff...right up to the point where you (or, more
>accurately those you are supporting below who are locked in a very nasty
>"knife" fight that precludes use of JDAM or an LGB) need it, as was found
>during Anaconda.
>
>Brooks
The more things change, the more they remain the same. I've only
opined once in this long thread, but thought I'd jump in again after
this.
Some points:
1. The M-61, with roughly fifty years of experience is a reliable gun.
It's been modded and carried in a lot of different systems and made a
number of A/A kills.
A.) It doesn't jam. (It is possible, but it definitely isn't
common.)
B.) The the internal gun and several pod variants are linkless
feed. Some pods are link-fed.
C.) Spin-up time is virtually negligible. Consider that in the
F-105, the barrel in which the cartridge was sparked was still
internal, meaning the gun must rotate to the exposed barrel position
before the bullet leaves the barrel. Pass through of unfired rounds
on spin-up/down was usually counted as six. On scored strafe, the
rounds limiter was traditionally set at 150 round. With that, you
could get four or five strafe passes. A good shooter could score 80%
or higher out of rounds fired and every pass counted those six unfired
rounds. That means spin up is virtually instantaneous. Trigger squeeze
to release on strafe was taught to be .5 seconds. Good strafers could
get a shorter burst. Spin up is negligible.
D.) Projectile size/payload is important, but a trade-off.
Yes, a kill with a 37mm hit is more likely than a 20mm hit. But, if I
can't carry enough projectiles to give me a good density or chance to
hit, then the higher Pk is meaningless.
2. Dogfighting, meaning one-v-one maneuvering to a gun kill is a
foolish endeavor. You might wind up there, but you should studiously
avoid it. Once there, shoot and scoot. This isn't an airshow display
and no one but the survivor will recount the aeronautical skill
displayed. Shoot with missiles. Shoot at the maximum range. Get the
kill confirmed by AWACS.
3. The final insert by Brooks is irrelevant to the discussion. The
question has been about guns and air/air. The question of optimum CAS
weapon isn't trivial and my reply shouldn't be taken as one more
evidence of the AF aversion to support of ground troops. There is
NOTHING more important. But:
A.) First, support of ground troops involves keeping enemy
aircraft from being a player. We've done that successfully in every
conflict since WW II.
B.) CAS does not have to be fifty feet overhead with
snake/nape on "enemy in the wire". It can evolve to that scenario but
doesn't happen as often as common perception would think.
C.) Modern stand-off weapons provide equal or greater
accuracy than close-in laydown and without either jeopardizing the
delivery aircraft or warning the target to hunker down.
D.) While no one can put a value on the life of one American
soldier, a cost/benefit analysis of what strafe can do compared to the
risk involved usually mitigates against strafe being a primary tactic.
It's great for SAR and can be effective on close-in CAS, but it's
better done with an A-10 type system than an A/A optimized platform
(which was what the thread has been talking about.)
E.) While the guy on the ground may be firmly (and rightly)
convinced that his battle is the most important, the commanders must
allocate resources based on priorities which often don't have as much
emotion attached. Getting strafe to the troops in Anaconda wasn't a
readily available option.
F.) Good Forward Observers (FACs or AOs) should be calling
early for support. Good FOs should be GPS and Laser equipped and
getting the job done well before the more spectacular troops in the
wire scenario occurs. JDAMs et. al. are a much better choice. Bigger
payload, greater effect, better accuracy than strafe, more economical,
etc.
At least, those are some of my impressions on the argument.
Alan Minyard
In which case an M-61 works quite well.
Al Minyard
>
Chad Irby
Alan Minyard <aminy...@netdoor.com> wrote:
> Are you familiar with the concept of guided missiles? If you get into
> gun range you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last
> ditch, desperation weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight
> on a honking great, slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.
Comments nearly identical to the one above were very popular in the
early 1960s. And then we got into a real shooting war, and pilots
suddenly needed guns again.
Yep, McNamara is still influencing military thought. I was sure we'd
gotten over that, but what goes around, comes around.
It's funny to hear someone call a gun "unreliable," since the failure
rate for modern aircraft guns is *miniscule*...
Kevin Brooks
"Ed Rasimus" <ras...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:kagetvo5keh7gr60g...@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 14:53:47 GMT, "Kevin Brooks"
> <broo...@notyahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Alan Minyard" <aminy...@netdoor.com> wrote in message
> >news:o7betvgolt04oha37...@4ax.com...
> >
> >> Are you familiar with the concept of guided missiles? If you get into
gun
> >> range you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last ditch,
desperation
> >> weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight on a honking great,
> >> slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.
> >
> >Yeah, a terrible tradeoff...right up to the point where you (or, more
> >accurately those you are supporting below who are locked in a very nasty
> >"knife" fight that precludes use of JDAM or an LGB) need it, as was found
> >during Anaconda.
> >
> >Brooks
>
> The more things change, the more they remain the same. I've only
> opined once in this long thread, but thought I'd jump in again after
> this.
>
> Some points:
>
>
> 3. The final insert by Brooks is irrelevant to the discussion.
When the comment is made quite emphatically that no gun should be included
in the newer aircraft, by more than one poster, I disagree with your
conclusion of irrelevance.
The
> question has been about guns and air/air. The question of optimum CAS
> weapon isn't trivial and my reply shouldn't be taken as one more
> evidence of the AF aversion to support of ground troops. There is
> NOTHING more important. But:
>
> A.) First, support of ground troops involves keeping enemy
> aircraft from being a player. We've done that successfully in every
> conflict since WW II.
