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This ICBM Test Video Shows How Gorgeous The Beginning Of The End Will Be

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These breathtaking nighttime launches of the LGM-30G Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile out of Vandenberg AFB give you an idea of how the beginning of the end of the world would look if mankind decided to call it a day.


The Minutemen III is the backbone of America’s land-based portion of its Nuclear Triad. Some 450 LGM-30Gs are stationed in their hardened underground silos in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming, each capable of carrying up to three Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles (MIRVS) and can also carry a series of decoys and radar reflective chaff to confuse enemy radars and anti-ballistic missile systems. The missile’s stated range is just over 8,000 miles, but its exact range remains classified.

Currently, the Minuteman III force “only” holds a single reentry vehicle, a result of the now defunct START II treaty. There are currently two thermonuclear warheads used with the Minuteman III inventory, the newer W87 and the older W78. These warheads have an output range of 335 to 475 kilotons of TNT equivalent.

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The missile is capable of changing its trajectory during its later boost and mid-course stages of flight to further confuse anti-ballistic missile systems and compensate for the release its MIRVS or decoys. This is not the same as being equipped with hard turning maneuvering reentry vehicles like some of the world’s other nuclear powers are currently fielding.

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The Minuteman III has been in service for 45 years, and while it ha received many upgrades over the years, it’s still based upon a design from the 1960s. It will remain in service until at least 2030, after which it will have to go thorough a deep upgrade, be replaced in full or the land-based contingent of America’s Nuclear Triad will have to be eliminated. This would leave air-launched and air-dropped nuclear weapons and America’s Trident ballistic missile carrying nuclear submarine force as America’s nuclear deterrent.

Considering the bad press, questionable readiness and antiquated technology that has plagued the reputation of America’s land-based nuclear missile force in recent years, and seeing how we can barely upgrade other key parts of the nuclear triad, elimination of the entire ground-based strategic missile capability is a real possibility.


You can get an idea of how the Minuteman III goes about it apocalyptic job in the video below, minus the decoys and chaff that is:


So sleep well and night knowing that 450 (soon to be 400 after the current draw-down finishes) of these chariots of destruction are sitting cocked and locked across America’s northern border, just waiting for the “red phone” to ring.

*Pro tip: resize this image to read it.
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The Navy's Little Missiles Could Be Popping Up In Many More Places

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This image shows the Cyclone Class coastal patrol boat USS Firebolt shooting off a $100,000 Griffin surface-to-surface missile during a training exercise in the Arabian Gulf. Different variants of the Griffin have been put to use aboard everything from ships to unmanned aircraft to Ospreys to AC-130 Gunships in recent years, and many more platforms are like to come.

The so called Mark 60 version of the Griffin was designed for littoral combat operations. Theclose in defense system consists of two four cell launch canisters, with eight missiles total. The package also included a infrared targeting system with a laser designator and a command and battle management system. When fitted in the Mark 60 canisters, the Griffin is given the designation BGM-176B.

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The whole idea of outfitting the Navy’s hard-working Cyclone Class (and possibly other) patrol boats with the Griffin is to give them an extra layer of defenses against swarming boats, a tactic Iran would surely employ during combat with its neighbors and the U.S. should hostilities ever break out. It is also a very effective and quickly employed weapon against potential ship-borne suicide bombers that may attempt to make a run at a patrol vessel ship or a ship it is protecting.


The Griffin Missile also extends the range and expands the engagement zone for the CycloneClass. In the past, these ships had to rely on their twin 25mm bushmaster cannons to engage targets that were not within small-arms fire, but still they are limited to a range of about a mile and a half. Now, with Griffin Missiles, the Cyclones can pummel targets at close to three miles away and at any angle from the ship. They can also do so more rapidly than using just the 25mm chain guns alone.

The Griffin was passed over for the AGM-114 Hellfire when it comes to equipping America’s troubled Littoral Combat Ships with an anti-swarm missile system. This decision was partially because the millimeter-wave seeker version of the Hellfire, the same that can be used by the Longbow Apache attack helicopter, could use the LCS’s radar system to attack multiple boats in a single salvo. In other words, it would not have to be relegated to “painting” each target with a laser designator in order to attack. This is especially useful under poor visibility conditions or when being raided by a large swarm of boats.

