CurrentWARTHINK 004: USAF Snake-Bit by Un-affordable, Unsustainable Stealth Planes Want MUDFIGHTERS Now?

Fokker DXXI in the MUD kicking butt in WW2!

FINNS Defeat the Red Army in WW2 with MUDFIGHTERS: Air/Ground Vehicles

Finnish Bicycle-Infantry on-the-move with narrow tire bikes: Today We'd Use 4" wide Fat tires and eHub motors Riding EVERYWHERE at 25 mph!

https://www.bitchute.com/video/eXYBu0DFe9SZ/

Soviet dictator Stalin wanted to go WEST--but we wouldn't let him!

https://1sttac.blogspot.com/2021/05/battletalk-04-update-russian.html

Western Civilization won--barely!

The latest KILLER BEE drone swarm High Explosive (HE) fly-into-target for a direct hit aka flying munitions weapons craze is hardly NEW being begun in WW2 in the 1940s--80 years ago. 

What has changed?

Frugality--the lack of it. 

Even back in WW2, packing a bomber full of HE and flying it into a direct hit point target demanded it be a High Value Target (HVT) and throwing away an airplane was immediately understood must have at least a 1, 000 pound warhead "bang" for the bucks thrown away. 

www.combatreform.org/axisandalliedspecialoperationsaviation.htm

Since WW2, war has totally morphed into a RACKET activity where the more expensive--the better. Removing humans from the HE conveyance isn't done to protect their lives but to remove anyone in the kill chain with a MORAL, STOICAL CONSCIENCE who might object to drone-striking kids in the Middle East so expensive throw-away munitions can be expended with abandon.

Attack of the KILLER BEES!

The military effect of KILLER BEE swarms is proven in combat by Swedish humanitarian, Carl Gustav von Rosen with nimble SAAB MFI-9 Mini-COINs aka Minicons in 1967 and later improved models sold as MFI-17 SUPPORTERS:

www.combatreform.org/killerbees.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRaIXaiwQbs

A Spielberg movie with IRL aviator Harrison Ford as von Rosen is long overdue to tell the world of this hero's exploits and advance  military though & practice in a morally-sound direction with KILLER BEES that can be re-used and manned if the under 1, 000 feet AGL (so you can actually SEE individual-sized enemy human targets) threat level is not too severe.

To avoid the V-1 Cruise Missile's 1, 000 pound warhead going off, RAF pilots would "tip" their wings to disrupt their gyro-stabilization to make them dive into the ground before hitting their pre-selected targets; "Tally Ho!"

Moreover, throwing away an entire drone airplane as a V-1 buzz bomb-like munition with a 1, 000 pound HE blast even if a $1M price tag is no RACKETEERING dis-incentive, simply doesn't work against dozens, hundreds even thousands of dispersed, individual enemy combatants--or frankly MANY ANYTHINGS--AREA--not POINT TARGETS. To destroy area targets we need Terrain Firepower Saturation (TFS) --the most affordable and target focusable (is this a new word?) is guns firing bullets and automatic cannon firing HE exploding shells--the latter when they hit a human bursts them into bloody pink mists. The Soviet Russians in WW2 filled bomber bomb-bays with rows of down-ward-aimed, 7.62mm x 25mm, short-ranged, PPsh41 Sub-Machine Guns (SMGs) with great effect. 

https://1sttac.blogspot.com/2020/05/tactismart-008-brother-can-you-spare.html

Today, enemies fear American 30mm HE exploding shell cannon fire so much they RUN as soon as its used against them in Afghanistan/Iraq from otherwise inefficient helicopters like AH-64 Apaches

