Great Britain OOB - Harrier GR5/7/9

[JohnHale]

Gentlemen,

The Harrier close-support a/c does not have a 25mm gun. The only weapons available to it are the air-dropped bombs or rockets.

Source:

http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/harriergr7.cfm

http://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/harriergr9.cfm

Bit of a procurement shambles: although the early a/c were fitted with gunpods, they were empty. The GR5/7/9 were never able to use the gun operationally, although the pods remain: they have a useful function in managing airflow whilst in the hover, or some such.

NB1 - these comments do not relate to the AV-8B family

NB2 - the Harrier GR1/3 had a gun that worked!

Again, not earth-shaking or vitally important to gameplay - but for the sake of accuracy you might wish to note this.

And I did try to list the Unit No.s, but there were so, so many for the GR5/7/9........

[DRG]

John

Could you post the links you have regarding the " The GR5/7/9 were never able to use the gun operationally, although the pods remain"

I can find info on them having 30mm ADEN's but nothing about no guns at all although those links you posted do not directly indicate the Harriers carried cannon they do not specifically say they don't either so I could use the info you have on this "procurement shambles"

Thanks

Don

[JohnHale]

The Wikipadia entry on the Harrier Gr 5 et al is, of course, ........ However, the entry on the 25mm Aden cannon developed for the GR 5 is more reliable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADEN_cannon

Basivcally, it got scrubbed in 1999 and was never replaced. The pods remained in situ as the a/c gains quite a bit of "lift" from the circulating air between the pods when going VTOL, which is why the pods were never removed. I think they house some ECM gear now.

Here is the best discussion thread I could find on the subject, from the Air Forces Monthly Forum:

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=62971

The most cogent posting is No. 24 by a chap called Tony Williams.

I would accept postings by him as pretty spot-on:

http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/miltech.htm




Remember, the Sea Harrier still had a gun until the aircraft's retirement in March 2006

Hope this helps.

[DRG]

Wikipeadia can be useful as a starting point but I really don't trust it. The section on the 25mm arden it says...

As a result, RAF Harrier GR.7 and GR.9 aircraft currently have no cannon, no attempt apparently having been made to retrofit the older ADEN 30 mm pods.

This says nothing about the GR.5 and when you read the Wiki article on the BAE Harrier II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Harrier_II it lists, under "Specifications (Harrier GR.7)"

Armament
2x 30mm ADEN cannons (one per pod)

So, ( surprise, surprise ), there are contradictions in Wikipedia entries !!

OK, ( I think ) we've established the 25mm ARDEN didn't ultimately make it into operational service and I did read the discussion thread you supplied and the closest thing I can see is that maybe the Gr.5 carried the 25mm gun but there were so many problems it never made it to the next model so the Gr.7 and Gr.9 have no gun at all but that is really just a guess gleaned from two sources that in some ways contradict one another. There is nothing in Wiki OR the discussion forum about the Gr.5 not having a gun except one guy in that discussion forum who mentions it in passing and I have another source [ http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avav83.html ]that says "the GR.5 was to be fitted with twin new-design 25 millimetre Aden revolver cannon, each with a rate of fire of up to 1,850 rounds per minute and a muzzle velocity of over 1,000 meters per second. However, this piece of gear would prove particularly troublesome." so maybe the 25mm was fitted to the g.5's and that's as far as it got becasue the only way you could know it was "troublesome" would be to try to use it but if the Wiki entry on the Harrier II is to be belived the G.7 had the 30mm ARDEN !!


What I can get from all this .....

The G1 and G3 are the smaller Harrier 1 and they have 30mm arden.

The G5 was the first of the larger framed Harriers and it was fitted with a 25mm arden that never really worked satisfactorily.

The G7 and G9 are not fitted with cannons of any sort.


If anyone else wants to toss in some info please do

Don

[JohnHale]

Nearly there Don: the GR5 was supposed to get the new 25mm Aden, but never did.

So,

Point 1 - correct
Point 2 - never got the gun
Point 3 - correct

There is a family tree here that may assist:

Harrier GR1, GR3 and Sea Harrier - all-British design, traditional airframe construction, 30mm Aden (that worked!). Also entered service with USMC as AV-8A.

GR5, '7 and '9 - BAe/McDonnell Douglas co-production (entered service with USMC as AV-8B Harrier II, and later Spain & Italy); bigger wing, parts composite construction. Each nation specified its own armament: that in the AV-8B family worked - that developed for the GR5 didn't, and was never fitted (though the a/c were built with the pods to take it when it became ready). One or two may have flown with the 25mm ADEN pods for trials purposes, but it never entered squadron service.

The GR7/7A and GR9 (and now the Gr9A with an uprated engine for service in Afghanistan) are just re-engined versions of the original GR5 with updated EW gear and weaponry options etc.

All GR5 airframes were converted to GR7, and later GR9 standard.

For more details of all variants (but lacking armament options, alas) you may look here:

http://www.harrier.org.uk/history/hi...production.htm

[Warwick]

Hi,
I can corroborate this info: Air International May 1994 article by Paul Jackson. "Still nowhere to be seen, even in early 1994, are the promised ADEN 25mm cannon.
Empty under-fuselage cannon pods are worn, as they trap the air, giving improved lift during jetborne manoeuvring. A cone-shaped plug replaces the cannon barrel which would protrude noticeably if fitted."
I have never seen a photo of a GR.7 with protruding barrels.

Air Int. Oct 2002 article by Roy Braybrook: "The 25mm Royal Ordnance Aden 25 was earlier scheduled to arm the BAE Systems Hawk 200 and Harrier GR.5/7, and it was considered as a possible retrofit for the RAF SEPECAT Jaguar, but only 101 examples of this gun were ever produced, and these are now in storage."...."Ground firings of the Aden 25 began in 1983, followed by air firings from a Harrier GR.3 trials aircraft in 1985. on this basis MoD funded full-scale development, and in 1987 awarded Royal Ordnance a production contract for 81 guns. The first Aden 25s were delivered for use on the GR.5 in 1990,
but the RAF found difficulty in achieving an acceptable gun life. The role of prime contractor was then switched to AEI, which solved the basic gun faults- but then feed problems arose when the Aden was installed in the Harrier gunpod. The company was nonetheless contracted to manufacture a further 75 guns, but only 20 of these were delivered before the contract was cancelled on the grounds that the Harrier GR.7 had no operational role that required the use of automatic weapons.
This decision was taken in spite of USMC AV-8Bs having expended thousands of GAU-12/U rounds in Desert Storm,..."

Air Int. Oct 2004 article by Anthony G. Williams: "The RAF was embarrassed during operations against insurgents in Sierra Leone in 2000 to find that it had no suitable weapon for its (gunless) BAE Systems Harrier GR.7s to attack small groups of rebels operating close to innocent civilians."

The GR.9 has a different shape of gunpod (strake)? However I have not found anything in print so far to definetely say that it too is gunless.

HTH, Regards,
Warwick

[Warwick]

OK I just found a good clear photo of a GR.9A.
The gunpod of the GR.7 has been replaced by a strake. So no gun.

Regards, Warwick