That is only one aspect of support of ground troops. And if anything an
increasingly *less* important one at that--note that we have not faced a
significant air threat to our ground troops since WWII, Ed.
>
> B.) CAS does not have to be fifty feet overhead with
> snake/nape on "enemy in the wire". It can evolve to that scenario but
> doesn't happen as often as common perception would think.
But it does happen, period. Did it happen during Anaconda or not? The
reports I read said it did--feel free to correct that representation.
>
> C.) Modern stand-off weapons provide equal or greater
> accuracy than close-in laydown and without either jeopardizing the
> delivery aircraft or warning the target to hunker down.
And what about when the threat you are engaging is well within the danger
close margin? If it comes down to the gun as the best available support
option versus having the CAS folks say, "Sorry, we can't do anything since
we don't have guns, but we wish you the best of luck and will be thinking
kind thoughts of you...", I'd take the former, thank you. Luckily, the USAF
seems to share that view.
>
> D.) While no one can put a value on the life of one American
> soldier, a cost/benefit analysis of what strafe can do compared to the
> risk involved usually mitigates against strafe being a primary tactic.
Nobody has said it should be a *primary* tactic.
> It's great for SAR and can be effective on close-in CAS, but it's
> better done with an A-10 type system than an A/A optimized platform
> (which was what the thread has been talking about.)
As to "what this thread has been talking about", this thread has also the
comment, "Air-to-ground, guns pull you into IR-SAM range and even for A-10s
that isn't healthy." And the fact is that the majority of CAS missions are
being flown by F-15E's, F-16's, F/A-18's, and most likely in the future by
platforms like the F-35 and even (gasp!) the F/A-22, not by A-10's. See
below for the types of aircraft flying strafe during Anaconda.
>
> E.) While the guy on the ground may be firmly (and rightly)
> convinced that his battle is the most important, the commanders must
> allocate resources based on priorities which often don't have as much
> emotion attached. Getting strafe to the troops in Anaconda wasn't a
> readily available option.
It wasn't?! Reports I read indicated it actually occurred, so I wonder how
you determine it "wasn't a readily available option"?
"I had an aircraft overhead carrying 500-pound bombs, but the 'bad guys'
were too close to our position to drop that much ammo without risking our
lives. I waved the pilot off the bomb run. I had him come around and strafe
the area with guns," said the sergeant.
(www.af.mil/news/May2002/n20020529_0868.shtml )
"Then F-15s were overhead and the combat controller was directing them to
the enemy according to my
instructions. I told the combat controller to have the F-15s to strafe the
bunker and have them come in from our right to our left....I told him to
clear them and the rounds hit right by the bunker. I told him to have them
do that over and over again. I think the gun runs were made by both F-15s
and F-16s." (globalspecops.com/sts.html )
Go to Google and search based upon "Operation Anaconda strafe" and you can
find quite a few specific reports.
>
> F.) Good Forward Observers (FACs or AOs) should be calling
> early for support. Good FOs should be GPS and Laser equipped and
> getting the job done well before the more spectacular troops in the
> wire scenario occurs. JDAMs et. al. are a much better choice. Bigger
> payload, greater effect, better accuracy than strafe, more economical,
> etc.
That is all great and is what we'd *like* to see happen--but as we saw in
Anaconda, it doesn't always flesh out that way. One of the best qualities of
a first-class military is recognition of the importance of
flexibility--taking the strafe capability away from the aircraft that
perform most of the CAS does little to enhance that quality. I hope you are
not arguing that would be the way to go.
Brooks
Ed Rasimus
<broo...@notyahoo.com> wrote:
>
>"Ed Rasimus" <ras...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
>news:kagetvo5keh7gr60g...@4ax.com...
>>
>> The more things change, the more they remain the same. I've only
>> opined once in this long thread, but thought I'd jump in again after
>> this.
>>
>> Some points:
>>
><snip good info>
>
>>
>> 3. The final insert by Brooks is irrelevant to the discussion.
>
>When the comment is made quite emphatically that no gun should be included
>in the newer aircraft, by more than one poster, I disagree with your
>conclusion of irrelevance.
The thread title is "Best Dogfight Gun". The relevance of the comment
is to tactical aircraft employment in support of ground forces, and I
freely conceded the importance in follow-on comments.
>
>The
>> question has been about guns and air/air. The question of optimum CAS
>> weapon isn't trivial and my reply shouldn't be taken as one more
>> evidence of the AF aversion to support of ground troops. There is
>> NOTHING more important. But:
>>
>> A.) First, support of ground troops involves keeping enemy
>> aircraft from being a player. We've done that successfully in every
>> conflict since WW II.
>
>That is only one aspect of support of ground troops. And if anything an
>increasingly *less* important one at that--note that we have not faced a
>significant air threat to our ground troops since WWII, Ed.
The prosecution should rest with that acknowledgement. It is my point
exactly. The historic result should not be attributed to wishing and
hoping. It's a result of proper allocation of resources.
>
>>
>> B.) CAS does not have to be fifty feet overhead with
>> snake/nape on "enemy in the wire". It can evolve to that scenario but
>> doesn't happen as often as common perception would think.
>
>But it does happen, period. Did it happen during Anaconda or not? The
>reports I read said it did--feel free to correct that representation.
It happened. But, anecdotal evidence does not necessarily lead to good
conclusions.