A similar system as the sea-borne Hellfire is being adapted from the UK’s capable Brimstone missile for at-sea applications, known as “Sea Spear.” Both missile systems are a far cry from innovative and much longer ranged XM501 Non-Line-Of-Sight missile system originally envisioned for the LCS but cancelled due to technical difficulties and budgetary constraints.


In response to the seemingly chaotic changes to the small-yield naval missile marketplace, Raytheon, who makes the Griffin, is going another route for their next generation Griffin Missile.

Instead of tying the missile to one targeting source, whether that be radar or laser designation, they are diffusing the targeting options by including a data-link on the Griffin Missile. This can be adapted to take into account different sensors targeting information, such as feeding the missile live coordinates from a radar system in real-time, thus making it a “fire and forget” weapon. They are also adding an imaging infrared seeker to the missile that will allow users to no longer rely on hard-mounted targeting system at all. Instead the missile can be launched to an area and it will select targets on its own using image matching and onboard artificial intelligence, while at the same time sending live video of the target back to the user. The user can then give the missile the OK to engage the target it has spotted or tell it to go to the next target, or another area entirely to search for new targets.

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Not only will this approach be good for engaging targets in densely populated maritime environments, where visual identification of an enemy target is key, but it will also mean that installing Griffin onto a vessel (or even a basic ground vehicle) could be as simple as bolting on the launch canisters and putting up an antenna tied to a notebook computer. Once set up, the user could immediately begin receiving and ok’ing targeting imagery generated from launched Griffins. This means any boat or even a commercial truck could be turned into a precision guided boat or tank buster with almost no modification. The next-gen Griffin will also feature a new rocket motor that will allow it to travel out to over 9 miles from its launch point and will allow it to be able to loiter over the battlefield searching for targets to plink.

The inclusion of a “plug and play” Griffin onto ships that feature minimal defenses today means that these vessels could be cheaply equipped with a devastating self defense weapon system that can create a sphere of defense from water-borne threats around the vessel at any given time. Such a capability could also round out the ‘low end’ of a potential U.S. Navy initiative to make many ships that are currently unarmed, such as many USNS supply ships, offensive shooters via installing bolt-on cruise missiles.

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It is clear that the defense industry is taking a clear sign from the consumer electronics marketplace and moving away from expensive, hard-installed proprietary hardware and going for more of a ‘plug and play’ and application approach to lower-end weapons systems. Instead of creating a combat vehicle to launch missiles, just create a missile that can be easily launched from any vehicle with a flatbed and operated by anyone with a laptop computer.

With a range of almost 10 miles, the next-gen Griffin can give a Toyota truck or a HUMVEE as much killing power, and at greater range, than an M-1 Abrams main battle tank. Even more exciting, once the weapon is ‘networked’ it can use its data-link to proliferate targeting opportunities from a whole slew of assets, including both manned and unmanned aircraft. As such, an operator could just pick a target being tracked by an aircraft’s radar and send a Griffin its way, with the missile sending live video of the target back to the operator to ok a terminal attack.


This concept could also work in reverse, where s centralized command center that has access to data from all the sensor platforms in the battle-space spot a target of opportunity and immediately send a command to fire a Griffin-like missile nearest to that target without the onsite operator interacting with the system at all. If left in ‘remote standby mode’ a HUMVEE with a package of Griffin or similar missiles attached would simply sound an alarm that a launch has been commanded remotely and the missile would be on its way to its target seconds later.

So basically, by diffusing not just shooters but also the targeting sources, a commander even thousands of miles away, or a forward air controller in the field, can simply select the best weapon nearby and command its launch and guidance remotely. This creates a more survivable and unpredictable proposition for the enemy to compete with and makes serving up precision fire support truly a point and click affair.

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Small missiles, distributed across the battlefield, both on the water, on land and in the air, will most likely become a staple of modern warfare. We have already seen their rapid growth from a low-collateral damage air-launched weapons, to one used for fighting off swarms of fast boats, and now to ones that could make virtually any vehicle in a war zone a ‘shooter.’

They may not be glamorous and they may not cause massive explosions, but combined together, these little missiles could change the way we fight future wars just as much astheir bigger and much more expensive cousins.

