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Subject: Daytime Gunships Galore
SYSOP    11/29/2012 5:38:16 AM
 
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Reactive       12/3/2012 1:42:56 PM


You're right, I was talking about the Howitzer, I'm sure you've seen this video but it might be worth looking (particularly from the 5 minute mark) at the gunners repeatedly failing to hit a running target.
 
Just one further drawback between firing a gun from ~10 - 20,000ft - the inability of a shell to "update" guidance to follow a moving target makes several seconds of forward allowance necessary which is clearly (watch the video) difficult enough with a human target let along a vehicle moving at ~50mph. 
 
I might easily be wrong, I'm not making any bones about that, just, it seems to me that the claims of gunnery being as accurate as PGM's is wrong on several levels. Even assuming that the gunnery had the same CEP as a modern PGM, being forced to operate ~10,000ft to maintain that accuracy makes the aircraft vulnerable to AA fire. 
 
 
 
 
 
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wastral    This I believe..   12/4/2012 11:26:43 PM
This I believe is what they are developing guided 70mm rockets for...  Though that is effectively what Brimstone, etc already are.
 
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wastral    This I believe..   12/4/2012 11:31:02 PM
Oops, forgot to paste this into my post...  Uh hem, senior moment. 
 
So, uh why can't they update said C130 to fire Excalibur shells?  Seems a no brainer from my perspective.  Would then only be limited by the optics targeting system ability to triangulate on the fly and update said shell. I believe they already have said triangulation software embedded into their optics...  Now just the link to the shell.  Surely they have thought of this.  Maybe the breach isn't large enough to accept Excalibur shells...
 
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WarNerd       12/5/2012 3:29:35 AM
Oops, forgot to paste this into my post...  Uh hem, senior moment. 
 
So, uh why can't they update said C130 to fire Excalibur shells?  Seems a no brainer from my perspective.  Would then only be limited by the optics targeting system ability to triangulate on the fly and update said shell. I believe they already have said triangulation software embedded into their optics...  Now just the link to the shell.  Surely they have thought of this.  Maybe the breach isn't large enough to accept Excalibur shells...
Excalibur rounds are 155mm. The howitzer on the AC-130 Gunship is 105mm.
 
It definitely will not fit. And there is no way the plane can survive firing a 155mm howitzer.
 
And the Excalibur rounds are more expensive than missiles
 
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wastral    Oi   12/5/2012 3:47:31 PM
Oi, forgot they got the baby howitzer instead of the standard on there...  Oops!
 
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Reactive       12/5/2012 8:00:44 PM
Excalibur is about $50-80k per unit, apparently as a result of total order no's being drastically cut - it seems to me that every system has a trade-off - accuracy, flight time-to-target, angle of impact, reliability etc - while Hellfire and similar systems come at a hefty price-tag it's hard to deny they offer a capability that is likely to be very hard to replace, especially at being able to reliably neutralise targets that represent an immediate threat.
 
R
 
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