Am I stupid?

Why are there no machine guns on jet fighters? Am I crazy? I thought they had machine guns.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    AFAIK the f35 does have one but it's mostly for shooting at trucks and helicopters, not other planes

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      they have a cannon, its just concealed, it IS a stealth aircraft after all.

      Most fighter jets do. They're not exposed or wing mounted anymore.

      The F-35 B and C variants have no internal cannon. They need to mount an external gun pod that converts it to a non-stealth aircraft, and also has all the terrible (unusable) accuracy problems associated with external gun pods.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        No. The F-35A have the slight accuracy problems. The problem is that the A's cannon have a slight right(iirc) ide bias.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >that converts it to a non-stealth aircraft

        >2022
        >/k/ still think stealth is a video game on/off button

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          CLOAK
          ENGAGED

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          There literally is a button to turn off stealth, it's called the bomb bay door button

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Wrong. The B and C variants have decent accuracy with their gun pods and better accuracy than the A variant.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They are still stealthy

        This pops up a lot when discussing external stores and the effect on radar cross section. Obviously external bombs and missiles increase the RCS, but the plane is still stealthier than a 4th gen with the same bomb load.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    they have a cannon, its just concealed, it IS a stealth aircraft after all.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Most fighter jets do. They're not exposed or wing mounted anymore.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Most fighter jets do.

      Cannon are not MGs.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        machinegun
        machine gun
        cannon=gun

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        They're autocanons so...sorta? The only difference between the guns on modern jets and the gattlings used by helicopter door gunners is that these ones are 20mm.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Modern warfare is all about firing missiles beyond the horizon. First it happened to ships, then to planes, soon to tanks and eventually even infantry will do it. Guns are obsolete because they're too short range.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Armor advances will frick over range spam soon enough

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Armor advances will frick over range spam soon eno-ACK!!!!

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        No, Because fundamental physics favors the projectile or missile over armor
        Energy = Mass x Velocity squared

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I don't think armor will, but it's possible that directed energy based point defenses could be an effective counter to long range guided weapons. The issue there is that those installations are expensive and require a lot of energy to operate so I don't expect them to be road-mobile

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          The prototype MTHEL is Technically road mobile in that it can be broken down into trailers and moved but it's more for base defense rather than covering a mobile force.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      If needed, the pilot can turn on auto-pilot and open the canopy to shoot at the enemy jet with his side-arm pistol (or a shotgun if he remembered to bring one)

      This is just as sensible and efficient as putting a cannon on a jet in 2022

      Both sides using stealth will drastically shorten engagement distances. If you weren't reddit tourists you would know to never ever (EVER!) remove the cannon from a fighter aircraft. Tons of pilots died in Vietnam to teach us this lesson.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Both sides using camouflage will drastically shorten engagement distances. If you weren't tourists from the "Read It" coffee house you would know to never ever (EVER!) remove the sabre from an infantry officer. Tons of soldiers died in the Sepoy Mutiny to teach us this lesson.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Both sides using stealth
        Is the US going to go to war with NATO or something?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Yes, the rest of those fricks need to pay their 2% and we will make them.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          You never know. China could capture a crashed F-35 this year and then they'd have fourth-gen stealh by 2040.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          You never know. China could capture a crashed F-35 this year and then they'd have fourth-gen stealh by 2040.

          China has produced more J-20s than there are F-22s. By the time WW3 rolls around they will have near stealth parity.
          >inb4 someone posts the cope report claiming they have 5 J-20 prototypes

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >j-20 = f-22

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              I never implied that. The point is that both sides are fielding some level of stealth, which will shorten engagement distances, and fielding a slow, not particularly maneuverable fighter, >>

              [...]

              a gun (!)<<<<< is a really poor decision in light of that.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >which will shorten engagement distances
                what you appear to have missed is that when people say stealth will shorten engagement distances they mean these planes will be engaging each other from 10-50km away instead of 200-300.
                Machine guns are still worse than useless at that distance

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Anon if China fields something with F22 or F35 tier stealth in 2040 we will probably blow that out of the water with new RAM for the 6th gen fighter and blow them out with sensors

