Aircraft weapons

[DRG]

kevineduguay1 said:

On this site you will see a statement as follows,

"Using the cannon, the A-10 is capable of disabling a main battle tank from a range of over 6,500m."

You will also find that there are two AP rounds for the gun that are both referred to as API (Armor Piercing Incendiary).

Interesting they don't specify or offer examples of which "main battle tank" they are "disabling" from 6.5km away or how they calculate what "disabled" means. You could pepper a T55 from 6.5km away and have the crew panic and abandon the tank and that would make it tactically "disabled"

As for ammo, there are ample number of sources that say there are TWO combat rounds that cannon fires. The PGU-13/B HEI High Explosive Incendiary round and the The PGU-14/B API Armor Piercing Incendiary round . The only other round made for that gun is the PGU-15/B TP Target Practice projectile and is used for pilot training so there is one, and only one "AP" round made for that weapon. The API round IS the DU round. DU is a natural pyrophoric material which enhances the incendiary effects


I don't normally like to quote from Wikipedia but this quote sums things up quite well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger
"The standard ammunition mixture for anti-armor use is a four-to-one mix of PGU-14/B Armor-Piercing Incendiary (API), with a projectile weight of about 15.0 oz (425 grams or 6,560 grains) and PGU-13/B High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) rounds, with a projectile weight of about 12.7 oz (360 grams). The PGU-14/B round incorporates a depleted uranium penetrator."

this matches the info provided by this website
http://www.hill.af.mil/library/facts...et.asp?id=5741

"The General Electric-built GAU-8/A 30mm Avenger gun system could hold up to 1,174 rounds and could fire aluminum-cased ammunition with either armor piercing incendiary, high-explosive incendiary, or training practice rounds. "

and others

Note what this website gives under specifications for that weapon
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/equip/gau-8.htm

Armor penetration 69mm at 500 meters /38mm at 1000 meters

that is typical of the info available on that weapon.


also look at
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...tems/gau-8.htm

All in all it's difficult to make assumptions about a weapon based on a vague statement that "is capable of disabling a main battle tank from a range of over 6,500m" without knowing what they mean by "disabled". There is no evidence the GAU-8 will leave a main battle tank a smoking ruin from 6.5 km range but then....... which "main battle tank" are we taking about ? A T55, A Leo 2 ? A T-90 ? The only real "targets" the A-10 has had to deal with have never been anything even approaching "top of the line" MBT's that I'm aware of but they WILL knock out UK Scimitars in real life but they will in the game as well as any test game will demonstrate.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0331-08.htm

This School of Advanced Air and Space Studies thesis..

http://aupress.au.af.mil/saas_Theses/Haun/Haun.pdf

shows a photo of a "Serbian T-55 Destroyed by A-10 with AGM-65 Maverick" Now why use a $150,000 missle to destroy and old T-55 if the Gau-8 is such an efficient tank killer?

Don

[Marcello]

"Using the cannon, the A-10 is capable of disabling a main battle tank from a range of over 6,500m."

I don't buy it, it would not exactly be the first time that the SPG Media websites write some bull**** so it should not be takes as gospel; as usual logic and common sense apply.
Just because a round is made of DU it does not become a magic bullet capable of piercing any armor at any distance.
The penetration figures listed seem to be consistent with what you would expect from an AP round of that age.
It is also sufficient to take out a tank either by mobility kill via engine deck/tracks hits or penetration of rear and top armor. Most soviet tanks, but even contemporary western designs like the Abrams, had top and rear armor in the 40mm range which could be penetrated according to the listed data. The dive angle would work against it by increasing LOS thickness but multiple impacts
might weaken the armor.
Against the intended targets therefore it should work, although I would not bet it was a 100% affair, but I would suspect that modern MBTs designed with top attack in mind would give it trouble (engine hits aside).

I am sure you could squeeze a much greater penetration from the gun but you would have to go down the sabot route and that apparently is not an option due to the petals ingestion issue. Besides there are more convenient ways to take out armor and it is mostly used against soft targets nowadays so why bother?

[Marek_Tucan]

"Disabling" is very wide formulation. Heck, even at that range I guess it can disable even M1A2SEP mixed with Merkava IV given enough rounds expended by knocking out vision blocks and other sensitive gear on the top of turret...

[kevineduguay1]

All I'm saying is that the way it is set up now I have in MOST scenarios played seen NO tank kills and NO immobillizations. When it does happen only one or two MBTs are effected in a given scenario. And my tests were done with elite air crews (Exp-120) and spotters.
What I do see is a lot of Pen-0 Arm-6, and even Pen-9 Arm-1, with both results having no effect on the target besides suppression.
It may also be an accuracy problem in the game or some other factor.

[kevineduguay1]

DRG,

I looked at all those other site before and even the text in many of them are the same.
I gave you a site with a different perspective, please read it through.

[Marcello]

"I gave you a site with a different perspective, please read it through."

And one whose reliability is questionable.
Do you really believe that something like the PGU-14 (the DU round) which is essentially an APCR, with all the disadvantages that this configuration entails and is by now decades old in design, has such magic penetration capabilities to enable it to rip apart tanks at 6000 meters?
There are cutout pictures of it all over the web.

http://www.airforceworld.com/attacker/gfx/pgu14b.jpg

Its official penetration data may still be classified but it is definitively not some top secret magic uber round capable of unbelievable performance.

[DRG]

kevineduguay1 said:
DRG,

I looked at all those other site before and even the text in many of them are the same.
I gave you a site with a different perspective, please read it through.

I DID READ IT!. Why do you think I wasted all that time replying at length to what it was saying. Neither you nor that website clarifies just what "capable of disabling a main battle tank " MEANS or WHICH "main battle tanks" they have disabled at that range. Doesn't that seem odd to you ? What I do know is I had already researched this question LONG before you presented this "different perspective" because I had partially bought in to the notion that this weapons should be capable of more that we credit it in the game but the deeper I dug the more I became convinced it isn't , as Marcello says, "a top secret magic uber round " The 30mm Gau that A-10 carries is the least of your worries if one appears overhead. It's all the other goodies it can carry that are the real threat.


Just because that website has a "different perspective" doesn't make it correct. When you are looking for other information on other subjects and a number of sources agree but one doesn't do you always assume the one that doesn't agree with any others is correct ? Or do you just pick the ones that suit your notion of correct ? I have already spent hours looking for information on this gun. Nothing that website says is very enlightening.

Don

[kevineduguay1]

"DU can be used to engage the enemy at greater distances than tungsten penetrators or high explosive anti-tank (HEAT) rounds because of improved ballistic properties. When they strike a target, tungsten penetrators blunt while DU has a self-sharpening property. DU ammunition routinely provides a 25 percent increase in effective range over traditional kinetic energy rounds."

Off the Global Security site.