They looked and saw they were garbage huh..

 

 

The system, built by local Elbit Systems, was secretly tested recently to great success, Israel’s Channel 2 News reported on Sunday night, and government approval has now been secured for its installation." 

 

timesofisrael.com/israels-passenger-planes-to-get-new-missile-defense-system/ 

 

israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=1461 

 

 R 

The system, by the way, that you are talking about is Fliker, it is intended and described as a last-ditch countermeasure against unguided RPG's that can not be effectively countered by other means, it is an anti-missile-missile. It is intended for targets that have a max velocity of around 300ms such as RPG-7, currently it has succeeded in destroying one... Even so, it is quite possible a hard-kill missile system can and will be deployed on an aircraft, it is quite likely that AIM-9X/ASRAAM upgrades or derivatives (CAAM being a good example of a system that might well have dual function) will have an anti-missile capability as their HOBS engagement performances and cuing are increased (their seekers are more than capable), what I have been at pains to point out is that a gun/pellet based system like that of trophy or is useless for aircraft. Even now that you have changed your tune to advocate guided missiles the point still stands.

 

More over, while you are making sneering comments such as:

 

"Basing your analysis for CIR off of 1960's garbage from a few terrorists is laughable man.  Afganistan/Iraq/Libya.  Laughable.  IRAQ-1990 was a far more useful measuring stick."  

 

Well I'm glad you find it amusing:

 

"The U.S. Army has lost more than 120 helicopters in the war on terror, about 25 percent of them due to enemy engagements. According to recent official statistics, some 57 U.S. helicopters had been downed in Iraq until Feb. 4, resulting in 172 deaths, or about 5.5 percent of total American deaths since the conflict began in March 2003. According to U.S. Army General Simmons, the U.S. Army has lost 29 helicopters to enemy fire since March 2003. The majority of the firefights involve machine-gun and heavy-machine-gun fire, categorized as up to 23 mm, Simmons said. But, he added, some surface-to-air missiles, such as SA-7s, SA-14s and  SA-16 s, have been used to shoot down Army helicopters."

 

defense-update.com/newscast/02...  

 

additional background: 

 

 

There's been plenty of reports of SA-18's and SA-16's showing up in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and SA-24's were found in Libya.

 

aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%253A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%253Aabcd011c-bc5d-4b32-a87b-3f

 

 

 

 

 

The C-130 has the 40mm and 105mm firing semi-fixed mounts so the recoil passes through the roll axis of the aircraft. And on that basis you now propose to mount a 57mm gun, with 3x the recoil force of the 40mm ON a 2-1/2 to 3 meter moment arm AND make it retractable.

 

Get real. Even if the aircraft remain controllable when firing a burst from that gun on that mount the structural reinforcing required would be massive and is likely block any fore-aft access. The turret alone weights 6.5 tons.

We know that this isn't gonna happen, it was just an exercise in brainstorming.  But I think you are selling the airframe short.  A C-130 is a 50 - 60 ton bird, twice the weight of a ZSU-57-2 SPAAG.  If we really, really wanted to do it, we'd find a way.  For example there is a German design for a 30mm rec'less gun with a high ROF, for mounting on vehicles like the Wiesel and Wiesel II. Mounted externally the rec'less is an option - not so much when the gun is in the fuselage!

 

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It doesn't surprise me at all that they are still coming up with new ideas for gunships.  What I find surprising is that more countries haven't developed transport aircraft into gunships.  The C-47 and AC-130s are the most famous gunships, but during Vietnam the Air Force also deployed C-119 and C-123 transports as gunships, and even set up a number of CH-47 Chinooks as gunships by mounting miniguns to fire out the side. 

 

I've never understood why the Russians didn't pick up on this.  They had a number of prop-driven Antonov and Ilyushin transport aircraft in their inventory that could have easily been adapted to fire 12.7mm and 14.5mm guns out of the side, and I'm sure they could have come up with plenty of creative ideas for other weapons systems.  Instead, they decided to stick to helicopter gunship and fast moving attack aircraft.  The introduction of Stingers would have given low flying, circling prop aircraft fits, but there were a number of years in Afghanistan where the MANPAD and AAA threat was rather low.  I would love to hear theories as to why the Russians never developed gunships in their air arsenal.