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The Ohio-Class Guided Missile Nuclear Submarine Is One Dangerous Beast

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Four of the U.S. Navy’s gargantuan Ohio-class ballistic missile nuclear submarines, otherwise known as ‘Boomers,’ were converted into multi-role platforms capable of deploying throngs of special forces, spying, sinking ships and other subs and and putting any enemy within 1,000 miles of coast at risk of their arsenal of 154 cruise missiles.

As you can see in the rare photo above of the USS Michigan (SSGN-727), the re-branded SSGNs are of grand scale, measuring 560 feet long and displacing almost 19,000 tons while submerged. Behind the Michigan’s sail is a modular Dry Dock Shelter, which is about 38 feet long and 9 feet tall. It is used to house SEAL Delivery Vehicles and other transportation devices used by special forces personnel. The SSGNs can be fitted with two of these systems if need be.

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Four of the oldest Ohio-class SSBNs were converted to SSGNs over the last decade. The process takes between two and three years to complete, where the submarines have their reactors refueled and extensive modifications are made to their interiors to support their new conventional mission. This includes modifications to accommodate 66 Navy SEALs and their gear, as well as mission planning, command, control, communications and prep areas. Some sources say the the SSGN’s embarked commando manifest can swell to over 100 SEALs for surge operations.

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The ability to launch small unmanned aircraft has been added to the SSGNs. These can provide overwatch and beyond line of sight communications relay with forward deployed special operations forces. An upgraded command and control suite was also added to facilitate these clandestine commando operations. As such, an entire special operations campaign can be ran from the bowels of an SSGN.

The boat’s 24 Trident nuclear ballistic missiles are removed and in their place are 154 BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles, with seven missile per tube. This turns the once doomsday capability of the Ohio-class into the a ‘air war in a box’ capable of sneaking into an enemy’s inner sanctum and letting loose a barrage of cruise missiles targeting command and control, air defense and high-value targets. Basically, the SSGNs have the ability to bypass an enemy’s anti-access/area denial capability and kick down a metaphorical door for follow-on attacks by manned aircraft and other assets.

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Seeing that these were once the holder’s of a large portion of America’s nuclear ‘second strike deterrent,’ the now multi-role boats remain some of the quietest submarines in the world, and as such they can also accommodate some of the roles of a fast attack submarine. These include surveillance, electronic eavesdropping and even anti-surface, anti-submarine and anti-mine warfare, as they retain their forward torpedo tubes. Even a automated launch and recovery system has been designed to fit in one of the SSGN’s missile tubes that it can launch and recover heavy-weight autonomous unmanned vehicles. A capability that opens up a whole new world of possibilities for underseas warfare.

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The Ohio-class SSGNs are possibly America’s most powerful “all in one” conventional weapon systems, packing many times the firepower of the Virginia-class fast attack submarine and capable of supporting sustained special operations campaigns in some of the most inhospitable territory in the world. They put literally any target within 1000 miles of the coastline at risk of a surprise attack and their versatility is amazing. With four boats now in the water, at least two can be on patrol at any given time, with a third being common, and their patrols are only limited to the food stores onboard, allowing them to lie in wait for weeks or even months at a time off hostile shores.

These boats have also been battle tested. The USS Florida in particular launched at total of 93 Tomahawks during Operation Odyssey Dawn (the campaign to take down Qaddafi in Libya),with 90 of the missiles being successful against their intended targets. Other SSGNs and their crews have received high honors, including the Battle Efficiency Award and the Meritorious Unit Commendation, since being converted over from Boomers.

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Currently, the SSGNs are slated to serve into the next decade, at which time they will be retired in the order in which they were added to the fleet originally. By that time, The USS Ohio will be over 40 years old.

There is no replacement in sight for these awesome machines as the Navy struggles to even replace its 14 newer Ohio-class boats that continue to act in the nuclear attack role. The solution for replacing the SSGNs as it sits now will be for an enlarged Virginia-class, each packing 40 cruise missiles and far less SEALs then their Ohio-class counterparts. Although this may help diffuse some of the Navy’s conventional sub-launched cruise missiles to more boats that can be in more places at any given time, it does not replace the incredible striking or special operations power of the an Ohio-class SSGN.


