Just a few short comments on points brought up in several posts.
1 A-37 Dragonfly – This a similar aircraft have proved their worth in counter-insurgence and anti-bandit operations. This is an example where cheap and cheerful is best.
2 PGU-28 SAPHEI – USAF have withdrawn this ammunition from general use and are currently conducting trials to establish why it causes an unacceptable rate of mis-fires.
3 A64 Apache – There are problems with using this helicopter in Afghanistan above and beyond those usually encountered, mainly because the country is high and hot. This limits the load that can be carried and also results in higher maintenance costs.
4 AC130 Gunship – Wikipedia currently states that there are 8 AC130H and 13 AC130U Gunships; I think this is incorrect as one AC130U was lost in Afghanistan a 3-4 years ago. Funds have been provided for four additional aircraft to be manufactured. Because when attacking the aircraft has to fly a left hand circle to bring the cone of fire to a point, the aircraft is vulnerable to ground to air missiles, so most missions are carried out at night. (The aircraft is equipped with enhanced counter-measures to depend against MANPADS). Operating in mountainous terrain also can be difficult as the weapons need to be fired at an angle limited by the maximum roll angle of the aircraft (the guns can be depressed but not very far). For these reasons modifications are being considered to enable attacks to be carried out from an offset position and allow weapons to be delivered more vertically.
Several weapons are being evaluated, but the one that I favour is the GBU-44/B Viper Strike, this is a laser-guided variant of the NG Brilliant Anti-Tank (BAT) munition. It is small and weighs only 20kg.
5 Eurofighter Typhoon Gun – Most of what has been posted on this thread is correct. Originally the gun was specified, the MoD wanted it omitted to save, money, ballast was required and would be expensive to design, install and qualify, so they decided to fit the gun, but not use it and finally have agreed to use the weapon.
However, there is a little more to this saga. The environmental specification for some of the equipment on the aircraft (particularly for items only required by the RAF), included anticipated vibration envelops for equipment fitted in the forward section of the fuselage. This spec included “spikes” to take into account gunfire. The equipment was supposed to survive one level of vibration and operate to specification at a lower level. There was a get out clause, if when real vibration data became available it was found to be above the values included in the spec, then all bets were off. Guess what, the levels were way above those in the original spec. So rather than let the equipments manufactures off the hook, the gun was deleted from the requirement, ensuring that the manufactures had to qualify their equipment to the full spec. Once all the equipment was qualified and been proven to work in the aircraft, the gun requirement was re-instated. During air to air gunnery trials last year Alenia and more recent trials at BAE Systems Warton it has been demonstrated that the equipment still works when the gun is fired.
So one reason for the gun in out in saga was to get around a specification & contractual requirement problem.
The other reason for the saga was that it allowed the “apparent” cost of operating the Typhoon to be lowered at a time when the number of aircraft to be purchased was under threat.
Chris:vamp
