From: "John Sukey", [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I seem to get the idea that Mr. Spencer believes the gun is not really
necessary on the on the new Euro fighter. This is a fallacy that was
proven the hard way in the Vietnam war. 1. missiles have a minimum firing
range so if the bad guy is in close you are in deep shit. 2. You can only
carry so many missiles. 3. Missiles can be led astray or jammed, a cannon
round does not have that problem. 4. Modern fighters also carry bombs and
must be able to do both jobs, they are not bombers exclusivly. 5. Dropping
bombs from altitude means that you cannot necessarily see your target or you
can be fooled, as was proven in the disagreement we have with Serbia.
Sometimes you have to get down and dirty to find your target. 6. Keeping
the bad guys off one of your downed pilots by dropping bombs from altitude
can be hazardous to his health while strafing the enemy trying to capture
him does serve a useful purpose. 7. using a missile to take out a truck is
not a very good trade off as you could buy a very large fleet of trucks for
the price of one missile, and dropping bombs on a truck convoy is no
guarentee of getting all of them as you have a limited number of bombs which
are not precision guided missiles. A smart bomb costs a lot more than said
truck and would be better used on a higher value target. 8. An enemy
transport aircraft is a soft target that can be easily shot down with a gun,
thereby saving ones missiles for more dangerous targets.
--
I think the point Jonathan was making was that on the Eurofighter specifically
it is not a good idea for ground attack, as the article attempted to point
out - it is a fighter, not an attack aircraft. The speed of the fighter is
so high that the cannon would likely be marginal on ground targets. I'm
not even sure that cannon was designed for ground attack. I'm pretty sure
that the use of cannons on the Tornado for ground attack is not a recommended
procedure, they use bombs for ground attack.
Steve.
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