RVG said:
thanx very much machan im asking about the best military gun in the world.. sumthing like a big gun u know
probably the A-10 then. Its practically a flying gun.
A 10 weapons system :
Weapon systems
The A-10's GAU-8 Avenger gun.
Although the A-10 can carry considerable disposable stores, its primary built-in weapon is the
30 mm GAU-8/A Avenger Gatling gun. One of the most powerful aircraft cannons ever flown, it fires large
depleted uranium armor-piercing shells. In the original design, the pilot could switch between two rates of fire: 2,100 or 4,200 rounds per minute;
[19] this was changed to a fixed rate of 3,900 rounds per minute.
[20] The cannon takes about half a second to come up to speed, so 50 rounds are fired during the first second, 65 or 70 rounds per second thereafter. The gun is consistently accurate; it can place 80% of its shots within a 40-foot (12.4 m) circle from 4,000 feet (1,220 m) while in flight.
[21] The GAU-8 is optimized for a slant range of 4,000 feet (1,220 m) with the A-10 in a 30 degree dive.
[22]
Another view of the A-10's GAU-8 installation.
The fuselage of the aircraft is built around the gun.
[23] For example, the nose wheel is offset to the right so that the gun's firing barrel at the 9 o'clock position is aligned on the aircraft's centerline. The gun's drum holds 1,174 rounds of 30 mm ammunition.
[22] The early A-10s carried 1,350 rounds, but were replaced because the helix was susceptible to damage during loading.[
citation needed] The 1,174-round drums were reinforced. The damage caused by a portion of those rounds firing prematurely due to impact of an explosive shell would be catastrophic. It is for this reason that a great deal of effort has been taken to protect the 5 ft (1.52 m) wide, 9 ft (2.74 m) long drum. There are many plates of differing thicknesses between the skin and the drum. These plates are called trigger plates because when an explosive shell hits a target it first penetrates its armor, then detonates. As the drum has many layers of thin armor, the shell's detonation is triggered before reaching the drum. A final layer of armor around the drum itself protects it from fragmentation damage. The gun is loaded by Syn-Tech's linked tube carrier GFU-7/E 30 mm ammunition loading assembly cart; a vehicle unique to the A-10 and GAU-8.
A-10 30 mm GAU-8 Gatling gun
A-10 Thunderbolt II fully loaded.
Another commonly used weapon is the
AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missile, with different variations for either electro-optical (TV-guided) or infra-red targeting. The Maverick allows targets to be engaged at much greater ranges than the cannon, a safer proposition in the face of modern anti-aircraft systems. During
Desert Storm, in the absence of dedicated
forward-looking infrared cameras, the Maverick's infra-red camera was used for night missions as a "poor man's FLIR". Other weapons include
cluster bombs and
Hydra rocket pods. Although the A-10 is equipped to deliver
laser-guided bombs, their use is relatively uncommon; at the low altitudes and speeds of typical A-10 operations, standard unguided bombs provide adequate accuracy at far lower cost. In any event, the guided weapons would provide little benefit, as there would be nearly no time for the weapons to steer onto a target. A-10s usually fly with an ALQ-131
ECM pod under one wing and two
AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles under the other for self-defense.
