Aircraft weapons

[kevineduguay1]

More stuff,

"This report describes firings of the A-10/GAU-8 weapon system against individual combat loaded Soviet main battle tanks. The pilots making the firing passes attacked at low altitude and corresponding low dive angles simulating movement through a hostile air defense system. Ammunition used in the attacks comprised 30mm armor piercing incendiary rounds, which proved to be effective damage agents against substantial areas of the Soviet T-62 tanks used as targets. The pilots in six successful firing passes (one additional pass resulted in a miss) scored 95 impacts on target, which included 17 perforations through the armored envelope. The six tanks which were impacted received damage physically assessed as ranging from catastrophic in the case of two combat vehicles to negligible in the case of one tank attacked directly from the front. (Author)"

" Meant to be 30 Years Ago": That's the view of Air National Guard Lt. Col. Donald Henry of the "new" A-10C, which he helped bring to fruition as Air Combat Command's ANG A-10 program element monitor and which he flew in combat in Afghanistan. "The A-10C is the heaviest modernization program the A-10 has ever gone through," he said and added, "This is what the A-10 was meant to be 30 years ago." The new avionics, fully integrated targeting pods, and smart weapons, such as the Joint Direct Attack Munition, have produced an "effects-based upgrade" that enhances pilot situational awareness, said Henry. During one close air support mission, Henry said that the C model Hog enabled him to drop a JDAM "right in the middle of the target." He added: "I could see exactly where the friendlies were, where the enemies were. It would have taken much longer to verify their location, to roll in with dumb bombs. The JDAM made it extremely easy and precise." USAF has set 2011 as the date by which it will have all Hogs upgraded to C models and has issued a contract for new wing sets to prolong service life. Now, if USAF could just get new Hog engines. (Langley report by SSgt. Thomas Doscher)"

I think I miss named the photo.

[kevineduguay1]

The pick posted by DRG of a Soviet type tank hit by a Maverik showed substantial hull damage. You could realy see where it hit.
The little photo I posted looks more like a ammo cook off that could be caused by a lucky 30mm DU pen.

[kevineduguay1]

Shouldn,t the P-51 Mustang in the OOBs that are armed with 50cal MGs have a AP rating of 6 instead of 4? The Mustangs that carried 4 guns were armed with 20mm guns.

[thatguy96]

kevineduguay1 said:
Shouldn,t the P-51 Mustang in the OOBs that are armed with 50cal MGs have a AP rating of 6 instead of 4? The Mustangs that carried 4 guns were armed with 20mm guns.

Wow, heh, I'm amazed I hadn't noticed that myself before. But that's definitely a little error. It seems to be the case throughout the OOBs, like it originated in one place and as the unit was copied it just became the standard.

[DRG]

I will look into the P-51 issue later.

Don

[DRG]

I contacted Tony Williams in regard to the DU ammo fired by the Gau 8. Mr Williams has published a number of books on weaponry. This is his reply

(A bit of background. in one posting I found on a message board the poster claimed the DU round....."A 1,000M the current round will penetrate almost 200mm of RHA(steel) plate"....and Tony had posted other info later and that was how I found his website so Tonys comment about the 200mm comes from that. )

Don

Tony Williams said:

It's quite difficult to get any firm comparative information on the penetration abilities of this round. However, the APFSDS rounds recently developed for the same cartridge for use in AFV guns like the US MK44 and the Mauser MK 30 are reckoned to penetrate around 90-100mm/1,500m/60 degrees. There is no way that any of these could penetrate anything like 200mm armour, and they would be considerably more effective than the API.

I have no reason to question the FAS figures, although I'm not sure of the striking angle used.

As a matter of interest, in early firing tests by an A-10 against a T-62 tank at ranges of 500-1,340m, only about 10% of the shots fired actually hit the tank (they have much better sights now) and of the ones which hit, only 20% penetrated the armour, although others damaged the track and suspension.

Tony Williams

Homepage: http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk