A-10 gatling gun: underpowered

[Aaron Kane 0]

Whoo hoo! Satchel's here and he's laying down the law!

[billytran 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (S.F.F.R @ June 24 2002,12:09)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Kermit @ June 24 2002,09:24)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> That gun can rip up anything, and can (I still maintain) destroy a tank with one shot, if placed right.<span id='postcolor'>

Of course and one american soldier can kill 1000 enemyes.

Read more crazy tom clancy  <span id='postcolor'>

What's so crazy about Tom Clancy? His books offer the most realistic portrayal of military technology that I know of.

[RedStorm 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Prof.Wizard @ June 24 2002,19:36)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Satchel @ June 24 2002,17:57)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">You´ll have to know that the GAU-8/A isn´t a simple 30mm cannon, it´s the second largest gun ever build into an A/C, right next after a 105mm Howitzer on AC-130 Gunships.<span id='postcolor'>

Not exactly the second largest EVER built. Some World War 2 aircrafts (German and Russian) had even bigger cannons installed.

You can find them in simulations like IL-2 Sturmovik.<span id='postcolor'>

Those on the Heinkels you mean? Those are only 60mm...

[Prof.Wizard 0]

RedStorm, read again what you've written and what I've written: I was talking about the A-10 not the AC-130. The 105mm is without doubt the biggest (howitzer) ever mounted on an aircraft. But the Avenger is not the SECOND EVER.

Read (courtesy of IL-2 Sturmovik):

Hs-129B-3/Wa "Waffentraeger", 1944 model

By the beginning of 1944, attack aircraft urgently needed guns of larger caliber than the 30 or 37mm ones used on the Hs.129B-2 attack plane. The Hs.129B-2/Wa with 37mm cannon had proved highly effective in destroying armored targets, but with the increasingly large-scale introduction of better-armored enemy weapons and equipment its firing capacity was becoming insufficient.

In June 1944, a new Hs.129 attack plane model was developed. It was initially marked Hs-129B-3. The Hs-129B-3 was equipped with a 75mm VK 7.5 cannon, a modified version of the field PAK 40 - PAK-40L (Panzer Abwehr Kanone = Ant-Tank Gun, "L"= Luft) gun. Instead of a mechanical recoil mechanism, the VK 7.5 came with an electro-pneumatic recoil mechanism; in addition, the gun had a powerful dual brake. The gun was approximately 6 meters long, and the recoil effect made it move up to a meter back. The VK 7.5 armament consisted of 12 shells weighing 11.8kg each and the intervals between shots was 1.5 seconds. The gun was mounted beneath the fuselage gondola and could be dropped in-flight, allowing the pilot to maintain control of the aircraft if one of the engines was damaged or increase airspeed by cutting down the overall weight of the aircraft.

The first three Hs-129B-3 prototypes were tested in August-September 1944 in Tarnovitse. The tests, which involved shooting at captured Soviet tanks, were successful and an order was given for industrial production of the Hs-129B-3 attack planes, to be marked Hs-129B-3/Wa "Waffentraeger" ("Weapons carrier"). To prevent overload and deterioration of flight characteristics, the new attack planes were produced without two 7.9mm MG-17 machine-guns.

About 25 Hs-129B-3/Wa attack planes were assembled at a factory in Schenefield. They were shipped to military units in winter 1944-45 and were successfully used against all types of enemy armored equipment, including heavy IS-2 tanks.

http://www.il2sturmovik.com/games_elts/aircraft/images/hs-129b-3.jpg 143kb

[dayglow 2]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (S.F.F.R @ June 24 2002,04:09)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Kermit @ June 24 2002,09:24)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> That gun can rip up anything, and can (I still maintain) destroy a tank with one shot, if placed right.<span id='postcolor'>

Of course and one american soldier can kill 1000 enemyes.

Read more crazy tom clancy  <span id='postcolor'>

Buddy 1 penitrating hit from the GAU-8 is all that is needed. The heat generated from the kinetic energy raises the tempurature inside the hull to a few hundred degrees C, plus the inside of the armour will spall. This shrapnel inside a confined space such as a turret will shred the crew as they are cooked by the heat.

The 30mm will not penitrate the frontal armour, but being an aircraft it will hit the top and the back. No MBT can carry enough armour to protect itself from every angle b/c it will weigh too much. That's what makes the Avenger so effective.

As for the Clancy comment. Yes he is a fiction writer, but he does have exstensive realworld knowladge. Back up your comment. What has he written that is so wrong. Also name 1 modern conflict where eastern weapons outperformed western.

COLINMAN

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

If i remeber right, an ME262 had a 80mm nose gun.But never made it, into full production.

