Aircraft weapons

[Marek_Tucan]

I think the "Tungsten blunting" did happen with lower quality tungsten alloys, ie upon its introduction (early 1980's?) the DU should have an edge here, but my understanding is also that current tungsten penetrators should be at least equal to DU.

[thatguy96]

So I went and checked the sources on the "DU is superior and Tungsten blunts on impact" comments repeated on Globalsecurity.org and most of them come from US government documentation defending the resumed use of DU ammunition in light of the massive debate about the health consequences. While it is obvious that at least in some cases the point holds true, those kind of government documentation are not exactly the best for making determinations about the real effectiveness of a system.

That picture of the round shattering doesn't show what the rounds look like beforehand, what gun they were fired from, etc. So while it obviously does happen, we don't know what the circumstances of its occurrence are.

[kevineduguay1]

As I said before ALL DU penetration stats are CLASSIFIED. The 69mm at 500 meters figure just does not add up.
Again why would the US invest all that time and money to create this huge weapon and have it only slightly out perform a weapon like the German WWII era 28mm sPzB41 (pen 66mm at 500 meters)? I know that the Pen value in the game for the GAU-8 is 9 or 90mm but again this fits just right with the Ger 28mm weapon. Notice that when a A-10 makes a gun run in the game the last attack is said to come from 200 meters. At 200 meters the 28mm sPzB41 has a pen value of 86. In the game this would also rate as a 9 Pen value.
Im not looking to create a "uber weapon" just something closer to the real thing.

thatguy96,
I can use the same argument against you about the Bushmaster MK44. Cute picture of the round but where is it written that this 30mm weapon can punch 120mm of armor? Is that source reliable or is it just some trumped up figure put out by some US Government agency to legitimize the funding for this project?
Two of my quotes are from other sites and do not parrot Global Security.

The Bushmaster can fire a APFSDS round that may and probably does give it a slight edge over the GAU-8. The GAU-8 round is totaly self contained just like that pesky 28mm German squeeze bore. But given same size penetrators of tungsten and DU, the DU penetrator wins in the weight competition and in the penetration competition.

[thatguy96]

kevineduguay1 said:
As I said before ALL DU penetration stats are CLASSIFIED. The 69mm at 500 meters figure just does not add up.
Again why would the US invest all that time and money to create this huge weapon and have it only slightly out perform a weapon like the German WWII era 28mm sPzB41 (pen 66mm at 500 meters)?

Because its cheaper and easier? As far as, I know the GAU-8/A and its ammunition do not rank up as one of the costlier weapon systems ever developed by the US military. There is also not a wealth of documentation on the supposed superiority of DU prior to the health impact scandal. There is, however, a wealth of documentation that talks about the ease and low cost of manufacture, and the availability of the material as a byproduct of nuclear power production.

kevineduguay1 said:
thatguy96,
I can use the same argument against you about the Bushmaster MK44. Cute picture of the round but where is it written that this 30mm weapon can punch 120mm of armor?

Never said it could. In fact I have not quoted any penetration figures. I just said that it was obvious that somewhere someone along the way made a design decision based on information likely to do with the difference in rounds used by the different weapons.

kevineduguay1 said:
Is that source reliable or is it just some trumped up figure put out by some US Government agency to legitimize the funding for this project?

I never said it was, and I never said it wasn't. So you could be exactly correct on both points.

kevineduguay1 said:
Two of my quotes are from other sites and do not parrot Global Security.

I checked all the sites you linked and their citations. You can look at them yourself.

kevineduguay1 said:
But given same size penetrators of tungsten and DU, the DU penetrator wins in the weight competition and in the penetration competition.

Again, I've seen nothing that conclusively proves that point or to a point where I am anywhere as convinced as you obviously are.

[kevineduguay1]

Again I ask, why mount the huge GAU-8 whan a much smaller weapon could do the same job? If it did not have a distinct advantage why not just use a 20mm Vulcan?
With all the research that went into the GAU-8 weapon they couldn't make it any better than a WWII era heavy anti-tank rifle?