>
>>
>> C.) Modern stand-off weapons provide equal or greater
>> accuracy than close-in laydown and without either jeopardizing the
>> delivery aircraft or warning the target to hunker down.
>
>And what about when the threat you are engaging is well within the danger
>close margin? If it comes down to the gun as the best available support
>option versus having the CAS folks say, "Sorry, we can't do anything since
>we don't have guns, but we wish you the best of luck and will be thinking
>kind thoughts of you...", I'd take the former, thank you. Luckily, the USAF
>seems to share that view.
Modern warfare is a mix of sophistication and crudity. Can you say
"Claymore"? Seriously, I'm not belittling nor minimizing. There's a
mix of weapons. Some you have available, some you don't. Some are
better than others. CAS strafe is exhilarating to say the least. But,
it isn't the only weapon for danger close situations. Mortars, proper
fortifications, Army aviation assets, etc. all can be considered in
the right time and the right place.
I'm a believer in guns in airplanes. But, I'll freely acknowledge that
the gun isn't the best choice in a lot of scenarios. I'm not willing
to forego the gun in current or future tactical aircraft. However,
I've seen a lot of airplanes lost while shooting trucks. Modern jets
cost a lot more than trucks. Going nose to nose with superior weapons
with a pea-shooter isn't always prudent. It may be necessary, but not
wise.
>
>>
>> D.) While no one can put a value on the life of one American
>> soldier, a cost/benefit analysis of what strafe can do compared to the
>> risk involved usually mitigates against strafe being a primary tactic.
>
>Nobody has said it should be a *primary* tactic.
Prosecution rest time again.
>
>>
>> E.) While the guy on the ground may be firmly (and rightly)
>> convinced that his battle is the most important, the commanders must
>> allocate resources based on priorities which often don't have as much
>> emotion attached. Getting strafe to the troops in Anaconda wasn't a
>> readily available option.
>
>It wasn't?! Reports I read indicated it actually occurred, so I wonder how
>you determine it "wasn't a readily available option"?
It wasn't a readily available option when initially called for.
Remember that Afghanistan is a long way from anywhere. At the time of
Anaconda, the primary tactical assets were carrier based and flying
extremely long duration, multiple refueling sorties. The flexibility
for immediate on-call CAS was not available.
>
>"I had an aircraft overhead carrying 500-pound bombs, but the 'bad guys'
>were too close to our position to drop that much ammo without risking our
>lives. I waved the pilot off the bomb run. I had him come around and strafe
>the area with guns," said the sergeant.
>(www.af.mil/news/May2002/n20020529_0868.shtml )
The sergeant has an extremely optimistic view of the strafing accuracy
of the average F-15/16/18 operator, and extremely pessimistic one of
the reliability of PGMs.
Interestingly, the report you cite says the fighters fired til
"winchester" but the enemy continued to operate and then...drum roll,
please...he targeted the bunker with the 500 pound bombs. Which took
out the bunker.
Might I suggest that the sergeant's account might be sensationalized
for effect and that he was not an experienced forward air controller.
I don't know.
>
>
>> F.) Good Forward Observers (FACs or AOs) should be calling
>> early for support. Good FOs should be GPS and Laser equipped and
>> getting the job done well before the more spectacular troops in the
>> wire scenario occurs. JDAMs et. al. are a much better choice. Bigger
>> payload, greater effect, better accuracy than strafe, more economical,
>> etc.
>
>That is all great and is what we'd *like* to see happen--but as we saw in
>Anaconda, it doesn't always flesh out that way. One of the best qualities of
>a first-class military is recognition of the importance of
>flexibility--taking the strafe capability away from the aircraft that
>perform most of the CAS does little to enhance that quality. I hope you are
>not arguing that would be the way to go.
Not at all, but I argue regularly that strafe is a weapon of last
resort in modern aircraft.
Emmanuel Gustin
news:slrnbtdatn...@cabalamat.cabalamat.org...
> >And I suppose designing that feature in and then doing away with it
because
> >of its (relatively slight) increase in unit cost, as was done with the
RAF
> >Typhoon, is not risky?
>
> How much does a Mauser BK 27 cost, I wonder? I bet removing it would
> save them no more than the cost of one plane, over the entire
> programme.
The latest rumour I picked up somewhere was that the guns
would be installed, because installing ballast in their place
would require expensive structural modifications and
recalculations; the Typhoon's just won't carry ammunition
for them.
Seems too absured to be believed, but not impossible...
Paul J. Adam
<ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
>In article <o7betvgolt04oha37...@4ax.com>,
> Alan Minyard <aminy...@netdoor.com> wrote:
>> Are you familiar with the concept of guided missiles? If you get into
>> gun range you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last
>> ditch, desperation weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight
>> on a honking great, slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.
>
>Comments nearly identical to the one above were very popular in the
>early 1960s. And then we got into a real shooting war, and pilots
>suddenly needed guns again.
It's an interesting area to actually analyse, particularly when
comparing USAF and USN performance: in Linebacker the USAF shot down
forty-eight MiGs for twenty-four air-to-air losses, while the USN lost
four and scored 24 kills. More interesting yet, the Navy's fighters met
MiGs twenty-six times, for a .92 probability of killing a MiG and a .15
chance of losing one of their own; the USAF had eighty-two engagements,
for .58 kills per engagement but .29 losses.[1]
Sounds abstract? The services were using the same aircraft,
near-identical missiles (Sparrows and different models of Sidewinder),
but the USAF's F-4Ds and F-4Es had guns (pods for the Ds, internal for
the Es) supposedly as a solution to the problems encountered during
Rolling Thunder. Yet they were twice as likely to be shot down and
barely half as likely to kill, as the gunless Navy fighters. (Only seven
of the forty-eight USAF Linebacker kills were achieved with guns,
despite the efforts made to fit them)
>Yep, McNamara is still influencing military thought. I was sure we'd
>gotten over that, but what goes around, comes around.
