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Typhoon gun question
From the Leuchars thread..
My civilian version of the story is as follows. Please correct me. Eurofighter design agreed UK MOD decides they don't want a gun UK Eurofighters to be fitted with concrete in space for gun Concrete wrong density for Centre of Gravity mmm Need a metal type thingy with same characteristics as original gun Realise that gun might be best gun-shaped metal type thingy But in light of No Gun Policy Decision... Buy gun, but make it unfireable and decide to buy no ammunition for gun-shaped metal thingy I retell this story as true. Please tell me that I haven't been lying :D :D |
Kiting for boys,
You have been fibbing I am afraid! |
But no pointy thingies that come out of front of gun-shaped metal thingy at a rate of knots.
Kiting for Boys, you haven't been lying. But, whatever you do, don't tell any future enemy that our fighters don't have useable gun-shaped metal thingies. |
... and its a lot cheaper to lob a missile at four scroats in the back of a Toyota pickup fitted with a .50cal, er ...sorry banging same drum.
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Typhoon gun question
This story was the basis for an episode of "Our brave boys" on Radio 4 last November. The story(comedy)line was as you report, only worse. Surely then, it must be true? Has anyone a recording of this or any other episodes of this very funny satire?
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Concrete and ballast parts not true, the economy was to cut down on range costs and use bogus training modes but we did not buy the loaders. Different loading system to Tonka although same basic gun and ammo.
Regards Retard |
Why a fighter aircraft without an operable gun? Seems a huge step back particularly after it was proven beyond any doubt that such aircraft need a gun and cannot rely upon missles alone.
Can someone provide the rationale behind that decision.....surely saving money on ranges and ammunition could not be it. Even the Airships are not that thick! |
Even the Airships are not that thick!
No, but the politicians are.... |
GBP30 per bullet says that money may be the answer.
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It maybe GBP 30 per 27mm round but seeing as its the same as Tornado ammo, I can't see the problem??
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It maybe GBP 30 per 27mm round but seeing as its the same as Tornado ammo, I can't see the problem?? 128 Tornado F3/GR4 @£30 per fast pointy thing fired = £nowhere near as much. |
Given the number of Unmanned Air Vehicles of all sizes projected to be encountered over the future battlefield, I hope the RAF is relearning the skill of 'tipping' UAVs. The economies of doing away with the gun begin rapidly dissapear once you start shooting Asraams at $100K UAVs...
I/C |
Didn't the Yanks go down this path many years ago with the introduction of the F4?
Anyway, what self-respecting fighter pilot would want to fly an aircraft without a gun?! |
Yes and got their arses handed to them often enough in Dogfights that they set up Top Gun.... and put guns on all their a/c...
While I'd much rather BVR, I loathe the idea of not having a back up at the merge. |
If money - i.e., 30 GBP per "fast pointy thing fired" is the problem, I have a solution:
Outsource it to India :E |
So, £30 per round is costly, is it?
And just how much is Bliar's adventurism with Bush's Viet Nam in Iraq costing? |
Surely the sensible solution is to have DPA's SA80 project team buy and support the gun?
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Outsource it to India Interesting thought, the Jag will be the last single-seat fighter in the RAF with a gun.:E |
Jaguar FIGHTER
How long before the first F3 geek decides to use the whole 'the Jaguar isn't a fighter!' argument?!
I give it till dusk! BV:E |
We have already in recent years in the RAF regretted not training AD pilots in strafe - first the AD Phantoms in Stanley were required to gain the ability and now the F3 needs to have the capability.
An aircraft with a gun is a very effective weapon and is more convincing against ground targets than either ASRAM or AMRAM. It's about time the politicians took military advice for a change. |
Maybe they'll see sense and either give the Typhoon F.1 proper guns or a gun pod....
Chances of any or all three hapening: 0.00% It's about time the politicians took military advice for a change. "Don\'t Worry, Prime Minister. We'll have that defence Budget cut implemeted right away! BTW, did the Queen say when she would make her desisions for this years honours yet?" |
It makes it nice and simple for the enemy though!
Typhoon without missiles on rails: German colours - run away you might get shot. RAF colours - who cares, it can't hurt you! |
Maybe they'll see sense and either give the Typhoon F.1 proper guns or a gun pod....
What is a Typhoon F1 when it's at home? Typhoon has a proper gun. It was good enough for the GR1/4 and F3. The gun is maintained. There just aren't any bullets. A little knowledge etc |
Maybe they'll see sense and either give the Typhoon F.1 proper guns or a gun pod.... |
A Typo I couldn't be arsed to change.
