John Cook wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 11:40:19 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


"John Cook" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:44:42 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


Admittedly, you are no expert. Neither am I, but the question I have is:

How often is the gun used to strafe ground targets in the first place?
If
the gun isn't used much, there isn't much point to wasting the
space/weight,
is there?


The same sort of reasoning was applied to the lifeboats on the
Titanic......

Nice try. There were legally enough lifeboats on the Titanic, the designers
very carefully followed existing laws that governed ships over 10,000 tons.

Now, show me the law that says how many rounds a gun should carry on the
F35.

Legally enough is fine... as long as your not the one whos left at the
end.

The point I was trying to make was the gun should not be left out,
because its rarely used, that 'rarely' might come in very handy one
day, its not a question of the number of rounds, 180 rounds seems
quite enough to me.

The same with the Titanic you can have legally enough lifeboats, or in
the extremly unlikely event of it hitting an iceberg a glancing blow
( a full head on impact would have been much better), a sufficent
number of life boats to accomadate the large number of disorganised
untrained people who in the confusion of an actual sinking didn't pack
enough in each lifeboat..

Or the cost of a walkway across the world trade centres was too
expensive, due to it being only needed in very unlikely events.

The point is risks can be forseen, adequate protection comes at a
cost, unfortunatly costs usually win.

By all means remove the gun on an aircraft, but I think you would also
have to remove the title 'Fighter' from its name.

Ah, so then the F-4B/C/D/G/J/K/M/N/S should also have the title 'Fighter' removed
from its name. And many MiG-21s as well, along with the F-102, the F-106, most
F-101s, etc. I guess you could at least make the argument that the interceptors
shouldn't have been called fighters, but I'd have to say that the Phantom's a
fighter in anyone's book, with or without internal gun.

Guy