Future military fighters and guns - yes or no ?

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message ...
In message , Tony
Williams writes

They also provide an
economical way of engaging low-value targets such as unmanned
reconnaissance drones, transport and liaison aircraft, or
drug-smugglers.

"Economical" is extremely dependent on assumptions: while a burst of
cannon shells is cheaper than a missile, keeping your entire fighter
force trained and ready to be proficient in gun use is not cost-free.

No it isn't - but UAVs/UCAVs are likely to proliferate rapidly, and
dealing with them is likely to shift up the scale of importance.

The 1991 Gulf War revealed the deficiencies of modern
IR-homing missiles when faced with trying to pick up a low-flying
target against a hot desert background (helicopters being in any case
difficult for IR seekers to lock on to from above). USAF A-10
aircraft achieved two helicopter kills with the GAU-8/A (using 275 and
550 rounds respectively) in one case when the IR missiles failed to
lock on.

550 rounds is more than many fighters carry, even when using less potent
Gatling guns. Is the problem "only guns can kill low-flying
helicopters", or "there's a need to improve capability against
low-flying helicopters"?

The A-10 was not equipped (nor are the pilots trained, AFAIK) for
air-to-air gunnery.

Furthermore, the performance of even the best missiles cannot
always be guaranteed, for various reasons. In Kosovo, a US fighter
engaging a Serbian plane needed to fire three AMRAAMs to bring it
down.

How many cannon rounds were fired, out of interest?

Irrelevant - the point I am making is that missiles run out very fast.


Trouble is, just because _you_ are out of missiles doesn't mean the
enemy will chivalrously cease fi and it's much easier for the enemy
to get you into missile parameters, than for you to lure an enemy into a
guns shot. (Especially when you're having to break off your approaches
to evade enemy AAMs)

The Iranian F-14s made good use of their Phoenix missiles, and
Sparrows, but still ended up in gunfights on occasions and even scored
kills with the gun. Nice theories about how engagements ought to go
tend to break down in real life.

If planes
eventually become 'laser-proof' as well, the possibility presumably
exists of linking variable magnification optical sights to a computer
which would be able to analyse the image, identify the plane,
calculate its distance, speed and heading and provide gunsight aiming
information accordingly, all without emitting any signals.

If you can do all this and compute a gunnery solution, why can you not
fly a much larger guided warhead into the target from greater range than
a cannon will allow?

Because an aircraft has far more space for sensors and computing
capacity than a missile does.

However, not all conflicts involve front-line opposition; in fact,
armed forces are now commonly engaged on police work, frequently
dealing with guerrilla forces. In these circumstances, rockets and
missiles may represent an inappropriate degree of destruction, with a
high risk of collateral damage. The RAF was embarrassed during
operations against insurgents in Sierra Leone in 2000 to find that
they had no suitable weapon for their gunless Harrier GR.7 aircraft to
attack small groups of rebels operating close to innocent civilians.

Given the lack of air opposition, why not use Sea Harriers with their
reliable, proven 30mm ADENs for the role? It seems more is being made of
the story than might actually exist.

The Sea Harriers have, what - two or three more years? Then what? Do
guns suddenly stop being useful for such purposes?

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

In message , Tony
Williams writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
"Economical" is extremely dependent on assumptions: while a burst of
cannon shells is cheaper than a missile, keeping your entire fighter
force trained and ready to be proficient in gun use is not cost-free.

No it isn't - but UAVs/UCAVs are likely to proliferate rapidly, and
dealing with them is likely to shift up the scale of importance.

I'm still unconvinced that a gun (in its current incarnation) is the
best option, if that's a key driver.

550 rounds is more than many fighters carry, even when using less potent
Gatling guns. Is the problem "only guns can kill low-flying
helicopters", or "there's a need to improve capability against
low-flying helicopters"?

The A-10 was not equipped (nor are the pilots trained, AFAIK) for
air-to-air gunnery.

So? Helicopters are closer to air-to-ground strafing than air-to-air,
looking at the velocity and altitude differentials.

