The future of aircraft mounted guns

[jsport]

just reality

 

[Ronny]

Franky dont' see anything much to address. This discussion is of dimishing returns.
am not opposed to AGM-X and small missiles but one needs a backup plan/augmention and thankfully the AFRL would appear to agree.

A compliment system is not the same as a replacement. Earlier you said cannon is the only way forward for fighters. It isn't

Neither of us have any idea what NGAD dev is directed but we do know the Army is spending $ on 1000mile gun.
The AF is spending money on as many as two airborne railguns has patents on them.

and they also spend loads of money on more than a dozens types of missiles as well as DEW.
Besides, Air force don't have any air borne rail gun program under development, the best you have is a feasibility study of the initial concept, and really, a rail gun to launch a small satellite is quite a big difference from a long-range rail gun intended to destroy fighters

Researchers supported by a multiuniversity research initiative award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research are studying the technical issues involved in an airborne electromagnetic launch to space of small payload masses. The payload mass under consideration (1-10 kg) is much smaller than in earlier studies of launch to space

You have no knowlegde of light gas gun technology so appear to be missile salesman.
Jets make powerful generators and the EM may be only for frictionless not firing as stated repeatedly though the months of this thread. On and on discussion about railguns is a lark. Coilguns also can be made very light anyway.
Lightweight light gas can be used literally as global guns which NASA has addressed at a threat in the 2020s and beyond timeframe and is on this forum but not this thread.

Well, I can say the same about your knowledge of missiles and stealth, but we have a distinct difference. Whatever I said, I can support with sources or simple calculation. For example: when I said missiles can outrange gun I can points of dozens type of missiles which are capable of that. When I said 35 mm AHEAD cannon on C-17 can't defense it from missiles attack, I can calculate it.On the other hand, you haven't provide any evidence to support your point.

Never said how many aircrat the PLAA would be taking off. What statement makes clear there is no understanding or familiarity of the RAND study or what it concluded so this argument is in the ether.

I was referring to one of their other study, they have the tendecy to over simplify or ignore very basic problem.

The 1000s of hardened structures refers cruise missiles sites, likely superguns (have no specific knowledge but well known research from Dr Bull times and pics, depictions) sites , mobile hypersonic UCAVs hidden in numerous fixed sites, same for Hypersonic missiles sites, Mobile SAMs including S-500. Most importantly redundant concrete shelters for aircraft. Concrete is cheap w/ plenty labor available. Mobile and fixed c2 sites etc etc.. As in NK, if it is above ground or not hardened it doesn't matter.

and these targets are more expensive than missiles.

UV is sed in AD so not sure what you appeared to getting at.

UV sensor are not used in air defense system because aircraft don't emmit UV radiation. They don't emit UV radiation because they are not hot enough.
Most of the time UV sensor is used on missile warning receiver and in some rare case on MANPADS missiles to help them distinguish between flares and aircraft, because flares are very hot. But UV sensor are not for long range application and they definitely not for detecting stealth aircraft

Sensors always work in an integrated fashion and is why it is called and Integrated Air Defense System (IADS)

You can't integrate empty information. For example OTH-B radars are blind in skip zone because their radar wave simply can't reach that area. There is nothing to intergrate.

During a crisis China will know when every plane takes off from any US territory or ship and that will used to cue the up to 65,000 unmarked vessels (some of which are deep water capable) and cueing would continue on and on till in target aquistion.

No they won't

 

[jsport]

still very convinced until all the defenses that make missiles meat are defeated. DoD developes alot systems. no mini will make it in until the guns are done. Wind correct or Mini etc would be just fine after the AHEADs are defeated as stated.. so no inconsistency.

You have no idea where AF funding on any particular project really is. What, the internet, really.

AHEAD is terminal defense truck in front of any imporant bunker in Asia. The bunker never is destoyed until the AHEAD is defeated. This is not to mention PLA portable lasers down missiles right in front of A-G targets. No air-ground missile survives until those systems are defeated.
35mm AHEAD on a C-17 what in world are we talking about. AHEAD is a fusing concept which could be added to long range gun and cued by offboard sensors. Calulating what... for what.