It behooves the U.S. ARMY to combine 30mm autocannon firepower to every platform it can--M113 Gavin light tanks in Remote Weapons Systems (RWSes) and more efficient-than-rotary-wing-helicopters, fixed-wing MINI-GUNSHIPS like RC-12 King Airs, KILLER BEES like a ground-mobile, folding wing, unmanned/manned eSTOL MFI-17 or crop duster like the IOMAX Archangel or AT-802U Broadsword or UV-20B Chiricahua (PC-6) Turbo Porter (also has cargo/small unit delivery internal volume) observation/attack plane operated by Field Artillery units who has tube/rocket/missile fires that can be directed at what the former finds. The Rutan Scaled Composites ARES MUDFIGHTER jet could be a rather expensive throw-away drone but is a possibility. 

https://www.bitchute.com/video/FNyxI3cdLlIO/

Ares MUDFIGHTER ModelVISION!

https://www.shapeways.com/product/5VJH6VZRY/scaled-composites-151-ares?optionId=69542495

RESIN

https://sharkit.com/sharkit/ares/ares.htm

WHAT RIGHT LOOKS LIKE! We Can Also Do BETTER...

The irony that the USAF racketeers and other air-to-air combat egotists were given their own bureaucracy to racketeer and ignore the CAS/MAS mission is visibly seen by looking at a WW2 P-39 AirCobra with 37mm autocannon, 7.62mm/,30 caliber medium machine guns in the nose and .50 caliber heavy machine guns in the wings--more aerial firepower than anything in the U.S. ARMY or moron korps today and all AF aircraft excepting A-10s and AC-130s. A/MC-27Js might show up someday. 

KILLER BEES with STINGS--Not Just Self-Destructive Kamikaze Throw-Aways

The USAF under new management is grudgingly admitting to buyer's remorse putting all mission hopes into the bureaucratic fighter-bomber basket of the thin-wing, unarmored F-35's whose radar stealth does little under 1, 000 feet against bullets/cannon fire if it attempts Close/Maneuver Air Support (CAS/MAS). YES, their A-10s should transfer to the Army to be innovatively upgraded with a 2nd seat enlisted JTAC observer, folding wings etc.  but these are the KILLERS not the HUNTERS which needs to fan-out in large numbers aka QUANTITY to find elusive foes.       

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvSh8Lcz3bk

The ultimate MUDFIGHTER as we point out in our U.S. ARMY Joint Global Response Force (JGRF) book was the environmentally-resilient (TBATE), Dutch DXXI fighter in WW2 with their pilots shooting down hundreds of Soviet Russian planes and making lots of Finnish ACES (TBAM). 

PREVIEW

https://books.google.com/books/about/U_S_Army_Joint_Global_Response_Force_Ref.html?id=UYBNDQAAQBAJ

REFORMER'S EDITION

https://www.lulu.com/en/ca/shop/jgrf-research-group/us-army-joint-global-response-force-reformers-edition/paperback/product-1r8gpkgr.html

COMMANDER'S EDITION

https://www.walmart.com/ip/U-S-Army-Joint-Global-Response-Force-Combat-Commander-s-Edition-Paperback-9781365461286/310499384

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184386721591?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=184386721591&targetid=1068323850910&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9011443&poi=&campaignid=10455986539&mkgroupid=104612010460&rlsatarget=pla-1068323850910&abcId=2146002&merchantid=138372767&gclid=Cj0KCQiAnKeCBhDPARIsAFDTLTIB_TNYWiiYRndHu-4i4qe_bAmsdHreooVly1bPXXYfZUD1bpxZ9IsaAr8EEALw_wcB

WOODEN MUDFIGHTER: The Miles M.20; Aircraft KILLER BEE Equivalent of the STEN Sub-Machine Gun (SMG)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyVmCCxtRM

Fixed landing gear like the legendarily-successful, Dutch Fokker DXXI!

Fighter equivalent to the Mosquito Fighter-Bomber...like our proposes XP-77...

...a wooden KILLER BEE the later which could be weaponized with a devastating 57mm automatic cannon: 



The Germans had a jet wooden MUDFIGHTER, the He163 Salamander:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR54qFlbSKk&t=6s

However, MUDFIGHTERS are needed for QUALITATIVE TECHNOTACTICAL reasons, too:

* Ground Mobile Operations from FAARPs away from obvious FOBs where they'll be D.O.T.G.

