Future military fighters and guns - yes or no ?

Tony Williams wrote:

Guy Alcala wrote in message ...

snip

And I am essentially agnostic on the matter, perhaps leaning slightly towards the gun pod solution for those "short of hot
war" situations.

This is my comment on gunpods:

"Podded guns have the advantage that they don't need to be lugged
around unless the planes are in circumstances in which a gun is likely
to be needed. Like any other piece of hardware, they can be fitted
according to requirements. The downside of this is that you first have
to make sure that the gunpods are available when required, you have to
be psychic to determine when they might be useful, they use up a
hardpoint which would otherwise be available for fuel or other
weapons, they take some time to harmonise – and keep harmonised – when
fitted, and even then are less accurate than integral guns. Gunpods
generate more drag, usually affect handling and are also much less
"stealthy" than integral guns; a factor likely to be increasingly
important as stealth measures are leading to the internal carriage of
all weapons. This solution is therefore very much second best, but it
is better than nothing. The installation of weapons in
purpose-designed conformal pods fitted directly to the fuselage and
intended to be more or less permanent fixtures does reduce or avoid
some of the above problems."

No argument with any of the above, with the exception of the "use up a hardpoint otherwise available for fuel," as that's design
dependent (you sort of cover that when mentioning the conformal pods). And, on the flip side, you can always use the internal
space that would otherwise have a gun in it for fuel or electronics, meaning it's low drag and you won't be jettisoning any of
it to maximise performance. In a peacetime "identify and escort" role, the extra drag and loss of stealth of the gun pod is
pretty irrelevant, and in wartime you can do without. of course, if you want to have a convertible internal space,
fuel/guns/what have you, that's one option, but then you're guaranteeing that the airframe will be larger than it would
otherwise need to be.

Guy