Best dogfight gun?

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message , Kevin
Brooks writes
"Jake McGuire" wrote in message
. com...
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.

Well, you kind of snipped away the related bit about the scenario where
you
are well within danger-close and under a significant MANPADS threat
during
daytime, which sort of eliminates the AC-130 from the running. The point
was that the groundpounders found the guns a better starting point for
CAS
during that operation than PGM's. Are you claiming that the 10th LID and
101st AASLT DIV folks did not like getting that 20mm strafe support they
received from the F-15E's and F-16's that day?

It didn't do them much good, compared to the numerous bombs they called
in. Read SSgt Vance's testimony: where the al-Qaeda troops kept firing
despite the strafing, their position was destroyed with bombs, and lack
of bombs (not guns) was cited as a significant delay in their
extraction, which contributed to at least one death (SrA Jason D.
Cunningham, who was badly wounded and died before being evacuated)

More likely they still enjoyed getting that strafe support for suppression
purposes. I note one CCT member's description of the change in situation
that finally required sucking up doing the danger-close bomb work:

"If we couldn't kill the bunker, we were going to be surrounded," said
Brown. "We knew that we had enemy soldiers hiding in the terrain to our
(right). Effectively, they were moving in on us and we had nowhere to go."
www.af.mil/news/May2002/n20020529_0868.shtml

So they only used the bombs when it was a factor of outright
survival--understandable IMO.

And that site indicates the controller's name was SSG Gabe Brown, not
"Vance"--being as it is a USAF source I'd trust it.


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.

Your mistake is drawing the wrong conclusions based upon different
platform
requirements, for starters. APKWS is a Hydra-based (or Hellfire based)
solution (neither is scheduled for USAF use)

Is it forever impossible for the USAF to use those weapons, or are they
just not in the current plan?

APKWS is currently planned for use only on rotary assets, beginning in 2006
IIRC.


, and just like the option of
using a gun pod, requires specific load out.

You can carry plenty of APKWS with the weight freed up by deleting a
gun: so an aircraft tasked for CAS gains capability without losing
weapons or fuel.

Huh? Not if those weapons are not loaded out prior to departure. You do
realize the difference between preplanned and immediate CAS requests, right?
And what the timing cycle for the ATO is? And that in the end, regardless of
any specific loadout requested by the supported ground element, some gent in
the CAOC is actually going to decided what the external load is going to be
(been there--requested a mixed load including Gator to suppress OPFOR arty
assets (specifically the DAG) and was told, "We'll decide on the munitions
loadout, thank you very much")? So the idea that you can *depend* on the CAS
package to have these mythical USAF APKWS is highly questionable to say the
least.


In other words if your existing
CAS support package does not have it onboard when they show up, or are
routed in based upon urgent need, and the separation between forces
precludes use of larger PGM's, the ground guys are out of luck.

So where CAS is a likely diversion, then standard loadout includes a
seven-round APKWS launcher (just as sorties over parts of the FRY used
to require an anti-radar missile either per aircraft or per flight,
IIRC). When you've freed up a thousand pounds, using a quarter of that
for contingency CAS isn't a large problem.

FYI, that little seven load RL still takes up a hardpoint, which is why no,
you *can't* plan on it being included as standard.


OTOH, if
they have their trusty internal cannon the ground guys will get at least
some form of support.

With very marginal effect, however.

Again, since there were repeated requests for just that level of support
during Anaconda, and given that it is a common sense starting point to use
the safest (to your own force) option before moving up the risk category,
the gun provides that additional level of flexibility. I seriously doubt
were you in the position of calling in that "oh, ****" mission with the bad
guys well within the danger close margin for bombs that you'd have leaped
immediately to that riskiest of options. You seem to forget that the min
separation factor for 20mm is *25 meters*, while for bombs that minimum
jumps to between 145 and 500 meters (depending upon whether you are in a
protected or open position). Big gap between those figures, and elevating
yourself to the higher danger close risk category from the outset seems a
bit ridiculous to me.

Brooks

In message , Kevin Brooks
writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
It didn't do them much good, compared to the numerous bombs they called
in. Read SSgt Vance's testimony: where the al-Qaeda troops kept firing
despite the strafing, their position was destroyed with bombs, and lack
of bombs (not guns) was cited as a significant delay in their
extraction, which contributed to at least one death (SrA Jason D.
Cunningham, who was badly wounded and died before being evacuated)

More likely they still enjoyed getting that strafe support for suppression
purposes. I note one CCT member's description of the change in situation
that finally required sucking up doing the danger-close bomb work:

"If we couldn't kill the bunker, we were going to be surrounded," said
Brown. "We knew that we had enemy soldiers hiding in the terrain to our
(right). Effectively, they were moving in on us and we had nowhere to go."
www.af.mil/news/May2002/n20020529_0868.shtml

So they only used the bombs when it was a factor of outright
survival--understandable IMO.

Still hardly a persuasive argument why the guns are indispensible. Why
wasn't 20mm able to adequately suppress, deter or destroy the enemy?

And that site indicates the controller's name was SSG Gabe Brown, not
"Vance"--being as it is a USAF source I'd trust it.

