Posted on 02/15/2018 5:29:02 AM PST by w1n1
You can run, but you can’t hide from an A-10 Thunderbolt II and its technological advanced GAU-8 30mm weapon system.
U.S. Air Forces Central Command released a un-classified footage of an engagement between an A-10 and what looks to be "a Taliban vehicle fleeing the scene of an attack in Kandahar, Afghanistan."
The short video display a light-colored car speeding down a dusty desert road only to be stopped by a hail storm of 30mm rounds from the A-10. Zooming in on the stopped vehicle you can see four basketball-sized holes punched in the top of the vehicle before another wave of shells is applied for good measure. Unfortunately, the video has no sound, but you can imagine the many “brrrt” pounding the vehicle.
According to Centcom, the Taliban-mobile was armed with a DShK heavy machine gun, which they had been using to attack the Afghan people,” said the Air Force.
The General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger is a 30 mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-type auto cannon.
It is 19-foot long 7-barreled rotary cannon that fires huge 30x173mm shells— each about the size of a ketchup bottle at 3,900 rounds per minute. Unloaded, the gun weighs more than 600-pounds.
For most grunts on the ground its a blessing to see the A-10's come in for air support or in this case direct action monitored by drones. See the full A-10 Taliban footage here.
DU rounds are for tanks. For light armor, they’d most likely use HE.
I hate it when ketchup bottles explode inside the vehicles.
This is the plane the AF command hates and wants rid of.
Really laughing here!
I remember reading, IIRC in the 1960s, some ordnance guy wondered what a motor hooked up to an old Gatling Gun would do. I believe they had one in 30-40 caliber. He lit it off and burmed out the barrels.
[Sidebar] Back in the '50s you could get a 45-70 Gatling Gun barrel from Bannerman's for a few bucks. They were selling them as potential bull barrels for Remington Rolling Blocks.
Excellent point. I hadn’t considered the shockwave around the rounds. The rounds may have only punched a small hole, but the shockwave alone could easily tear sheet metal.
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