newbie calling – Gun on Typhoon

I found this quote in my latest AIR INTERNATIONAL issue at the end of an article on state-of-the-art CAS:
“Possibly the most intriguing Aspect of recent CAS experience in Iraq and Afghanistan has been the renaissance of the cannon and unguided rocket. Strafing runs by USAF F-15E Strike Eagles … are all a return to basics and suggest that there can be no substitute for ‘getting down and dirty’ during the close air support battle.”
Hopefully, this time the lessons of war experience will bear fruit on Whitehall decisions and save the RAF from another cost-cutting experience which instead of into costs cuts into operational capabilities.

What type of ammunition will it get? The fancy Rheinmetall fragmenting sabot rounds (which seem to me great for A2A but not so good for strafing)?

Not sabot rounds, no – they are not compatible with use in a fighter plane, because the plastic sabots tended to get sucked into the engine where they melt and coat the turbine blades and are the very devil to clean off…

There are three types of HE round (with electronic delayed-action nose fuzes), five types of AP and SAP, and a Raufoss Multipurpose. I’m not sure if a FAP is available yet, but Diehl has already qualified the similar PELE type – both have no chemical content but fragment after penetration, sending a shower of high-velocity fragments through the target.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

What type of ammunition will it get? The fancy Rheinmetall fragmenting sabot rounds (which seem to me great for A2A but not so good for strafing)?

http://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/index.php?fid=1527&lang=3&pdb=1

There is a number of ammunition types available for the gun. Maybe I post them tomorrow.

What type of ammunition will it get? The fancy Rheinmetall fragmenting sabot rounds (which seem to me great for A2A but not so good for strafing)?

http://www.rheinmetall-defence.com/index.php?fid=1527&lang=3&pdb=1

Because any change like that would have required full testing and clearance (an asymmetric weight might, theoretically, have some FCS implications). The guns were being purchased anyway, so were fitted to Tranche 1 jets in lieu of designing and clearing special ballast, but were not to be supported, or provisioned, so loaders and ammunition were not purchased initially. It was planned to procure Tranche 2 without the gun, but this now seems to have been changed.

The rationale was that in the WVR environment, the effectiveness of ASRAAM (a missile that most assuredly ‘rocks’ and which is fully integrated) rendered it superfluous.

It is for A-G use (where the sudden shift of emphasis to low level CAS is biting) that the gun has been restored, and not for A-A use.

It will be interesting to see whether, now they have a fully-supported, operable gun, the RAF Typhoons actually practise A-A gunnery, or whether (since the weapon is intended for strafe only) only A-G gunnery is practised.

The difference is about 22 kg with or without munition. Not that much at all.

One round of the 27x145B Mauser ammo weighs 516g. So 22kg would only get you 43 rounds of ammo. Since the magazine capacity is for 150 rounds, that will weigh 77 kg. The gun only weighs 100 kg.

None of which explains why a 100 kg lead weight (or 177 kg) would not have done the ballasting job.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

The difference is about 22 kg with or without munition. Not that much at all.

That is good news!

But I’ve always been dubious about the “weight is so critical that you have to use a real gun” argument. After all, the gun comes with ammo, and there’s one heck of a weight difference between a full magazine and an empty one. If all they wanted was ballast, a simple lead weight in the gun bay would have done the job.

I think that the main reason was that the RAF was contractually committed to buying the first 55 guns anyway, and some far-sighted chap thought of a good excuse to fit them to the plane, just in case they might come in useful later – in which case, he deserves a medal.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

According to this news release all concerns about RAF Typhoons and their guns are history. Good news in my opinion.

Typhoon wins gun dogfight
By Neil Tweedie
(Filed: 03/10/2006)

The RAF has been forced into an embarrassing U-turn on its policy of not allowing pilots of the new Eurofighter Typhoon to fire their gun.

The service has decided to issue ammunition to future Typhoon squadrons and train pilots in using the fighter’s single German-made 27mm Mauser cannon, reversing its cost-cutting edict.