[Prof.Wizard 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (SKULLS_Viper @ June 24 2002,21:55)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">If i remeber right, an ME262 had a 80mm nose gun.But never made it, into full production.<span id='postcolor'>

Don't know about it. But you might mean the Me-262A-1a/U4...

It's beginning to go OT.

Thanks for all your responses.

[Satchel 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Prof.Wizard @ June 24 2002,20:36)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Satchel @ June 24 2002,17:57)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">You´ll have to know that the GAU-8/A isn´t a simple 30mm cannon, it´s the second largest gun ever build into an A/C, right next after a 105mm Howitzer on AC-130 Gunships.<span id='postcolor'>

Not exactly the second largest EVER built. Some World War 2 aircrafts (German and Russian) had even bigger cannons installed.

You can find them in simulations like IL-2 Sturmovik.<span id='postcolor'>

I was not writing about calibre, but overall dimensions, firepower and weight.

Total weight GAU-8/A weapon system with 1350 rounds cannon combat mix loaded:

1.830 kg (4034 lb)

Overall Length of the system:

6,40 m  (21ft)

Cannon Diameter:

0,35 m (1,15ft)

Magazine Diameter:

0,87 m (2,85ft)

Magazine Length:

1,81 m (5,94ft)

Once the GAU-8/A is at max Rate of Fire, a recoil force of 40,82 kN develops, that force equals the thrust of a single TF-34-100/A turbo-fan engine powering the A-10, rated 9065 pounds thrust (40,32 kN).

Effective range of the cannon is ca 1250m, with rounds taking roughly 1,2 seconds to travel this distance in a very flat trajectory, making deflection shooting on ground targets  easy for the pilot with good accuracy; 5mil-80%, meaning 80% of the rounds fired will hit in a 6,1m circle at 1200m distance.

This results theoretically in a 1sec burst putting about 40 shells in an area the length of a tank, while only a fraction of those rounds would be needed to destroy or at least damage/incapacitate a vehicle.

[quakergamer 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Prof.Wizard @ June 24 2002,13:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">'nuff said. Let's wait for that patch now boys.

I think all of you are right:

A-10 was indeed very successful in the Gulf War (Operation "Desert Storm") where it destroyed dozens of Iraqi armor. However bear in mind that terrain and conditions there were ideal for A-10's operation: It was a desert where the Warthog could do extremely shallow dive attacks and spit precisely thousands of 30mm bullets. Moreover the enemy was sporting old T-55s, T-64s, T-72s, and only a few T-80s...

SFFR is partly right. In a different scenario and facing modern T-80s and T-90s Thunderbolt II's success might be somehow more limited.

Anyway, the A-10 in OPFP is underpowered and its rate of fire not exactly the real thing. Suggest BI to correct this in the next update.

AFAIC, case closed.  <span id='postcolor'>

They had T62 (not t64), and no T80

[JJonth Cheeky Monkey 1]

Why do the rounds explode in a huge explosion and plume of smoke anyway, if this didn't happen they could up the ROF to 4000 rpm or whateve it is (my knowlage of weapons is in small arms mainly), punch up the power and you have a decent Avenger

[S.F.F.R 0]

Iraq not have T-80 in gulf war (read "Final Report To Congress" april 1991)

And in this report write -

"90% of the tank kills credited to the A-10 were achieved with IR Mavericks and NOT 30mm GAU-8 gun"

[Kermit 0]

Notice that that report, whereever you dug it up, said "confirmed" kills. Possibly the reason for that is that when making a gun run they did not always get to observe the effects. I can make a large assumption that the clouds of smoke from the gun would make it hard to confirm a kill (just like in Operation Flashpoint, but in real life the gun isn't underpowered). However, I'm getting speculative here. Either way, that's a large piece of bullshit most likely written by another person who just doesn't believe in the true power of the avenger cannon.

Cheeky Monkey, the rounds explode like that in real life. Did no one besides me look at the video that Quakergamer linked here?

[grayghost 0]

The rounds explode because DU is pyrotic

And I think people overestimate the effectiveness of that gatling a bit too much. Yes, it's very nasty, but more likely to be worthy of use on APC's than tanks. Its penetration technically is just enough to pierce such armor as used by the M113 if I recall correctly. Spraying 40 rounds on the length of the tank might cause it to drop a tread - you may even get lucky and tear off the sensor turret(s) and even hit the little armored viewports and kill a crewman ... but tanks are called that for a reason. Don't count on that A-10 taking the tank out with anything less than a couple hundred rounds. If then.

All this IMHO of course.

