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Had to start a new thread, again, hope this explains things.

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posted on Jan, 1 2008 @ 01:02 AM
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This is the point of origin;


I like the Russian styling of aircraft design, but I don't think I have ever seen a Russian aircraft that didn't look like it wasn't the bastard child of some American or British aircraft!


Sorry mate, I suggest you look into development timelines/strategies and rethink your position.


The only exception is that I think when the A-10 was hot, it looked tougher than ANYTHING else out there.


www.abovetopsecret.com...

Again, sorry but for as long as I’ve been on ATS, the same patter is occurring again and again, ATS patrons always seem ending up comparing apples to oranges over and over. Propaganda at its best.

That’s because A-10 was literally built around GAU-8, while Russians traditionally concentrated on the total airframe (see IL-2 Shturmovik legacy), and they already had an excellent twin barreled GSh-30-2 which offers the same firepower at less then one third of the GAUs weight.

GSh-30-2 delivers INSTANT 3000 rof while GAU has to spin up its heavy 7 barrels to its current maximum 3200 rof.

Empty weight of GSh-30-2 (9-А-623) is 105 kg, GAU-8 is 281 kg.

GAU-8s main DU round is PGU-14/B, its total weight is 735 grams with 425 gram projectile.

Full ammo load of 1,350 rounds is a staggering 992 kg or 8 kilos short of a full TON.

The entire GAU-8 gun system with a fully loaded drum weighs colossal 1,830 kilos, or almost 2 tons.

With out the ammo, complete GAU-8 weapon system which includes the feed system and ammo drum weighs absolutely unreal 838 kilos, or 1847 lb.

In comparison complete GSh-30-2 system weighs only 231 lb, while delivering more instant firepower with out throwing out live rounds because it’s not a rotary.

Standard SU-25 ammo load is 250 rounds which include BP-30-GSh AP rounds. Ammo load was designed to provide 5 one second bursts, and that was calculated from the average over the target flight time and corresponding ammo load sufficient enough to engage 5 armored targets after dedicated guided and unguided munitions were expended, and that’s only if AAA and MANDAP SAM threats have been previously eliminated by cluster bomb runs.

Typical, traditional, time proven and honored hit and run.



In contrast, A-10 was designed to loiter over the hostile territory in a hunter/killer role, and after it uses up all of its guided/unguided load it’s to use its massive ammo load to bust Soviet armor point blank, which in reality is simply ludicrous since the very core of Soviet armored/mechanized infantry tactics is based on extremely dense AAA/SAM support.

Russians do have their own 30mm rotary GSh-6-30, which is unlike GAU-8 is gas operated thus by default outperforming GAU-8 technologically by not suffering from long spin up time and ejection of live rounds during spin down, but it was still judged to be just too large for a small and nimble ground attack aircraft like SU-25.

Ballistics of the Russian 30mm round fired from GSh-30-2 is slightly inferior to GAU-8, but when fired from longer barreled GSh-20-2K and GSh-6-30 there isn’t any difference worth talking about.

Russian 30mm (and other) rounds are electronically fired by a 27 volt system, so typical primer misfires have been completely eliminated.

Other then the usual array of AP/HE/shrap/incendiary/tracer rounds in all flavors, an unusual ME (multi-element) 30mm round is regularly mixed in the loads. ME round contains 28 bullets which are knocked out of its canister after being fired, thus creating a massive shotgun like effect.

ME rounds are usually loaded into MI-24P gunship GSh-20-2K load since it’s specifically tasked with clearing out infantry.

GSh-20-2K also employs variable rof modes, allowing it to switch between 2000-2600 and 300-400 rof with 940 m/s muzzle velocity.

GAU-8s 30mm is a 30X173, while Russian 30mm has a slightly shorter casing classifying it as 30X165, it is actually a bit taller because of its stretching casing neck design and heavier/longer projectile.

