On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 14:53:47 GMT, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:


"Alan Minyard" wrote in message
news
Are you familiar with the concept of guided missiles? If you get into gun
range you have already screwed the pooch. The gun is a last ditch, desperation
weapon in ACM, wasting airframe volume and weight on a honking great,
slow, unreliable gun is not a wise trade off.

Yeah, a terrible tradeoff...right up to the point where you (or, more
accurately those you are supporting below who are locked in a very nasty
"knife" fight that precludes use of JDAM or an LGB) need it, as was found
during Anaconda.

Brooks

The more things change, the more they remain the same. I've only
opined once in this long thread, but thought I'd jump in again after
this.

Some points:

1. The M-61, with roughly fifty years of experience is a reliable gun.
It's been modded and carried in a lot of different systems and made a
number of A/A kills.

A.) It doesn't jam. (It is possible, but it definitely isn't
common.)

B.) The the internal gun and several pod variants are linkless
feed. Some pods are link-fed.

C.) Spin-up time is virtually negligible. Consider that in the
F-105, the barrel in which the cartridge was sparked was still
internal, meaning the gun must rotate to the exposed barrel position
before the bullet leaves the barrel. Pass through of unfired rounds
on spin-up/down was usually counted as six. On scored strafe, the
rounds limiter was traditionally set at 150 round. With that, you
could get four or five strafe passes. A good shooter could score 80%
or higher out of rounds fired and every pass counted those six unfired
rounds. That means spin up is virtually instantaneous. Trigger squeeze
to release on strafe was taught to be .5 seconds. Good strafers could
get a shorter burst. Spin up is negligible.

D.) Projectile size/payload is important, but a trade-off.
Yes, a kill with a 37mm hit is more likely than a 20mm hit. But, if I
can't carry enough projectiles to give me a good density or chance to
hit, then the higher Pk is meaningless.

2. Dogfighting, meaning one-v-one maneuvering to a gun kill is a
foolish endeavor. You might wind up there, but you should studiously
avoid it. Once there, shoot and scoot. This isn't an airshow display
and no one but the survivor will recount the aeronautical skill
displayed. Shoot with missiles. Shoot at the maximum range. Get the
kill confirmed by AWACS.

3. The final insert by Brooks is irrelevant to the discussion. The
question has been about guns and air/air. The question of optimum CAS
weapon isn't trivial and my reply shouldn't be taken as one more
evidence of the AF aversion to support of ground troops. There is
NOTHING more important. But:

A.) First, support of ground troops involves keeping enemy
aircraft from being a player. We've done that successfully in every
conflict since WW II.

B.) CAS does not have to be fifty feet overhead with
snake/nape on "enemy in the wire". It can evolve to that scenario but
doesn't happen as often as common perception would think.

C.) Modern stand-off weapons provide equal or greater
accuracy than close-in laydown and without either jeopardizing the
delivery aircraft or warning the target to hunker down.

D.) While no one can put a value on the life of one American
soldier, a cost/benefit analysis of what strafe can do compared to the
risk involved usually mitigates against strafe being a primary tactic.
It's great for SAR and can be effective on close-in CAS, but it's
better done with an A-10 type system than an A/A optimized platform
(which was what the thread has been talking about.)

E.) While the guy on the ground may be firmly (and rightly)
convinced that his battle is the most important, the commanders must
allocate resources based on priorities which often don't have as much
emotion attached. Getting strafe to the troops in Anaconda wasn't a
readily available option.

F.) Good Forward Observers (FACs or AOs) should be calling
early for support. Good FOs should be GPS and Laser equipped and
getting the job done well before the more spectacular troops in the
wire scenario occurs. JDAMs et. al. are a much better choice. Bigger
payload, greater effect, better accuracy than strafe, more economical,
etc.

At least, those are some of my impressions on the argument.