There is always the chance that the current SSGN fleet will have their lives prolonged again, or that newer Ohio-class boats will be similarly converted when their SSBN replacements are finally available, but this remains highly doubtful. The last boat of the class, The USS Louisiana(SSBN-743) was commissioned in 1997, and by the time it has a replacement it may also be over 40 years old.

Until the last of its kind is de-fueled and scrapped, the ‘second chance’ Ohio-class SSGNs will remain the most flexible, sneaky, survivable and hard hitting conventional weapons and special operations platforms on the planet.

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Marines Begin Final Checks For F-35B IOC; ‘On Track’ For End Of July

WASHINGTON: A select group of 12 Marines in Yuma, Ariz. began testing the first squadron of F-35B pilots, inspecting their aircraft and checking maintenance procedures and personnel yesterday as the end game for declaring Initial Operating Capability for the aircraft before the end of July.

Initial operating capability (IOC) for the Marine Corps F-35B is still on track to take place by the end of July,” Marine spokesman Maj. Paul Greenberg said in an email. The experts at Yuma “will determine if the squadron and their aircraft are ready for contingency deployment use at IOC. We expect this inspection to take about one week,” Greenberg said.

The squadron survey will include operational flights with weapons in each of the five required mission areas, as well as a capstone surge day at the end of the process during which every pilot will either fly an F-35B or fly a simulator.


As a reminder, here is the official standard for declaring Marine IOC:

“Marine Corps F-35B IOC shall be declared when the first operational squadron is equipped with 10-16 aircraft, and US Marines are trained, manned, and equipped to conduct CAS, Offensive and Defensive Counter Air, Air Interdiction, Assault Support Escort, and Armed Reconnaissance in concert with Marine Air Ground Task Force resources and capabilities.”

It’s worth remembering — note to Sen. Kelly Ayotte and friends — that Close Air Support is the primary mission for the Marine F-35 and that the Marines must demonstrate it meets that requirement.

Once the inspections and tests are done, Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, head of Marine aviation, will make his recommendation about whether to declare IOC to outgoing Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford, who will make the final decision.

Davis told USNI News his greatest concern right now is whether the squadron will have enough spare parts on hand. This is part of a general problem the Marines have. In May, Davis told reporters that some 158 Marine aircraft — 19 percent — were not ready for operations at any given time. “It’s way too high. It’s way too high,” Davis said then. Here’s a rough breakdown for the 158 aircraft: most are CH-53E helicopters; 20 F-18s; 22 Harriers; and the rest are V-22s and H-1s. And now he’s adding F-35Bs to the fleet.

Given the enormous angst over the last five years about whether the F-35B would meet its basic operational requirements — let alone possess enough reliability and capability to go to war, which is the IOC standard — being able to worry about mundane matters like having enough spare parts on hand is a fairly remarkable turnaround.
 
JAGM Goes Two for Two in Latest Flight Tests
SEAPOWER Magazine Online

ORLANDO, Fla. — Lockheed Martin has demonstrated its multi-mode Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM), engaging two laser-designated stationary targets during recent government-led flight tests at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., the company announced in a July 13 release.

In the first test, the missile flew 4 kilometers, engaged its precision-strike, semi-active laser and hit the stationary target. During the second flight, the missile flew 4 kilometers, acquired the target using its precision strike, semi-active laser while simultaneously tracking the target with its millimeter wave radar, and hit the stationary target.

“These flight tests demonstrate the maturity of Lockheed Martin’s JAGM design and prove our risk-mitigation success and readiness for production,” said Frank St. John, vice president of Tactical Missiles and Combat Maneuver Systems at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control. “Our innovative, affordable JAGM solution will provide operational flexibility and combat effectiveness, keeping the warfighter ahead of the threat.”

The risk-reduction flight tests are critical to Lockheed Martin’s performance on the U.S. Army’s Continued Technology Development program in providing warfighters with enhanced accuracy and increased survivability against stationary and moving targets in all weather conditions.

Lockheed Martin recently submitted its JAGM Engineering and Manufacturing Development and Low-Rate Initial Production proposal to the U.S. Army. Contract award is expected later this year.

