"Magnus Redin" wrote in message
...
Hi!

"Paul F Austin" writes:
So you really do need to justify a gun's place on the airframe on more
than
"it might be useful and you never know"..

A gun is probably the cheapest way of killing low-performace targets
like UAV:s, cheap targets that an enemy can produce in large numbers
forcing you to deplete your stock of expensive AA-misiles.

The gun system reuse all the expensive parts, radar, electronics for
aiming the aeroplane and the gun while the ammunition can be dumb
and is easy to mass produce.

It is of course possible to develop a fairly cheap and small low
performance AA-missile but it is hard to get it as cheap as a gun
system. This gun competitor might be developed if someone decides to
arm small UAV:s with AA-missiles for killing other UAV:s and
helicopters.

And it's cheaper still to have a dedicated anti-UAV system, possibly like a
turboprop P-51. Using a $60M+ fighter to bust $100K UAVs is stupid. It's
also nearly impossible. A low signature, low altitide target loitering along
at 100kts is tough to manage in a fast mover. You'll blow though a tank of
ammunition killing very few UAVs.


And I realy like the idea of a backup weapon if the enemy has superior
countermeasures for your AA-missiles. But you can have that with a pod
filled with unguided rockets.

That's also why you have the next generation AAM. A major portion of the
AIM-9 development over the last 50 years (!) has been improvements to
seekers to get Pk up, including in the face of better countermeasures..