Best dogfight gun?

In article ,
"Paul F Austin" wrote:

Now, here's a question: for the 200Kg or so weight budget (I have no idea
about volume) of an internal gun and ammo tank, would you rather have 1, 2
or 3 more AIM-9Xs/ASRAAMs?

It's not a question of "just weight," or we'd just build C-5s with a big
automated missile launcher in them.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

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

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:39:49 GMT, "Kevin Brooks" wrote:


"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
Alan Minyard wrote:
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.

Comments nearly identical to the one above were very popular in the
early 1960s. And then we got into a real shooting war, and pilots
suddenly needed guns again.

It's an interesting area to actually analyse, particularly when
comparing USAF and USN performance: in Linebacker the USAF shot down
forty-eight MiGs for twenty-four air-to-air losses, while the USN lost
four and scored 24 kills. More interesting yet, the Navy's fighters met
MiGs twenty-six times, for a .92 probability of killing a MiG and a .15
chance of losing one of their own; the USAF had eighty-two engagements,
for .58 kills per engagement but .29 losses.[1]

Ugh! That all sounds dangerously like the "operations research", or systems
analysis, kind of numeric mumbo-jumbo so characteristic of the McNamara
era---PLEASSSE don't go there! It took us a generation to rid ourselves of
the most of the "mantle of the number crunchers" (and we were only partially
succesful--witness the continued use of the POM process in budgeting) as it
was...

Brooks

snip

OR has been in use since WWII, when it was used to determine such things
as the parameters of an "ideal" depth charge attack. It was quite effective
at the time, and still is. I certainly have no love of McN, he did an amazing
amount of damage to the US Military (the term "McNamara's Nightmare"
was applied to *numerous* systems).

Al Minyard

On 10 Dec 2003 12:56:12 -0800, (Tony Williams) wrote:

Alan Minyard wrote in message . ..
On 9 Dec 2003 13:40:45 -0800, (Tony Williams) wrote:

Alan Minyard wrote in message . ..
And who out there is going to use significant numbers of unreliable, heavy, slow
cannon to oppose a US Force? The rate of fire of the .50 was not enough to
make up for the somewhat smaller calibre, that is not the case with the M-61.

Possibly, possibly not. The bigger the target is, the more damage you
have to inflict to down it. A MiG-15 weighed under 3,800 kg empty, a
Su-27 around 18,000 kg - nearly five times as much. A 20mm shell
weighs only just over twice as much as a .50 bullet. You can double
its effectiveness in recognition of the HEI content, but even so you
are still left with a pretty even match between the .5/MiG-15 and
20mm/Su-27 in terms of destructive effect compared with target weight.

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.

Guided missiles? Now that you mention it, I have heard something about
them - but IIRC this thread is all about guns.

Your post seems to imply that you think that anything bigger than a
20mm is by definition bulky, heavy, slow-firing and unreliable. Well,
lets take the M61A1 as the standard, shall we? It weighs 114 kg, and
is very bulky because there are six barrels which all need room to
spin. Then, because it fires its little shells so fast (and you need
to hit with a lot of them to have the desired effect) it needs a big
ammunition capacity, with a big magazine - much more space and weight.
In fact, the magazine and ammo feed weigh about as much as the gun,
and the full load of ammo typically weighs the same again.

Now let's look at the opposition. The 'European standard' 27mm Mauser
BK 27, selected over any US gun by the JSF contenders

That has changed. The Mouser is out.

, weighs 100 kg
and uses much less space (only one barrel). The ammo is bigger, but
less of it is needed because it's much more effective.

And I suppose that you have verifiable combat records to support this??

For a bit more
weight (120 kg) you can get a GIAT 30M791 which is equally powerful
and can fire up to 2,500 rpm. Both of these guns hit their top speed
instantly, unlike the M61.

The spin up of the M-61 is so minor as to not be an issue, ask the
people who have used them.

Look to Russia and things get even more
interesting:

If you consider bankruptcy interesting.

the GSh-30 weighs 105 kg and fires powerful 30mm ammo at
up to 3,000 rpm (again, instantly). The little GSh-301 used in the
MiG-29 and Su-27 only fires at 1,500-1,800 rpm (instantly) but weighs
a trivial 45 kg and is tiny by comparison with the M61. If you really
want firepower, then there's the GSh-6-30 which fires the same,
powerful, 30mm ammo at around 5,000 rpm for just 160 kg. I admit that
is heavier than an M61, but it's hardly any bigger and has several
times the firepower.

