5.3. Text aerial armory

It was the gun which led the way in abn weaponry to be followed by the bomb and abn rkt. Over the years, however, these simple categories have become more complex and developments have produced precision-guided wpns and submunition dispensers, overflight and stand-off wpns.

Guns

About the only wpn which has remained, essentially, the same is the abn gun, which reigned supreme as the principal ftr wpn until the mid-1950s, when the first air-to-air msls (AAMs) entered service. Such were the advances that by the mid-1960s, several major nations had entirely abandoned the abn gun in air def acft. Yet from the reality of modern air cbt in the late-1960s, the lessons of history were re-learnt and guns rapidly re-introduced. The resurgence was led by General Electric's 20 mm M61 Vulcan rotary cannon. This wpn was rapidly integrated on board a Phantom and has been on virtually every major US ftr since. Of course, the M61 is not the only GE product. The company produces a wide range of abn wpns varying from 30 mm down to 7.62 mm with the rate of fire from 300 up to 6000 rd/min that can be selected by the gnr.

Lighter wpns, including pintle- and pod-mounted machine guns, are used on hels. They can also be installed in chin turrets and are available in single- to six-barrel forms.

Fixed-wing acft can carry heavier cannon than the average hel, but firing opportunities are generally restricted in duration. Number of barrels is usually from five to seven.

Short-Range aaMs

Defending battlefield hels are variants of man-portable air def sys (MANPADS) msls. First in the field was the General Dynamics FIM-92 in a version known as Air-to-Air Stinger (ATAS). Undoubtedly the classic 'dogfight' AAM must be the AIM-9 Sidewinder series.

Beyond Visual Range aaMs

The AIM-7 Sparrow series has been the classic 'yardstick' in the medium-range, beyond visual range (BVR) category. The US follow-up to Sparrow is the AIM-120 AMRAAM which is a true 'fire-and-forget' msl.

Bombs

The original element of air-to-gnd weaponry is the bomb and it still remains so albeit with a little more sophistication. One often hears talks of 'iron' or 'dumb' bombs and these refer to conventional high-explosive (HE) bombs released and aimed in the traditional way.

In essence, bombs remain unchanged from 50 years ago and older stocks may well find themselves updated for the 2000s with a new fusing sys. They are classified according to filler as nuc, TN, HE, FAE, fire, drill, practice, and chemical. HE bombs, in turn, are classed according to use as SAP, GP, low-drag GP, frag, and AD.

Bombs are carried by racks or shackles in the acft's bomb bay, or as external stores at stations under the wing or fus and can be released singly or in pairs in preselected intervals, or in train or salvo.

In the use of unguided bombs, the principal advances have been made in terms of low-level delivery, area coverage and tgt penetration. Low-level rel demands retardation of the bomb to ensure adequate separation from the launch acft at detonation. Braking is achieved by means of a conventional pcht, by metal airbrakes or by an air-inflatable retarder.

The need to ensure more accuracy led, during the Vietnam war, to the development of the laser-guided bomb (LGB) and its associated laser designator sys, usually pod-mounted under the wing of the carrier acft. Texas Instruments is a US leader in LGBs, with its Paveway sys fitted to many US bombs (with the designator GBU).

Where accuracy is not so important, another way of obtaining kills is to go for area coverage and the cluster bomb fits this niche. Effectively, it is a droppable casing containing a large number of smaller submunitions which, when released, cover a large area. Whds may be simple HE, delayed-action mines or armor-piercing. In the US, such wpns are assigned the designator 'CBU' (Cluster Bomb Unit) usually with a secondary name relating to its role. The CBU-87 Combined Effects Munition is one example. The best known is probably the 222 kg Rockeye, which releases 247 armor-piercing bomblets. In the denial version of the bomb 87 bomblets explode on impact and the remaining 160 detonate later at individually preset times.