N328KF From United States of America, joined May 2004, 6222 posts, RR: 3 Posted (4 years 11 months 1 week 2 days 23 hours ago) and read 1987 times:
Are there any planned UCAVs that would possess cannon? While the era of gunfighting seems to be over, cannon allow fighters to possess cheap ground-attack capability, which is why even the latest (Gen 4.5 and Gen 5) fighters have an internal cannon (except the F-35B and F-35C, where it is podded.)
I am specifically asking this in the context of fixed-wing UCAVs, though I suppose the question could separately be asked of helicopter-based or tiltrotor UCAVs.
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Oly720man From United Kingdom, joined exactly 9 years ago today! , 6184 posts, RR: 11 Reply 1, posted (4 years 11 months 1 week 1 day 18 hours ago) and read 1839 times:
Quoting N328KF (Thread starter): Are there any planned UCAVs that would possess cannon?
I doubt it, the ammunition and the cannon itself are heavy and take up a fair amount of space, and I'd imagine the recoil would be significant on such a light vehicle. Also UCAVs are designed to be as low observable as possible and I'd have thought that such a vehicle would need to be fairly close to a target to be effective, putting it at risk of being hit by ground fire. Hellfires seem to work fine.
SP90 From United States of America, joined May 2006, 386 posts, RR: 0 Reply 2, posted (4 years 10 months 3 weeks 6 days 6 hours ago) and read 1619 times:
Direct energy weapons will replace rotary cannons soon. Trouble is building a UCAV that can carry one of these weapon systems. It will be like the A-10 I imagine, design the plane around the gun. UCAV with laser beams.
GST From United Kingdom, joined Jun 2008, 927 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (4 years 10 months 3 weeks 6 days 5 hours ago) and read 1613 times:
Quoting SP90 (Reply 2): Direct energy weapons will replace rotary cannons soon.
All well and good, but I'd imagine on a warm day, with all the thermals and heat haze distorting the laser beam, you may end up lightly singeing the entire tank, rather than boring a concentrated laser into the ammunition storage. Cannons will still have a use, but no, I dont see any UCAV with one, it seems to go completely against their mandate.
SP90 From United States of America, joined May 2006, 386 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (4 years 10 months 3 weeks 6 days 4 hours ago) and read 1593 times:
Quoting GST: I'd imagine on a warm day, with all the thermals and heat haze distorting the laser beam, you may end up lightly singeing the entire tank, rather than boring a concentrated laser into the ammunition storage.
There is a fix for that particular problem which astronomy have been using for many years on earth bound optical telescopes. Fire a low power laser to clear the path by evening out the column of air. In optical telescopes this has the effect of negating the flicker/twinkle caused by the atmosphere. A similar method is employed on the ABL system being developed for the USAF. The biggest obstable is scaling the system down to fit into a reasonable sized UCAV.
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