New gun

The chain gun on an A-10 Thunderbolt (aka Warthog) files about 3900
rounds per minute. Another way to say it: $24,375 per second of
depleted uranium rounds. But don't hold the trigger for more than 18
seconds because the barrel will melt.

A-10's don't have a "chain gun"... maybe you're thinking of the AH-64
Apache? The A-10's magazine would empty long before the barrels
(plural) "melted". The GAU-8's biggest limitation besides ammo supply
is that the recoil slows the A-10 quickly, and gasses from the muzzle
get sucked into the engines while firing. Besides the high cost of DU
ammo, there's an environmetal issue with dust created by projectile
impact. Scary stuff.

wrote in message

The GAU-8's biggest limitation besides ammo supply
is that the recoil slows the A-10 quickly,

A myth, according to a A-10 driver here, a while back.

and gasses from the muzzle get sucked into the engines while firing.

Not true. The engines are mounted where they are, to prevent that.

Besides the high cost of DU ammo, there's an environmetal issue with dust
created by projectile impact. Scary stuff.

Which is why they now use tungsten projectiles.
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:

wrote in message

The GAU-8's biggest limitation besides ammo supply
is that the recoil slows the A-10 quickly,


A myth, according to a A-10 driver here, a while back.

and gasses from the muzzle get sucked into the engines while firing.


Not true. The engines are mounted where they are, to prevent that.

Besides the high cost of DU ammo, there's an environmetal issue with
dust created by projectile impact. Scary stuff.


Which is why they now use tungsten projectiles.

I really don't understand the "environmental issue." Those rounds are
meant to melt through armor and shatter into pieces which bounce around
inside the tank and function as an anti-personnel weapon. That's fairly
high on the "toxicity" scale compared to DU which is approximately as
radioactive as common rock.

"Stubby" wrote

I really don't understand the "environmental issue." Those rounds are
meant to melt through armor and shatter into pieces which bounce around
inside the tank and function as an anti-personnel weapon. That's fairly
high on the "toxicity" scale compared to DU which is approximately as
radioactive as common rock.

Many (most) of the rounds miss the tank, and are in the surrounding
environment, and in villages, and such.
--
Jim in NC

wrote in message

The GAU-8's biggest limitation besides ammo supply
is that the recoil slows the A-10 quickly,

The recoil will do no such thing.

and gasses from the muzzle get sucked into the engines while firing.

Not true. The engines are mounted where they are, to prevent that.

IIRC from the A-10 show on Military Channel, the engines are mounted
where they are to give the plane better survivability against AAA. That
dictated placement of the engines. One could be blown off the airframe
and the plane could still fly. The trail of spent gas from the gun was
fairly obvious in the airborne footage of the gun firing IIRC. Also
mentioned in the narration. Also mentioned was the recoil slowing the
aircraft. If this is not accurate then the Military Channel has poor
sources.

wrote:

The trail of spent gas from the gun was
fairly obvious in the airborne footage of the gun firing IIRC. Also
mentioned in the narration. Also mentioned was the recoil slowing the
aircraft. If this is not accurate then the Military Channel has poor
sources.

This is from the early development stage of the A-10.


Jack

"Morgans" writes:
The GAU-8's biggest limitation besides ammo supply
is that the recoil slows the A-10 quickly,

[...] A myth, according to a A-10 driver here, a while back. [...]

A quick visit to Newton's second law indicates a roughly
2 m/s^2 ~ 6.5 ft/s^2
deceleration due to the recoil force (10000 lbf acting on 50000 lb
airplane). From a hypothetical slowish flying speed of 200 mph
(300 ft/s), it would require about **20 seconds** of fire to get
down to the A-10's ~115 mph stall speed.

Whether that's "quick" or "a myth" depends on your point of view (and
on whether I did my estimations correctly).

- FChE

"Frank Ch. Eigler" wrote in message
...

"Morgans" writes:
The GAU-8's biggest limitation besides ammo supply
is that the recoil slows the A-10 quickly,

[...] A myth, according to a A-10 driver here, a while back. [...]

A quick visit to Newton's second law indicates a roughly
2 m/s^2 ~ 6.5 ft/s^2
deceleration due to the recoil force (10000 lbf acting on 50000 lb
airplane). From a hypothetical slowish flying speed of 200 mph
(300 ft/s), it would require about **20 seconds** of fire to get
down to the A-10's ~115 mph stall speed.

Whether that's "quick" or "a myth" depends on your point of view (and
on whether I did my estimations correctly).

- FChE

Did your estimation take into account that the Warthogs engines are still
producing power while they shoot?

"Frank Ch. Eigler" wrote

Whether that's "quick" or "a myth" depends on your point of view (and
on whether I did my estimations correctly).

What you failed to take into account, is that the engines keep applying
thrust, and will partially negate that issue, and that the gun is nearly
always fired while the airplane is in a rather steep descent (to get guns on
target), so there is more force to keep the airplane from slowing down.

So it appears as though it would take considerably more to slow the airplane
to stall speed, and it the guns fired much longer, they would be a molten
pile of metal, or out of ammo. Anyone remember how many seconds of ammo are
carried?

As to the engines ingesting the gun smoke, consider how much air they take
in. Massive amounts. Most of that is bypassed around the engine, so only a
little is burned. Even if some of the smoke is taken in, I doubt that it is
enough to make the engine even stutter.
--
Jim in NC