* Ability to Visually Acquire targets & Gun Strafe them under 1, 000 feet AGL

* Not self-destruct in exchange for destroying a point HVT if avoidable 

Progress on gun strafing needed. 

The article below explains how fixed guns firing from aircraft forces them to DIVE against targets reducing attack time and causing fatal crashes into the ground. 

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0707strafing/

The Art of Strafing

By Richard B. H. Lewis

July 1, 2007

Modern fighter pilots risk their lives every day performing the act of strafing, which to some may seem like a tactic from a bygone era. Last November, an F-16 pilot, Maj. Troy L. Gilbert, died strafing the enemy in Iraq, trying to protect coalition forces taking fire on the ground. My first thought was, “Why was an F-16 doing that mission?” But I already knew the answer.

In the 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, I was combat-ready in the 512th Fighter Squadron, an F-16 unit at Ramstein AB, Germany. We had to maintain combat status in air-to-air, air-to-ground, and nuclear strike operations. We practiced strafing occasionally. We were not very good at it, but it was extremely challenging. There is a big difference between flying at 25,000 feet where you have plenty of room to maneuver and you can barely see a target, and at 200 feet, where the ground is rushing right below you and you can read the billboards screaming by.

The only aircraft required to strafe in the Cold War was the A-10, and for good reason. It was the only aircraft built to endure the hazards of strafing against Warsaw Pact forces. We have all seen aircraft in the movies, diving at the ground, guns blazing, while people on the ground are running to take cover. That’s not how it really is. Once the fighter enters the low-altitude environment, the pilot is subject to multiple threats; he faces not only surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery--but also handheld heat-seeking missiles and automatic gunfire.

In “No Man’s Land”—that is, below 5,000 feet—the chances of being hit go up astronomically. However, for many aircraft, the [range] limitations of the gun require the pilot to fly lower, below 1,000 feet, if he or she hopes to consistently hit the target. When you get down that low, bad things can happen.

The Pentagon defines strafing simply as “the delivery of automatic weapons fire by aircraft on ground targets.” The term itself has an interesting pedigree. It is derived from the German word “strafen,” meaning, “to punish.” In World War I, a popular German Army catch phrase was “Gott strafe England” (“God punish England”). The term caught on.

In the World War I Battle of St. Mihiel, Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker once strafed eight German artillery pieces, each drawn by a team of six horses. Horses and wagons scattered everywhere, the great pilot later recounted. The physical damage was not great, but the disruption of the horse train worked.

B-25G/H's 75mm cannon was not as effective as the British wooden Mosquito with automatic 57mm cannons

Among World War II strafing aircraft, few if any were more effective than the American B-25 Mitchell bomber. In the Pacific, it was used frequently on treetop-level missions against Japanese airfields and shipping, with great impact. In both World War II and the Korean War, 12.7mm [.50 cal Browning] guns were the real workhorses. The 20mm gun has been the weapon of choice for most U.S. fighters over the past 50 years. Its key attributes have been its high rates of fire and muzzle velocity.

Enemy troops in the open! Colonel Charles Lindberg flew combat missions in P-38s as a quasi-civilian in WW2--to include ground attack strafing missions depicted here!

During the Vietnam War, we lost large numbers of aircraft, many as a result of getting down low and in the range of lethal fire. This made it a priority to build a ground attack aircraft dedicated to close air support.

