In article ,
Matt Clonfero ] wrote:

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.

But compared to the amount of fuel you get, it's not a massive savings
by any stretch. You're also forgetting that fuel tanks weigh a *lot*,
not to mention their associated piping and pumping systems.

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.

Not really. Missiles are *bloody* expensive to buy, store, maintain,
and use. Guns are cheap in comparison. A gun and a few hundred
thousand rounds of ammunition are less than the price of a couple of
plane's worth of missiles, and that's before you add in maintenance
costs.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

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