There is no evidence that it works, much less its firepower, accuracy, etc.


There is a legitimate debate about whether fighter guns are needed
anymore, given the much improved performance of guided missiles. I am
willing to argue that on several grounds, and am supported by the fact
that despite all the high-tech gee-whizz weaponry used recently in
Afghanistan and Iraq, US fighters were still using their guns in
circumstances where nothing else was suitable. If you're going to
retain a gun, it might as well be the best you can get. The price,
space and weight costs are negligible as a fraction of a modern
fighter.

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Discussion forum at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/

Your anti-US bias is noted. The best is the M-61.

Al Minyard

"Alan Minyard" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:39:49 GMT, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:


"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
In message , Chad Irby
writes
In article ,
Alan Minyard wrote:
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.

Comments nearly identical to the one above were very popular in the
early 1960s. And then we got into a real shooting war, and pilots
suddenly needed guns again.

It's an interesting area to actually analyse, particularly when
comparing USAF and USN performance: in Linebacker the USAF shot down
forty-eight MiGs for twenty-four air-to-air losses, while the USN lost
four and scored 24 kills. More interesting yet, the Navy's fighters met
MiGs twenty-six times, for a .92 probability of killing a MiG and a .15
chance of losing one of their own; the USAF had eighty-two engagements,
for .58 kills per engagement but .29 losses.[1]

Ugh! That all sounds dangerously like the "operations research", or
systems
analysis, kind of numeric mumbo-jumbo so characteristic of the McNamara
era---PLEASSSE don't go there! It took us a generation to rid ourselves
of
the most of the "mantle of the number crunchers" (and we were only
partially
succesful--witness the continued use of the POM process in budgeting) as
it
was...

Brooks

snip

OR has been in use since WWII, when it was used to determine such things
as the parameters of an "ideal" depth charge attack. It was quite
effective
at the time, and still is.

But it was taken waaay too far by the McNamara crowd, who felt that all
things were quantifiable by numbers, and numbers were more important than
actual results.

I certainly have no love of McN, he did an amazing
amount of damage to the US Military (the term "McNamara's Nightmare"
was applied to *numerous* systems).

Not to mention his micromanagement in Vietnam, and his later published
fandango about his involvement in the decisionmaking that went into that
conflict.

Brooks


Al Minyard

"Paul F Austin" wrote in message
.. .

"Chad Irby" wrote
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

If "lack of guns" is the real problem, surely gun-armed fighters are
a complete and satisfactory answer?

It's not a simple question of "lack of guns."

It's "relying on missiles 100% and not having guns when they're really
bloody useful."

We learned that lesson over 30 years ago, and a whole new generation of
bean counters are trying to resurrect the kind of silliness that the
McNamara school brought us in Vietnam...

Now, here's a question: for the 200Kg or so weight budget (I have no idea
about volume) of an internal gun and ammo tank, would you rather have 1, 2
or 3 more AIM-9Xs/ASRAAMs?

Given that the lieklihood of us facing a credible air-to air threat is
receding, and advanced fighters alreay have a rather decent basic loadout of
AAM's, I'd think that you are better off with the gun and the additional
versatility/flexibility it accords versus a few more AAM's that don't add
anything to the aircraft's ability to react to unexpected circumstances.

Brooks


There's always a lip-curl reflex about "bean counters" but every time you
make a choice, you've rejected an alternative. There's money, weight,
volume
and time budgets because all of those are fungible, exchangeable among the
possible choices.

Remove a gun and save money? Sure, but you spend that money, space, power
and weight for something else, possibly more ordnance of a different kind.
Or maybe not. Maybe more volume for better ESM or countermeasures or a
lower
crap-out rate for your RADAR.

The guy who straps on the airplane (which I will never do) has to live
with
those choices and he may curse the "bean counters" who made them but every
single characteristic (not just gun/no gun) within a weapons system
competes
with some other alternative. The payoff for some of these trades isn't
always as obvious as a tank full of cannon rounds but it's there.