The design of the A-10 is unlike any other aircraft. It was built with unparalleled emphasis on simplicity and survivability. For instance, it features a titanium “bathtub” to protect the pilot from direct hits from armor-piercing and high-explosive projectiles in sizes up to 23mm. Beyond that, it has redundant flight controls and a 30mm Gatling gun. I have seen the aircraft return from combat with one engine and major parts of a wing and flight controls blown off. Unquestionably, the A-10 is the ultimate strafing machine. [EDITOR: NO, it is NOT. It needs a 2nd seat observer, folding wings for ground mobility and cannon that depress www.combatreform.org/aircommandos.htm]

Strafing in other fighter aircraft, though done more and more often, is extremely dangerous. To be effective on the battlefield, a pilot must be able to perform low-altitude passes in the face of the enemy. Each party is blazing away at the other. In fighter aircraft other than the A-10, the pilot must make very low passes if he is to deliver accurate fire from the gun. Doing this, though it might sound easy, requires intense concentration. This is critical if the pilot is to avoid flying through the up-thrown debris from exploding targets or flying into ground objects.

For most fighter pilots, strafing well in combat is no simple task. Holding wings level while tracking a target for more than 10 seconds is considered too predictable for enemy fire. One has to visualize the point in the battlespace where one needs to be to start the strafing pass, and yet still maintain awareness of the target’s location. This dual task can best be carried out using a five- to 15-degree dive angle. Altitude, airspeed, and wind direction must also be considered.

Imagine yourself flying down a large funnel that ends at the target. One finds lots of room to maneuver at the top of the funnel; you can do that and still hit the target. However, at the bottom of the funnel, you run out of maneuver room. One needs to place the aircraft’s aiming symbology short of the target such that it drifts up to the target as the gun comes within firing range. It is difficult to keep the gun sight on the target for more than two seconds while flying at 552 mph. One can’t just stare, zombie-like, at the target. This causes target fixation, which can become a fatal experience. [EDITOR: DEPRESS your guns]

We know from Gilbert’s death what such concentration can cause. (See “Aerospace World: F-16 Pilot Awarded the DFC,” June, p. 14.) The official accident report blamed the accident on Gilbert’s “channelized attention,” which was “manifested by his desire to maintain a constant visual positive identification of targeted enemy vehicles, and subsequent target fixation on these vehicles.” These circumstances, the report went on, caused the F-16 pilot “to begin and then press his attack below a recoverable altitude.” On Gilbert’s second strafing pass, he came in at an extremely low altitude and simply could not recover. He flew the airplane into the ground.

Then there is the risk of being brought down by the “Golden BB”—the single, lucky but lethal shot that finds its mark. That risk exists for virtually any fighter whose cockpit can be easily penetrated by ground fire. That is why, after the pilot has strafed the target, he pulls up hard. A wings-level pullout, producing at least four Gs in two seconds, is required for survival in most cases.

We’re using the gun quite a bit in the Iraq and Afghanistan [EDITOR: Sub-National Conflict] operations. The fighters are using lots of 20mm off F-15Es and F-16s and 30mm off A-10s to hit ground targets. Why is that? For individuals, the gun is probably one of the most accurate weapons, with the least collateral damage. That 20mm will end the bad guy’s life, but stray rounds will just drive into the ground, and that’s it.

In Iraq, the adversary uses both road networks and riverine networks. There have been a number of occasions where boats have been identified carrying insurgents on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, and we’ve used 20mm and 30mm guns to destroy those boats. A moving target is hard to hit with a bomb. With a gun, it’s no big deal. In one instance, the enemy was getting ready to move people somewhere to do something later that night, but we removed them from the fight.

The same thing happened in Balad, where we found people going to get roadside bomb supplies. We have been using the gun against single persons who have been planting improvised explosive devices land mines. You’ll have an individual with a truck, and a couple of other individuals; you’ll see them get out and move around, trying to dig a hole, and you’ll bring in an F-16 or an F-15E, or maybe an A-10, and you’ll use 20 or 30mm and go kill them. If you have troops in contact, or you have individuals in buildings, you do the same thing.

Some pilots are expanding the strafing envelope, so to speak. Earlier this year, the Secretary of the Air Force, Michael W. Wynne, told this story: “About a year ago, our F-15 airmen were thinking about how they could execute night strafing. It seemed hard, maybe undoable. Last month, I learned it was being done in daily ops in the fight. … Actually, it is now called easy.” The F-15 community had programmed F-15 simulators at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., where you could, through practice, work a night strafe from “hard” to “easy” in a matter of months.