[thatguy96]

kevineduguay1 said:
Again I ask, why mount the huge GAU-8 whan a much smaller weapon could do the same job? If it did not have a distinct advantage why not just use a 20mm Vulcan?

I would think that the sheer fact that 30x173mm has almost identical muzzle velocity and is bigger and therefore packs a greater punch is a distinct advantage. I do not have any sort of any comparative data, but I wonder what kind of armor penetration most aircraft cannon get.

[Marek_Tucan]

From what I have in my data, Vulcan gets a muzzle energy of cca. 100 kJ, GAU-8/A some 244 kJ so indeed it has edge above the smaller gun.

[Marcello]

"Again why would the US invest all that time and money to create this huge weapon and have it only slightly out perform a weapon like the German WWII era 28mm sPzB41 (pen 66mm at 500 meters)?"

Some points to consider
1) The sPzB41 achieved those performances by being a bleeding edge, over engineered, limited production item with several issues (barrel wear inherent to the taper bore designs etc). GAU-8 ammo was designed to be practically made and expended in immense quantities.
The drag issue associated with what is an APCR design have already been noted.
GAU-8 ammo has been around for what must be over 30 years now, so it is not exactly a recent design either.

2) The "it is WW2 level stuff" claim is not sound by itself. You could knock out an Abrams with a WW2 vintage Panzerfaust. That does not make the Abrams a poor design, does it?

3) The GAU-8 high ROF means higher HE kill against soft targets, less time spent on target and to an extent greater probability of hitting the target. Such things are not directly related to each round penetration.

4) Speaking of hitting probability I have an hard time imagining how you could hit a tank size target more than six kilometers away with a fixed gun mounted on a plane.

"Im not looking to create a "uber weapon" just something closer to the real thing."

If you had an alternate a source claiming that it was let's say 88mm at 500 meters rather than 69mm it would be something we could accept without much fuss. As it is you were asking for it being capable of extreme performances (knocking out tanks at 6000 meters and the like) based on little of substantial.

[Marcello]

"The Bushmaster can fire a APFSDS round that may and probably does give it a slight edge over the GAU-8."

In general others thing being equal or similar a modern APFDS will outperform an old APCR and by a very substantial amount.

[DRG]

kevineduguay1 said:

With all the research that went into the GAU-8 weapon they couldn't make it any better than a WWII era heavy anti-tank rifle?

Now here's a classic example of how an argument can drift off course into fantasy. COMPARE THE TWO WEAPONS. Anyone not desperate to stretch a point into incredulity can see the Gau-8 is a much more dangerous weapon . Also, you also state "As I said before ALL DU penetration stats are CLASSIFIED". OK..... fine lets assume ALL the sources that claim otherwise are mistaken. Perhaps you could provide us with these sources that state up front that they are classified or do you assume these other sources must be wrong because the weapon simply doesn't live up to it's propaganda ? You would think that if this weapons was Gods gift to tank killing there would be ample published reports and photos of Iraqi or Serb tanks shredded by the Gau. I have seen one before and after photo of a tank attacked with the Gau-8 only.. it was an M47 Patton. Hardly a shining example of a modern MBT. In the game it's armour is approx equivalent is an M3A3 Bradley both of which the A-10, in the game, can kill with it's cannon alone.

I told you this at the beginning. I started looking into this long before it was brought up on this forum because I expected to find info that would support an increase in this weapons penetrative abilities but there is none except vaguely statements verging on propaganda that the weapon can disable an MBT from over 6km away. HARD EVIDENCE is conspicuously absent. I DO agree, however that the volume of fire this and other high cyclic rate multi-barrelled weapons put out should give it more chance to hit than a single shot weapon and that is what we have been looking at. There is a way we can simulate this with aircraft weapons but the "trick" doesn't work with the high volume/ multi-barrelled guns used on helicopters. What I DO NOT agree with is this gun should be given an uber penetrative ability based vague stories alluding to it's abilities.

Don