Thread: Gun Trucks
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Old 09-26-2011, 04:38 PM
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Panther Al Panther Al is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Graebarde View Post
a note on tha Hawgs.. That aircraft is probably the ONLY aircraft built around the gun system ever produced, unlike building the plane and then saying.. gee it needs guns..

Those are awesome birds, purpose built to do a specific job, and they do a J.O.B. on target too..

No way I can see a ground mobile mount for one happening... but then as I said elsewhere, never underestimate GI ingenuity.

FB
You know, the A-10 is probably the only time the developmental process actually worked the way it is supposed to.

A. Find a need that can't be filled with an existing item.
Ground Attack with enough firepower to kill scores of heavy tanks, and armoured/rugged enough to take a beating while doing it.
B. Find the right balance between cheap and exactly what is needed to address the issue.
Missiles are perfect for tank busting: Accurate, and very very effective. But, and this is where the process hit it out of the park, they are expensive. There was no way the Air Force could justify the building of war stocks of sufficient number of missiles - too darn expensive. Also, they knew that in a WW3 scenario, there wouldn't be the time to ramp up production of high tech items in the quantities needed. But, existing cannon, while cheap on ammo, and easy on maintenance, wasn't quite powerful enough. So, they made a new one, using every lesson learned on gun design. The GAU-8 firing DU ammo. More than able to kill any tank out there from the air, and cheap cheap cheap to use.
C. Once A and B are done, *then* build the airplane around the solution for the first problem, while addressing the last one.
The A-10 hit this on the head: The plane was designed around both the gun and its ammo, as well as maximum protection for the pilot and control surfaces.

In the end, you have a plane that is so freaking good at its job, and relatively cheap to operate, the Air Force (and it has tried, and tried hard) can't kill the thing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman View Post
Germans preferred the 20mm for AA use, they built allot of mobile Flakpanzers and where quite effective, just they never had enough. The Wirbelwind was the best of breed.
While the *Army* loved the 20, both in its guise as the FlAK 38 and FlAK 38 (V) versions, it was more because it was a great DP weapon for dealing with infantry attacks. As an AA weapon, it left a bit to be desired. The Luftwaffe FlAK corps on the other hand, felt the FlAK 43 (37mm) was as small as they could go and still be effective. In fact, at the end of the war they was getting ready to start to introduce a 55mm Weapon, that to be quite honest, was about perfect for battlefield AA as well as Light(ish) GP AA units. As good as the gun was, and it was very very good, the mount was even better. Both the US and the Brits seriously thought about going with a similar weapon, and the soviets did with the 57mm, but the Jet age put paid to medium to heavy AA guns, and most everyone placed the 55 in the medium range unlike the Germans.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Adm.Lee View Post
Dunno, I think the Germans had something in WWI with a 77mm gun, but I can't track anything down just now.
It was WW2, and it was the Hs129B1 if I recall. Started life as a stock Hs129 (The A-10 of its day when mounted with a mix of 30mm cannon and MG's) and placed a magazine fed 7.5cm KwK40 gun from a Panzer IV where the cannons used to be. Insanely good at busting the heaviest tanks (as well as small warships), pilots loved it till the soviets twigged on, and started operating so that anything with a barrel that long and big in the air becomes the focus of all fighters in the area.
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