Hawk 200 questions

In article ,
says...
I'm looking for some general information about Hawk 200

vulnerabilities: I've heard it is a fairly expensive for what it can
provide
(especially when used in a training role), can anyone confirm this?

Operations and actual usage: Is it being deployed at this moment in a
combat role somewhere
or was it ever? Which conflict?

Can't imagine it being much use in the tradiional training role being a
single seater..maybe weapons training?

Malaysia and Indonesia seem to use them for light attack and COIN/CAS
with some backup point air defence role..replacing the aging A-4 and F-5.

On 26 Jul 2003 22:33:57 -0700, (Tony
Williams) wrote:


They were supposed to pack a pair of Aden 25 cannon internally, but
this is not now offered since the gun was canned by the RAF, and you
can only get them with the usual single 30mm gunpod (why they didn't
fit the 27mm Mauser I don't know).


Taking the obvious solution would meant that BAe couldnt have wasted
millions on yet a.n.other make work scheme of dubious utility.

It was a silly NiH decision not to fit uk harriers with a GAU-12 in the 1st
place.

Never mind taking the sensible alternative & reusing the BK-27s which were
allegedly removed from RAF GR1s and replaced with ballast.


greg



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Greg Hennessy wrote in message . ..

It was a silly NiH decision not to fit uk harriers with a GAU-12 in the 1st
place.

Never mind taking the sensible alternative & reusing the BK-27s which were
allegedly removed from RAF GR1s and replaced with ballast.

IMO the really silly (and extremely expensive) decision was to develop
the 25mm Aden in the first place, in a calibre not used by the
British, when the effectively identical 27mm Mauser was already in
service in the Tornado. It would have been a waste of resources even
if the design had worked...

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/

On 28 Jul 2003 00:04:44 -0700, (Tony
Williams) wrote:

Greg Hennessy wrote in message . ..

It was a silly NiH decision not to fit uk harriers with a GAU-12 in the 1st
place.

Never mind taking the sensible alternative & reusing the BK-27s which were
allegedly removed from RAF GR1s and replaced with ballast.

IMO the really silly (and extremely expensive) decision was to develop
the 25mm Aden in the first place, in a calibre not used by the
British, when the effectively identical 27mm Mauser was already in
service in the Tornado. It would have been a waste of resources even
if the design had worked...


One wonders what inducements were given to allow the design to proceed at
public expense in the 1st place. it never ever made any sort of commercial
sense.


Meanwhile harriers over sierra leone had to resort to making fake gun
passes when all out of other options.



greg

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On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 14:59:01 +0100, Greg Hennessy wrote:

IMO the really silly (and extremely expensive) decision was to develop
the 25mm Aden in the first place, in a calibre not used by the
British, when the effectively identical 27mm Mauser was already in
service in the Tornado. It would have been a waste of resources even
if the design had worked...

One wonders what inducements were given to allow the design to proceed at
public expense in the 1st place. it never ever made any sort of commercial
sense.

Indeed one does wonder.

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In message , Tony
Williams writes
Greg Hennessy wrote in message
...
It was a silly NiH decision not to fit uk harriers with a GAU-12 in the 1st
place.

Never mind taking the sensible alternative & reusing the BK-27s which were
allegedly removed from RAF GR1s and replaced with ballast.

IMO the really silly (and extremely expensive) decision was to develop
the 25mm Aden in the first place, in a calibre not used by the
British, when the effectively identical 27mm Mauser was already in
service in the Tornado. It would have been a waste of resources even
if the design had worked...

Not seen any particularly convincing rationale myself, other than "How
do we keep the ADEN works busy?"

What I find curious is why, when the ADEN 25 fell over, the Harriers
couldn't just shrug, reprogram the gunsight and put the old pods back
on. Failing to maintain a common interface seems _really_ silly, and I'm
really curious as to why an iteration of a revolver cannon is allowed to
be so incompatible with its predecessor. (After all, if ADEN 25 is so
good, why not go for a common interface and hang it off Sea Harrier and
Hawk too?)