"We're not training our crews properly, aren't using our weapons
correctly, and are employing poor tactics that make us very vulnerable"
is much less palatable than "the only problem is the aircraft imposed on
us doesn't have a gun!"
Note that the missiles have improved very significantly since 1972,
while the M61 - though a fine weapon -has had only incremental
modifications.
[1] Stats from "Clashes" by Marshal Michel III
Paul J. Adam
<ph...@invalid.email.address> writes
>On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 04:51:34 GMT, Kevin Brooks <broo...@notyahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>And I suppose designing that feature in and then doing away with it because
>>of its (relatively slight) increase in unit cost, as was done with the RAF
>>Typhoon, is not risky?
>
>How much does a Mauser BK 27 cost, I wonder? I bet removing it would
>save them no more than the cost of one plane, over the entire
>programme.
The official explanation follows...
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmselect/cmpubacc/136/1
011710.htm#note12
+++++
Select Committee on Public Accounts Minutes of Evidence
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
APPENDIX 2
Supplementary memorandum submitted by the Defence Procurement Agency
00-01/62)
QUESTIONS 264 AND 306. BACKGROUND TO THE DECISION NOT TO EQUIP
EUROFIGHTER WITH A GUN
7. Since the introduction of air-to-air missiles, a gun has been
used in an air-to-air role for very close range engagements where the
target was inside a short-range air-to-air missile's minimum range.
Notably during the early years of the Vietnam war, the probability of
kill in short-range engagements of the air-to-air missiles then
available proved so low that the very modest capability of gun systems
added significantly to overall effectiveness. The probability of success
with guns has advanced little over the years[12]. By contrast, the
performance of air-to-air missiles has improved dramatically. Indeed, in
short-range engagements, the minimum range capability and agility of the
missiles that Eurofighter will carry, together with its planned
helmet-mounted sight targeting system, offers the pilot a shot with a
very high probability of success in almost every conceivable situation.
A gun could be seen as a defence of last resort when all the aircraft's
missiles had been fired. However, even then the gun's usefulness would
be severely limited because of the possibility of engagement by missile
armed aircraft from well outside the gun's range.
8. Firing "warning shots across the bow" with a gun is not an
effective means of coercion in modern operations. The cockpit
environment of modern aircraft is such that the pilot is extremely
unlikely to hear such warning shots and would only see them if they were
tracer rounds. The value of such a display against a civilian aircraft
is dubious and against a military aircraft it may well be misconstrued.
9. Against some threats, missiles may be susceptible to
counter-measures employed by the opposing aircraft. However, ASRAAM has
already proven itself against typical current countermeasure doctrines
and is designed to overcome extreme levels of countermeasures. Even
should an advanced hostile aircraft have decoyed Eurofighter's
air-to-air missiles successfully, there is again little benefit in
adding a gun to Eurofighter's armament. If the UK pilot were then to
close on that hostile target to within the range of the gun, he would be
placing the aircraft—and himself—at unnecessarily high risk of being
shot down by the hostile aircraft's own missiles. Moreover, gun systems
are not completely invulnerable to countermeasures, not least because
most depend on accurate radar range
10. As for air-to-ground combat, it is worth noting that the original
European Staff Requirement, signed by the Chiefs of Air Staffs from the
partner nations in December 1985, specifies the gun only in an
air-to-air role. So, even then, experienced airmen in the partner
nations did not regard the gun as a valuable weapon for ground attack.
It remains the view of experts that it is difficult to justify using the
gun in Eurofighter's offensive support role, owing to:
— the risk of collateral damage resulting from the relative
inefficiency of gun firing from a fixed-wing aircraft, especially in
this age of precision-guided munitions, with which Eurofighter will be
armed; and
— the increased vulnerability of the aircraft because the gun's short
range would leave the aircraft very exposed to surface-to-air missiles
and anti-aircraft gunfire.
11. Overall, therefore, it is clear that the utility of a gun on an
aircraft such as Eurofighter in modern operations is questionable. To
perform its roles effectively, Eurofighter's armament should emphasise
not the very short-range capability that a gun would offer, but the
long-range capability to be offered initially by the Advanced
Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM). and later by the Meteor beyond
visual range air-to-air missile.
12. The minimal combat value that the gun does provide is more than
outweighed by the support, fatigue and training cost penalties of
retaining it. Specific disadvantages of the gun include:
— the damaging effects of the shock of its recoil on the electronics
(approximately 4 tons recoil shock 30 times a second);
— the corrosive effects of its exhaust gas;
— the strain which it puts on the airframe, reducing the aircraft's
useful life. (Even the weight of 80kg of ammunition can add well over
half a tonne load at the wing roots of the aircraft when it is subject
to high gravitational pull in manoeuvre. Each aircraft has a finite
design fatigue life. Using up this life much more rapidly would require
us to purchase a greater number of aircraft or to undertake a life
extension programme, the cost and operational penalties of which cannot
be justified by the minimal operational benefits of the gun.); and
— a range of training costs, including the provision of new targets,
the increased demands on the Hawk aircraft towing the targets (which
must shortly be replaced by new aircraft), and the cost of removing
training rounds from the environment.
