Future military fighters and guns - yes or no ?

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
JDupre5762 wrote:

I'm interested in canvassing opinions regarding the inclusion of a gun
on future military aircraft.

There seems to be a remarkable coincidence every time that pundits or
experts
decide that something can never happen again it will. I would think
that the
cost of an internal gun is small enough to be included in a future
design based
on the possibility of it being needed at some time somewhere. The
military
needs to be prepared for almost any eventuality. I know that the USAF
has had
occasion to use guns ony strafing runs from F-15s in Afghanistan and
would bet
that if someone had said there was a need for that ten years ago many
people
would have laughed at the thought. I would think too that any nation in
Europe
with its congested airspace ought to see that at some point it will
probably
become necessary to establish visual range only (VRO) intercept and
firing
parameters lest a lot of neutrals end up dead.

The thing is, modern dogfight missiles cued by HMS, radar or IRSTS are
effective
down well inside classical gun ranges at much higher off-boresight angles,
making
the gun far less likely to be used for A/A combat. There is an issue of
countermeasures susceptibility with missiles (as there is with gun fire
control
systems), but the general conclusion of the analysts, this time backed up
by combat
experience (unlike the case in the '50s) is that the gun really is excess
weight
these days, at least for A/A combat use. It still may have a place in
peacetime
for firing warning shots or the occasional troops in contact emergency,
but the
general feeling seems to be that the first situation can be catered for
with podded
guns, while in the second the weight/volume otherwise dedicated to an
internal gun
installation can be better used for carrying more A/G (like the SSB or
rockets) or
A/A weapons, fuel or avionics, or can just be left out and the a/c as a
whole can
be smaller, lighter and cheaper.

If that is the "general feeling", then why will the Typhoon, Rafael, Su-30
and derivitives, F-22, and F-35 all still have internal guns?

Because most of them entered development long ago, and many of them will
probably wind up deleting the guns somewhere down the road (as is the case with
the 2nd and 3rd tranche RAF Typhoons now), especially if something else comes
along that provides greater utility for the space and weight (whether a laser
weapon, DECM, fuel, avionics or what have you). Last I heard, the STOVL version
of the F-35 definitely wasn't going to have an internal gun, although that seems
to change almost weekly. We'' see what happens to the CTOL and carrier versions
down the line. Of course, should a war come along where the gun demonstrates
its utility on a regular (as opposed to occasional) basis, the pendulum may
swing back the other way again.

Guy

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
JDupre5762 wrote:

I'm interested in canvassing opinions regarding the inclusion of a
gun
on future military aircraft.

There seems to be a remarkable coincidence every time that pundits
or
experts
decide that something can never happen again it will. I would think
that the
cost of an internal gun is small enough to be included in a future
design based
on the possibility of it being needed at some time somewhere. The
military
needs to be prepared for almost any eventuality. I know that the
USAF
has had
occasion to use guns ony strafing runs from F-15s in Afghanistan and
would bet
that if someone had said there was a need for that ten years ago
many
people
would have laughed at the thought. I would think too that any
nation in
Europe
with its congested airspace ought to see that at some point it will
probably
become necessary to establish visual range only (VRO) intercept and
firing
parameters lest a lot of neutrals end up dead.

The thing is, modern dogfight missiles cued by HMS, radar or IRSTS are
effective
down well inside classical gun ranges at much higher off-boresight
angles,
making
the gun far less likely to be used for A/A combat. There is an issue
of
countermeasures susceptibility with missiles (as there is with gun
fire
control
systems), but the general conclusion of the analysts, this time backed
up
by combat
experience (unlike the case in the '50s) is that the gun really is
excess
weight
these days, at least for A/A combat use. It still may have a place in
peacetime
for firing warning shots or the occasional troops in contact
emergency,
but the
general feeling seems to be that the first situation can be catered
for
with podded
guns, while in the second the weight/volume otherwise dedicated to an
internal gun
installation can be better used for carrying more A/G (like the SSB or
rockets) or
A/A weapons, fuel or avionics, or can just be left out and the a/c as
a
whole can
be smaller, lighter and cheaper.

If that is the "general feeling", then why will the Typhoon, Rafael,
Su-30
and derivitives, F-22, and F-35 all still have internal guns?

Because most of them entered development long ago,

Design freeze on the F-35 only happened what, a year or eighteen months
back?

and many of them will
probably wind up deleting the guns somewhere down the road (as is the case
with
the 2nd and 3rd tranche RAF Typhoons now),

Come on now--that was a purely economic decision, and a lot of the RAF folks
have screamed about this supposedly "generally accepted" removal of those
guns.

especially if something else comes
along that provides greater utility for the space and weight (whether a
laser
weapon, DECM, fuel, avionics or what have you).

"If" is a long way from having generally accepted that the gun should be
deleted.

Last I heard, the STOVL version
of the F-35 definitely wasn't going to have an internal gun, although that
seems
to change almost weekly. We'' see what happens to the CTOL and carrier
versions
down the line. Of course, should a war come along where the gun
demonstrates
its utility on a regular (as opposed to occasional) basis, the pendulum
may
swing back the other way again.

Well, AFAIK there has been no general consensus regarding deleting the gun
armament, and everyone continues to do so. If there was such a feeling, we
would expect customers to be deleting them left and right as a weight saving
and space creating measure (adding that big spine to the Block 60 F-16's
indicates that volume usage is growing critical with that design), but we
have not seen this happen.