[Benze 0]

The GAU8 can take on any MBT today. A one second burst will put 50 rounds in the top of the tank, causing the whole thing to spall down on the crew.

This gun is not overestimated at all. It is VERY hard to "confirm" a kill with an aircraft gun from the air.

[billytran 0]

According to www.fas.org, the GAU-8 Avenger has a mixture of depleted uranium rounds and high explosive incendiary rounds. "Combat mix is a sequential mixture of DU and HEI rounds in which 1 HEI round followed by 4 DU rounds are fired by the AN/GAU-8 gatling gun"

It can definitely kill a MBT. One round might not kill it, but this gun fires 3900 rpm, and a one or two second burst will defeat most modern tanks. And Iraq had more than just T-62's, they had lots of T-72 tanks.

[USSoldier11B 0]

I think we a agree that the GAU-8 is a mean motherf$%#er. Poorly simulated in OFP. Rate of fire, destructive power, and sound. Not counting on it ever being fixed though.

[Renagade 0]

Isnt that what caused gulf war syndrome,all the radioactive dust from those roundds ??

[Benze 0]

No.

[quakergamer 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Kermit @ June 25 2002,03:23)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Notice that that report, whereever you dug it up, said "confirmed" kills.  Possibly the reason for that is that when making a gun run they did not always get to observe the effects.  I can make a large assumption that the clouds of smoke from the gun would make it hard to confirm a kill (just like in Operation Flashpoint, but in real life the gun isn't underpowered).  However, I'm getting speculative here.  Either way, that's a large piece of bullshit most likely written by another person who just doesn't believe in the true power of the avenger cannon.

Cheeky Monkey, the rounds explode like that in real life.  Did no one besides me look at the video that Quakergamer linked here?<span id='postcolor'>

True ture, check the video damnit

[quakergamer 0]

Those who say that the GAU8 from the A10 cant destroy a tank, read this

From fas.org

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

The Thunderbolt II's 30mm GAU-8/A Gatling gun can fire 3,900 rounds a minute and can defeat an array of ground targets to include tanks. Some of their other equipment includes an inertial navigation system, electronic countermeasures, target penetration aids, self-protection systems, and AGM-65 Maverick and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles.

<span id='postcolor'>

[S.F.F.R 0]

Tanks - WWII "Matilda" of course

What in this video ? A-10 desrtoy truck and shot to desert. Sorry, and of course Maverick.In this video absolutly not have information.Only PR.If you need - find official tests, 200 or more pages and read this.

Read official documents

"90% of the tank kills credited to the A-10 were achieved with IR Mavericks and NOT 30mm GAU-8 gun".This old tanks without composite armor, and other defence systems.And Iraq not have AA (some shilka and AA-guns it's nothing)

[Benze 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">And Iraq not have AA (some shilka and AA-guns it's nothing<span id='postcolor'>

You're seriously not joking right?

[dayglow 2]

Iraq didn't have AA? Are you sure. I've seen it been said that behind N. Korea it has/had one of the most complete GCI/AA networks. They knew the cololition was coming and would come in the air. What they didn't know was the the west had a great SEAD docturn. Look at the fist strikes, not by SEAD craft with HARMs, but AH-64 5 ft off the desert floor. Iraqs problem was it was a highly centralized defence and when the comms lines were cut area commanders were on their own and weren't used to and hadn't planned for it.

Yes of course the A-10 would use Marvericks first, it makes sense, but I know I wouldn't feel secure in a MBT while being straft.

COLINMAN

[Prof.Wizard 0]

I'm sorry about the mistake saying earlier that Iraqis had T64s and T80s. It was wrong of me NOT to recheck the exact tanks that took place in the Gulf War.

BTW, guys... when I said I haven't been able to destroy a tank in OPFP with A-10's gun I really meant DESTROYED*. Since OPFP also simulates disabled cars/tanks (appear grey in map and have, for example, their turret or tracks non-operational) I can't say the gun is not working at all. But still I guess that's not enough... Even AI-controlled aircrafts (which fly and aim precisely) can't kill a T80 after 4-5 passes in my tests...

*boom!

[InqWiper 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Iraq not have T-80 in gulf war (read "Final Report To Congress" april 1991)

And in this report write -

"90% of the tank kills credited to the A-10 were achieved with IR Mavericks and NOT 30mm GAU-8 gun"

<span id='postcolor'>

Just because 90% of the tank kills were from maverick it doesnt mean the the 30mm GAU-8 gun cant take out a MBT. If you were in an A10 and spotted 5 tanks, would you shoot one maverick at each tank or try to take them all out with the 30mm GAU-8 gun?