The decision follows experience in Afghanistan showing that guns are still one of the most effective weapons when supporting ground troops.

In a scathing e-mail, a Parachute Regiment major commanding an isolated outpost described air support from RAF Harriers, which have no guns and rely on rockets, as “utterly, utterly useless”.

He contrasted their performance with the support offered by US air force A10 aircraft, which are equipped with a 30mm rotary cannon.

At a conference last week, Air Vice-Marshal David Walker, the officer commanding No 1 Group, which includes the Harrier and the newly-forming Typhoon squadrons, said he had decided to proceed with the Typhoon gun, buying ammunition, spares and maintenance equipment.

Seven years ago, the ministry decided to dispense with the gun on all but the first 55 of the 232 Typhoons planned for RAF service, in contrast to the other nations in the Eurofighter consortium, which kept it on all ordered aircraft.

The experts argued that Typhoon did not need anything as crude as a gun. The plan would have saved the taxpayer about £90 million.

But Typhoon is designed to such fine specifications that the loss of the gun created a weight imbalance and it was finally realised that the cheaper and easier option would be to fit a real cannon.

So let me get this straight:

The gun “isn’t needed” on the Typhoon, since missiles rock…..

And those missiles that rock aren’t integrated on the plane….

…that can’t use the gun?

Frakin’ brilliant.

Despite a late Meteor integration the RAF’s Typhoons will still have ASRAAM and AIM-120C-5s which is a lot better than nothing. IIRC we’ve decided not to initially integrate Meteor into our JSFs – it may never happen.

http://www.baesystems.com/newsroom/2006/jan/110106news1.htm

Welcome to planet Euro joint venture! 😀

So far the Meteor test program is basically all around the JAS39 as the four EF members have not provided the funds to progress integrating the Meteor, apparentley everybody apart from politicians and bean counters is royally pissed about it.

So let me get this straight:

The gun “isn’t needed” on the Typhoon, since missiles rock…..

And those missiles that rock aren’t integrated on the plane….

…that can’t use the gun?

Frakin’ brilliant.

As an aside on a similar subject, can anybody give a good reason why when the Meteor BVRAAM is meant to be the principle air-air weapon of the EF Typhoon there have not been funds allocated for integration of the missile with the air frame to progress the test program? :confused: Only a European multi-national program could do something like that, decide on a weapon for their aircraft then refuse to stump up the cash to get the program moving.

Half of the decision was the RAF deciding that in air-air combat missiles would be the principle weapon of engagement and the gun was something they wouldn’t need, half of it was the usual British MoD and politicians tight fisted greed and historical talent at spoiling the ship for a ha’penny of tar. Given the price of the Typhoon program the cost of the gun is peanuts, less than peanuts, and although it is a fair comment that BVRAAM weapons have advanced to the point where they are now extremely effective and the short range AAM’s are lethal it’s also true the gun can still be very useful, in the 90’s the RAF found that cannon straffing was still an excellent air-ground weapon.

There is the arguement of gun pods as a possible replacement. A modern gunpod could be fitted with trainable guns with a control mechanism and integrated to the aircrafts avionics systems. Not great for stealthyness, but that shouldn’t be an issue considering the likely targets of the gunpods.
Of course they cause vibration and are not the same as an internal gun, but modern technology should be able to overcome such problems and the added advantage of being able to move the guns (several Soviet gun pods had moving gun barrels to enable the guns to stay on target while the carryinh aircraft performed minor manouvers… like a 20-30 degree pull up from a dive on a ground target etc).

Personally I still think the extra hassle is worth it. If it is an internal cannon then it will be used in training… if it is a pod mounted system then it might never be used till it is needed, and mistakes of the past might be repeated at a greater cost than we might be prepared to pay.
A bit like insurance… saving a little to risk a lot makes no sense.