A-10s probably will be here until they fall out of the sky, but can they always get the job done when our ground troops call 911? They cannot be all places, all the time. The A-10 will sometimes be too slow to respond across large areas and it is vulnerable to SAMs and enemy fighters. That is why all of USAF’s fighters now train for strafing. Often, our ground troops are in desperate situations and are so close to the enemy they are in danger of being hit by friendly weapons. [EDITOR: why the U.S. ARMY needs to get off its ass and get MUDFIGHTERS co-located closely to ground maneuver elements--and not rely on USAF fly boys farther and farther away at comfy FOBs) In Operation ANACONDA in Afghanistan, for instance, USAF combat controller SSgt. Gabriel Brown, under fire, called out to approaching F-15E pilots, “We have enemy troops 75 meters away. … I need guns only!” (See “The Airpower of Anaconda,” September 2002, p. 60.)

I don’t see the F-22 doing much strafing; its mission is to hit the targets in denied airspace at strategic locations in front of our ground troops. Its gun is optimized to shoot down enemy aircraft. Usually the gun is needed for air-to-air combat because you are inside the minimum range of an air-to-air missile or it is the only weapon left. In the development of the F-22, there was a debate about whether we should take out that gun. I’m glad we didn’t, because, in combat trials, we have already had gun kills. The gun was required to complete the mission.

Even so, the F-22, like all other fighters, can strafe when it has to. And it will probably have to. Few would have thought, 20 years ago, that the F-15E would one day play the role of classic strafing machine. Yet the Strike Eagle did a great job strafing al [EDITOR: CIA] Qaeda fighters during the March 2002 battle on Takur Ghar, one of the main engagements of ANACONDA. Of course, it should be noted that the F-15E pilot had long, deep experience flying the A-10.

The F-35 Lightning II fighter, which is set to enter service in 2013, has a special gun, better for strafing ground targets than the gun found in the F-22. The F-35 is specifically designed to have the sensors and weapons needed to support ground operations. It will go deep, but it will also thrive in CAS engagements. Its gun will carry special shells powerful enough to penetrate armored targets, unlike the F-22, whose gun ammo is specially designed to blow up an airplane. The F-35’s gun will be a weapon of last resort, though, because of the extreme vulnerability of the pilot during a strafing mission.

With the advent of small, low-collateral-damage weapons, the tactic of strafing may well begin to fade out once more. Weapons boasting 10-foot accuracy allow a pilot to reliably drop ordnance close to our troops, but with scant risk of fratricide. Such weapons can get much closer to a target than is the case with strafing. These weapons could fill the strafing niche.

Of course, strafing often happens for fighters like the F-16 when A-10s are not available or when all other ordnance has been expended. There will always be a possibility that you have to protect that guy on the ground with your last bullet. That part of the job will never completely disappear.

Richard B.H. Lewis recently retired as an Air Force major general. He flew the F-4, F-16, and F-111, and served as assistant to the director of campaign plans during Operation DESERT STORM.In the period 2002-06, he was program executive officer for the F-22 fighter. He is now an executive of Burdeshaw Associates Ltd. This is his first article for Air Force Magazine.

****

The Solution: DEPRESS YOUR GUNS!

Boulton Paul [P.94 was created] as a potential aerodrome anti-aircraft defence weapon... but was primarily considered for ground-attack use...the 94 project [guns] had been designed to be depressed by the pilot up to 17 degrees.

****

Downward Pointing Guns for Strafing: WW2-Style with the Blenheim IV

Notice anything strange about this Blenheim IV?

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_bristol_blenheim_IV.html

Finally, rear-firing ventral turrets were fixed under the nose, aimed via a periscope by the navigator. These were of the Frazer Nash FN 54 or 54 A types, carrying one or two .303s.

http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_bristol_blenheim_V.html



The Blenheim Mk V was first proposed in early 1940 as a heavily armoured ground attack aircraft. As originally designed, it replaced the normal Mk IV nose with a solid “ducks bill” nose, containing four .303in machine guns. It would use engines optimised for low altitudes, and carry 600lbs of armour.