To quote SSGt Vance's account again:-

"There was a combat controller [CCT] with us named Gabe Brown who was
behind me a bit. I turned around and yelled at him to work on getting
communications running, he already was working on it. I decided that I
needed to be on the line fighting, if I had been on the radio, then the
combat controller would have been sitting there doing nothing because he
doesn't have the assault training. I decided that he should call in the
CAS as I directed him."

More than one person has commented on that operation.

Is it forever impossible for the USAF to use those weapons, or are they
just not in the current plan?

APKWS is currently planned for use only on rotary assets, beginning in 2006
IIRC.

Again, is that because it is physically impossible to adapt it or
develop something similar? Has analysis shown that it would be
ineffective? Or is it "not in the plan, we just strafe for danger
close"?

You can carry plenty of APKWS with the weight freed up by deleting a
gun: so an aircraft tasked for CAS gains capability without losing
weapons or fuel.

Huh? Not if those weapons are not loaded out prior to departure. You do
realize the difference between preplanned and immediate CAS requests, right?

See later.

So where CAS is a likely diversion, then standard loadout includes a
seven-round APKWS launcher (just as sorties over parts of the FRY used
to require an anti-radar missile either per aircraft or per flight,
IIRC). When you've freed up a thousand pounds, using a quarter of that
for contingency CAS isn't a large problem.

FYI, that little seven load RL still takes up a hardpoint, which is why no,
you *can't* plan on it being included as standard.

Why not? Again, you keep obsessing about current platforms and systems
as though they were the only possibilities and nothing new will ever
appear.

With very marginal effect, however.

Again, since there were repeated requests for just that level of support
during Anaconda

What else was available? Nothing.

You're then using the circular argument that since nothing else was then
available, there's nothing else that could ever be used.

and given that it is a common sense starting point to use
the safest (to your own force) option before moving up the risk category,

The safest option is to keep your forces tucked up in bed at home.

the gun provides that additional level of flexibility. I seriously doubt
were you in the position of calling in that "oh, ****" mission with the bad
guys well within the danger close margin for bombs that you'd have leaped
immediately to that riskiest of options.

"riskiest of options"? (Bear in mind that the first strafe pass was
waved off because it wasn't clear whether the F-15 was aiming at the
right troops...)

You seem to forget that the min
separation factor for 20mm is *25 meters*

Which tells you much about its lethality, no?

, while for bombs that minimum
jumps to between 145 and 500 meters (depending upon whether you are in a
protected or open position).

And those are the only options that can be considered?


--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

So they only used the bombs when it was a factor of outright
survival--understandable IMO.

Still hardly a persuasive argument why the guns are indispensible. Why
wasn't 20mm able to adequately suppress, deter or destroy the enemy?

Large dispersion from long slant range by crews who hadn't strafed since the
F-15E school house. That isn't the only reason, but it goes a long way
towards understanding why the strafe passes didn't work so well.

APKWS is currently planned for use only on rotary assets, beginning in
2006
IIRC.

Again, is that because it is physically impossible to adapt it or
develop something similar? Has analysis shown that it would be
ineffective? Or is it "not in the plan, we just strafe for danger
close"?

Who is to say whether it will be employed on fixed-wing aircraft. 2006
isn't here yet.

You seem to forget that the min
separation factor for 20mm is *25 meters*

Which tells you much about its lethality, no?

No, it doesn't. With the dispersion rate of a group of 20mm rounds, you
have a lot higher likelihood of hitting what your aiming at and minimizing
collateral damage. Bombs can get ugly in a hurry with troops in contact,
hence the much larger radius of .1% probability of incompacitation of troops
farther from the bomb impact.

, while for bombs that minimum
jumps to between 145 and 500 meters (depending upon whether you are in a
protected or open position).

And those are the only options that can be considered?

What do you suggest? Since this discussion has digressed from best dogfight
gun to why you need (or don't need) a gun for close air support, I'd love to
hear what you have to say about the A-10 and pilots who practice with their
gun for CAS on almost every sortie.

"Hog Driver" wrote

, while for bombs that minimum
jumps to between 145 and 500 meters (depending upon whether you are in
a
protected or open position).

And those are the only options that can be considered?

What do you suggest? Since this discussion has digressed from best
dogfight
gun to why you need (or don't need) a gun for close air support, I'd love
to
hear what you have to say about the A-10 and pilots who practice with
their
gun for CAS on almost every sortie.

It says that if CAS requires a gunfire component then we need a 'Hog or
'Hog-equivalent to fly the mission. It says little about whether a gun
should be part of the baseline for e.g., the F-35. A-10s are specifically
designed for that mission with protection, airspeed and ammo tank size all
optimized for it. A fast(er)-mover with no protection, with a small ammo
tank is a move back to the "any old fighter will do" school of CAS, the one
that the Air Force keeps trying to return to everytime the notion of
replacing A-10s with F-16s gets floated.