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >2040
                >Fighter jets reflect less radar than air
                >They no longer carry guns or missiles (outdated)
                >They simply emit a pinpoint stream of radiation that instantly detonates fuel and batteries, specific to each enemy plane
                >The A-10 is still in service

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >2070
                >8th gen fighter aircraft fully autonomous, have an artificial brain capable of an order of magnitude more thought and emotion than any human
                >fully invisible to all spectrums of light, radio waves, etc
                >has zero aerodynamic surfaces anymore
                >LEO capable
                >fully submersible
                >time travel capable
                >able to telepathically spawn ions of antimatter inside an enemy, destroying them instantly
                >A-10 on its 5th set of new wings and dozenth overhaul, only 8 remain due to parts cannibalization
                >congress still can't get over muh BRRRRT
                >pic related

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >implying half of this isn’t already the case

                Tictacs have been flying since at least ‘04

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >2110
                >The Last Warthog
                >A10G-IV
                >food riots break out in Neo-SinoKorea
                >resulting electronics shortage grounds global drone fleet
                >only one tool left for the job
                >the hog and her permanently entombed pilot are launched from East-Taiwan on a 26 hour flight requiring six aerial refuelings and in flight maintenance of the left turbine
                >en-route to target the pilot had a psychotic break due to improperly mixed combat-chems in their oxygen mask
                >jettisons drop tanks and 70mm guided kinetic kinetic rocket pods
                >starts chanting "GUNS GUNS GUNS" on unencrypted comms
                >proceeds to strafe insurgent ringleaders, friendly colonial officers, JTAC drones and operator offices, and a 60km long refugee convoy/bread line
                >approximately 4,000 dead, wounded uncounted
                >shot by multiple 3d printed MANPADS and grounded
                >airframe unserviceable but retained due to bureaucratic oversight and nostalgia
                >maintained at a cost of 16 trillion IMF-Standard credits and 14 infants (7 sacrificed bi-anually) per year until 2200

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >not particularly maneuverable fighter, >>

                [...]

                a gun (!)<<<<< is a really poor decision in light of that.
                The F-35 has similar manoeuvrability to the F-16, which is more than good enough considering that it's a strike aircraft as much as it is a fighter.
                You're also making a big assumption that guns would be the deciding factor in a 5th gen vs 5th gen WVR engagement, when 99% of kills in that scenario would come from off boresight Fox 2s

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                F-35 has similar maneuverability to F-18, not F-16.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >he doesn't know
                Slow and not maneuverable, but the pilot can shoot you while more than 90 degrease off bore by turning his head. This is not the 20th century anymore, maneuverability don't mean shit in dogfights if your nose don't need to be pointed at the enemy to down him.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            there are 195 F22's and only ~150 J20's
            That would still be pretty close if not for the fact that there are now more than 800 F35s in service

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Bro Pajeets can detect J-20s using radar from across the border. You ain't flying from Tel Aviv to Tehran without being detected once by air defence in that Chink sack of shit.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Only a matter of time before Germany decides the EU army should control the world

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Won't be a HATO in 10 years.
          Just Franco-German EUSSR and America with her European Bridgehead in EE countries.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        anon, when was the last time a plane was shot down with a cannon?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Tons of pilots died in Vietnam to teach us this lesson.
        How many pilots were killed in Vietnam for a lack of guns?
        Gunless Navy F-4s outperformed USAF Phantoms, and that was with the shitty AAMs of the era

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Both sides using stealth will drastically shorten engagement distances
        That's what we have short range missiles for moron

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Short range missiles are very vulnerable to countermeasures like decoys and flares. A gun is not.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            A gun doesn't have the range or accuracy to be useful in a modern dogfight, no amount of countermeasures will save you from modern air to air missiles, especially given that western fighters never ever engage alone

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            That depends on the missile
            No doubt Russian and Chinese short range air to air missiles really are as easy to spoof as you say, but I strongly suspect your assertion does not hold true when it comes to western gear

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Western gear can’t be spoofed because it doesn’t work at all
              Diversity and inclusion are our strengths

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >western gear doesn't work
                what kind of eastoid cope is this? you never won any battle against the West