And I would've assumed it would be fairly easy to understand "Proper guns" meant ones with an available ammunition supply... :ok: |
Didn't the Yanks go down this path many years ago with the introduction of the F4? |
quote:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Didn't we with the Lightning? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yup, and the Sea Vixen:( |
The only winners in this debacle are EF GmBH - when the UK dropped the requirement for a gun, no doubt it was seen as a contract change and invoked financial penalties to the MOD. When it is eventually realised that a mistake was made and the UK want the gun again, industry will declare another contract change and demand another huge wad of dosh to re-implement the gun. Of course all they will have to do is slap a bit of WD40 around the assembly as the gun is already there as ballast, the flight test and clearances will probably already have been done for the other nations - kerrching, thank you very much Mr British Taxpayer for boosting the European partnership profits!
Ironic that when the decision to drop the gun from Typhoon was made by the 'airships', the Sea Harrier was strafing in Sierra Leone! SG |
Gainsy, see PMs
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Soiled G
Maybe I'm being over sensitive but, I feel that you think it is wrong of GmBH to charge for contract changes. They (and any company/contractor/business) are not a charity. They exist to make a profit for the shareholders pure and simple. Customer says how much will it cost to build this to this specification, company says this much, customer says OK, company starts work, customer changes specification, there has got to be additional cost. Some leeway exists and some horse trading goes on. There are equally large costs if the company fails to achieve any of the specifications (including delivery schedules). Those of us ex-mil folk working in the process do actually try our best to ensure that you guys get what you need as opposed to what the current spec (lagging reality) asks for. Honest broker between evil contracts department and the warfighters. Tarnished PS Have you seen the price of WD40 these days?!?!? |
Tarnished,
I didn't mean to hit a raw nerve about this subject - well I did because these boards are more fun when they get outspoken and controversial! I fully understand that contracts etc have to be honoured or penalised where the contract breaks down and that there is a financial aspect to all of this. As I said, the parent company will benefit from this due to the gross mis-management of the situation by the MOD. If the RAF wanted to save money all they had to do was disconnect the gun lead and not go off on jollies to Akrotiri every summer. Instead they hyped the whole thing stating publicly that Typhoon didn't need a gun in RAF service and what a money saving decision they were making. Unfortunately my experience is that the whole procurement business is centred around individuals (military) who are posted to a job, have no formal training on what they are doing, haven't a clue when faced with company lawyers over contract negotiations and then once they have made a name for themselves, they get posted off again while the project is half completed and are probably promoted as they got their name in lights for making a radical decision. The main problem is not with Industry - they just benefit (rightly or wrongly) from working with amateurs. Perhaps we should go down the US route of an Aquisition branch, whilst maybe not a popular posting it would at least provide continuity of Service people in the procurement world. I believe that the General in charge of JSF has actually been in the programme since he was a Lt Col - correct me if I am wrong - but that is continuity and is a far superior method of procurement to posting aviators and engineers for 2 year tours to Wyton and Abbey Wood. SG PS - shouldn't you be 'hunkering down' for the weekend? |
the Sea Harrier was strafing in Sierra Leone! |
SG
Couldn't agree with you more, its the system that needs changing. However, I'm not convinced the US approach is less costly in the long run. It is the long lifecycles that are the killer in my opinion. It takes too long to go from recognising there is a requirement, drafting the thing, staffing it, issuing an RFI/RFP, bidding, statement of work, contract funding, save a few pennies, re-spec the job, do the work, have the work evaluated at mock-up, DT and then OT levels with iterations at each level, safety case, then a stupidly restrictive clearance is issued to make sure that backsides are covered, meanwhile the world has moved on and new requirements have emerged. Frustrating. I could go on, but its an off-day here and your right SG I need to go out and secure all loose items around the property before Rita arrives. Looks like we are OK on this side of DFW. Tarnished |
For your amusement here is the official line fed to the Select Committee on Public Accounts :rolleyes:
Minutes of Evidence APPENDIX 2 Supplementary memorandum submitted by the Defence Procurement Agency 00-01/62 QUESTIONS 264 AND 306. BACKGROUND TO THE DECISION NOT TO EQUIP EUROFIGHTER WITH A GUN 7. Since the introduction of air-to-air missiles, a gun has been used in an air-to-air role for very close range engagements where the target was inside a short-range air-to-air missile's minimum range. Notably during the early years of the Vietnam war, the probability of kill in short-range engagements of the air-to-air missiles then available proved so low that the very modest capability of gun systems added significantly to overall effectiveness. The probability of success with guns has advanced little over the years[12]. By contrast, the performance of air-to-air missiles has improved dramatically. Indeed, in short-range engagements, the minimum range capability and agility of the missiles that Eurofighter will carry, together with its planned helmet-mounted sight targeting system, offers the pilot a shot with a very high probability of success in almost every conceivable situation. A gun could be seen as a defence of last resort when all the aircraft's missiles had been fired. However, even then the gun's usefulness would be severely limited because of the possibility of engagement by missile armed aircraft from well outside the gun's range. 