How many cannon rounds were fired, out of interest?

Irrelevant - the point I am making is that missiles run out very fast.

A few examples where this has befallen Western pilots would be handy. It
was a problem in Vietnam for the USAF, for example, where they were
plagued by poor reliability of the weapons and by doctrinal guidance to
volley every selected weapon at a target (so a F-4 Phantom effectively
had one Sidewinder shot and one Sparrow shot); the USN used different
doctrine based on single firings and got much better results.


A strong example for your case should be the Falklands, where the SHars
only had two AIM-9Ls apiece, yet it's an interesting commentary on
relative envelopes that there were very few (three IIRC) guns kills, one
a C-130 finished off with gunfire after Sidewinder hits and one Pucara:
though on several occasions the SHars emptied their guns at Argentine
aircraft without results (LCdrs Mike Blissett and 'Fred' Frederiksen,
and Lt. Clive Morell, all had this experience on the 21st May, for
instance: Sharkey Ward recalls firing on and missing a Turbo-Mentor, as
well as three SHars taking five firing passes to down a single Pucara;
Flight Lieutenant Dave Morgan scored two kills with two Sidewinders on
8th June, and shot his guns dry to no effect before his wingman got a
third kill with another Sidewinder...)

Having the guns along when the missiles were exhausted was no guarantee
of being able to get into range, let alone score disabling damage: with
hindsight, trading the gun pods for more fuel and twin-rail Sidewinder
launchers (giving four rather than two shots) would have been much more
effective.

Trouble is, just because _you_ are out of missiles doesn't mean the
enemy will chivalrously cease fi and it's much easier for the enemy
to get you into missile parameters, than for you to lure an enemy into a
guns shot. (Especially when you're having to break off your approaches
to evade enemy AAMs)

The Iranian F-14s made good use of their Phoenix missiles, and
Sparrows, but still ended up in gunfights on occasions and even scored
kills with the gun.

The Iranians also used human wave attacks against prepared defensive
positions, using unarmed schoolboys carrying plastic "keys to heaven" in
the first wave (they were expendable, available, and revealed the
locations of minefields and concealed bunkers for the armed fighters
following). I would be somewhat wary of taking a cue from Iranian
tactics without much more detail of the encounters involved.

Nice theories about how engagements ought to go
tend to break down in real life.

True: like the notion that any gunless fighter is doomed

If you can do all this and compute a gunnery solution, why can you not
fly a much larger guided warhead into the target from greater range than
a cannon will allow?

Because an aircraft has far more space for sensors and computing
capacity than a missile does.

But the gun is still a fixed installation and you have to point it at
where the target will be one time-of-flight after firing: and you have
to fly through the enemy's weapons envelope(s) to do so.

Given the lack of air opposition, why not use Sea Harriers with their
reliable, proven 30mm ADENs for the role? It seems more is being made of
the story than might actually exist.

The Sea Harriers have, what - two or three more years?

They were available, why weren't they used? Did nobody consider the
chances of a 'danger close'?

Then what? Do
guns suddenly stop being useful for such purposes?

They were available then - the story seems to have more agenda behind it
than it would like to admit.


--
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 , Tony
Williams writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message
...
"Economical" is extremely dependent on assumptions: while a burst of
cannon shells is cheaper than a missile, keeping your entire fighter
force trained and ready to be proficient in gun use is not cost-free.

No it isn't - but UAVs/UCAVs are likely to proliferate rapidly, and
dealing with them is likely to shift up the scale of importance.

I'm still unconvinced that a gun (in its current incarnation) is the
best option, if that's a key driver.

Now here, Tony raises an interesting point. Talking with a serving IAF pilot
some years back, he mentioned that all their tactical a/c have their guns
loaded on every flight, including training, just so they'll have something to
fire if they get diverted to an interception. He said that an IAF Brigadier
General had shot down a foreign recon drone while on a training flight in his
(IIRR) F-15 . Of course, lasers or cheap missiles may do the job as well, and
high-performance UAVs are never going to be _that_ cheap.

snip

How many cannon rounds were fired, out of interest?