"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

On 11 Dec 2003 05:45:39 -0800, (Tony Williams) wrote:

"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message link.net...
Tony Williams wrote:

Now let's look at the opposition. The 'European standard' 27mm Mauser
BK 27, selected over any US gun by the JSF contenders, weighs 100 kg
and uses much less space (only one barrel).

Of course, the BK27 was then abandoned by Lockheed Martin after the JSF
source selection and replaced by a 25mm GAU-12/U Gatling gun.

I understand that was at the initiative of GD, who happened to be
given the contract for designing the JSF's BK 27 gun installation and
also just happen to make the GAU-12/U (shouldn't they have declared an
interest, or something?) .....their argument was on cost grounds, not
quality (and I suspect they may have received a sympathetic hearing in
favour of a US gun rather than a German one, especially post-Iraq).
The BK 27 was originally selected purely on merit.

Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Military gun and ammunition discussion forum:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/

You have no idea. The Mauser was an inferior weapon.

Al Minyard

"Jake McGuire" wrote in message
om...
"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.

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?


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.


It is hardly buried, if you bothered to read the previous messages in the
thread--it (being within danger-close range) has been a key point.

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), and just like the option of
using a gun pod, requires specific load out. 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. OTOH, if
they have their trusty internal cannon the ground guys will get at least
some form of support. SDB is admittedly going to have a smaller danger close
margin than the current minimum 500 pounders, but even a 200-250 pound bomb
is going to have a danger close margin that exceeds 75 meters.


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.

Hydra is a rotary delivered weapon, and unless they change their plans to
make it a fixed wing package it is a non-player in the conventional CAS
arena (we are not talking helos here). SDB is still going to have a danger
close margin. So you are back to the question of whether or not you want to
remain flexible enough to provide gunfire support when the situation
precludes use of the bigger stuff. Since the gun also serves as a secondary
air-to-air weapon, IMO retaining it for the foreseeable future is a wise
move.

Brooks


-jake

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 13:21:39 -0600, Alan Minyard
wrote:


Tony Williams
Military gun and ammunition website: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk
Military gun and ammunition discussion forum:
http://forums.delphiforums.com/autogun/messages/

You have no idea. The Mauser was an inferior weapon.

Al Minyard


ROFLMAO! How did you draw that stunning conclusion.


greg

--
Once you try my burger baby,you'll grow a new thyroid gland.
I said just eat my burger, baby,make you smart as Charlie Chan.
You say the hot sauce can't be beat. Sit back and open wide.

On Thu, 11 Dec 2003 06:30:14 -0500, "Paul F Austin"
wrote:


"Chad Irby" wrote
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

If "lack of guns" is the real problem, surely gun-armed fighters are
a complete and satisfactory answer?

It's not a simple question of "lack of guns."

It's "relying on missiles 100% and not having guns when they're really
bloody useful."

We learned that lesson over 30 years ago, and a whole new generation of
bean counters are trying to resurrect the kind of silliness that the
McNamara school brought us in Vietnam...

Now, here's a question: for the 200Kg or so weight budget (I have no idea
about volume) of an internal gun and ammo tank, would you rather have 1, 2
or 3 more AIM-9Xs/ASRAAMs?

There's always a lip-curl reflex about "bean counters" but every time you
make a choice, you've rejected an alternative. There's money, weight, volume
and time budgets because all of those are fungible, exchangeable among the
possible choices.

Remove a gun and save money? Sure, but you spend that money, space, power
and weight for something else, possibly more ordnance of a different kind.
Or maybe not. Maybe more volume for better ESM or countermeasures or a lower
crap-out rate for your RADAR.

The guy who straps on the airplane (which I will never do) has to live with
those choices and he may curse the "bean counters" who made them but every
single characteristic (not just gun/no gun) within a weapons system competes
with some other alternative. The payoff for some of these trades isn't
always as obvious as a tank full of cannon rounds but it's there.



The thing is you can pretty much use the gun on anything. If you're
the closest aircraft to the troops on the ground and they need someone
taken off their back a strafe or two is always handy. If you've
somehow gotten in too close for an IR shot you've still got the gun.
If you want to warn an aircraft that you're serious you've got the gun
(if there aren't any tracers I don't know how useful that would be
though). It's just a nice thing to have around "just in case".