Lockheed Martin’s JAGM will be manufactured on existing production lines. The modularity and open architecture of the company’s JAGM design readily support a low-risk path to a tri-mode seeker, should the Army’s Incremental Acquisition Strategy require it in the future.

NATO Wargame Proves Better Networks Needed To Deter Russia

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A Croatian soldier and a Minnesota National Guardsman train together for Afghanistan in Hohenfels, Germany.

WASHINGTON: At a recent wargame in Germany, slow communications between the US and an allied unit meant we would have killed our own allies.

We saw “what happens when we don’t get it right” the Army Vice-Chief of Staff said last week. When an allied unit called for artillery support, Gen. Daniel Allyn said that “by the time that call made it through the system, [it] took 30 minutes, because we did not have interoperability right.” When the artillery finally opened fire on the enemy position, he went on, the allied troops had already assaulted it — which meant the barrage came down on them. “We had a fratricide scenario,” said Allyn.

“So am I satisfied with where we are on interoperability?” Allyn said. “I am not, and I will tell you our allies and partners aren’t either.”

Russia’s potent electronic warfare capability to “jam or disrupt or intercept” communications makes it especially critical that those networks be secure and resilient, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges told reporters yesterday.”If there is a crisis anywhere in Europe,” the commander of US Army Europe said, “American soldiers will be fighting alongside allies. We’ll be mixed together” — with small US units under allied command and vice versa — “so you’ve got to be able speak securely on FM [radio], you’ve got to have digital communications that are interoperable.”

This is not a new problem for the allies. In the 2011 air war over Libya, French pilots gave up on getting targeting data from American Predators, because the American systems took too long to clear that intelligence for its release to the allies and to get it to them. In Afghanistan, the US and NATO eventually built a compatible system — the Afghanistan Mission Network — that all the nations participating could use. But that took years.

The goal, said Lt. Gen. Hodges, is to get Afghanistan-level interoperability without Afghanistan-level prep time. Nations need to be able to connect to the network “on much shorter notice,” he said, “plug and play.”

Both US Army Europe and US Army Pacific have pushed hard to get interoperability. But it’s the European front that is most active. As part of the Operation Atlantic Resolve effort to reassure allies and partners in the face of Russian aggression, a single US unit, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, has conducted operations in 22 countries with 30 different partner nations.

“It’s happening everywhere, but to me the bright spots are the work that’s being done in Hohenfels,” said Brig. Gen. Willard Burleson, who heads the Army’s Mission Command Center of Excellence. “They may have 16 countries in there for a training rotation [at the same time],” Burleson told me and my colleague Joe Gould. “They do it day in and day out, [and] they’ve been able to take that intellectual heavy lifting and then proliferate it” across Europe.

The long-term solution is supposed to be something called the Mission Partner Environment. MPE, in turn, will build on JIE, the Joint Information Environment. JIE is the US military’s internal effort to connect, rationalize, and protect its many disparate networks, and MPE will play a vital role in bringing that network to the battlefield.

“We don’t need to get it perfect, we need to get it good enough and keep [improving],” saidLt. Gen. Mark Bowman, the Chief Information Officer (J-6) for the Joint Staff, at the AUSA conference. “People will say that the reason the Joint Information Environment isn’t good for us is because it doesn’t go to the tactical edge. Well, in fact, the Mission Partner Environment is the tactical extension of the Joint Information Environment.”

MPE will get its workout in this year’s Network Integration Evaluation/Army Warfighting Assessment exercises, Bowman said, with 14 non-US partners involved.

The interim fix is BICES, the Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation Systems. BICES is currently used by European Command, Africa Command (most of whose forces are based in Europe), and Central Command. (CENTCOM specifically uses it to help coordinate the Operation Inherent Resolve airstrikes in Syria and Iraq). Originally invented for NATO intelligence sharing, BICES now incorporates seven nations outside the alliance as well. For prospective partners who can’t afford BICES-compatible hardware, the US runs a “loan-lease” program that provides the necessary equipment.

But interoperable equipment is just part of the solution, Brig. Gen. Burleson emphasized. The human beings involved have to think in compatible ways as well. That includes both detailed procedures like calling for artillery fire and fundamental concepts of operation.

