Salute to the big guns.

My nephew is stationed at the Air Force Base in Tuscon and was involved in staging the Air Show they had last fall so he invited me down for a front row seat and tour. The cannon on the A-10 is impressive but the one in the rear of the AC-130 is much more so. The computer control array they use to control it is huge. It looks like a flight control center inside of the airplane but they load it by hand.

Pure2nd said:

One of the favorite things I witness several times a year over the last several are pairs of A10's doing flyover directly above the property.

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The NJ Air National Guard operates a bombing/straffing range at Warren Grove. A10's on straffing runs pass over adjacent Wharton State Forrest at less than 1000 ft. Very Impressive!

Sometimes i see military air craft fly over. Im guessing they are coming from Ft Indian town gap. I always give them a salute.

Pure2nd said:

One of the favorite things I witness several times a year over the last several are pairs of A10's doing flyover directly above the property.

While I can't tell for sure, it seems they pass at well under 10k altitude and are usually quite visible. The sound of the platform is very unique as well.

To see the 30mm cannon and loaded pylons are beyond impressive and comforting as well.

That's a gun I'd like to shoot!(16" naval gun would make the short list)

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Technically, a 30mm is still a "small arm", a 16 inch is a "gun" . . .

Everything up to and including 30mm is classed as small arms, anything over 30mm is classed as guns.

Saw this while visiting the Pima AFB Musuem.



Looked like the A10's were doing touch and go.

I was very impressed with the B47. Might be the biggest bomber we ever built



The B1B is still in service. Smooth airplane.



If you tour the fighter aircraft at Pima, or Wright Patterson, notice that the late 40's jets had guns, and then the guns disappear. The guns were replaced by missiles. The problem was, those single barrel machine guns, or machine cannons, could not put enough lead on target to destroy a jet. There are plenty of accounts of American fighters in Korea just pumping bullets into and at MIGs before the MIG finally went down. If you look at Chinn's Machine Gun Series, https://www.milsurps.com/content.php?r=347-The-Machine-Gun-(by-George-M.-Chinn)


You see that what machine cannon development that is going on post WW2, is focused on multi barrel machine gun cannons. And those were extremely heavy, took a lot of power to operate, and so, it took time for the guns to come back.

This is the Guns a Go Go. Virtually there was a machine gun sticking out of every hole.

Space launch Rod From God!

better believe it real

lysanderxiii said:

Technically, a 30mm is still a "small arm", a 16 inch is a "gun" . . .

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Years ago, a buddy told the story of running a rather large track-hoe on an earthen dam at a small lake in KY. He wasn't sure where they were based, but some A-10's were being used in that area where they normally weren't. He said one came up the lake, so low he felt like he was about eye level with the 30mm cannon. Might be considered small arms, but you'd have trouble convincing him of it. Swore he could see the pilot laughing after he'd jumped out and tried to run away with the hoe still rolling.

And here I was thinking this post was about 470 nitro or better. But 20mm and better sounds about right. Anyone shoot one of those single shot tank killers? Believe it’s 20mm or something ridiculous like that.

When I was working at Todd Pacific Shipyard in San Pedro, I got to get up close to the Phalanx 20mm CIWS.
Cool system.

Then, when a ship-fitter strike slowed everything down, my engineering department got transferred to a project that was trying to design durable targets for A-10 training out in the Channel Islands.
A hopeless effort.
Each prototype went to pieces in a single pass.
Even cooler.

I get to Wilmington NC occasionally and the USS North Carolina batttleship is docked there and has been turned into a museum. I've been a couple of times. As battleships go it is smaller than some. It was designed right after WW-1, and served during WW-2. But those are still some big guns.

Why Battleship USS North Carolina Can't Ever Be Moved - 19FortyFive

Dobbins Air Force base in Marietta is about 50 miles southeast of my home as the crow flies. Our local airport is about 5 miles northwest. My home sits on a ridge about 500' higher elevation than the airport directly between the 2.

They train C130 crews there and use our small local airport to practice cargo drops. They touch down, slide the cargo out the back, and takeoff again without ever slowing down. Other days they send empty planes to pick up and return the cargo they dropped off earlier.

Either way my home is in a direct path and on the return trip fly very low. Always 2, sometimes 3 planes. So low it rattles the windows. But I don't mind. This is almost every day BTW. Sometimes more than once a day.

They have an air show at our local airport each fall and always highlight a least 1 military plane. Three years ago they had some A-10's. Was my favorite. It's hard for me to imagine almost 70 rounds per SECOND of this incoming.

The A10, AC130, and AH64 are are welcome sights above you when in combat. I have been supported by all three.

A note on the A10, if they hold the trigger too long you can see the aircraft actually stop or move backwards while in flight. I was wrong on this statement. But is sure looks like they do when they are firing directly above you.

When the AC130 fires of its Gatling guns, all you see is one steady stream of re from the tracers. What a beautiful sight to see when it is raining down on the enemy.

Enjoy it while you can.......

The A10 and AC130 are great in a permissive airspace, when fighting bushwars against opponents without much air defense, but require total air superiority to operate and are expensive to crew and maintain.