13. We understand that our partner nations currently intend to retain
the gun on Eurofighter. The American F-14, F-15, F/A-18 all have
internal guns, though the F-117 does not; and the F-22 is planned to
have one. The Russian MiG-29 and the Su-27/31 also have guns as do
Gripen and Rafale. Some of these aircraft types entered service many
years ago when missile technology was far less advanced. However, it is
not currently planned to fit an internal gun to the Short Take-Off and
Vertical Landing variant of Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), although it will
be able to carry an externally mounted gun which can be put on and
removed from the aircraft for particular missions.
14. Our assessment remains that, in the future operational roles for
which we require Eurofighter, the minimal value of a gun is more than
outweighed by its considerable associated costs and disadvantages.
+++++
Ed Rasimus
<ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In message <YXHBb.55669$%h4.1...@twister.tampabay.rr.com>, Chad Irby
><ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
>>
>>Comments nearly identical to the one above were very popular in the
>>early 1960s. And then we got into a real shooting war, and pilots
>>suddenly needed guns again.
>
>It's an interesting area to actually analyse, particularly when
>comparing USAF and USN performance: in Linebacker the USAF shot down
>forty-eight MiGs for twenty-four air-to-air losses, while the USN lost
>four and scored 24 kills. More interesting yet, the Navy's fighters met
>MiGs twenty-six times, for a .92 probability of killing a MiG and a .15
>chance of losing one of their own; the USAF had eighty-two engagements,
>for .58 kills per engagement but .29 losses.[1]
While numbers tell a story, they can occasionally mislead. USAF to USN
comparisons offer some insight, but strict stats can lead to bad
conclusions. To compare sortie count/MiG engagement percentages you
would need to consider the various missions, the allocation of the
resource, the philosophy of engagement, etc.
With large composite strike packages, the AF tended toward lots of
specialization. Chaff droppers, SEAD, escorts (that often were used to
herd MiGs rather than engage them) and only a few dedicated shooters
on TEABALL frequency meant that the numbers could be skewed.
>
>Sounds abstract? The services were using the same aircraft,
>near-identical missiles (Sparrows and different models of Sidewinder),
>but the USAF's F-4Ds and F-4Es had guns (pods for the Ds, internal for
>the Es) supposedly as a solution to the problems encountered during
>Rolling Thunder.
I don't know of any instances in which F-4Ds were carrying gun pods
into RP VI during Linebacker. There were lots of external gun sorties
flown in Rolling Thunder.
>Yet they were twice as likely to be shot down and
>barely half as likely to kill, as the gunless Navy fighters. (Only seven
>of the forty-eight USAF Linebacker kills were achieved with guns,
>despite the efforts made to fit them)
It would be helpful to consider the USN fighter-vs-attack philosophy
as well as the level of experience of the multiple tour carrier force.
The USAF "universal pilot" concept and the "no involuntary second
tour" policy impacted the competence level.
The parenthetical conclusion is a poor one. With TEABALL, the 555th
TFW specialists, and the accompanying GCI support, it was possible for
the USAF fighters who DID engage, to use their longer range weapons
and negate the requirement to close to gun range.
>
>>Yep, McNamara is still influencing military thought. I was sure we'd
>>gotten over that, but what goes around, comes around.
>
>"We're not training our crews properly, aren't using our weapons
>correctly, and are employing poor tactics that make us very vulnerable"
>is much less palatable than "the only problem is the aircraft imposed on
>us doesn't have a gun!"
Amen! It's much easier to write off a combat loss than to suffer
accidents in training.
>
Alan Minyard
>In article <o7betvgolt04oha37...@4ax.com>,
> Alan Minyard <aminy...@netdoor.com> wrote:
>
>> Are you familiar with the concept of guided missiles? If you get into
>> gun range you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last
>> ditch, desperation weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight
>> on a honking great, slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.
>
>Comments nearly identical to the one above were very popular in the
>early 1960s. And then we got into a real shooting war, and pilots
>suddenly needed guns again.
>
>Yep, McNamara is still influencing military thought. I was sure we'd
>gotten over that, but what goes around, comes around.
>
>It's funny to hear someone call a gun "unreliable," since the failure
>rate for modern aircraft guns is *miniscule*...
I did not mean "no gun", I meant that the M-61 is quite adequate for the
scenarios that are likely to occur in ACM.
Al Minyard
Kevin Brooks
> On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:49:17 GMT, "Kevin Brooks"
> <broo...@notyahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Ed Rasimus" <ras...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
> >news:kagetvo5keh7gr60g...@4ax.com...
>
> >>
> >> The more things change, the more they remain the same. I've only
> >> opined once in this long thread, but thought I'd jump in again after
> >> this.
> >>
> >> Some points:
> >>
> ><snip good info>
> >
> >>
> >> 3. The final insert by Brooks is irrelevant to the discussion.
> >
> >When the comment is made quite emphatically that no gun should be
included
> >in the newer aircraft, by more than one poster, I disagree with your
> >conclusion of irrelevance.
>
> The thread title is "Best Dogfight Gun". The relevance of the comment
> is to tactical aircraft employment in support of ground forces, and I
> freely conceded the importance in follow-on comments.
Threads drift. FYI, the introduction of the air-to-ground issue was from
another poster.