30X165 HEI projectile weighs 390 grams, while 30X173 HEI weighs 360, but does hold 15% HE content verses 12.4 HE content of the Russian round.

Through out history Russians put less HE in their rounds in order to give extra penetrating punch.

Russian 30mm HEI weighs 830 grams verses 890 grams of the GAU, and its lower 830 m/s muzzle velocity is measured by firing it from shorter barreled guns, while full length barreled versions provide 940 m/s at the muzzle, yet it still falls short of fas 1,080 m/s of the 30X173.

In terms of power, American 30mm round scores 97 points verses 75 of the Russian round, which in real life conditions is so negligible that it’s not a deciding factor.

GIATs 30M791 30x150B round scores 77 points on power level, but most of it comes from high HE content which severely limits it’s penetrating power.

This is where it gets interesting. Ever since WWII Russian have extensive experience with Yak-9T fighter mounted automatic 37mm and Yak-9K automatic 45mm cannons.

Such power was simply devastating, and experienced pilots were able to completely demolish ANY flying target with a single hit. I’ve read Soviet pilot diaries which time and time again showed how effective large caliber canons were, and by using UBS MG for aiming, as soon as the pilot saw strikes on the enemy plane one pull of the big gun trigger destroyed the enemy completely.

Both 37mm and 40mm were extensively used on German heavy armor with devastating effect.

This is where the main question still stands. Dedicated IL-2 Shturmoviks delivered their HEAT rockets and bombs, and then hit German armor from behind with hard hitting 23mm auto cannons, all while a single well placed a shot from a 37/40mm Yak cannon could take out a King Tiger with out all of the fuss.

Same applies to the SU-25/A-10.

Currently they rely on automatic cannon fire to saturate the target with DU/AP rounds, but even then Russians considered it to be obsolete and ineffective tactic remnant of the WWII.

During the early 80s a secret project code named TBK-700 was initiated specifically for the SU-25T tank killer.

It was smoothbore 45mm cannon firing an active-reactive shell.

By the end of the 80s the project was completed and fully tested. It proved to be an absolutely devastating weapon system which flat out outperformed any form of auto cannon solution.

FCS provided Constantly Computed Impact Point (CCIP), interfaced with flight control system and automatically trimmed out the approach for the pilot so he can concentrate on the target.

FCS used dual firing mode, automatic and semi-automatic. In auto mode upon reaching firing solution the FCS engages auto guns trigger and fired the gun, yet still allowing the pilot to manually fire and place follow up shots if the target was still in the kill zone.

In field tests auto mode engagement repeatedly destroyed armored targets such as tank and bunkers with a single “pilot assisted” shots.

Future development planned incorporation of FBW system with FCS so the pilot would only need to choose the target and from that point system automation would completely take over the process.

FCS worked the target while FBW guided the dive and when everything lined up, the gun fired completely automatically, and then the pilot could choose to take manual control to escape the area or allow for pre-programmed FBW escape maneuver.

KA-50 is said to use a similar system to engage multiple targets with its massive 30mm BMP-2 cannon. AP rounds put to armored targets and then auto switch to ME mix to suppress infantry with a hail of bullets, all done instantly and automatically by FCS and FBW, all while on the move and flying sideways.

Here are some basic examples of large cal rounds;

www.quarry.nildram.co.uk...



posted on Jan, 1 2008 @ 12:26 PM
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Good post Iskander but I'm not too sure about what you are trying to say.

Are you saying the Su 27 Frogfoot is better than the A10 Thunderbolt II?

You may like to know, but I'm sure you did already, that OSNAZ (KGB SpecOps) photographed the plans for the aircraft that eventually became the Frogfoot, whilst they were in the hands of the Planning Committee in the Pentagon.



posted on Jan, 1 2008 @ 02:47 PM
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nice post iskander.

I dont know allot about current cannon tech and the effectiveness but what you put out seems to be reasonable.

photographing the A10 plans makes perfect sense if you can really. You can only learn from a thing like that.



posted on Jan, 1 2008 @ 09:23 PM
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reply to post by fritz
 




Good post Iskander but I'm not too sure about what you are trying to say.

