I'm willing to bet all those several hundreds (thousands even?) of Oerlikon 20mm weren't so much clapped out as they were scrapped out.

There probably were, post-WW2, more and more of them crated up as the USN, RN, and others started wider adoption of 40mm Bofors guns in twin, quad, even 8 gun mounts, as well as the 76mm automatic guns with their early proximity fuzed ammo (at the time, the engineers could only manage to get a functional fuze down to 76mm sized.

 

Sure, there were numerous second- and third-tier navies that would've kept some 20mm's around, but as SAMs became more commonplace, those guns most likely found either the scrap heap & were smeltered down, or became part of some landfill or coral reef somewhere.

 

Matter of fact, the current German Navy did use 20mm guns until fairly recently, but Rheinmetall Rh202 derivatives I believe.

Those and the 40mm guns, on just about every German Navy vessel equipped so, have been replaced by the BK27 in its MLG27 naval mount, or are in the process of doing so now.

 

(MLG 27 link direct from Rheinmetall DeTec)

 

From time to time, we've gotten into numerous debates on here about ship gunnery.

 

I always liked the "Chicago Piano", the quad 28mm Hudson gun, used in the early days of WW2 by the USN. Apparently a real POS by what can be found about it,

but my imagination getting the better of me suggests a modern variant, but as a quad BK27 mount instead...

 

On a few occasions, 25mm guns came up, and I mentioned the now-defunct 25mm ADEN gun that the UK was developing for their AV-8B variants. Development there fell thru, but not before I discovered (late 1980s-early1990s?) two different CIWS proposals.

One was a quad (barrels arranged 2 up, 2 across) system called Sea Dragon or Sea Draken or something of the sort.

Another was called Trident and featured three guns (made me think of the WW2 Japanese triple 25mm mountings, whicheven if somewhat successful, were also POS's compared to Allied AA guns (20 & 40mm).

 

Everyone knows of Phalanx,

but how many know of the Spanish Navy's Meroka, a 12-barrel behemoth (two rows of six barrels each). ?

I understand its operational principle (how all twelve barrels actually work together), but I want to watch it for myself to believe it actually does work!

Here's an interesting website on Spanish Navy CIWS, (it's in Spanish, though, and Babelfish just don't do it justice for you English-only folks).   http://www.militar.org.ua/mili...

 

It mentions development at one time of a 30mm Meroka, with 16 barrels arranged in a 4x4 layout.

I would love to see how the reloading would be done there, and how fast.

pulled from Bug via T5C .......

 

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As if this new Merkava Mk IV BAZ is not armed enough, we now have a LASER gun added to the R-OWS (Remote Over Head Weapons System) that is able to defeat and 'neutralize' Both IED and the newer EFP road side anti vehicle bombs. This system saw combat last year on Merkava APC's called Namer (Leopard) and was successfully deployed and neutralized many Hezbo road side devices. It is now being installed on Stryker and Up-Armed HUMVEE vehicles in both Iraq & Afghanistan as well as Merkava Mk IV BAZ MBT's right on the Tel Hashomer assembly line outside Tel Aviv.


THOR R-OWS with Chain Gun and Chemical anti IED Laser Gun

Why don't we keep the Bofors from the Fremantle Class.  I was watching Sea Patrol, potentially the finest drama about the Navy, since JAG.

 

With two shots they achieved quite spectacular results, huge explosion, disabled the ships engine room and two bad guys managed to walk out unscathed and surrender.

 

Surely the Bofor's is a much better piece of kit.

 

 

The Navy is going 25mm Typhoon and 50 cal Mini Typhoon in a big way. Having seen them in action I'm more than satisfied that they would work a treat on some fast moving trouble makers.

Well maybe if the dibbies stayed in school longer than year 4 they might have been able to get a more interesting job.

 

They can still man the rails with their Styers and minimi's to repel boarders though.

In discussions of the GECAL .50, I had understood the .50 cartridge to be ballistically superior to the 20mm round; flatter shooting or longer ranged, perhaps.  Might this be a consideration?