A gun is more versatile than just being used for warning shots.
Ground strafing has been mentioned, but when most bods look to the future they talk about UAVs like Global Hawk and other such types… now a straight flying recon platform might be easily shot down using a million dollar missile, but as it will generally have to be positively ID’d first why not shoot it down with cannon for a few hundred bucks. So what the barrel will need to be cleaned and the side of the plane wiped down. Flexible designs are more useful than inflexible ones.

True and it doesn’t need to be a large complex machine with a 1000 rounds either……..

This is how I summed it up in Flying Guns – the Modern Era: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations since 1945:

The Case for the Gun 1: Aerial Combat
Modern short-range missiles have minimum ranges as low as 300 m, well within gun range, and are highly agile, with wide engagement envelopes, which make them able to hit targets well off to one side of the firing aircraft, especially when cued by a helmet-mounted sight: in fact, the capabilities of most recent models are such that the aircraft carrying them barely need to manoeuvre. This does not mean that guns are useless for air-to-air work. They have a particular value in modern ‘policing’ applications, as they enable warning shots to be fired in front of suspect aircraft. They also provide an economical way of engaging low-value targets such as unmanned reconnaissance drones, transport and liaison aircraft, or drug-smugglers. In a ‘hot’ war they still have certain advantages in close-quarter fighting, for example in ‘picking off’ an enemy attacking a wingman, who may be too close for a safe missile shot. The ability of modern fighters to adopt extreme attitudes, pointing well away from the line of flight, significantly assists gun aiming in dogfights. Cannon projectiles have a shorter flight time than a missile, a significant advantage in a dogfight.

Finally, the gun provides a last-ditch capability if the missiles run out, or are defeated by advanced countermeasures or simply by circumstances. The 1991 Gulf War revealed the deficiencies of modern IR-homing missiles when faced with trying to pick up a low-flying target against a hot desert background (helicopters being in any case difficult for IR seekers to lock on to from above). USAF A-10 aircraft achieved two helicopter kills with the GAU-8/A (using 275 and 550 rounds respectively) in one case when the IR missiles failed to lock on. Furthermore, the performance of even the best missiles cannot always be guaranteed, for various reasons. In Kosovo, a US fighter engaging a Serbian plane needed to fire three AMRAAMs to bring it down. In other engagements in the late 1990s, USAF and USN fighters fired a total of seven Sparrows, AMRAAMs, and Phoenix missiles against Iraqi MiG-25s without scoring a single hit (although the Phoenix shots were taken at extreme range).

In part, the low success rates are due to tactical considerations, in that missiles may deliberately be launched outside the normal engagement envelope to distract or scare off the enemy, and sometimes two missiles are launched at one target to increase the hit probability. Whatever the reason, this results in missiles being used up at a high rate, making it more likely that they will run out during a sortie. A cannon will typically carry enough ammunition for several engagements, usefully increasing combat persistence at a minimal cost in weight and performance.

One curious aspect to the use of AAMs in combat is that of the approximately 1,000 kills achieved between 1958 and 1991, only a handful were scored beyond visual range, which does raise questions about the significance of the very long ranges of which some missiles are capable. It is sometimes argued that modern short-range missiles are so good that any aircraft with the benefit of long-range sensors and missiles should use them to try to stay outside the envelope of the enemy’s short-range AAMs. However, it is not always possible to dictate the terms of an engagement. The Iranians made good use of the long-range AIM-54 in the war with Iraq, but the F-14s which carried it still found themselves engaged in gunfights from time to time.

There is a continual battle between missile sensor and countermeasure technology. In the future, stealth technology applied to aircraft may considerably shorten target acquisition and combat ranges, putting into question the worth of modern BVR (beyond visual range) AAMs. The possible future use of anti-radar missile guidance as a way of overcoming stealth characteristics may force fighters to make minimal use of their own radars, further reducing acquisition and combat distances. It may also prove increasingly difficult for either IR or radar-homing missiles to lock on to their stealthy targets, additionally protected by extensive electronic jamming and IR countermeasures.