> >
> >The
> >> question has been about guns and air/air. The question of optimum CAS
> >> weapon isn't trivial and my reply shouldn't be taken as one more
> >> evidence of the AF aversion to support of ground troops. There is
> >> NOTHING more important. But:
> >>
> >> A.) First, support of ground troops involves keeping enemy
> >> aircraft from being a player. We've done that successfully in every
> >> conflict since WW II.
> >
> >That is only one aspect of support of ground troops. And if anything an
> >increasingly *less* important one at that--note that we have not faced a
> >significant air threat to our ground troops since WWII, Ed.
>
> The prosecution should rest with that acknowledgement. It is my point
> exactly. The historic result should not be attributed to wishing and
> hoping. It's a result of proper allocation of resources.
Uhmmm...do you or do you not agree that the air-to-ground role has consumed
the vast majority of USAF (and for that matter USN aviation) missions since
WWII?
> >
> >>
> >> B.) CAS does not have to be fifty feet overhead with
> >> snake/nape on "enemy in the wire". It can evolve to that scenario but
> >> doesn't happen as often as common perception would think.
> >
> >But it does happen, period. Did it happen during Anaconda or not? The
> >reports I read said it did--feel free to correct that representation.
>
> It happened. But, anecdotal evidence does not necessarily lead to good
> conclusions.
I'd consider disparate and repeated "anecdotal evidence" of the sort
provided below to be rather compelling. According to what our resident
current Strike eagle driver has posted in a similar thread, the USAF
apparently agrees.
> >
> >>
> >> C.) Modern stand-off weapons provide equal or greater
> >> accuracy than close-in laydown and without either jeopardizing the
> >> delivery aircraft or warning the target to hunker down.
> >
> >And what about when the threat you are engaging is well within the danger
> >close margin? If it comes down to the gun as the best available support
> >option versus having the CAS folks say, "Sorry, we can't do anything
since
> >we don't have guns, but we wish you the best of luck and will be thinking
> >kind thoughts of you...", I'd take the former, thank you. Luckily, the
USAF
> >seems to share that view.
>
> Modern warfare is a mix of sophistication and crudity. Can you say
> "Claymore"? Seriously, I'm not belittling nor minimizing. There's a
> mix of weapons. Some you have available, some you don't. Some are
> better than others. CAS strafe is exhilarating to say the least. But,
> it isn't the only weapon for danger close situations. Mortars, proper
> fortifications, Army aviation assets, etc. all can be considered in
> the right time and the right place.
Mortars have to have a dedicated logistics effort behind them--during
Anaconda that feature was somewhat stretched, from what I have read.
Fortifications in an offensive operation? Hey, survivability enhancement was
one of our primary considerations as combat engineers, but we rarely plan
for such near the LC during an offensive operation--that sort of went out
with the days of scientific seige warfare with its "circumvalation" and what
not. Army aviation assets are great, but as we saw in Anaconda (and during
OIF as well) there are environments where its capabilities are challenged
such that fixed wing CAS provides a better alternative. Yes, we plan for the
use of all of these whenever possible--but maintaining the strafe capability
in the collective bag of tricks can still come in handy.
>
> I'm a believer in guns in airplanes. But, I'll freely acknowledge that
> the gun isn't the best choice in a lot of scenarios.
Agreed. My argument is not that the gun is the paramount, or in most cases
even an "equally important" component of the overall weapons suite, but that
it can be of valuable use in the CAS arena in some circumstances, and that
deletion of gun armament accomplishes little for the loss of some valuable
flexibility.
I'm not willing
> to forego the gun in current or future tactical aircraft. However,
> I've seen a lot of airplanes lost while shooting trucks. Modern jets
> cost a lot more than trucks. Going nose to nose with superior weapons
> with a pea-shooter isn't always prudent. It may be necessary, but not
> wise.
Agreed again. Taking the fight into the other guy's "backyard", so to speak,
should only be done when the gain is assessed as being worth the additional
risk. During Anaconda that was a no brainer--the Taliban/AQ folks had not
demonstrated any capability with MANPADS (and there had always been
significant doubt as to the viability of those Stingers we heard so much
about due to the storage limits on their batteries, not to mention their
cooling system for the seeker), so the additional risk was marginal, while
the payoff was reportedly quite valuable, in terms of actual target effects
and, likely just as important, I'd imagine the morale of those guys pinned
down in some shallow wadi under close engagement proabably improved every
time one of the fast movers passed overhead.
> >
> >>
> >> D.) While no one can put a value on the life of one American
> >> soldier, a cost/benefit analysis of what strafe can do compared to the
> >> risk involved usually mitigates against strafe being a primary tactic.
> >
> >Nobody has said it should be a *primary* tactic.
>
> Prosecution rest time again.
> >
> >>
> >> E.) While the guy on the ground may be firmly (and rightly)
> >> convinced that his battle is the most important, the commanders must
> >> allocate resources based on priorities which often don't have as much
> >> emotion attached. Getting strafe to the troops in Anaconda wasn't a
> >> readily available option.
> >
> >It wasn't?! Reports I read indicated it actually occurred, so I wonder
how
> >you determine it "wasn't a readily available option"?
>
> It wasn't a readily available option when initially called for.
> Remember that Afghanistan is a long way from anywhere. At the time of
> Anaconda, the primary tactical assets were carrier based and flying
> extremely long duration, multiple refueling sorties. The flexibility
> for immediate on-call CAS was not available.
I have not gotten that impression. Yeah, there was a distance to be covered
(not sure it applied to all CAS assets, as IIRC there were A-10's forward
based in Afghanistan proper rather early, and a couple of airfields located
just north of Afghanistan in one of the other -stans). But there was
apparently a CAS stack of sorts available, which is why these examples of
timely support are evident. I'd be careful about using MG Hagenbach's after
action criticisms of CAS in such a vein.