8. Firing "warning shots across the bow" with a gun is not an effective means of coercion in modern operations. The cockpit environment of modern aircraft is such that the pilot is extremely unlikely to hear such warning shots and would only see them if they were tracer rounds. The value of such a display against a civilian aircraft is dubious and against a military aircraft it may well be misconstrued. 9. Against some threats, missiles may be susceptible to counter-measures employed by the opposing aircraft. However, ASRAAM has already proven itself against typical current countermeasure doctrines and is designed to overcome extreme levels of countermeasures. Even should an advanced hostile aircraft have decoyed Eurofighter's air-to-air missiles successfully, there is again little benefit in adding a gun to Eurofighter's armament. If the UK pilot were then to close on that hostile target to within the range of the gun, he would be placing the aircraft—and himself—at unnecessarily high risk of being shot down by the hostile aircraft's own missiles. Moreover, gun systems are not completely invulnerable to countermeasures, not least because most depend on accurate radar range 10. As for air-to-ground combat, it is worth noting that the original European Staff Requirement, signed by the Chiefs of Air Staffs from the partner nations in December 1985, specifies the gun only in an air-to-air role. So, even then, experienced airmen in the partner nations did not regard the gun as a valuable weapon for ground attack. It remains the view of experts that it is difficult to justify using the gun in Eurofighter's offensive support role, owing to:
12. The minimal combat value that the gun does provide is more than outweighed by the support, fatigue and training cost penalties of retaining it. Specific disadvantages of the gun include:
14. Our assessment remains that, in the future operational roles for which we require Eurofighter, the minimal value of a gun is more than outweighed by its considerable associated costs and disadvantages. EG |
S-G,
If the RAF wanted to save money all they had to do was disconnect the gun lead and not go off on jollies to Akrotiri every summer So, when the decision was made not to have a gun, the implications were 1) not fitting the gun and dropping the contract for supply and support of the gun, finding a replacement part that had the shape/CofG of a gun or 2) keep then gun but change the supporting contracts to cut costs. Now, if you want to change that set of contracts again, a) there is the commercial aspects of yet another contract change and b) the lead time aspects and costs of putting the support arrangements back in place. Constantly changing requirements, that is what p!sses industry off, and I can understand why folks like Tarnished get miffed. sw |
So exciuse my civilianised brain and clearly incorrect thinking and judgement - I mean I'm only an uneducated civvy, but if we dont need to / want to fight in a close range environment, why have we spent so much money on an agile fighter aircraft, when all we needed to do was build a platform to carry 20 AMRAAM / Meteor?
Surely shoving AMRAAM and ASRAAM on an F3 would have fulfilled the requirement they seem to be stating with the "no gun" arguement, and been a damn sight more cost effective? They try to argue that other aircraft that have a gun are older - errr F22, Sukhois, Rafale, etc?? What??? And the F35 not having a gun - whos requirement was that?? |
Now now, PP. You're working from the basis of logic. The MoD doesn't.
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Postman Plod, you are in danger of seeing right through the inconsistencies of argument so commonly used by our MOD staffs in pursuing the wrong course of action!
For an uneducated civvie you have a good grasp of reality! |
Oh FFS!
Agile ac + HMD + ASRAAM = all the capability you need close in iaw the Parliamentary answers provided by ex-Grunt High spec supersonic performance + AMRAAM (Meteor) + Sensors + Data Link + Sensor Fusion + (Supporting ROE) = all the capability you need BVR iaw the Parliamentary answers provided by ex-Grunt 1985 European Air Staff Requirement (20 years old! see my earlier post) did not call for air to ground gun. It you want a proper AG gun look to the A-10. You can only use short range guns A-G when the enemy have been pretty well eliminated. There are no inconsistencies to be "seen through" SODDIM Despite what you might think RAKSHASA there is plenty of logic in the MOD POSTMAN PLOD just how long do you think the F-3 is going to stay flying for? SAFEWARE hit the nail on the head and he speaks with knowledge of the truth. Folks, the days of unlimited defence budgets are long gone, the RAF today is (in manpower terms alone) exactly one third the size it was when I joined 25 years ago (and nearly 60% the size it was when I left 8 years ago). That is only 5 years before Typhoon's ESR was written. So don't be surprised if a few things aren't perfect, but rest easy in the knowledge that since time began the frontline RAF has done wonderful things with the hand it was dealt. The Great British stiff upper lip and a spot of skill and cunning always seem to win the day. In 1986 I did a NATO exchange with my Lightning Sqn and an NL based USAF F-15 sqn, The plaque on the photo we gave them said quite simply: "With your kit and our ability....!" In Typhoon we now have our own "Kit" to be proud of. Tarnished |
I dont think anyone's calling into question the combat effectiveness of the Typhoon, Tarnished. It's a damn fine aircraft but past experience has shown that missiles are not fool proof. Even the latest generation. Has ASRAAM been fired in anger enough yet for us to be really sure of it ability?
Sure, the gun is relatively crap as a modern a/c weapon but better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. |
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