Of course, modern guns are usually aimed by the plane’s radar which could also be jammed (although less easily than the much smaller and less powerful missile seekers) but laser rangefinders could make an acceptable alternative in providing fire control data. If planes eventually become ‘laser-proof’ as well, the possibility presumably exists of linking variable magnification optical sights to a computer which would be able to analyse the image, identify the plane, calculate its distance, speed and heading and provide gunsight aiming information accordingly, all without emitting any signals.

The Case for the Gun 2: Ground Attack

The emphasis in the use of aircraft guns has now shifted more to air-to-ground work, although even this is becoming increasingly hazardous in a ‘hot’ war. With the proliferation of anti-aircraft gun and missile systems, including MANPADS, even the specialist ground-attack aircraft, fitted with powerful cannon, have found it to be safer to rely on the long range of their air-to-ground guided weapons rather than close to gun range, although as we have seen the USAF’s A-10s still made good use of their cannon against Iraqi targets in 1991.

This trend is aided by the continued development of air-to-surface missiles, with the latest ones having autonomous homing systems to provide “fire and forget” capability over long ranges. Another current development is the GD Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which aims to achieve low-cost accuracy by fitted a laser homer to the little 2.75 inch (70 mm) rocket. The target is to achieve a CEP of 1 – 2 m at ranges of up to 5 – 6 km at a price of US$ 8 – 10,000; one-sixth the cost of a Hellfire anti-tank missile.

However, not all conflicts involve front-line opposition; in fact, armed forces are now commonly engaged on police work, frequently dealing with guerrilla forces. In these circumstances, rockets and missiles may represent an inappropriate degree of destruction, with a high risk of collateral damage. The RAF was embarrassed during operations against insurgents in Sierra Leone in 2000 to find that they had no suitable weapon for their gunless Harrier GR.7 aircraft to attack small groups of rebels operating close to innocent civilians.
Another advantage of using cannon was demonstrated in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2002. During an intense infantry battle at Takur Ghar in late May, in which US forces were ambushed and in considerable danger, air support was called for. The AC-130 was not permitted to intervene in daylight due to its vulnerability, so USAF fighters were sent to help. For a part of the battle the Afghan combatants were too close to the Americans for rockets or bombs to be used, so the fighters – F-16s and even F-15s – went in strafing with their 20 mm cannon, as did the Navy’s F-14s and F/A-18s on other occasions. Even RAF Tornadoes were reported to have carried out gun strafing runs on at least one occasion. It may logically be argued that it is foolish to risk an extremely expensive aircraft, with its expensively trained pilot, to being lost due to very low-tech ground fire, but sometimes the risk needs to be taken to save friendly lives.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

A gun is more versatile than just being used for warning shots.
Ground strafing has been mentioned, but when most bods look to the future they talk about UAVs like Global Hawk and other such types… now a straight flying recon platform might be easily shot down using a million dollar missile, but as it will generally have to be positively ID’d first why not shoot it down with cannon for a few hundred bucks. So what the barrel will need to be cleaned and the side of the plane wiped down. Flexible designs are more useful than inflexible ones.

Really, a gun in a aircraft is like a soldier carrying a knife. First, you use your rifle, then your sidearm, and if all else fails your knife. While he would rarely use it. He would never go into combat without it! :rolleyes:

Oh for crisssake, if thin-skinned folks stayed off these forums, there’d be no one left to post!

If you want your Typhoon to be a multirole fighter like all the nice shiny magazine ads I see like to pitch, then a gun is as much an air-to-ground weapon as it is an air-to-air weapon.

As an example, the Israelis have gotten less and less of their air-to-air kills with guns if you look at the numbers from the Six-Day War to the Yom Kippur War to the 1982 battles over the Bekaa- it went something like all guns for the Six-Day War, to 70/30 in favor of missiles in ’73, to something like only two kills with guns in ’82. Lots of people point to stuff like that to say that an onboard gun is obsolete, but then there’s all the body of experience as has been pointed out from Afghanistan and Iraq that cannon fire has proven to be quite useful in air-to-ground operations.

And all without having to worry about firing warning shots at airliners hijacked by half-baked zealots looking for a free pass to paradise.