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"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message et...
Well, if you don't even *have* a gun, that is not going to be a problem, is it? Of course, neither will the CCT (or its supported ground combat element) get the CAS effort they want either... As to the value of the guns, it is interesting to note that one of the comments that came out of the Anaconda participants was, "Every light division needs a supporting *squadron* of AC-130's." Pie in the sky statement that may be, it points out the value those ground folks placed upon aerial gunfire support. It points out the value that the ground troops placed on AC-130 support. Which is naturally much more effective than fighter strafing support, as the AC-130 has more, larger guns, on trainable mounts, with dedicated gunners, and a very long loiter capability. This is not the same as a fighter that can make two or three 20mm strafing passes before he's out of ammunition. OFCS, the separation range mentioned in a couple of the reports (one from a participating Viper pilot and one from a CCT guy on the ground) was *seventy-five meters*. Do you want any kind of bomb going off that close to *your* patrol if there is another method entailing less risk of fratricide available to be tried first? I wouldn't. There is a good point buried in here - namely that minimum friendly-target distance is an important figure-of-merit for CAS weaponry. It might also be true that the M61 is the best existing fighter-mounted weapon by that standard. Your mistake is to assume that this is always going to be the case. The Small Diameter Bomb and the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System both address this issue, and address it very well. And if they don't do a good enough job, then it's always possible to develop something better. So if we have (God forbid) another Anaconda situation (and you know as well as I do that there *will* be someday another force inserted somewhere that will find the enemy in an unexpected place, in unexpected strength, and find itself fighting for survival), and our CAS stack is made up of Typhoons and STOVL F-35's sans guns, you think that is OK? Depends on what weapons they're carrying. If they have a pair of 2000 pound JDAMs each, probably not. If they've each got 12 SDBs and 38 laser-guided 70mm rockets, then that's a very different story. And in that case, having STOVL in the case of the JSF or another 15 minutes on station or another 4 SDBs in the case of the Eurofighter are both probably more valuable than the three or four strafing runs you get from a gun. -jake |
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