Gun Cannon on F-22 and F-35

I have been reading the AviationWeek 2007 Source book and I came across a little tid bit. They had stated that the F-22 was sporting a 20 mm gun cannon and the F-35 was sporting a 30 mm gun cannon.

I thought both aircraft were going to be equipped with a 27 mm gun cannon.

Can anyone confirm the information? I'm looking around, but it's very iffy.

Shattered OUT...

According to the book Modern American Weapons, both the F-22 and the F-35 carry an M-61A2 Volcan 20mm Cannon.

Tim

Well global secruity seems to be pretty clear on the issue.

www.globalsecurity.org...

M61A2 20-mm Cannon
The F-22's close-range weapon is the M61A2 20mm cannon and its associated components. The M61 is a proven gun, having been the U. S. military's close-in weapon of choice dating back to the 1950s. The F-104, F-105, later models of the F-106, F-111, F-4, B-58, all used the M61, as does the Air Force's current F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the Navy's F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet. The system is integrally mounted in the aircraft and located on the right side of the aircraft between the wing (top side) and fuselage. It is a fixed-forward firing mount. A gun door, located in the wing root area, is hydraulically controlled to open when firing the gun, which allows the rounds and blast pressure to clear the muzzle. A 480-round closed loop ammunition feed and storage subsystem is housed integrally under the right wing root/fuselage for easy ammo upload and download of empty casings. The gun system consists of the M61A2 gun, the Linear Linkless Ammunition Handling System (LLAHS), the hydraulic drive system, and the gun door/gun port and gas purge system.

As for the F-35 it appears that global security has info on all 3 version. For the main F-35A (CTOL) it will be an internally mounted 25mm gun on the left intact. The F-35B (STVOL) will have the option for a belly mounted 25mm gun in a stealthy housing and finally the F-35C (CV) will also have the same belly mounted 25mm housing.

Like the F-35B, it also will have a stealthy, missionized 25 mm belly gun. The combat radius on internal fuel will be greater than 700 NM- again, more than twice the range of the aircraft it is designed to replace."
"The F-35B will have a stealthy, belly-mounted 25 mm missionized gun pod and a combat radius of more than 450 NM- nearly two times that of legacy STOVL strike fighters."
"F-35A with an internal 25 mm gun mounted on the left intake shoulder and a combat radius of more than 600 nautical miles

www.globalsecurity.org...

Mod Edit: External Source Tags – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 10/2/2007 by Mirthful Me]

Just looked at my copy of the 2007 AWST Source Book and.....


The F-35 In all incarnations will have a 27mm cannon.
The F-22 has the M61A2 20 mm as noted above (one thing to remember is that the design for the F-22 was frozen a long time ago)

Re: F-35

As you might expect, the U.S. MIB decided it would be 'so wise' to not only jam a stealth killing external scab fairing overtop an already densely packed airframe but to skip on the lightweight 27mm Mauser (originally intended) and switch to the GAU-12U or a derivative with all of 250 rounds onboard.

Even accounting for the new caliber ammunition stock build, this was ridiculous.

Can we say NIH?

Ask any pilot anywhere if he would rather have a gun or the equivalent weight in missiles and gas and he will tell you the latter. The truly ironic part being that the 'CAS variant' has the GAU as a scabon option extra. While the dedicated strike variant has it built in.

Onboard 112 million dollar jets, guns are useful. But only when their bullets are made of light.


KPl.

Thanks for the help guys, as for ch1466, bro you didn't answer any of my questions, you just told me your opinion of it which didn't show any form of facts at all. The only thing you've stated was that the F-35 was going to be loaded with the GAU-12U(which is stated in the book).

What does NIH stand for and what does "scabon" mean?

From what I've read the the Gun pod mounted on the Marine variant doesn't necessarily degrade the F-35's stealth by too much so it wasn't that much of a loss to stick it on there.

Hello shattered, NIH (if kurt is using it in the accepted sense, and it seems he is) is short for Not Invented Here. NIH was first used, in my experience, when the USAF turned down the Tornado in 1978, but could have been used long before as far as I know. It refers to the US reluctance to import foreign designed equipment, even after it has been shown to be the best available for the job. Kurt is referring to the 27mm Mauser cannon intended for the F-35 being of German origin. It is already the standard gun in the Tornado and Typhoon.

'scabon' seems to be a kurtism derived from the phrase 'scabbed on', ie stuck on to the design as an afterthought and not integrated from the start.

I'm sure I'll be corrected if I am wrong.

Thanks for the clarification.

Shattered OUT...

reply to post by ShatteredSkies


the F-35 has a GAU-8 minimgun(gattling gun)and the F-22 has a M61 Vulcan which also is a type of minimgun(gattling gun)

reply to post by waynos


The USAF never even needed the Tornado, so not sure why you are making a criticism that they turned it down mistakenly when it was the best.

The two main USAF acquisition programs as the time were the F-15 and the F-16, which of those would it have been better as? Or did you mean the other combat airframe at the time being made, the A-10?

The USAF had the F-111 at the time, which was more than capable, and carried more iron then the Tornado.