On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 06:30:14 -0500, "Paul F Austin"
wrote:


"Chad Irby" wrote
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

If "lack of guns" is the real problem, surely gun-armed fighters are
a complete and satisfactory answer?

It's not a simple question of "lack of guns."

It's "relying on missiles 100% and not having guns when they're really
bloody useful."

We learned that lesson over 30 years ago, and a whole new generation of
bean counters are trying to resurrect the kind of silliness that the
McNamara school brought us in Vietnam...

Now, here's a question: for the 200Kg or so weight budget (I have no idea
about volume) of an internal gun and ammo tank, would you rather have 1, 2
or 3 more AIM-9Xs/ASRAAMs?

There's always a lip-curl reflex about "bean counters" but every time you
make a choice, you've rejected an alternative. There's money, weight, volume
and time budgets because all of those are fungible, exchangeable among the
possible choices.

Remove a gun and save money? Sure, but you spend that money, space, power
and weight for something else, possibly more ordnance of a different kind.
Or maybe not. Maybe more volume for better ESM or countermeasures or a lower
crap-out rate for your RADAR.

The guy who straps on the airplane (which I will never do) has to live with
those choices and he may curse the "bean counters" who made them but every
single characteristic (not just gun/no gun) within a weapons system competes
with some other alternative. The payoff for some of these trades isn't
always as obvious as a tank full of cannon rounds but it's there.



The thing is you can pretty much use the gun on anything. If you're
the closest aircraft to the troops on the ground and they need someone
taken off their back a strafe or two is always handy. If you've
somehow gotten in too close for an IR shot you've still got the gun.
If you want to warn an aircraft that you're serious you've got the gun
(if there aren't any tracers I don't know how useful that would be
though). It's just a nice thing to have around "just in case".