Posted on 05/08/2015 8:24:28 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
At IDEF 2015, which is held in Istanbul from 5-8 May, Italian company Oto Melara is showcasing for the first time the new 20mm Gunship for which commercial contacts with the Turkish aeronautic company TAI have already started. Gunship by Oto Melara is a palletized air-to-ground gun system, designed to be operated from military cargo aircraft, such as C130s (all versions), C27s or any other which has a standard military pallet (88’x108’) capability.
Oto Melara Gunship 20 mm air-to-ground gun system at IDEF 2015
In the present day stand-alone configuration, the Gunship system is self contained in a single cargo pallet, which carries the Vulcan 20mm Gatling gun mount and servos, a complete high-precision electro- optical Fire Control System (FCS), the gunner workstation, a 750 rds magazine (20x102mm linked), GPS reference, inertial system and all the electronics and power systems.
Total weight is 3.200lbs, including operator and a full magazine, but no ballistic protection. Gunship requires no integration or modifications to the aircraft: fire is through the left hand paratroop door and the pallet is secured to the floor with the existing locking levers.
The system is fully self-powered for about 30 minutes, but accepts gladly backup electric power from any cargo bay outlets (AC or DC), and is plugged to the aircraft ICS via standard connectors, also available in the bay. This means that Gunship can be rapidly loaded on board with a normal fork lift, connected to the aircraft in seconds so that a standard cargo aircraft is ready to operate as a Gunship in just a few minutes.
After the mission is completed, if needed, the pallet is easily off-loaded and the aircraft goes back to its standard cargo role: should the aircraft carrying Gunship fail before takeoff, the system shall be off-loaded in a few minutes and placed on board a serviceable one, and the mission not aborted.
Gunship is capable of very accurate air-to-ground fire and can deliver an impressive payload in a relatively short burst, owing to the Vulcan gun very high rate of fire (4.000 rounds per minute).
Whenever tactically desirable, the system can deliver also saturation fire over designated areas, thanks to the large number of ready to fire round. The Gunship system has been developed with the financial backing of the R&D Department of the Italian MoD, in accordance with a Special Forces requirement for airborne precision/long endurance fire support.
Thanks to the excellent Oto Melara experience in gunnery, ballistics and system integration, the prototype has been completed in less than one year, and more than 1,000 test rounds were fired in the company range during system development.
Last October the Gunship prototype has been delivered to the Italian Air Force Flight Test facility in Pratica di mare (Rome) in order to be certified for flight (on the C27J) and test fired in an air-to- ground range: all these tests, weather permitting, should be completed by April 2015. Last third of March the system on board the C27J has been flown to the Italian Air Force air-to- ground range of Capo Frasca, in Sardinia, and test-fired airborne for the first time.
One dry and eleven hot runs were flown, 50 rds each, for a total of 550 rds fired in a single sortie., at altitudes from 1.500 to 3.700ft, up to a slant range of .9 Nautical mile (about 1.700 meters). Despite aiming was manual via the EO system, all bursts were observed on/around the target, quantitative evaluation through high speed videos and ground targets conditions is now in progress.
This test has been very successful, so following the quantitative analysis the system will be fine- tuned for precision (we expect a final CEP (50 percent of the rounds within this distance from target) lower than 4 meters at 2.000m slant range ( 5.000ft altitude, with projectile flight-path 50°-60° below the horizon) and a larger one from higher up, most likely 10-12 meters from 10.000ft. Following this tune-up we plan another hot sortie for the next month.
In the present configuration, the weapon (the 20mm Vulcan M61) has been carefully chosen for its high rate of fire, small dimensions and contained recoil forces (which can significantly affect the system precision); other guns were evaluated, but, in any case, for air-to-ground (as for air-to-air) Gatling type guns should be always preferred.
At present the only possible alternative is the 25mm GAU/12 or 22 Gatling gun, with longer range and increased payload delivery, but with significant system cost and increased total weight.
An external C4ISR interface with Satcom/tactical Data Link can provide the pilot/operator with abundant target data, maps, pictures, and deliver ground HQ videos of the mission/attack result.
A dedicated C4ISR palletized system is now under development by an Italian company, in order to provide the gunner with whatever info can maximise the mission effectiveness and perform as a command post for the Special Forces operation on the ground which Gunship is planned to support.
