Guns on fighters?

On 8/10/03 9:55 AM, in article , "Mike
Kanze" wrote:

Woody,

Would have helped to have a gun on an Intruder

I agree that having a gun would have been a good thing during Preying Mantis
(taking out oil platforms). I can't agree that the Intruder would have been
the right bird for guns. During 1988 the A-7 was still lurking about, so
it's not as if we didn't have gun assets available. I presume the A-6E
COULD carry rockets (as its predecessor Intruder variants could), and so
augment the gunfire from the Thalidomide Crusader.

Then there's the old conundrum about what tradeoffs you'd need to make, to
retrofit a gun into any aircraft not already "gun-ready". With the
Intruder, this would most likely have meant a pod. The expression, "sailors
and pods don't mix very well", was already gaining currency during the early
1970s with the intro of the EA-6B to the fleet.

Since the A-6's primary mission was all-wx attack a gun - at best - would
only have been a "nice to have".

Owl sends.

Owl,

All very true. Oil platforms, Boghammers etc... They zig, you simply follow
them with bullets.

OBTW, never saw it except in TACMAN pictures, but the Intruder DID have a
gun pod designed for it. All the ordies and gunners I talked to had never
seen one either. Apparently, you dialed in a mil setting and fired it in
the manual mode with the pickle button--kinda goofy from a pilot/human
factors standpoint (my opinion only).

Of course as a former B/N, you already know that the A-6E did carry rockets.
In fact, I had the opportunity to employ every rocket delivery possible from
the Intruder... Straight Path, Manual, General, Loft (NOT High Loft
though)--both pilot and B/N designates--Zuni's and 2.75's. I'm not the ace
of the base, just happened to get scheduled for 3 rocket hops with 2 full
pods each and lots of range time. MAARP's were great in the old days.
Problem is WRT PREYING MANTIS: Rockets not allowed on ship. You wouldn't
believe how many of my Hornet contemporaries these days that have never even
SEEN a rocket pod (even though they should have during advanced strike in
A-4's).

There would have been some definite tradeoff to include a gun on the A-6
from its inception, but the design was a bit myopic from a mission
standpoint, so we got what we got. I was always a bit jealous of the A-7's
gun... Always seemed like it would have been a fun thing to strafe the wake
after mission tanking. Ah the reminiscing...

--Woody