Brooks


Guy

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..

snip

There is an issue
of
countermeasures susceptibility with missiles (as there is with gun
fire
control
systems), but the general conclusion of the analysts, this time backed
up
by combat
experience (unlike the case in the '50s) is that the gun really is
excess
weight
these days, at least for A/A combat use. It still may have a place in
peacetime
for firing warning shots or the occasional troops in contact
emergency,
but the
general feeling seems to be that the first situation can be catered
for
with podded
guns, while in the second the weight/volume otherwise dedicated to an
internal gun
installation can be better used for carrying more A/G (like the SSB or
rockets) or
A/A weapons, fuel or avionics, or can just be left out and the a/c as
a
whole can
be smaller, lighter and cheaper.

If that is the "general feeling", then why will the Typhoon, Rafael,
Su-30
and derivitives, F-22, and F-35 all still have internal guns?

Because most of them entered development long ago,

Design freeze on the F-35 only happened what, a year or eighteen months
back?

I'm not sure that you could call the design frozen now. But the F-35 is the
most recent one of the bunch (and it dates back to at least 1993, and its
precursor programs even earlier), and the service most likely to be flying
missions where a gun could come in handy, the USMC, has decided that they don't
need one (internally). Personally, I've always thought that it would have made
far more sense for the USAF or USN versions to be sans gun. I'd love to see the
study that the USMC undoubtedly did that led them to that decision.

and many of them will
probably wind up deleting the guns somewhere down the road (as is the case
with
the 2nd and 3rd tranche RAF Typhoons now),

Come on now--that was a purely economic decision, and a lot of the RAF folks
have screamed about this supposedly "generally accepted" removal of those
guns.

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.

especially if something else comes
along that provides greater utility for the space and weight (whether a
laser
weapon, DECM, fuel, avionics or what have you).

"If" is a long way from having generally accepted that the gun should be
deleted.

I said it was (becoming) generally accepted by analysts, not (necessarily) by
the user community. If it were possible to provide for every possible
contingency, someone in the user community would want to have it all, but that's
not very realistic.

Last I heard, the STOVL version
of the F-35 definitely wasn't going to have an internal gun, although that
seems
to change almost weekly. We'' see what happens to the CTOL and carrier
versions
down the line. Of course, should a war come along where the gun
demonstrates
its utility on a regular (as opposed to occasional) basis, the pendulum
may
swing back the other way again.

Well, AFAIK there has been no general consensus regarding deleting the gun
armament, and everyone continues to do so. If there was such a feeling, we
would expect customers to be deleting them left and right as a weight saving
and space creating measure (adding that big spine to the Block 60 F-16's
indicates that volume usage is growing critical with that design), but we
have not seen this happen.

But that assumes that they have something better to put in its place, can afford
to buy it, can afford to design and test the installation themselves, and their
governments are willing to do so. None of that is cheap or easy. There have
been gun deletions (or de-emphasis) in the past, either in whole or in part --
the Tornado F.3 lost one BK 27 (space needed for Skyflash avionics, I think);
the Mirage F.1C when upgraded to the F-1CT multi-role variant lost one DEFA 553
(replaced by the LRMTS boxes, IIRC), the F-4G lost its M61 for antennas and
avionics (and the screams of the crews protesting that decision were loud and
long); the F/A-18G will apparently lose its Vulcan for the same reason, and so
on. And of course, the F-15E gave up over half its gun ammo (and some fuel)
compared to the F-15D, because DECM was considered more important for its
mission; the same thing happened to the F-8 during Vietnam. As in the past, I
expect the gun will stay in a/c that already have it, until the operators decide
they've got something more important to put there, which is worth the
development effort to do the installation. I expect that it will most likely
involve ECM, Laser or HPM weapons, or EO/FLIR/Laser targeting devices. Which
one(s) reaches a deployable state first, and is considered valuable enough that
a major operator (like the US) decides to do the R&D to install and test it,
will almost certainly determine what gets widely installed by second-tier users.

Guy

In message , Guy Alcala
writes
There have
been gun deletions (or de-emphasis) in the past, either in whole or in part --
the Tornado F.3 lost one BK 27 (space needed for Skyflash avionics, I think);

The Tornado GR.4 also loses one gun IIRC, and the recce GR.1A and
matching GR.4 version deleted the guns completely (as, from memory, did
the German ECR variant)

--
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

"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , Guy Alcala
writes
There have
been gun deletions (or de-emphasis) in the past, either in whole or in part --
the Tornado F.3 lost one BK 27 (space needed for Skyflash avionics, I think);

The Tornado GR.4 also loses one gun IIRC, and the recce GR.1A and
matching GR.4 version deleted the guns completely (as, from memory, did
the German ECR variant)

Thanks. I couldn't remember for sure on any of them except the F.3.

Guy

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

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.

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

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

Guy Alcala wrote in message ...
Tony Williams wrote:


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.

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."

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

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

Of course, should a war come along where the gun
demonstrates
its utility on a regular (as opposed to occasional) basis, the pendulum
may
swing back the other way again.

Well, AFAIK there has been no general consensus regarding deleting the gun
armament, and everyone continues to do so. If there was such a feeling, we
would expect customers to be deleting them left and right as a weight
saving
and space creating measure (adding that big spine to the Block 60 F-16's
indicates that volume usage is growing critical with that design), but we
have not seen this happen.

Brooks


Guy

The only fighter that needs a gun is the Warthog. All others, waste of time
and weight post Cold War.
As far as the F-15 strafing runs in Afghanistan, that would almost certainly
have to be Strike and not Air Superiority Eagles.