Forum: F-35 Armament, Stores and Tactics

IMHO extremely difficult. If you read about the history of revolver cannons, they are extremely finicky pieces of equipment. The tolerances needed for it to work are extremely tight, the heat transfer problems are a nightmare, and the parts are all pushed to limit of their performance. Even tiny problems will cause it to seize up. Usually those types of cannons seem to take around 10 years of devel0pment and testing to get right. Changing the round will essentially require a new design as everything is finely tuned to a particular round. A BK-27 25mm would not be a "clean sheet" design but probably most of the parts would have to change (I think).

ADEN actually started the design of a 25mm revolver cannon based on their 30mm design and just gave up because it wasn't working and was costing to much to develop.

One of the 'hidden' advantages of the GAU-22 is that rotary cannons are a lot easier to get working reliably.

For instance a F35A in a ground attack role. Would is be possible an external pod with a cannon extra?
In that case, 182 +220 rounds > 402 rounds of ammo

(The F16 has a 20 mm vulcan with 500 rounds of ammo)

That would be wasting a lot of weight on the extra gun.

A Zuni could take out a small surface combatant For the thread, I favor a 21 Hydra/APKWS combination over a gun pod. Say:

1) our guys are cut off and pinned down by one or more enemy platoons advancing. 18 Hydra containing 2k flechettes apiece plus 3 APKWS. When the call arrives, F-35 pilot paints a skirmish line on his map and the line configures to six rockets with overlapping cones totaling 10k or more fast arrows. Pilot authorizes and the aircraft flies to the release points and yaws automatically launching and places each Hydra in the proper space to accomplish its job. At least 3 waves of Hydra available and the noisy flechettes pinning everything around I'd imagine would be intimidating. APKWS <1m CEP for snipers, leaders, radiomen, AD, mortars etc. A single F-35 with a gun can't do all that, and a skilled enemy can calculate available gun rounds.

2) pirates and contraband runners. Above Igla range, separate the engine from the vessel, inboard/outboard this just doesn't matter. An idiot still blasting away at you, get him with a single round and preserve the evidence. Guns miss or they chew up too much.

With last ditch aerial combat a gun has proven useful. Mostly because our rockets at the time had limited capabilities. Stuff changes. For modern CAS, I think rockets or precision coasters will produce better results and this explains why Spooky with its precision guns has been augmented with rockets. 0.02

As well the British noticed they need a cannon in their Typhoons for ground attack

As a lurker on the board for some time I have followed the choice of cannon on the A-model migrate from the BK27 to the GAU-22, I wondered how difficult would it have been for Mauser to change the BK-27 to the 25mm NATO Standard round? Obviously there was a political dimension to the weapon choice in the end, however I can't help but wonder whether the BK-27 was a victim of it being an additional burden on the supply chain unlike the GAU-22? Which creates the greater problem decreasing the calibre or decreasing the rounds length?

My experience as a ground pounder with weapons such as the FN SCAR (5.56 and 7.62mm interchangeable through the swap of some parts) would lead me to hypothesise that as you're moving to a smaller round in the BK-27, this should be possible, however, as there are many greater minds than mine at work on this board, I thought I'd ask the question?

Thanks in advance

Badmash

As a 2LT, I started out as a Vulcan platoon leader. Those things were a lot of fun and awesome in the ground mode, not enough range vs ordnance release lines to be useful in AA mode though. I will say, you are right about one thing, they are finicky machines. In fighters however, the forced air cooling they get does mitigate the heat transfer problem you spoke of almost entirely.

Conversion would be tough no doubt. It would come down to how much you wanted to spend.

With a rotary cannon like the Vulcan, you get the disadvantage of having the weight of multiple barrels, but you get the advantage of getting the extra heat sink capacity of multiple barrels. Revolvers don't have that advantage.