> >
> >"I had an aircraft overhead carrying 500-pound bombs, but the 'bad guys'
> >were too close to our position to drop that much ammo without risking our
> >lives. I waved the pilot off the bomb run. I had him come around and
strafe
> >the area with guns," said the sergeant.
> >(www.af.mil/news/May2002/n20020529_0868.shtml )
>
> The sergeant has an extremely optimistic view of the strafing accuracy
> of the average F-15/16/18 operator, and extremely pessimistic one of
> the reliability of PGMs.
>
> Interestingly, the report you cite says the fighters fired til
> "winchester" but the enemy continued to operate and then...drum roll,
> please...he targeted the bunker with the 500 pound bombs. Which took
> out the bunker.
>
> Might I suggest that the sergeant's account might be sensationalized
> for effect and that he was not an experienced forward air controller.
> I don't know.
From reading the full account (see
http://www.robins.af.mil/pa/revup-online/2002%20pages/May31-02-all.pdf ), it
is apparent that they went to a rather nasty danger-close bomb effort only
when things were even worse in terms of their situation. What about the
other account? Can you discount it as readily? Or...
"According to the citation, Captain Russell's flight, call sign Twister 52,
made contact with an American ground forward air controlling team that was
taking fire from enemy troops 75 meters away. The ground team restricted
Twister flight to strafe passes due to a "danger close" condition. This
condition meant friendly troops were within minimal risk distances of injury
or death from friendly weapons on enemy locations...Twister flight made six
strafe passes while firing 20-mm rounds from an altitude of 1,500 feet over
the target area. This was well within the threat zone of small arms fire and
surface to air missiles. The ground team reported enemy fire was suppressed
on each pass, but requested more passes to kill steadily increasing numbers
of reinforced Taliban and al Qaeda forces. Out of 20-mm ammunition, Twister
51, the aircraft manned by Maj. Chris Short and Lt. Col. Jim Fairchild,
became the airborne forward air controller and targeted Captain Russell's
jet on four additional low-altitude strafe passes. Due to radio failure,
Twister 51 then passed the tactical lead to Captain Russell's aircraft. With
the ground team's concurrence, Twister flight began employing laser-guided
bombs. The two aircrews attempted to guide each successive bomb closer to
enemy forces without injuring American service members. The aircrews were
able to drop bombs as close as 200 meters from friendly forces."
www2.acc.af.mil/accnews/dec02/02414.ht
Then there is the following from an F-16 pilot who flew some of these
missions during Anaconda:
"When Burt and his wingman arrived, the first words they heard from Slick
01, the ground controller on the scene, were "Danger close, seventy-five
meters." The words sent a chill down Burt's spine. The ground controller
relayed they had two casualties and two critically wounded. Burt made two
passes over the enemy position and emptied all 500 rounds. His wingman then
came in and emptied all his 500 rounds. "We realized how close we were
firing to the helicopter on the ground when we reviewed the cockpit tapes,"
Burt said. Though the F-16 pilots couldn't see exactly where their rounds
were hitting, the troops on the ground indicated that they were getting good
results. With their ammunition spent and the soldiers on the ground still
coming under enemy fire, Burt talked to Slick 01 about bringing in some
heavy ordnance. The enemy's close proximity, however, made a strike
dangerous, even with laser-guided munitions. Burt had to be extremely
careful not to drop his 500-pound bombs too close to the ground troops." [It
goes on to describe how they did subsequently bring the bombs in by walking
them ever closer, but not without at least one close call that caused the
CCT to admonish them for having almost hit their own location]
http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archives/2002/articles/jul_02/354th/
So it appears there were numerous occasions of strafe missions being
requested from the ground folks.
> >
> >
> >> F.) Good Forward Observers (FACs or AOs) should be calling
> >> early for support. Good FOs should be GPS and Laser equipped and
> >> getting the job done well before the more spectacular troops in the
> >> wire scenario occurs. JDAMs et. al. are a much better choice. Bigger
> >> payload, greater effect, better accuracy than strafe, more economical,
> >> etc.
> >
> >That is all great and is what we'd *like* to see happen--but as we saw in
> >Anaconda, it doesn't always flesh out that way. One of the best qualities
of
> >a first-class military is recognition of the importance of
> >flexibility--taking the strafe capability away from the aircraft that
> >perform most of the CAS does little to enhance that quality. I hope you
are
> >not arguing that would be the way to go.
>
> Not at all, but I argue regularly that strafe is a weapon of last
> resort in modern aircraft.
No disagreement there.
Brooks
>
>
Kevin Brooks
"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:IodM8HU+021$Ew...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk...
> In message <YXHBb.55669$%h4.1...@twister.tampabay.rr.com>, Chad Irby
> <ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
> >In article <o7betvgolt04oha37...@4ax.com>,
> > Alan Minyard <aminy...@netdoor.com> wrote:
> >> Are you familiar with the concept of guided missiles? If you get into
> >> gun range you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last
> >> ditch, desperation weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight
> >> on a honking great, slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.
> >
> >Comments nearly identical to the one above were very popular in the
> >early 1960s. And then we got into a real shooting war, and pilots
> >suddenly needed guns again.