"these bunkers are more expensive than missiles." The study says the US will not be manufacturing at current rates enough missiles let alone enough aircraft to carry them. This is w/o the AHEAD and laser terminal defense problem. There are already more targets the anyone could supress to accomplish SEAD and it is getting worse and by 2050, forget it. Why develop and expensive small cruise missile which will be destroyed only 300m in front of their target. Either to defeat the terminal defense or your expensive (slow) mini missiels are defeated.

a black spot in a UV sensor in the sky is likely an aircraft simple and acknowledged. Boats all over the PAC w these multiple senors (as the biz/gov is the military) and the network affords great warning. Likely at 2050.the entire PAC is under watch. No surprise.

Air defense systems including OTH cue each other.

As far as you knowing the Chinese HUMINT capability that is laughable. They will know.

am quite glade for the press (so thank you) as such a capability would be developed in the black anyway.

 

[kaiserd]

I can’t follow large chunks of that (not meant as a criticism, English perhaps not your first language?) and the bits I think I can understand don’t really sound credible (that is a criticism of the points you have made).

We have had our own exchanges on this subject, all I’d suggest is that other contributors may find your contributions more convincing and genuinely useful (you clearly are knowledgeable on gun technology) if you were less absolute and fanatical with your arguments.
Airborne gun development can be part of what is required going forward (indeed other contributors have made the point that as missiles get smaller and “shells” get more missile-like the differentiation may reduce) but claims you appear to repeatedly make that airborne guns are the only or the absolute central primary way forward are not really becoming any more credible with our increasing familiarity with your arguments.

 

[jsport]

a know nothing, knowing nothing, defending the PLA blogger.

 

[Ronny]

still very convinced until all the defenses that make missiles meat are defeated. DoD developes alot systems. no mini will make it in until the guns are done. Wind correct or Mini etc would be just fine after the AHEADs are defeated as stated.. so no inconsistency.

Nope, as calculated earlier, mini-cruise missiles in number can easily overwhelm AHEAD defense. A merely 1.3- 1.7 second to intercept each missile is not enough in most case, nevermind their jamming capability. In additions, there is only 1-2 gun programs compared to dozens missiles program so gun certainly not considered the must have to deal with defense.
Your incoherence English is really hard to understand. Do you use Google Translate for your reply?

You have no idea where AF funding on any particular project really is. What, the internet, really.

I do, because of we have fiscal year budget request documents

AHEAD is terminal defense truck in front of any imporant bunker in Asia. The bunker never is destoyed until the AHEAD is defeated. This is not to mention PLA portable lasers down missiles right in front of A-G targets. No air-ground missile survives until those systems are defeated.

No, first of all, the purpose of SEAD/DEAD isn't to destroy bunker. You focus on long and medium range air defense first.
Second of all, AHEAD do not have 100% kill probably so even if it wasn't destroyed first, it is still possible to destroy the bunker, it is extremely unlikely that AHEAD can be used against hypersonic missiles anyway.
Thirdly, while the shotgun styles of AHEAD round give better coverage and increase hit probability, it also reduces penetration





Against most air target this isn't an issue but bunker buster has very thick steel case (GBU-57 has 7.6 cm thick shell) so your AHEAD round will do no damage to them.


The small BLU-116 has 5.7 cm steel casting and an outer aluminum casting so it AHEAD pellet won't penetrate them either. Given that even APFSDS round with high-density material and perfect L/D ratio still can't penetrate several times their length, AHEAD pellet will not penetrate the thick casting of bunker-buster bombs. So it is perfectly possible to destroy the bunker even when 35mm AHEAD defense is not deal with yet.





Finally, laser can be used against artillery shell as well, and in fact, it will be more effective against a cannon than it will be against missiles. Because with cannon, you can only fire one shell at a time, all from the same direction. Whereas with missiles you can launch 8-10 of them at the same times

35mm AHEAD on a C-17 what in world are we talking about. AHEAD is a fusing concept which could be added to long range gun and cued by offboard sensors.

Do you have some sort of short term memory loss?
You brought up rail cannon on an airliner as a long-range anti-air solution
I said these C-17 will be destroyed by R-37,PL-XX, METEOR, AIM-260 ..etc long before they can get in range for their rail cannon
Then you said missiles will be destroyed by AHEAD rounds in terminal phase, so I made a simple calculation to show you why that isn't possible.

Calulating what... for what.

Calculate the time you have to intercept each missile to show you how AHEAD can be overwhelmed.