On the other hand, in discussing the baseline for new fighters here, some
have drug out the CAS argument to buttress the notion that a gun should be
designed into any new fighter. If seems to me that all the arguments in
favor of including a gun are along the lines of "marginal utility in all
roles but covering many roles, low cost, flexible asset" lines which is fair
enough. No one has argued that a gun is a key element of a new fighter,
instead we've been discussing how much a gun offers in the margin in both A
to A and CAS applications and which gun is best for it.

In message , Hog Driver
writes
So they only used the bombs when it was a factor of outright
survival--understandable IMO.

Still hardly a persuasive argument why the guns are indispensible. Why
wasn't 20mm able to adequately suppress, deter or destroy the enemy?

Large dispersion from long slant range by crews who hadn't strafed since the
F-15E school house. That isn't the only reason, but it goes a long way
towards understanding why the strafe passes didn't work so well.

Which is one of the reasons I'm not convinced that "a gun on every
aircraft because we might need it for CAS" is a compelling argument.

Again, is that because it is physically impossible to adapt it or
develop something similar? Has analysis shown that it would be
ineffective? Or is it "not in the plan, we just strafe for danger
close"?

Who is to say whether it will be employed on fixed-wing aircraft. 2006
isn't here yet.

And won't ever be a fixed-wing date (later than 2006 for sure), if the
attitude persists that "there's no need for anything better, a strafing
pass will do just fine".

Which tells you much about its lethality, no?

No, it doesn't.

Back when I was an infantryman we trained to keep at least ten metres
between troops; how many enemy troops can you get per pass with a 25m
danger space?

And those are the only options that can be considered?

What do you suggest?

Adapting APKWS for fast movers is one potential, different guns another
(maybe something in 30mm firing AHEAD ammunition? The US is adopting it
for the AAAV and the Germans for the Puma). Really Small Diameter Bombs
with GPS or laser guidance?

Is there a need? Quite possibly so. Is it met by existing systems? Not
fully, it seems. What's the requirement? Something flexible, multirole,
weighing under a thousand pounds (and not too much drag) for several
(four or five) shots, with significantly more lethality and
effectiveness than the M61, preferably without eating hardpoints.
Laser-guided 70mm with multirole fuzes (prox for air targets or
dispersed troops, impact for soft targets, delay for bunkers and light
armour) is one example candidate.

Since this discussion has digressed from best dogfight
gun to why you need (or don't need) a gun for close air support, I'd love to
hear what you have to say about the A-10 and pilots who practice with their
gun for CAS on almost every sortie.

Concerns about survivability in a MANPADS environment, but the A-10's
gun backed by a trained pilot is a much better tool for the task than a
M61 on a F-15. (The A-10 was _designed_ for the job, it would be
embarrassing if it wasn't capable)

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , Hog Driver
writes

Large dispersion from long slant range by crews who hadn't strafed since the
F-15E school house. That isn't the only reason, but it goes a long way
towards understanding why the strafe passes didn't work so well.

Which is one of the reasons I'm not convinced that "a gun on every
aircraft because we might need it for CAS" is a compelling argument.

....and if that were the only argument, you might have a point.

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), the only thing left is to think about cost, and
since guns for planes are a very small amount of the final sticker price
of a modern plane...

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:
Which is one of the reasons I'm not convinced that "a gun on every
aircraft because we might need it for CAS" is a compelling argument.

...and if that were the only argument, you might have a point.

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.

the only thing left is to think about cost, and
since guns for planes are a very small amount of the final sticker price
of a modern plane...

If you think that's the case, _you_ pay for integration, installation,
maintenance and training.

It adds up to a pretty decent chunk of change.

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

In article ,
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

Chad Irby writes

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, and missiles (plus the hardpoints,
plus the fire controls for them) aren't as light as you'd think for a
useful one. Then there's the external drag and area issues. As long as
you're not hauling around GAU-8 installs, the weight isn't that extreme.
And especially when you consider the weight per shot (a half-dozen 20mm
bursts versus even one or two missiles) is pretty darned reasonable.

the only thing left is to think about cost, and
since guns for planes are a very small amount of the final sticker price
of a modern plane...

If you think that's the case, _you_ pay for integration, installation,
maintenance and training.

It adds up to a pretty decent chunk of change.

Not compared to keeping even *more* missiles in the inventory, and the
increased inventory of very expensive hardware to keep checking them and
making them work. Even something as simple as an AIM-9 takes a boatload
of work to keep functional, whether you fire them or not. And when you
*do* fire them in practice, you're burning off, in one shot, most of the
lifetime cost of a small gun system...

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

In article , Paul J. Adam
wrote:

Large dispersion from long slant range by crews who hadn't strafed since the
F-15E school house. That isn't the only reason, but it goes a long way
towards understanding why the strafe passes didn't work so well.

Which is one of the reasons I'm not convinced that "a gun on every
aircraft because we might need it for CAS" is a compelling argument.

Let's be fair, this was an aircraft that grew out of a program with the
slogan "Not a pound for air to ground". If you're building a multirole
aircraft from the start (and, let's face it, what isn't these days -
stand fast the F-22 as originally intended), you have to give
consideration to the face that the pilots might actually have to
influence the ground directly.

Aetherem Vincere
Matt
--
To err is human
To forgive is not
Air Force Policy