Irrelevant - the point I am making is that missiles run out very fast.

A few examples where this has befallen Western pilots would be handy. It
was a problem in Vietnam for the USAF, for example, where they were
plagued by poor reliability of the weapons and by doctrinal guidance to
volley every selected weapon at a target (so a F-4 Phantom effectively
had one Sidewinder shot and one Sparrow shot); the USN used different
doctrine based on single firings and got much better results.

A strong example for your case should be the Falklands, where the SHars
only had two AIM-9Ls apiece, yet it's an interesting commentary on
relative envelopes that there were very few (three IIRC) guns kills, one
a C-130 finished off with gunfire after Sidewinder hits and one Pucara:
though on several occasions the SHars emptied their guns at Argentine
aircraft without results (LCdrs Mike Blissett and 'Fred' Frederiksen,
and Lt. Clive Morell, all had this experience on the 21st May, for
instance: Sharkey Ward recalls firing on and missing a Turbo-Mentor, as
well as three SHars taking five firing passes to down a single Pucara;
Flight Lieutenant Dave Morgan scored two kills with two Sidewinders on
8th June, and shot his guns dry to no effect before his wingman got a
third kill with another Sidewinder...)

Having the guns along when the missiles were exhausted was no guarantee
of being able to get into range, let alone score disabling damage: with
hindsight, trading the gun pods for more fuel and twin-rail Sidewinder
launchers (giving four rather than two shots) would have been much more
effective.

snip

Yup. Of course, the lack of IR decoys in most of the Argentine a/c also played
a part, but we're now in the age of IIR seekers, and decoying _them_ is going
to be very difficult if not impossible. They may require damage or destruction
to make them miss. And if the SHARs had had RH missiles and PD radar (and
AEW), then chances are they would have shot down many of the Argentine aircraft
long before they'd even have closed to visual range, even if they were using
older generation missiles.

Guy

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message ...
In message , Tony
Williams writes

A strong example for your case should be the Falklands, where the SHars
only had two AIM-9Ls apiece, yet it's an interesting commentary on
relative envelopes that there were very few (three IIRC) guns kills, one
a C-130 finished off with gunfire after Sidewinder hits and one Pucara:
though on several occasions the SHars emptied their guns at Argentine
aircraft without results (LCdrs Mike Blissett and 'Fred' Frederiksen,
and Lt. Clive Morell, all had this experience on the 21st May, for
instance: Sharkey Ward recalls firing on and missing a Turbo-Mentor, as
well as three SHars taking five firing passes to down a single Pucara;
Flight Lieutenant Dave Morgan scored two kills with two Sidewinders on
8th June, and shot his guns dry to no effect before his wingman got a
third kill with another Sidewinder...)

Fair points. However, the 30mm Aden is an old gun with poor ballistics
by modern standards and there are now much better guns available for
air combat. The critical factor is of course the quality of the gun
fire control system. I don't know how good it was in the SHARs, but
what I have read about modern fighters is that once they've got a
radar lock there is a strong probability of a gun kill, with only a
short burst normally being required. In some cases, the FCS actually
takes over control of some elements of the flight controls to ensure
that the gun is correctly aimed.

The Iranian F-14s made good use of their Phoenix missiles, and
Sparrows, but still ended up in gunfights on occasions and even scored
kills with the gun.

The Iranians also used human wave attacks against prepared defensive
positions, using unarmed schoolboys carrying plastic "keys to heaven" in
the first wave (they were expendable, available, and revealed the
locations of minefields and concealed bunkers for the armed fighters
following). I would be somewhat wary of taking a cue from Iranian
tactics without much more detail of the encounters involved.

There's loads of detail available in Cooper and Bishop's 'Iran-Iraq
War in the Air 1980-1988' (Schiffer Military History, 2000). The
Iranians used the F-14's superior radar as a kind of mini-AWACS,
orchestrating air combats and trying to fight at long range. However,
tactical situations can change unexpectedly, especially at fighter jet
closing speeds, hence their occasional need to use guns.