>
> It's an interesting area to actually analyse, particularly when
> comparing USAF and USN performance: in Linebacker the USAF shot down
> forty-eight MiGs for twenty-four air-to-air losses, while the USN lost
> four and scored 24 kills. More interesting yet, the Navy's fighters met
> MiGs twenty-six times, for a .92 probability of killing a MiG and a .15
> chance of losing one of their own; the USAF had eighty-two engagements,
> for .58 kills per engagement but .29 losses.[1]
Ugh! That all sounds dangerously like the "operations research", or systems
analysis, kind of numeric mumbo-jumbo so characteristic of the McNamara
era---PLEASSSE don't go there! It took us a generation to rid ourselves of
the most of the "mantle of the number crunchers" (and we were only partially
succesful--witness the continued use of the POM process in budgeting) as it
was...
Brooks
<snip>
Tony Williams
> On 9 Dec 2003 13:40:45 -0800, Tony.W...@quarry.nildram.co.uk (Tony Williams) wrote:
>
> >Alan Minyard <aminy...@netdoor.com> wrote in message news:<94pbtvsbkuqueplj3...@4ax.com>...
> >> cannon to oppose a US Force? The rate of fire of the .50 was not enough to
> >> make up for the somewhat smaller calibre, that is not the case with the M-61.
> >
> >Possibly, possibly not. The bigger the target is, the more damage you
> >have to inflict to down it. A MiG-15 weighed under 3,800 kg empty, a
> >Su-27 around 18,000 kg - nearly five times as much. A 20mm shell
> >weighs only just over twice as much as a .50 bullet. You can double
> >its effectiveness in recognition of the HEI content, but even so you
> >are still left with a pretty even match between the .5/MiG-15 and
> >20mm/Su-27 in terms of destructive effect compared with target weight.
>
> you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last ditch, desperation
> weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight on a honking great,
> slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.
Guided missiles? Now that you mention it, I have heard something about
them - but IIRC this thread is all about guns.
Your post seems to imply that you think that anything bigger than a
20mm is by definition bulky, heavy, slow-firing and unreliable. Well,
lets take the M61A1 as the standard, shall we? It weighs 114 kg, and
is very bulky because there are six barrels which all need room to
spin. Then, because it fires its little shells so fast (and you need
to hit with a lot of them to have the desired effect) it needs a big
ammunition capacity, with a big magazine - much more space and weight.
In fact, the magazine and ammo feed weigh about as much as the gun,
and the full load of ammo typically weighs the same again.
Now let's look at the opposition. The 'European standard' 27mm Mauser
BK 27, selected over any US gun by the JSF contenders, weighs 100 kg
and uses much less space (only one barrel). The ammo is bigger, but
less of it is needed because it's much more effective. For a bit more
weight (120 kg) you can get a GIAT 30M791 which is equally powerful
and can fire up to 2,500 rpm. Both of these guns hit their top speed
instantly, unlike the M61. Look to Russia and things get even more
interesting: the GSh-30 weighs 105 kg and fires powerful 30mm ammo at
up to 3,000 rpm (again, instantly). The little GSh-301 used in the
MiG-29 and Su-27 only fires at 1,500-1,800 rpm (instantly) but weighs
a trivial 45 kg and is tiny by comparison with the M61. If you really
want firepower, then there's the GSh-6-30 which fires the same,
powerful, 30mm ammo at around 5,000 rpm for just 160 kg. I admit that
is heavier than an M61, but it's hardly any bigger and has several
times the firepower.
There is a legitimate debate about whether fighter guns are needed
anymore, given the much improved performance of guided missiles. I am
willing to argue that on several grounds, and am supported by the fact
that despite all the high-tech gee-whizz weaponry used recently in
Afghanistan and Iraq, US fighters were still using their guns in
circumstances where nothing else was suitable. If you're going to
retain a gun, it might as well be the best you can get. The price,
space and weight costs are negligible as a fraction of a modern
fighter.
Chad Irby
"Paul J. Adam" <ne...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <YXHBb.55669$%h4.1...@twister.tampabay.rr.com>, Chad Irby
> <ci...@cfl.rr.com> writes
> It's an interesting area to actually analyse, particularly when
> comparing USAF and USN performance: in Linebacker the USAF shot down
> forty-eight MiGs for twenty-four air-to-air losses, while the USN lost
> four and scored 24 kills. More interesting yet, the Navy's fighters met
> MiGs twenty-six times, for a .92 probability of killing a MiG and a .15
> chance of losing one of their own; the USAF had eighty-two engagements,
> for .58 kills per engagement but .29 losses.[1]
>
> Sounds abstract? The services were using the same aircraft,
> near-identical missiles (Sparrows and different models of Sidewinder),
> but the USAF's F-4Ds and F-4Es had guns (pods for the Ds, internal for
> the Es) supposedly as a solution to the problems encountered during
> Rolling Thunder. Yet they were twice as likely to be shot down and
> barely half as likely to kill, as the gunless Navy fighters. (Only seven
> of the forty-eight USAF Linebacker kills were achieved with guns,
> despite the efforts made to fit them)
>
> >Yep, McNamara is still influencing military thought. I was sure we'd
> >gotten over that, but what goes around, comes around.
...and you're quoting the same sort of logic they used back then.
You're comparing planes and equipment, but not *missions*.
For example, the Navy planes flew sorties against coastal areas, which
meant that they were flying over relatively undefended airspace on the
run in, as compared to the large number of SAMs that the Air Force
fighters and bombers went over.
One other note: of the 21 MiG kills by the F-4E during Vietnam, five
were gun kills... pretty good for something so useless.