“It’s more than material,” Burleson said. “There’re cognitive, procedural, and then technical aspects. We’ve got to all be on the same cognitive framework, we’ve got to have procedures on how to do things, and then there’s a technical solution.”

Above all, responding to unexpected crises around the world requires greater flexibility than Afghanistan or Iraq, let alone the Cold War. It requires a network that can connect NATO and non-NATO nations, Lt. Gen. Bowman said, in “a coalition that ebbs and flows, grows and shrinks, adding partners as we need to.” Instead of a lengthy set-up process like that required of partners in Afghanistan, he added, “we need them to be able to show up with their own kit and plug in.”
 
Here's A Rare Glimpse Of The F-35A's Internal 25mm Cannon Firing

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This is not a view you get very often. It’s the F-35A’s GAU-22/A 25mm internal cannon opened up for the world to see its mechanical firing process, including the barrels hydraulically spinning up, the low-observable gun door and the vent door popping open. And of course lots of smoke and flames.


You can see a naked test of the F-35’s cannon below, along with all the bits and pieces that go with it, dated back to 2007. Based on the proven GAU-12/A 25mm cannon, used by the AV-8B Harrier, the LAV-AD amphibious vehicle and AC-130U Gunship, the F-35’s GAU-22/A has one less barrel than its predecessor. This saves weight and space so that the cannon could fit into the F-35A’s left shoulder and into a streamlined external gun pod destined for the F-35B and F-35C.


The choice of a 25mm cannon is a departure from America’s traditional use of the 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon in its fighters dating back to the F-104 Starfighter. The 25mm round hits much harder than the 20mm round, but it also fires at a slower rate (about half as slow at 3,000 rounds per minute) and because the 25mm round is larger, less rounds can be carried in a set volume.

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For the F-35A, 180 rounds can be housed in the gun’s linkless ammunition handling system. For the F-35B and F-35C, they both rely on an external gun pod carrying the GAU-22. The gun pod can hold 220 rounds in a helical magazine that wraps around the gun’s barrels within the pod.


The F-35’s gun is not without some controversy as no version of the F-35 will not be able to employ any gun, podded or internal, until 2017. This is not due to the gun itself but is instead due to the lack of software, and its integration into the the jet’s hardware, such as the pilot’sHelmet Mounted Display, needed for aiming the gun precisely at its target.

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Here's A Rare Glimpse Of The F-35A's Internal 25mm Cannon Firing

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This is not a view you get very often. It’s the F-35A’s GAU-22/A 25mm internal cannon opened up for the world to see its mechanical firing process, including the barrels hydraulically spinning up, the low-observable gun door and the vent door popping open. And of course lots of smoke and flames.



You can see a naked test of the F-35’s cannon below, along with all the bits and pieces that go with it, dated back to 2007. Based on the proven GAU-12/A 25mm cannon, used by the AV-8B Harrier, the LAV-AD amphibious vehicle and AC-130U Gunship, the F-35’s GAU-22/A has one less barrel than its predecessor. This saves weight and space so that the cannon could fit into the F-35A’s left shoulder and into a streamlined external gun pod destined for the F-35B and F-35C.



The choice of a 25mm cannon is a departure from America’s traditional use of the 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon in its fighters dating back to the F-104 Starfighter. The 25mm round hits much harder than the 20mm round, but it also fires at a slower rate (about half as slow at 3,000 rounds per minute) and because the 25mm round is larger, less rounds can be carried in a set volume.

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For the F-35A, 180 rounds can be housed in the gun’s linkless ammunition handling system. For the F-35B and F-35C, they both rely on an external gun pod carrying the GAU-22. The gun pod can hold 220 rounds in a helical magazine that wraps around the gun’s barrels within the pod.



The F-35’s gun is not without some controversy as no version of the F-35 will not be able to employ any gun, podded or internal, until 2017. This is not due to the gun itself but is instead due to the lack of software, and its integration into the the jet’s hardware, such as the pilot’sHelmet Mounted Display, needed for aiming the gun precisely at its target.

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The APEX ammunition makes this even better

http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2014armaments/Wed15439Sande.pdf

"Can't do CAS" :disagree:
 
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