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From: walker@sulu.usc.edu (Walker J. Seestedt)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Future of SAM
Summary: Not enough range
Message-ID: <1991May9.063947.12575@amd.com>
Date: 8 May 91 19:06:07 GMT
References: <1991Apr30.044658.4761@amd.com> <1991May1.030348.20065@amd.com> <1991May2.040007.19776@amd.com>
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Organization: USC Aerospace Engineering (Fly the Friendly Skys)
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From: walker@sulu.usc.edu (Walker J. Seestedt)


In article <1991May2.040007.19776@amd.com> quimby@rpi.edu (Tom Stewart) writes:
>Given that most ground attack aircraft don't carry a whole lot of
>armour -- even the A-10, as I understand it, has armour only for
>pilot protection -- wouldn't it make sense to field some smaller,
>lighter, faster AA guns?  Swapping an M3 or M60 for a 7.62 or
>5.56 minigun would raise the rate of fire 4-16 times, with little
>if any weight gain.  With groundfire, even from rifles, seemingly
>such a threat to low level flight, I'm surprised it hasn't
>received more attention from the sending end.

I believe that the reason that most AAA is of greater caliber is for
range purposes.  Smaller arms such as the 5.56mm and 7.62mm while 
having a greater rate of fire do not have really enough range to do
damage to airplanes flying at medium altitude.  After all, if you put
more oomph in the cartridge pushing the shell it will go higher, and
have enough velocity to damage vital airplane parts once it is there.  
When my dad flew in Vietnam, they would climb higher to get out of 
small arms range (only to face SAM's, oops.)  He says they could see the 
tracers of .50 cal machine guns tooling lazily up toward his plane.  
(Okay, so they were going about mach 1 or so, but they looked like 
they were taking their time what with the distance they had to travel 
to get to them. ;-)

Steven Coonts also addresses this in _Flight_of_the_Intruder_.  The
A-6 would climb higher to get out of small arms range, and you could
watch the tracers arc up and head back down.

Although smaller, faster firing AAA would be good for low flying 
airplanes, I am sure that ground forces would be quite willing to
give up rate of fire for the versatility of being able to engage
higher flying airplanes without using expensive SAMS ;-).

-- 
Walker J. Seestedt.  USC Aerospace Engineering  (213) 740-4303.  Dod #0081
Internet: walker@spock.usc..edu | Uucp: ...uunet!usc!spock!walker
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