Posted on 01/03/2019 4:54:12 AM PST by w1n1
on a Runaway Taliban Vehicle
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. The A-10 armed with the General Electric GAU-8/A Avenger 30 mm hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-type auto cannon. See the rest of A-10 Thunderbolt.
A-10,,,
Ugly Baby!
Good things come to those that wait.
Guess they tumble like the 5.56? :-) So, one question I have is, what happens to the A-10s when we finally decide to quit wasting troops and money in A-stan? Watching a show that mentions the British being slaughtered at the Khyber Pass along with civilians in 1842. It appears that not a lot has been accomplished in the 130+ years since then.
The shows they put on were more impressive than any fast fly-bys or formation shows I had ever seen - and have ever seen since...friends who were in Desert Storm had tales to tell about their effectiveness too....tanks filled with pureed remains leaking out of clothing.....
The guy in the second video says its a 7 barrel weapon. It is not, it has 6 barrels just like the smaller Army version called Vulcan, now out of service. I had a platoon of 4 Vulcans, we could raise a dust storm down range with the number of bullet we could fire at one time.
At some point, the Demonrats WILL want this used domestically, against their political enemies. When they do, it’s up to the Air Force to refuse.
It is a 7-barrel gun. A google image search will confirm.
Depleted uranium doesn’t explode but it does tend to set the atmosphere inside the target vehicle on fire (to explosive effect) because of a property called pyrophoria. On high speed impact the DU penetrator turns into white-hot plasma gas, which limits the blunting of the penetrator (keeps it sharper), drives a blowtorch of hot gas in front of it (like a magnesium burning bar), and when it penetrates to the interior, it drive a cloud of DU dust particles before it, which it then sets alight. So there will tend to be (secondary) explosions, but the DU itself is not explosive.
The Warthog is a remarkable a/c in its own right, capable of continuing to fly with unbelievable levels of damage.
https://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Stories1/001-100/0016_A-10-battle-damage/story0016.htm
There was another (peacetime, IIRC) incident when a Warthog flew into the guy wire of a radio or TV tower and lost part of a wing, one engine and most of the tailplane on that side but flew home safely.
And the Army’s Vulcan AA Gatling gun is 20mm, not 30mm. AFAIK the only weapon system in the army that fires a 30mm is the chin cannon on the AH-64 Apache.
The A-10’s gun is the 30mm GAU-8, most definitely 7-barreled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger
If you look at the second video in the article, at the 13 second mark the weapon has 7 barrels, at the 33 second mark it has 6 barrels.
MADE ME LAFF. I hate the bstrds.
p
PING and enjoy.
“f you look at the second video in the article, at the 13 second mark the weapon has 7 barrels, at the 33 second mark it has 6 barrels.” [Midwesterner53]
Then American Shooting Journal bungled - assuming they put the vid together.
The GAU-8 has always had 7 barrels. Any video footage with six barrels had to be of a different gun.
Powered Gatling Guns were experimented with circa 1900. All development rested there until the 1950s, when General Electric modernized it to produce a new powered gun for aircraft, the M-61 (nicknamed “Vulcan”). It was mounted on a number of aircraft, including F-4, F-14, F-22, F-104, F-105, F-16, F-15, B-52, B-58. US Army Air Defense Units used a version mounted on a tracked vehicle; US Navy used them to counter anti-ship missiles as part of the Close-In Weapon System.
GE produced a smaller gun in 7.62x51mm NATO, the M-134 Minigun. It was used in Southeast Asia on the AC-47 gunship and the A-37 attack aircraft. Flexible and turret versions have since armed various helicopters.
An experimental model chambered in 5.56x45mm, but he Army wasn’t interested.
The concept has been moodified over a range of barrel numbers and calibers: 3 and 4-barrel guns, the US 50-cal machine gun round (12.7x99mm Browning), some 25mm rounds.
The F-35 mounts the GAU-22, a four-barrel version in 25mm.
Look at the rear of the vehicle in the drone close-up. Interior fires visible thru the rear windows -- and the roof is blown upward. (Internal secondary explosion?)
TXnMA
The Army used the 20mm round 6 barrel version because I had four of them in my platoon as a young 2nd LT. The Army also adopted what we called the mini gun, the smaller version strapped to helicopters using either 5.56 or 7.62. The Vulcan came in self propelled and towed versions, both now sitting in museums now.
Awesome.
Hope the next time it’s used on Democrats!
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