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam

On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 21:32:48 +0100, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:



Not seen any particularly convincing rationale myself, other than "How
do we keep the ADEN works busy?"

What I find curious is why, when the ADEN 25 fell over, the Harriers
couldn't just shrug, reprogram the gunsight and put the old pods back
on. Failing to maintain a common interface seems _really_ silly,

If the french could manage it with the DEFA 554 one wonders why.

and I'm
really curious as to why an iteration of a revolver cannon is allowed to
be so incompatible with its predecessor. (After all, if ADEN 25 is so
good, why not go for a common interface and hang it off Sea Harrier and
Hawk too?)

There was something exceedingly fishy about that whole process. What spin
was feed to the RAF to forgo factory fitting Harriers with equalisers ?


greg


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"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message ...

What I find curious is why, when the ADEN 25 fell over, the Harriers
couldn't just shrug, reprogram the gunsight and put the old pods back
on. Failing to maintain a common interface seems _really_ silly, and I'm
really curious as to why an iteration of a revolver cannon is allowed to
be so incompatible with its predecessor. (After all, if ADEN 25 is so
good, why not go for a common interface and hang it off Sea Harrier and
Hawk too?)

The Aden 25 was designed to be compatible with the earlier Adens, so
it could just slot in as a replacement, which was the Grand Plan.
Unfortunately it was unable to meet the RAF's requirements, which
translated means that it was too unreliable and wore out too quickly.
And this was after ten years of massive effort to make it work - the
first guns were being tested at the end of the 1980s and production
contracts were being awarded from around 1990 to as late as 1997, but
it wasn't finally canned until 1999 when about 100 guns had been made.

Revolver cannon are very tricky to get working properly, with precise
ignition timing being essential. The 25x137 ammo is of course
percussion-primed, whereas the ammo for all other revolvers has used
the more precise electric priming, which does make me wonder if they
were tackling an impossible job.

There is a body of opinion which dislikes aircraft guns. The vibration
upsets the instrumentation, the muzzle gasses can be corrosive, and if
all goes well missiles will do the job....sadly, this viewpoint
ignores the fact that no military action has ever followed the script,
because the enemy has his own scriptwriters.

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/

On 29 Jul 2003 00:18:21 -0700, (Tony
Williams) wrote:


Revolver cannon are very tricky to get working properly, with precise
ignition timing being essential. The 25x137 ammo is of course
percussion-primed, whereas the ammo for all other revolvers has used
the more precise electric priming, which does make me wonder if they
were tackling an impossible job.

The timing issue with percussion primers has been known for decades,
therefore it would suggest that the whole project was just a thinly
disguised handout.

Someone at the RAF had to have asked the same questions w.r.t feasability
of using percussion primed rounds in such an application.

If TPTB were actually serious about providing the harrier with cannon and
commonality of ammunition. A license built GSH-30 or 301 firing what the
Rarden fires would be rather hard to argue against.

But that would have a high NiH factor. No scope for subsidising the
domestic monopoly supplier there.



There is a body of opinion which dislikes aircraft guns. The vibration
upsets the instrumentation, the muzzle gasses can be corrosive, and if
all goes well missiles will do the job....sadly, this viewpoint
ignores the fact that no military action has ever followed the script,
because the enemy has his own scriptwriters.


Quite. It was interesting to watch an interview with a Tornado pilot where
he detailed having do gun passes in close support of friendlies during the
recent Iraq conflict.





greg

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"Greg Hennessy" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Jul 2003 21:32:48 +0100, "Paul J. Adam"
wrote:


and I'm
really curious as to why an iteration of a revolver cannon is allowed to
be so incompatible with its predecessor. (After all, if ADEN 25 is so
good, why not go for a common interface and hang it off Sea Harrier and
Hawk too?)

There was something exceedingly fishy about that whole process. What spin
was feed to the RAF to forgo factory fitting Harriers with equalisers ?

We couldn't afford to clone that many Edward Woodwards? :-)

Nick