The need for a ground attack aircraft quickly disappeared in 1940 after the collapse of France. Work continued on the Mk V, under the name Bristol Bisley, but now with a navigator/ bomb aimers position located in the new nose. This was not an ideal compromise – the new nose was so cramped that the navigator had to be given a footwell, just in front of the rear-firing Frazer-Nash turret, hidden inside the turret fairing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Blenheim

Blenheim Mk IV


Improved version, fitted with protective armour and extended nose, powered by two 905 hp (675 kW) Bristol Mercury XV radial piston engines, armed with a 0.303 in (7.7 mm) machine gun in the port wing, plus two 0.303 in (7.7 mm) machine-guns in a powered operated dorsal turret, and two remotely controlled rearward-firing 0.303 in (7.7 mm) machine guns mounted beneath the nose, maximum bombload 1,000 lb (450 kg) internally and 320 lb (150 kg) externally. 3,307 built.

No downward-firing guns? Not much strafing hits on enemy targets below... 

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Russian IL-20: Incredibly FUGLY: But It's Downward-Pointing Guns Worked for Strafing without Diving


It featured a number of innovative concepts including ... wing-mounted autocannon that could be adjusted on the ground to fire level or depressed 23° to allow the aircraft to strafe ground targets while remaining in level flight.




The cockpit was placed their specifically for better forward ground visibility. You can see much closer in front of you with this than if you have feet of engine in front of you and wings to either side.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR51NY8NDE4


Depressing gun/cannon enables dive-free strafing as demonstrated daily for decades by AC-47 Spooky, AC-119 Stinger, AC-123 Provider and current AC-130 Spectre gunships. Smaller gunships derived from twin-engined C-27J Spartan and C-235/C-295 transports have been created:

https://military-wiki.com/ac-235-gunship-armed-version-of-cn-235/



Smaller KILLER BEE type aircraft like the unwisely USMIL-retired, twin-engined OV-10D Bronco NOGS had a belly-mounted 20mm revolving turret proven effective in Vietnam combat that faced downwards as needed. The Royal Thai Air Force operates side-firing, depressed 20mm autocannon, single-engined, Pilatus PC-6 Turbo Porters (AU-23 Peacemakers) with great effect. Remember them in "Air America" & "Goldeneye"? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR51NY8NDE4

A new-build, folding-wing, contraprops Fairey Gannet with 2x JTAC observers would also be awesome:

https://1sttac.blogspot.com/2021/03/future-warthink-022-missing-usn-asw.html

COMBAT HURON

The quickest "good enough" ["perfect" would be a folding-wing, ground-mobile, push-pull, eSTOL OAL] answer to get fast (over 300 mph) long range and mission duration strafing gunship fires without dangerous diving, co-located close to U.S. ARMY maneuver units is to weaponize their 300 mph ["Catch-22", B-25 Mitchell-equivalent] RC-12 Huron aka King Air turboprops with COTS 30mm autocannon turrets:

www.combatreform.org/killerbees3.htm

Iraqi Air Force King Airs have already fired Hellfire ATGMs against ground targets in combat:

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/us-sends-hellfire-missiles-to-iraq-29869054.html

The U.S. has sent Hellfire air-to-ground missiles to Iraq's air forces, which is using them in its campaign against the country's branch of al [CIA] Qaida.

Two Iraqi intelligence officers and a military officer said that 75x Hellfires arrived on December 19 and more will be shipped in the future.

They said the missiles are being used now by four Iraqi King Air propeller planes during a large-scale military operation in the western desert near the borders with Syria.