"these bunkers are more expensive than missiles." The study says the US will not be manufacturing at current rates enough missiles let alone enough aircraft to carry them. This is w/o the AHEAD and laser terminal defense problem. There are already more targets the anyone could supress to accomplish SEAD and it is getting worse and by 2050, forget it. Why develop and expensive small cruise missile which will be destroyed only 300m in front of their target. Either to defeat the terminal defense or your expensive (slow) mini missiels are defeated.

The study didn't consider miniature missile at all, they also ignore missile design with sub munitions. You are assuming that Chinese can just constantly build new bunker while there is no improvement in US manufacturing rate without take into account loads of their mini weapons either in development or in-service already.
Mini cruise missiles are used to defeat defense systems, they are not for destroying bunkers. Besides, while they are slow, they can be launch in huge numbers, unlike cannon rounds.

a black spot in a UV sensor in the sky is likely an aircraft simple and acknowledged.

Aircraft are not black spot to UV sensor.
At night, only very hot source such as missiles plumes or flares emit UV radiation
In daylight, anything reflects sunlight can emit a bit of UV radiation
In both case, aircraft will blend in the background. That why UV sensor are not used for air defense, they are mostly used as MWR and in some case secondary sensor for MANPADS for IRCCM. If you don't believe me, I challenge you to find a single long range UV sensor intended to detect aircraft on any aircraft or ship or surface to air vehicle.

Boats all over the PAC w these multiple senors (as the biz/gov is the military) and the network affords great warning. Likely at 2050.the entire PAC is under watch. No surprise.

You talk about logistic then just assume civilian boats will be equipped with a ray of modern sensors and IFF and datalink so that they can alert the government?

Air defense systems including OTH cue each other.

Yes, but you can't cue other sensor toward the sector that you can't see anything. The blind zone of OTH-B is just that, the area where the radar can detect nothing because the radar wave skip it

As far as you knowing the Chinese HUMINT capability that is laughable. They will know.

That your opinion, now proves it.

 

[jsport]

Let me wish the great Chinese people of Taiwan and Hong Kong prosperity and a long life.

over and out..

not going to forward the PLA's agenda.

 

[riggerrob]

Any air defence system can be defeated by huge numbers of missiles/bullets. Drones equipped with thermal and electronic decoys can make it impossible for defenders to distinguish between tiny decoys and large penetrators.
As always, there is an arms-race between manufacturers and countries with this week’s drones confusing last week’s AAA.

 

[shin_getter]

Gun as a range extender for Standoff munitions:

Trade off of Guns vs Rockets:
You get more propulsive efficiency for the cost of having a big barrel and all the supporting structures, relative to rockets.

--- Gun Barrel, Autoloader, cost in weight and money
+ Shell Weight is lower
+ Shell Cost is lower (propellant)
= Unguided Projectile Accuracy: Not relevant for long range uses for air planes (at with conventional notion of operations)

So lets see if it is possible to simplify this further: Shell Cost is lowered, but propellant is a tiny fraction of total system cost: just buying flying the airplane is very expensive (if one includes an aircraft carrier in its costs!), and soft-kill resistant sensors would quickly result in exploding projectile costs. The added costs of the whole gun system and autoload and its subsequent maintenance, including the shock-proofing the airframe and other problems means it is rather questionable that any real amount of money can be saved here in the $ per kill here. The logistics costs of air operations (at >1000 tons per aircraft when its on a ship!) relative to the low munitions throw weight of aircraft also likely weight saving over the logistics systems not very significant.

1. Maximizing per-sortie performance is more important.

So how can a gun fighter perform better than a rocket fighter?
2. Since the gun assembly weights a lot, one needs to fire a lot of shots per sortie for the total throw weight to pay back in weight. One not only need to fire a lot of shots but also use up a lot of munition propellant as part of the missions, thus:

Using very Crude math with 155mm shell charges and Rocket Impulse equation has performance parity at 20% gun propellant mass to 30+% solid rocket propellant mass. A M777 is 4.3 tons and one would only "get weight payback" after firing 30~40+ tons of munitions (*at hundreds of rounds). With lower velocity guns the propellant mass fraction difference between gun and rocket is smaller thus resulting in even larger war load for "mass payback."

*For land artillery with a stockpile of shells and 1/min sustained ROF one could do it in less than a day.