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                It's just /misc/ shitposting and baiting. Responding to it is dumb.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >i get all my military knowledge from video games
            Modern AIM-9X and IRIS-T are countermeasure resistant. Your statement is only true about 50 years ago. These days you don't need a gun since you can shoot a missile at a target behind you.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Guns are vulnerable to high speeds and evasive maneuvers while most missiles are not.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Modern IR missiles are actually IIR, which means they lock onto a plane-shaped blob of pixels, not onto the hottest thing in the sky. The only real way to spoof them is by pointing a low-powered laser at them and literally blinding the seeker. Eventually, of course, the low-powered laser will be replaced by a high-powered laser that wrecks the missile (or at least the seeker). Dogfighting with lasers will be... different... from previous forms of combat.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              >8:00

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >dipshit crying about muh reddit spouts boomer fuddlore as truth
        if you actually had guns id tell you to kys

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Do the people saying this realize we are as far removed from Vietnam as Vietnam was from the Wright Flyer?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          It's a gag, anon.

          During 22/35 development, there were a bunch of con artists that tricked a bunch of Hollywood nogunz into thinking they'd cracked the case on a huge conspiracy regarding why the A-10's concept wasn't expanded on.

          These were people who were A: grifters and B: mentally ill. If you'll notice, the people leading the movement are (or were since some of them are, thankfully, dead) regular RT contributors since the Russians see them as useful idiots.

          Missile technology is not simple stuff. It's extremely complicated. That sounds like a given when you say it out loud, but you have to keep that in mind when you see the actual people that think like that that still believe aerial engagements will even be in visual range. Frankly, I pray the rest of the world pays attention to them and takes them up on their advice. That way the people without severe brain damage due to alcoholism will have it nice and easy clearing out air assets.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Early missiles weren't quite the "I win" button more modern ones are and the Navy fixed that problem by teaching their pilots how to dogfight. Guns have been pretty useless for about 50 years now.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >If you weren't reddit tourists you would know to never ever (EVER!) remove the cannon from a fighter aircraft. Tons of pilots died in Vietnam to teach us this lesson.
        Only the Air Force added guns to their F4s, and their kill rate barely improved (or even worsened in some aspects). The Navy just implemented Top Gun and Navy F4s improved their kill rate by a factor of ten, without the implementation of a gun.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        moron

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        BEGONE GHOST OF SPREY

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >there have been no air to air engagements since Vietnam

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >infantry
      already are if you count chucking a grenade around a corner

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Eh...I think we're nearing the crest for effective engagement ranges right now. Soon, stealth and APS will force engagement ranges back down until new techs like IRST pick up the slack.

      The whole thing trends upwards but there's a lot of waves and cycles in the way.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Groud forces are forced to fight in short range by physics. There are no houses, walls or roads in the sea and sky.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    If needed, the pilot can turn on auto-pilot and open the canopy to shoot at the enemy jet with his side-arm pistol (or a shotgun if he remembered to bring one)

    This is just as sensible and efficient as putting a cannon on a jet in 2022

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >you were born too early to live in a post-scarcity technological singularity paradise where war is purely recreational because everyone has back up clones for immediate consciousness transfer in case you die and as such war descends into wacky shit like biplane jousting and arena grenade deathball tournaments

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >"Valhalla" resorts where you do nothing but eat, frick, and die in battle using clones.

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Too stupid to use a search engine.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    WE AINT CHOOTIN OUR PEERS WITH IT!!!!

    FRICK MAN ITS JUST A EXTRA, Aside from autistic and brotherly shelter from the storm...

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Oh boy a F-35 skizo thread, my favorite. How long do you like it'll take before he mentions VTOL?

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    God the F-35 is so ugly. Same goes for R*ssian and Ch*nese 5th gen fighters. We need to perpetually stay on 4/4.5 gen fighters and just improve drones.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      apologize

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >mfw

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Is that dog okay?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Did they have to make it look so loose?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          She can't help the fact that she was born with such an erotic body anon, it's just the way she is

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I genuinely believe that it's human nature. An engineer can't help being horny, to be horny is to be human, and that can be see in their work as well.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            I love these pics

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous
          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            oh lord deliver me

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          https://i.imgur.com/wJr5DAy.jpg

          I genuinely believe that it's human nature. An engineer can't help being horny, to be horny is to be human, and that can be see in their work as well.

