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The answer as always is, it depends. Some are in favor of putting the GAU-8 on the new gunship, while another camp is DEAD set against that COA. An understanding of gunship employment is important because they way a Gunpig would use the 30MM is very different from the way a Hawg would. Nothing against the A-10 but they are obviously limited to forward strafe so they make gun runs using very accurate high volume short bursts. The Gunpig is always over the target and always pointed at the target (always in the bad guy WEZ as well), so it does not need the same high volume delivery. A-10 bubbas please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe you employ the GAU-8 AT 6,000 RPM...while the 30MM and 40MM shoot MUCH slower (200 RPM and 100 RPM respectively). Even when the AC-130H's had the 20MM there were "slowed to a respectable 2500 RPM because there were seen as suppression weapons. When I learned to shoot my old head IPs would have me spell my name in the dirt with the 20MMs so I could develop the fine muscle memory need to employ the 20MMs in a dynamic situation or against a mover. Employment of the 30MM and 40MM is much different, while you can put the guns into a rapid mode and sling a lot of rounds, it is usually better to act as a high volume sniper and that can shoot in VERY close proximity. On one rotation in Afganistan I was supporting a team that was about to be overrun, I ended up shooting the bad guys at about 17 meters, a lot of pucker factor but the slow, steady, accurate volume of fire from the 40MM made it the ideal weapon for that particular fight. The 40MM and 30MM (MK-44), are also very good in urban environments. On many occasions our guys would get wrapped up in house to house fighting and we would be forced to engage a target on the other side of a street...sometime the other side of a wall. If there is a draw back to the 30MM and the 40MM its that you usually need a direct hit to kill someone. Yes they throw frag and often the frag will wound, but we learned early on that the bad guys would go to ground and even though it looked like the frag was taking them out, we would come back a few minutes later to scan the area and the bad guys would crawl away. We changed our tactics and had a montra in the squadron, "shoot until they leak." No...a common myth was that the 20MMs would slow and "tumble...in reality as the threat drove employment to higher altitude and thus longer slant rangers, the velocity decay of the bullet resulted in a loss of enough kinetic energy to cause detonation at impact. The old 20MM fuses were very safe, I've been on the range with EOD types would will reach down and pick them up barehanded, I've actually seen dudes juggle undetonated 20MM's. The 25MM on the other hand is a different beast. The same EOD guys who would handle 20MMs on the range would see a 25MM, place a red flag, and keep a wide birth away from the projective.

It depends. If you arrive around the time all the recent Academy grads show up, the dorms can't handle everyone, and they issue a blanket statement allowing you to move off base (thus receiving BAH) right away. If the Academy rush has quieted down, you put your name on a waiting list to move off base. As a reference point, I arrived in January, and was on the wait list to move off base for about a week. Call the Cherokee Inn. The staff is helpful and knowledgeable on this topic.

I honestly think your going to start working against yourself with bigger bullets. Look at the 30 vs 20, you've got 70mm more casing and propellant to get that round to what is essentially the same muzzle velocity as a 20mm. Granted you keep it longer (like any bigger weight bullet will) but now step up again to a 40mm. How big is that casing going to have to be to get to 3500 fps. He old L70 round for the boffors was nearly 400mm long and it's actually slower than your round. Then start figuring out how big the gun to take that massive recoil has to be, oh and we want high rate of fire to give you a good beating zone vs dispersion so we need multiple barrels. No standard breech is going to handle that much chamber pressure while maintaining high rates of fire (gotta keep the breach locked momentarily to dissipate pressure or it might grenade). At some point you hit diminishing returns. Despite what most people would think thanks to pacific rim you can't just take the Gau-8 and multiply all the measurements x1.5 and make a 40mm avenger.

Your not going to get the kind of high velocity high density effect with a Bushmaster family of 30m, at least not the one off the Apache. Your talking 2640fps at the muzzle. It's a low velocity gun for us because you can only handle so much recoil on the gun cradle with it being a turret and not hard mounted. I try to tell people all the time it's less a gun and more a grenade launcher. Now it does give you lots of greater non/light armor ability when it comes to target effect. 4m burst radius with good fragmentation against soft targets, and enough thump to punch into light armor like a BMP and start fires/set off ammunition. We even have an air burst round in the works to get over the loss of fragmentation in that moon dust in Afghanistan (Test results are insane). Still end of the day it's not an anti tank gun. The 25mm on the Bradley/LAV will however chew up tanks (except front mantlet) with the AP loads. But if you've seen how big a Bradley's turret is, that's because the chamber and recoil requirements are so much greater with that guns recoil. The Bushmaster II is modeled off that but your talking a lot of gun to try and fit on a plane that isn't a cargo aircraft. Plus your not talking volume of fire like you get out of 200-300rd trigger pull burst. While we are playing hypothetical A-X program requirements, arguably with the Hawgs history slinging stuff like Maverick and systems like Brimstone or whenever we get JAGM out and working do we need to go as heavy concentration on the gun needing to kill a T-72 from high angle, or would it be better to take a gun that's effective against anything up to an MBT, more effective against softer targets (because explosions woot) and packs more ammo for the game while saving weight for stuff like missiles and gas.

I think what you're missing is that there isn't an empty A-10 factory just sitting idle, waiting for someone to turn the lights back on. The real solution is to build a new and improved attack aircraft, without an asinine vtol requirement ruining everything.

Hoss, He clearly stated that in 10 years' time, the F-16 will be a flying target and that the F-35 is the answer to that. My understanding has always been that the F-35's key role was never intended to be CAS - it was intended to be a door kicker on Day1 in a denied, double-digit SAM environment. No other airframe in the Air Force inventory can do that (at least, not in the white world inventory), so isn't that really what the F-35 must excel at? If the F-35 is 'as good as' existing MDSs at CAS (and I note your caveats about that), but will be able to operate in a highly-advanced threat environment a decade from now, and if the Air Force has decided that it doesn't have the cash to splash on single-mission aircraft, then what is the solution?

Today would have been Rich's 42nd birthday. We still miss you, brother!

Is "Rape Me" by Nirvana on the playlist?

F-8C wing failure at the fold mechanism, in case anyone was interested.