 

Missiles can do things that guns can't and vice versa.  It would be a big mistake to equip gunships only with Hellfires or Brismstones.  Missiles are great for making pin point attacks on vehicles, houses, and bunkers, but they don't discriminate between guilty and innocent, and will kill anyone inside or within the vicinity of the target.  Guns aren't much better than missiles at this, but guns can provide some devastating suppressive fire in CAS missions.  Even if they aren't actually killing bad guys, they are making sure the bad guys are staying down. 

 

Has anyone considered mounting long range, computer aided and stabilized sniper rifles in a gun ship for specific missions?  Imagine having the ability to take out a terrorist target with a single shot without having to deploy a special forces team deep into enemy territory.  In my opinion, having the ability to fly halfway around the world to take out an enemy without putting boots on the ground or killing everyone within the terrorist's vicinity could have a very negative impact on the enemy's morale. 

And they only propose to use it at limited elevation to keep the exhaust from impacting the vehicle hull to badly, whereas your proposal requires a high elevation turret, al be it mounted upside down.

 

Sorry, that is not a solution.

At a guess I suspect there is more infighting between the services in Russia than the US. Does anyone have an idea how effective Russian CAS missions were in Afghanistan vs. the US in Vietnam? Also, what the percentage of CAS missions was of the total combat missions flown? That might give us the answer.

Guns are actually less discriminatory (i.e. accurate) than smart missiles, though I suspect you are referring to the burst radius. However, you can build missile warheads that do not produce large fragments that carry long distance, which you cannot do with shells.

 

If you want a weapon ‘system’ that can discriminate between the guilty and the innocent you need to send in the infantry, nothing else works very well.

Sniper rifles lack the range to be deployed from modern gunships. That is why the smallest weapon mounted has gone from 7.62mm to .50cal to 20mm, 25mm, and finally 30mm.

 

However, I believe that they did some experimentation with a .50cal Barrett sniper rifle mounted in a stabilized mount on Firescout drone with some success. ;)

Costs are coming down for miniaturised guidance systems, I really don't think it's going to be too long before 25/30mm projectiles are capable of being (cheaply) precision-aimed and fused - if you look at the abundance of new guided rocket designs, particularly the newly deployed APKWS wired.com/dangerroom/2012/04/apkws-afghanistan/ these should solve some of the challenges of cutting down on civilian casualties.. 

 

As to remote operated sniper rifle, yes, it has been considered, newer, accurate semi-automatic models  like the M110 make a belt-fed system a real possibility - for aircraft-mount I have no idea, I very much doubt there'd be the required accuracy at range... 

 

R 

A remote sniper rifle is not going to be very accurate.  Wind deflection alone from 1000 meters is the difference between hitting the target or the person next to them, and trying to calculate this from a moving aircraft seems unreliable at best.

 

Accuracy either requires a heavy bullet that is less prone to wind deflection, or to get closer.  A small drone that could go into 'glide mode' may be able to get close enough for reliable one-shot accuracy with a 7.62,  perhaps the Fire Scout will have better luck, although it sens like there will need to be significant luck involved to snipe from 500 meters plus even with a .50 cal 

 

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I just don't see that as a particularly good way for a drone to operate, it'll get shot to pieces - the apache (M230)chaingun solution is very effective indeed - they used a medium-velocity 30mm round (~800m/s), used a firing computer for ranging and let the explosive do the dirty work - the M230 is essentially airborne artillery, at 2+ mile ranges there can be >10 second travel time, during which there will be a parabolic arc of travel. 

 

With an unmanned drone one could get closer as there's less risk to the pilot, the MAWS (modular advanced weapon system) will be compatible with the M230 so perhaps this development for air-assets is inevitable anyway.. Whether firescout is capable of fielding a 30mm weapon I don't know.

 

I suspect that APKWS is actually the intended primary weapon system, $10k unit cost, ~1m accuracy.. And now apparently deployed in theatre.

 

Below is a good link for APKWS the solution of mid-body guidance in particular is clever, and will allow for flexible fusing and warhead options.

 

defenseindustrydaily.com/apkws-ii-hellfire-jr-hydra-rockets-enter-sdd-phase-02193/ 

 

So the answer has possibly already emerged, a low cost precision rocket - short of a guided gun-fired projectile I can't really see a more cost-effective solution. To use precision gunnery as you envisage it you have to start factoring in repeated unit loss..

 

R