Lightweight fully automated guns that have good muzzle velocity is possible with modern tech, but it has to be developed and probably put to use before it is a good idea to attempt it on an aeroplane.

--------------------
I see low cost manufacturing for air-launched ramjets as a far more promising technology: all the advantage of range without excessive mass.

A Gun based standoff system would make more sense if
1. Guns get a lot lighter (in practice and not theory)
2. Mass fraction of propellant of munitions is a lot higher, especially at points where tyranny of the rocket equation kicks in
3. Much bigger practical aircraft size (when considering survivability) with very long endurance or unmanned with in flight refuel/rearm
4. Improvement in small projectile capabilities (which hits #2 due to higher drag)
5. Much worst air breathing engine options

--------------
I originally looked for aerial gun system topic for AGFS (aerial gun fire support) which is a niche yet not too expensive to fill capability. A gun for loyal wingman to take down low capability vehicles and to dogfight is also a no brainer.

 

[jsport]

The technology is there it just requires the intent. Most of these issues were discussed much earlier in this thread so am not repeating much.

rarefaction wave gun/recoiless 'shockwave' (according to the patent)/scramjet firing guns provide the low gun weight and range.

Revolutionary hard materials which sutain shock and heat previously unheard of allow lightweight guns as well.

Missile/gun rounds will always be smaller than missiles w/ respect to range. Mature technologies such as Light Gas, Regenerative Liquid Propelllant Gun (RLPG)-, Electro Thermal Chemical (ETC), EMRG various combinations often not discussed publically come to mind.

Some sort of standoff missile/scram rd would evenually predominate as explosives/fuels will be miniaturized w/even higher tech high energetics.

.

 

[Fighterreaper97]

Maybe we should add navigators or flight engineers to 6th gen as well to lighten pilot load.

We will.

I think there's a place for a gun in tactical fighters. A2G especially. There will almost certainly be times in A2A that you're unable to control engagement distance or to disengage despite any signature advantages. Maybe even 40mm or 60mm guided shells from an autocannon that you could lob a dozen at a time from a distance like an airborne mortar someday. There may be a niche there if you can tackle the details. The more range you want, the more rapidly the missile/rocket solution starts making lots more sense than the cannon though.


It isn't going to be a rail gun or giant recoilless with ridiculous range anytime in the next 25 years. I'm not convinced we're exceptionally close to a practical DEW that fits in tactical aircraft either. That seems like a better option for several reasons if it became available.

Agee you on that however fighter aircraft should still retain internal cannons for A2A missions no matter how advanced the technology is.

 

[Ronny]

Maybe we should add navigators or flight engineers to 6th gen as well to lighten pilot load.

We will.

I think there's a place for a gun in tactical fighters. A2G especially. There will almost certainly be times in A2A that you're unable to control engagement distance or to disengage despite any signature advantages. Maybe even 40mm or 60mm guided shells from an autocannon that you could lob a dozen at a time from a distance like an airborne mortar someday. There may be a niche there if you can tackle the details. The more range you want, the more rapidly the missile/rocket solution starts making lots more sense than the cannon though.


It isn't going to be a rail gun or giant recoilless with ridiculous range anytime in the next 25 years. I'm not convinced we're exceptionally close to a practical DEW that fits in tactical aircraft either. That seems like a better option for several reasons if it became available.

Agee you on that however fighter aircraft should still retain internal cannons for A2A missions no matter how advanced the technology is.

are you trying to spam all threads?

 

[Nik]

Treading warily through the theory etc: What would you shoot with an aircraft's gun ??
A-10 was for lightly defended, soft-ish targets, either ground or unwary helos. Snag is MANPADS etc may make that role too unsafe.
C-130 'PUFF' was intended to orbit and pound lightly defended, soft-ish targets on ground until the rubble bounced. Perhaps from beyond range of MANPADS. Or not. Their orbit is predictable. They come to you.
Big, too-stealthy drones, such as a 'Next-Reaper' ? Something that you daren't attack from beyond visual range for fear of accidental atrocity ??
Drone swarms, that out-number your missile load-out by an order of magnitude ? Would swamp point-defence ?

Ripple-fired Pulse-jet drones, most just a tuned pipe and minimal smarts, but you gotta 'honour the threat' ? IIRC, the 'Iron Dome' system needs multiple launches per ballistic target, they've logistics issues...

Ideas ??