In article , Chad Irby
wrote:

But since several people have pointed out other good reasons to have
guns on fighters, and since you haven't come up with a good reason to
*not* have one (one more missile or a minute's worth of fuel aren't very
good reasons at all),

Shame that you give up a lot more than that even for a 20mm
installation.

Not really. Fuel is heavy as hell,

Well, only because you carry an awful lot of it. It's got a specific
density less than one, so it's a fair assumption that replacing a gun
installation with a fuel tank saves you weight - even if you assume that
50% of the volume of a gun installation is free air.

the only thing left is to think about cost, and
since guns for planes are a very small amount of the final sticker price
of a modern plane...

If you think that's the case, _you_ pay for integration, installation,
maintenance and training.

It adds up to a pretty decent chunk of change.

Not compared to keeping even *more* missiles in the inventory, and the
increased inventory of very expensive hardware to keep checking them and
making them work.

Actually, no. It's the fact that a gun adds a completely different
support line than "more of the same" missiles which drives the whole
life cost up.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
--
To err is human
To forgive is not
Air Force Policy