The War in Ukraine has shown that even dedicated, heavily armored support aircraft lik the SU-25 and Mi-24 are very vulnerable to the latest man portable surface to air missiles, which are everywhere in a peer-state conflict such as we are likely facing with Russia or China.

The AF would love to replace both platforms with drones, especially the stealthy kind- much cheaper to buy and maintain in numbers, and, increasingly attributable, even disposable. They have proposed retiring 1/3 of the A10 fleet next year, though of course Congress has blocked similiar moves in the past. If this wave of divestments succeeds, they will likely try to get rid of the rest before Biden is up for reelection.

Honestly, the money is likely needed more for the new B21 stealth bombers. Sorry, no guns on those.

jmr40 said:

I get to Wilmington NC occasionally and the USS North Carolina batttleship is docked there and has been turned into a museum. I've been a couple of times. As battleships go it is smaller than some. It was designed right after WW-1, and served during WW-2. But those are still some big guns.

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Agreed! They also have a very cool map that shows the NC berthing point, and which parts of the surrounding cities are in range of the 5” and 16” guns.

12Bravo20 said:

A note on the A10, if they hold the trigger too long you can see the aircraft actually stop or move backwards while in flight.

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this is a joke, right?

Nephew on the deck gun of the USS Cod, docked near the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. He decided to point it in the direction of Canada in attempt to deter any aggressive behavior from our northern neighbors. Think he needed more elevation.

Mauser lover said:

this is a joke, right?

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No it is not. And that is why the A10 pilots only fire the cannon in short bursts. You can see the effect of firing it has one the aircraft when you are close to it.

12Bravo20 said:

No it is not. And that is why the A10 pilots only fire the cannon in short bursts. You can see the effect of firing it has one the aircraft when you are close to it.

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Long bursts also oscure pilot visibility with the smoke. Residue buildup on the canopy is a thing too.

Prior to WW2, the South Dakota class of battleship were the largest US battleships to date










the Iowa class used the same guns, but were longer and heavier.





to understand a bit how big a battleship was, this is one turret, sectioned.



and one battleship turret weighed almost as much as a Fletcher class destroyer



big, badda, boom!

12Bravo20 said:

why the A10 pilots only fire the cannon in short bursts

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Actually, it's because the a/c is limited to only (only!) 1500 or so rounds in the big drum magazine. The GAU-8A fires 30x173 rounds (the cases are the size of old glass milk bottles; you do not want to be under them when ejected). The GAU-8A has a fire control system that allows for 5, 10, and 100 round bursts. It operates at around 4500 rpm (about 75 rounds per second), though. So, the entire ammo drum could, conceivably, be emptied in a mere 20 seconds.

The A-10 operates about 400kts or so when in ground attack. That's about 650-675 feet per second. So a long burst is unlikely to stay on target very long. (It's possible to fly slower, but flying slow over hostiles who might shoot back, can be contra-indicated.)

SIG makes a 25x137 mm anti-materiel rifle which is a stout it of gear to light off. It's not at all pleasant to carry.

12Bravo20 said:

No it is not. And that is why the A10 pilots only fire the cannon in short bursts. You can see the effect of firing it has one the aircraft when you are close to it.

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Nonsense. The recoil from the cannon does not generate enough push to overcome the thrust from the engines. This garbage has been thrown around for years. It doesn't make it any more true.

For reference, EACH engine on the A-10 generates 9,065 pounds of thrust, for a total of 18,130 pounds of thrust available to the aircraft (Ref. https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/a-10/). The gun generates 10,000 pounds of force (Ref. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger). That's what we would consider free recoil and does not take the GAU's recoil system into account.

See above for @CapnMac's response. There is no legimate target that would require a "mag dump" from an A-10 in any event.

The variants of the AC130 are pretty fascinating stuff, too.
They have fitted 7.62nato gatlings, 20mm Vulcans, 40mm Bofors, and the airborne 105mm howitzer. Some of that is part of the legacy of the AC-3 and AC-117. There was a logic for each of the combinations used.

One of the more dramatic things often overlooked on the AC-130 is that many were fitted with a 100mm photo flash flare dispenser.

The aircrew serving those weapons did so with in "open air" so all the noise of flight operations along with whatever temperature it is/was at ±10,000msl. Special folks, the aircrew for those birds.

Early eighties I was managing a small airport in western NC when an A10 made a low pass. He identified himself as "Whisky Driver 44." I called him on unicom and goaded him into making another lie pass... this time executing a series of point rolls. He said goodbye and left the pattern.

Moments later all our phone lines lit up... some scared, some pi$$ed off, done making threats. We convinced a few of was a Soviet attack plane.

I called him, told him the local constables may be interested in his identity. He said he was saying hello to family, and would be on his way. Funny what the local paper was saying.... pretty ridiculous.

My US Air boss's son flew the A10, got deployed to Iraq during that war. Came home fine, only to die when his CO pulled off a target training run and stuck his cannon in Eric's lap. Sad.