Given the lack of air opposition, why not use Sea Harriers with their
reliable, proven 30mm ADENs for the role? It seems more is being made of
the story than might actually exist.

The Sea Harriers have, what - two or three more years?

They were available, why weren't they used? Did nobody consider the
chances of a 'danger close'?

I presume because the SHARs were seen as primarily fighters, the GR.7s
were specialised for ground attack - so they were the obvious ones to
use.

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/

(Tony Williams) wrote in message om...
(championsleeper) wrote in message . com...
Hi,



This trend is aided by the continued development of air-to-surface
missiles, with the latest ones having autonomous homing systems to
provide "fire and forget" capability over long ranges. Another current
development is the GD Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which
aims to achieve low-cost accuracy by fitted a laser homer to the
little 2.75 inch (70 mm) rocket. The target is to achieve a CEP of 1 ?
2 m at ranges of up to 5 ? 6 km at a price of US$ 8 ? 10,000;
one-sixth the cost of a Hellfire anti-tank missile.

The same homing system could be hardened for a guided cannon shell.
Either laser homing or laser beam riding. If the beam is properly
coded a pattern of cannon shells could saturate an area target.

Since high muzzle velocity would not be so critical for the accuracy
of such weapons since the gudience would compensate for fall off and
target velocity changes it might be possible to return to lower
velocity guns conceived more like the German WW2 MK 103 which was
incredibly compact and traded velocity for explosive load. For ultra
long ranges rocket boosted guided cannon shells might be used.

"Eunometic" wrote in message
om...
(Tony Williams) wrote in message
om...
(championsleeper) wrote in message
. com...
Hi,



Since high muzzle velocity would not be so critical for the accuracy
of such weapons since the gudience would compensate for fall off and
target velocity changes it might be possible to return to lower
velocity guns conceived more like the German WW2 MK 103 which was
incredibly compact and traded velocity for explosive load. For ultra
long ranges rocket boosted guided cannon shells might be used.

And then you omit the cannon and call it a Sidewinder

Keith

In message , Eunometic
writes
The same homing system could be hardened for a guided cannon shell.
Either laser homing or laser beam riding. If the beam is properly
coded a pattern of cannon shells could saturate an area target.

Since high muzzle velocity would not be so critical for the accuracy
of such weapons since the gudience would compensate for fall off and
target velocity changes it might be possible to return to lower
velocity guns conceived more like the German WW2 MK 103 which was
incredibly compact and traded velocity for explosive load. For ultra
long ranges rocket boosted guided cannon shells might be used.

....so why bother with the cannon and the problems of hardening the
rounds, if you can get the same result with a simpler, cheaper rocket?

For sure it's _much_ easier and cheaper to fit guidance electronics into
a couple of soft-launched 70mm rockets, than into a hundred gun-launched
30mm shells: and the rocket gets you more range, more warhead, room for
a proximity fuze...


Gun-launched guided projectiles currently hover at the 100mm (Russian
AT-10 IIRC) mark with 76mm proposed but not yet proven or fielded: I'm
not convinced that guided 20-30mm shells are the answer for aircraft.
Going larger-calibre gets you a big heavy gun and curiosity why a gun is
the answer.

For most of the scenarios where guns are suggested as being required, an
accurate 27-30mm with a good ranging sight and reversionary gyro mode is
a good 'today' answer with laser-guided 70mm rockets a potential
replacement. If you need the guidance, the gun loses its charm: if you
can't get guidance, then the guided shells are ballast.

--
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

On 14 Feb 2004 13:50:53 -0800, championsleeper wrote:

However, I've read that one modern aircraft, the eurofighter typhonn,
will not have a gun. The RAF/MOD have apparently decided to drop it on
the grounds of operational costs stating it is unnecessary.

British Typhoons are dropping the guns, supposedly as they are
unnecessary, but in reality as a cost-saving measure.

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)