Tony Williams wrote:

Guy Alcala wrote in message ...

I have seen no concrete evidence that it was a "purely economic" decision (but
see Tony Williams' post). I'm sure cost played a part, but I imagine there were
a multitude of factors involved. I don't doubt that a lot of RAF people
screamed at the idea, just as many people have screamed at virtually every
deletion of some weapon capability (or loss of their personal warm and fuzzy),
no matter how little utility it may have in changed circumstances. The
battleship people screamed too. Who's right in this instance has yet to be
proved. We all agree that there are some cases where a gun provides a useful
capability, but then so does a sword. As always, it's a question of tradeoffs.

Agree with the points you make, Guy. My argument would be that
although the gun is no longer of primary importance in a fighter, it
can fulfil a wide range of secondary roles (see my original post)
especially in situations short of a 'hot' war. The theorists have
frequently tried to keep their concepts 'clean' (what was the USAF
fighter whose development was said to include 'not one pound for air
to ground'?)

Of course, that wasn't true even at the time the claim was made, as a glance at a photo of the armament control panel and
Master Mode Switches of an F-15A will show.

but the even the most specialised interceptors have
frequently found themselves carrying bombs once combat required it.

Which is a question of adding a capability that has been routinely exercised by fighters in combat at least since they
dropped Cooper bombs in WW1, right up through the most recent conflicts, and which, in the context of the air supremacy the
US (at least) has enjoyed in our most recent wars, is more generally useful.

I would argue that for the present at least, the small weight penalty
and cost of a gun (compared with the whole-life cost of the aircraft)
makes it worth keeping.

And I am essentially agnostic on the matter, perhaps leaning slightly towards the gun pod solution for those "short of hot
war" situations. Kind of depends what makes it through the R&D pipeline. If, for example, the only place to put the black
boxes and/or the laser itself for an active laser missile defense system to protect the a/c against IR SAMs was where the
gun was, then it's probably bye-bye gun (depending on the delivery profile of the weapons and sensors of the a/c in
question). Data links, almost certainly. that's a question of retro-fitting a/c currently in service or soon to be. The
next generation, though, is another matter, as the tradeoff between potential airframe size and cost with/without a gun will
be more obvious than is the case with removing a gun from an a/c already sized to carry it. Personally, I'd think that
putting a gun (if necessary) on a long endurance UCAV along with various other weapons may be the way CAS will go, but
that's without knowing a whole lot about what's practical now.

Guy