An intelligence official said that the missiles were proven "successful" and were used to destroy four militant camps.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman [red-haired, sexy] Jen Psaki confirmed yesterday the missile shipment and also said that the United States was planning on sending ScanEagle drones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjOv2ntmvT0

The previously-mentioned KILLER BEE STINGER candidates could also be weaponized with COTS 30mm autocannon turrets or the PC-6es can have side-firing depressed guns like the Thais do. Their STOL capabilities mean they can be c-located with ground maneuver units:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR51NY8NDE4


If their wings are FOLDED they can be ground-mobile and avoid being D.O.T.G. not needing vulnerable FOBs to operate--


Built at Curtiss' St. Louis plant, 900 aircraft were ordered by the USAAF under the designation A-25A Shrike.[19] The first ten aircraft had folding wings, while the remainder of the production order omitted this feature.


Surplus to the USAAF by 1943, some went to the RAAF, who rejected all but ten!

****




Note in the opening D.O.T.G. scene, the German Me109s were VERY LOW so as to strafe without diving...

Pearl Harbor D.O.T.G. anyone remember? Watch "Tora!, Tora!, Tora!" while its free on YOUTUBE? 


"Hurricane" with Ubersexy Stephanie Martini!








What were we talking about?

Right. Grin.

U.S. ARMY Aviation once knew this with STOL fixed-wing grasshoppers:


To depress wing-mounted 12.7mm (Browning .50 cal shooting HE Raufoss ammo) guns/30mm autocannon a POD with gunner-aiming could be developed to fit any suitable platform to give it dive-less strafing capabilities--even hapless F-16s being flown into the ground with fixed nose gun firing window limitations explicitly explained by MG Lewis in his article above. We could even call the depressed gun/cannon pods "Lewis gun" pods as a shout-out to the famous WW1/WW2 light machine gun that could super-elevate on a rail on RAF biplanes so pilots could direct hit German fighters without having to shoot ahead of them and have them fly into bullet streams.


Semper Airborne!     

Comments

  1. Blacktail Fa writes:

    "Strafing is the most underrated capability modern warplanes have. Not only do you have AC-130s and A-10s constantly raining streams of metal and explosives onto enemy forces, but even fighters frequently end up strafing surface targets.

    It's especially critical for those two aircraft in particular, because "Danger Close" CAS means firing at targets that are extremely close to friendly lines; sometimes so close they can throw grenades at each other. No other aerial weapon is as accurate or discreet as an internal gun (compare the casualty radius of a 30mm HEI shell to a Hydra 70 HE rocket!), and when the enemy is that close, it's all you can use.

    An interesting example of why modern warplanes need guns for strafing was during the Battle of Bubiyan in the Gulf War, where a flight of CF-18 Hornets were called-in to attack an Iraqi TCN-45. They were armed for air-to-air combat, so they made due with what they had; the Hornets actually got a radar lock on that boat and launched an AIM-7 Sparrow at it (don't ask me how), but the missile missed, and they ended up sinking it with strafing runs.

    If the Fighter Mafia hadn't challenged the prevailing dogma that the age of the gun was over, there not only wouldn't have been a gun in the air to sink that boat --- there wouldn't be CF-18 Hornet to carry them either. Nor would there have been an A-10, for that matter.

    Read about how frequently the F-105 Thunderchief used their guns to shoot-down Migs and strafe ground targets during the Vietnam War, and then contemplate that it not only didn't originally have a gun, but also that the USAF (Br)asshats actually lobbied HARD to prevent it from having one. These generals co-signed a report urging that the F-105 not be given a gun, and included MG Bruce K. Holloway and MG William W. Momyer (lots of tiny dick energy radiating off these guys)... who less than a decade later commanded F-105 formations that participated in the Vietnam War. The F-105 ultimately scored 20 gun kills, despite it's embarrassingly poor maneuverability, and as bad as it's survivability was, many of it's missions would have proven hopeless without a gun on board."

    ReplyDelete
  2. WW1 Armored MUDFIGHTERS: https://1sttac.blogspot.com/2021/05/retrowarthink-020-ww1-armored.html

    ReplyDelete

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