Are you saying the Su 27 Frogfoot is better than the A10 Thunderbolt II?


Nope, yet again I’m saying that there’s no point comparing apples to oranges.

SU-25 follows in the footsteps of IL-2s great legacy and was designed from ground up, while A10 was designed from what was already available. Like its engines for example.


You may like to know, but I'm sure you did already, that OSNAZ (KGB SpecOps) photographed the plans for the aircraft that eventually became the Frogfoot, whilst they were in the hands of the Planning Committee in the Pentagon.


Wow fritz, I don’t know where you get that from.

OSNAZ means “otdel Osobova Naznacheniya”, or “department for special purposes”.

NKVD/KGB/FSB have noting to do with tech espionage. It’s an apparatus that deals with internal “problems”, and they surely do not lurk in the halls of Pentagon with cameras.

MVD also has its own OSNAZ, so does SVR.

For what kind of problems OSNAZ really deals with, look into Alpha group and why it was disbanded after the Moscow theater hostage crisis.

As for your notion that SU-25 originated from the documents stolen from the Planning Committee, I really don’t know how you figure that, because the history behind SU-25 goes all the way back to WWIIs IL-2 Shturmovik.

Here’s a site which describes in detail how SU-25 came to be;

www.faqs.org...


[1] SU-25 ORIGINS

• The Soviets were pioneers in the design of dedicated battlefield close support aircraft, or "Shturmoviks (Storm Birds)" as they called them. They implemented experimental designs before World War II that led up to the heavily armored and armed Ilyushin "Il-2" and its improved derivative, the "Il-10", which were the backbone of Red Army tactical close air support through the war.


Here’s the real deal;


The Il-40 was then cancelled on 18 April 1956, on the direct orders of Premier Nikita Kruschev. Kruschev wanted to focus on long-range missiles to defend the USSR so he could draw down conventional forces and reallocate resources to improving the standard of living for Soviet citizens. One of the prototypes and five additional airframes that were under construction were scrapped, as was the production tooling. The USSR officially forgot about jet Shturmoviks for over a decade.

* The Americans helped revive the Soviet jet Shturmovik. The Vietnam War was a wake-up call to the US military, demonstrating that the flashy futuristic technologies developed in the 1950s didn't always do the job in a dirty war fought in the jungle and mud. One of the lessons learned there was that rugged, relatively slow, heavily-armed attack aircraft, such as the Douglas "A-1 Skyraider", were much better suited to mudfighting than supersonic fighter-bomber aircraft.

In March 1967, the US Air Force launched their "Attack Experimental (AX)" competition to build their own dedicated American jet Shturmovik. The effort eventually led to the Fairchild "A-10 Warthog". Soviet military officials followed AX program closely. Warsaw Pact exercises in 1967 also helped revive Soviet interest in a jet Shturmovik. The next year, the Ilyushin OKB pulled the plans for the Il-40 out of their files and modernized the design slightly to come up with the "Il-42". The Sukhoi OKB also got into the act, initiating their own jet Shturmovik project in March 1968.

The Sukhoi team was led by the bureau's Oleg Samolovich and worked from a general specification developed by I.V. Savchenko, commandant of the VVS (Soviet Air Force) air academy. The Sukhoi aircraft was to be powered by twin Ivchenko-Lotarev AI-25T engines with 17.2 kN (1,750 kgp / 3,870 lbf) thrust each, and would have a maximum speed of up to 800 KPH (500 MPH), with a range of 750 kilometers (465 miles). The aircraft would be able to operate off of rough airfields only 120 meters (390 feet) long and carry 2.5 tonnes (5,500 pounds) of weapons, including an internal heavy cannon. It would be very agile and able to absorb substantial battle damage. The design was given the internal Sukhoi designation of "T8".




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