For larger aircraft, such as all the C130s, a higher capacity ammo magazine can be fitted (up to 1.500-2.000 ready to fire rounds, that is twice the present one) and more performing E/O sensors, without endangering the very flexible and tactically valuable stand-alone single-pallet configuration.
One of these mounted on a flatbed with stabilization feet could be a really badboy. Of course the ammo humpers would hate it.
“want one mounted on roof of my house for perimeter defense”...
I hear in the next housing development start in Baltimore, every new house will come with just that. I still wouldn’t move to Baltimore.
In a similar situation in Ankara, Turkey in the late 60s, the TAF used napalm as well ...
The company that I went to work for right out of college hired the project manager on the Vulcan from GE and I wound up working in his R&D group for several years. He had a scale model of the gun sitting on his desk.
People called him "the little ball of fire", he had a full sized traffic signal set up in the hallway with all the lenses replaced w/ green. He said it represented his "go, go, go" attitude. He handed out tie bars w/ a miniature of the Go Go light to his "untermenchen", I never got one. I always thought the "all green lights" traffic signal was emblematic of one hell of a traffic jam.
Regards,
GtG
That’s Apache footage - 30mm chain gun and Hellfire, not a Vulcan.
bookmark
Then it is misrepresented - if you note the AC says out of ammo and requests continued support - perhaps that was where the 30mm and hellfire came from - an apache on the scene as well.
IIRC, the army did have a M-61 mounted on a track some time back. Never saw one in the flesh at Ft Irwin, but saw some photos of one doing a night shoot. Very cool.
Don't know what happened to it, think the aborted antiaircraft gun project was to be the replacement.
There were some cool youtubes of a M-61 shooting incoming mortar rounds recently, some new experimental gear.
Set a swarm of 100 $39.99 mini drones into the cargo plane’s engines and do the dollar to kill ratio math.
Nope, listen to the sound of the aircraft’s gun when it fires (which is pretty obvious when it does). A Gatling has a distinctive ripping, tearing sound where the Apache’s 30mm chain gun has a dut-dut-dut-dut sound and the rate of fire is much slower, 600-650 round per second versus 1500-4000+. The camera vehicle is an Apache.
Then it is odd that most every AC130 gunship and variant video which uses machine guns makes the same sound (dut-dut-dut-dut). There are a few that have the “ripping, tearing sounds” ... from below: these must have been the AC-130U variants.
here’s various quotes: “AC-130U incorporated a 25mm gun to compliment the standard 40mm cannon and 105mm howitzer.”
“The AC-130H Spectre was armed with two 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannons, one Bofors 40mm autocannon, and one 105 mm M102 cannon; after 1994 the 20 mm cannons were removed for most missions. The upgraded AC-130U “Spooky” has a single 25 mm GAU-12 Equalizer (Gattling-type) in place of the Spectre’s twin 20 mm cannons, an improved fire control system, and increased ammunition capacity. New AC-130Js based on the MC-130J Combat Shadow II special operations tanker were planned as of 2012. The AC-130W is armed with one 30 mm Bushmaster cannon, AGM-176 Griffin missiles, and GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs.”
From this it would seem there have been various types of machine guns installed over the years and models, but only the AC-130U type seems to be fitted with a Gatling-type gun (removed, as too inaccurate from flying height and replaced with a Bushmaster variant).
So the video link was to an AC-130 firing, just not the older “U” version which had Gatling-type guns.The video likely was the AC-130W variant with the AGM-176 Griffin, Block III missiles, not Hellfires.
Most ‘AC-130’ videos on YouTube *are* actually from various helicopter gunships. The AC-130 carries literally thousands of rounds for the 40mm and under weapons so they can sit up there a long time without running out of ammo - at one point the aircraft is out of ammo and then somehow doesn’t have anything but missiles left to engage with - an AC-130 would likely still have ammo for other weapons on board and would switch to the 40mm or the 105.
But the easiest way to tell it’s not an AC-130 is the fact that it actually engaged targets that were not on the left side of the aircraft. The AC-130’s guns are all mounted on the port or left side of the aircraft and can only engage to the left. Targets to the front, rear or right side cannot be engaged by the guns of an AC-130.
Forgot to mention with an expected 10-12 meter CEP at angels 10, this setup wouldn’t even be good for go-fast boats.
FWIW that is not an AC-130. It’s an Apache Longbow.
1. It’s better than no fixed wing gunship.
2. IIRC, that is on par with the AC-130H’s Vulcan cannon.
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