F-35 25mm cannon 180 round ammo load too low?

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 11:40:19 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


"John Cook" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:44:42 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


Admittedly, you are no expert. Neither am I, but the question I have is:

How often is the gun used to strafe ground targets in the first place?
If
the gun isn't used much, there isn't much point to wasting the
space/weight,
is there?


The same sort of reasoning was applied to the lifeboats on the
Titanic......

Nice try. There were legally enough lifeboats on the Titanic, the designers
very carefully followed existing laws that governed ships over 10,000 tons.

Now, show me the law that says how many rounds a gun should carry on the
F35.

Legally enough is fine... as long as your not the one whos left at the
end.

The point I was trying to make was the gun should not be left out,
because its rarely used, that 'rarely' might come in very handy one
day, its not a question of the number of rounds, 180 rounds seems
quite enough to me.

The same with the Titanic you can have legally enough lifeboats, or in
the extremly unlikely event of it hitting an iceberg a glancing blow
( a full head on impact would have been much better), a sufficent
number of life boats to accomadate the large number of disorganised
untrained people who in the confusion of an actual sinking didn't pack
enough in each lifeboat..

Or the cost of a walkway across the world trade centres was too
expensive, due to it being only needed in very unlikely events.

The point is risks can be forseen, adequate protection comes at a
cost, unfortunatly costs usually win.

By all means remove the gun on an aircraft, but I think you would also
have to remove the title 'Fighter' from its name.

Cheers




John Cook

Any spelling mistakes/grammatic errors are there purely to annoy. All
opinions are mine, not TAFE's however much they beg me for them.

Email Address :-
Spam trap - please remove (trousers) to email me
Eurofighter Website :- http://www.eurofighter-typhoon.co.uk

John Cook wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 11:40:19 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


"John Cook" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:44:42 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


Admittedly, you are no expert. Neither am I, but the question I have is:

How often is the gun used to strafe ground targets in the first place?
If
the gun isn't used much, there isn't much point to wasting the
space/weight,
is there?


The same sort of reasoning was applied to the lifeboats on the
Titanic......

Nice try. There were legally enough lifeboats on the Titanic, the designers
very carefully followed existing laws that governed ships over 10,000 tons.

Now, show me the law that says how many rounds a gun should carry on the
F35.

Legally enough is fine... as long as your not the one whos left at the
end.

The point I was trying to make was the gun should not be left out,
because its rarely used, that 'rarely' might come in very handy one
day, its not a question of the number of rounds, 180 rounds seems
quite enough to me.

The same with the Titanic you can have legally enough lifeboats, or in
the extremly unlikely event of it hitting an iceberg a glancing blow
( a full head on impact would have been much better), a sufficent
number of life boats to accomadate the large number of disorganised
untrained people who in the confusion of an actual sinking didn't pack
enough in each lifeboat..

Or the cost of a walkway across the world trade centres was too
expensive, due to it being only needed in very unlikely events.

The point is risks can be forseen, adequate protection comes at a
cost, unfortunatly costs usually win.

By all means remove the gun on an aircraft, but I think you would also
have to remove the title 'Fighter' from its name.

Ah, so then the F-4B/C/D/G/J/K/M/N/S should also have the title 'Fighter' removed
from its name. And many MiG-21s as well, along with the F-102, the F-106, most
F-101s, etc. I guess you could at least make the argument that the interceptors
shouldn't have been called fighters, but I'd have to say that the Phantom's a
fighter in anyone's book, with or without internal gun.

Guy

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:44:42 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


Admittedly, you are no expert. Neither am I, but the question I have is:

How often is the gun used to strafe ground targets in the first place? If
the gun isn't used much, there isn't much point to wasting the space/weight,
is there?

Well, considering they're working on a 100KW laser for the plane,
if they get it to work, the gun will become obsolete.



Eric Pinnell

(Author, "Steel Rain", "Claws of The Dragon", "The Omega File")

For a preview, see: http://www.ericpinnell.com/books/previews.shtml

In article , Eric Pinnell see
my web site wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:44:42 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


Admittedly, you are no expert. Neither am I, but the question I have is:

How often is the gun used to strafe ground targets in the first place? If
the gun isn't used much, there isn't much point to wasting the space/weight,
is there?

Well, considering they're working on a 100KW laser for the plane,
if they get it to work, the gun will become obsolete.

If they get the laser to work, missiles will probably be obsolete, too.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

"Harry Andreas" wrote in message
...
In article , Eric Pinnell see
my web site wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 11:44:42 +0900, "Ragnar"
wrote:


Admittedly, you are no expert. Neither am I, but the question I have
is:

How often is the gun used to strafe ground targets in the first place?
If
the gun isn't used much, there isn't much point to wasting the
space/weight,
is there?

Well, considering they're working on a 100KW laser for the plane,
if they get it to work, the gun will become obsolete.

If they get the laser to work, missiles will probably be obsolete, too.

Down low, missiles will probably keep a significant range advantage
for a while.

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 09:38:23 -0700, (Harry
Andreas) wrote:

If they get the laser to work, missiles will probably be obsolete, too.

No. The laser loses power due to things like dust in the atmosphere,
etc. It would be a relatively short ranged weapon, useful for strafing
ground targets.
Mind you, a 100KW laser might be usable in anti-missile mode, which
could really mess things up for an attacker.


Eric Pinnell

(Author, "Steel Rain", "Claws of The Dragon", "The Omega File")

For a preview, see: http://www.ericpinnell.com/books/previews.shtml

"Sorja" wrote in message
...
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0163.shtml

This page will need to be highlighted with the left mouse button to be
seen in
it's entirety:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache...il/ndia/2004gu
ns/wed/maher.ppt+%22F-35%22+%2225mm%22&hl=en

It looks like either 180 or 182 rounds for the CTOL variant and either 220
or
225 rounds for the gunpod for the CV and STOVL variants. 4,000 shots per
minute is 66 rounds per second which gives the CTOL variant 3 shots with
the
gun and the CV and STOVL variants 4 shots with the gun. I'm no expert,
but to
me, it seems like a kinda low ammo supply for a close air support
aircraft.
Anyone agree? Disagree? Since the program is still in early stages, is
it
possible the ammo load would be increased?

Thanks

They are probably thinking the gun won't see much use in Air-To-Air and that
missiles and bombs are more likely for Air-To-Ground as well. I seem to
recall 400-600 rounds being loaded for Vulcans on 20mm armed fighters. It
might be wise to increase it in the F-35, but we will see. The 25mm should
be a good weapon on a per-shot basis, though.

Sorja wrote:
It looks like either 180 or 182 rounds for the CTOL variant and
either 220 or 225 rounds for the gunpod for the CV and STOVL
variants. 4,000 shots per minute is 66 rounds per second which gives
the CTOL variant 3 shots with the gun and the CV and STOVL variants 4
shots with the gun. I'm no expert, but to me, it seems like a kinda
low ammo supply for a close air support aircraft. Anyone agree?
Disagree? Since the program is still in early stages, is it possible
the ammo load would be increased?

It seems unlikely that the gun ammo will be increased given the weight
issues that have been raised.

But I doubt that this is a real problem. The gun is necessary as an
in-extremis weapon, but I've not heard of any AV-8s shooting dry their
300-round magazines in CAS missions. The STOVL JSF's 225 rounds is only one
fewer burst (by your calculations). That should be enough for amost all
uses.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when
wrong to be put right." - Senator Carl Schurz, 1872

Thanks for all the great info everyone.