          In romantized languages, we all call hot women planes or jets

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Planus

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        who wants their airplussy ate

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I bet she fricks like a rave dancer

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >R*ssian and Ch*nese
      >5th gen fighters
      Their crap IS 4.5 gen in appearance and still early 4th gen in avionics.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        But they have 6th gen pilots.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Having your great-great-great-great-grandmother ride a plane once does not make you a 6th gen pilot.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          5th gen for them was Iraqis thinking their airplanes were being sabatoged when they were getting blown up by Iranian F-14's.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      There are no r*ssian 5th gen fighters.

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous
    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      So what's the hexagon-shaped port for?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I couldn't see any in the vid but I'm guessing shell casings

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        I couldn't see any in the vid but I'm guessing shell casings

        No, Jets (since about the 60's I think) collect all their shell cases in an internal container. There were incidents of ejected cases damaging early jets so they ditched ejection pretty quickly.
        I think it's to do with cooling, forces cold intake air over the cannon's barrels and motor. Not sure though.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Cooling would have been my second guess, but maybe it could also be to allow air to flow through whatever internal compartment needs to open to let the gun fire? Since that would otherwise increase drag and put extra stress on the components

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        It could be for cooling, pulling in air, but I doubt it. It's a jet fighter so it's designed to handle high temperatures. My guess would be to help handle back pressure, an escape vent for gasses from the explosion. The gun may not cycle unless the gasses can escape in two directions, like with a lot of small arms. Or it could be to prevent internal damage from the pressure, or both. Since it's a stealth aircraft they want as few fixed external vents as possible.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        It could be for cooling, pulling in air, but I doubt it. It's a jet fighter so it's designed to handle high temperatures. My guess would be to help handle back pressure, an escape vent for gasses from the explosion. The gun may not cycle unless the gasses can escape in two directions, like with a lot of small arms. Or it could be to prevent internal damage from the pressure, or both. Since it's a stealth aircraft they want as few fixed external vents as possible.

        Gas purge door. F-15,F-16, and F-18 all have them too.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          I'm tired, have had a shitty day and can't do math right now. But is that a total of 3.5 seconds of shooting?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            3.6 i think

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            and the external gunpod for B and C can hold 220 rounds so about 4 seconds

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Guns are huge and heavy, that space would be better spent of avionics that enhance situational awareness.

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The weight of a machine gun is better spent on other things.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Sprey-sama, aren't you gone? It's time to pass on.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      maybe we need to do some sort of gun based ritual to help his spirit find rest

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        You just need to:
        >burn incense
        >tape a glock to a paper plane
        >chant "SIMPLE, STURDY, CHEAP" five times while pissing on a modern CPU with a LockMart sticker on it
        >set fire to the paper plane as you jerk yourself to climax while thinking of an A-10 blue-on-blue incident
        >watch as Sprey's spirit ascends, then makes a beeline for the nearest RT studio to talk about how he invented airline peanuts or some shit

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >removing cannons from jets because muh efficiecy
    now where I have heard this before

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Am I crazy
    You answered your own question OP.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    An F35 costs 80 million. To use a machine gun on a stationary or slowly target like a building from a platforum maybe 100 times more expensive while putting the plane at massive risk from AA weapons is really poor risk taking. To shoot at a supersonic target with a machine gun is kinda optimistic and again need to put you so close to a hostile target that they can literally take you out with a thrown rock.

    Yeah I think you might be a little challenged. 20 years ago it still made sense but these days we have enemies with more advanced technology than donkeys wearing mining helmets.

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Porque? If you're close enough to use a machine gun on another plane you've already been detected

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Am I stupid?

    yes

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Am I stupid?

    yes

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    imagine trying to hit a target that can move faster than the bullet - cannons would still make sense when targeting strategic bombers but still its faster to lock onto them and fire missiles than to make multiple runs with cannons...

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      What the frick are you talking about. A fighter will never be traveling faster than a cannon shell. The muzzle velocity of an F-35's cannon is 3450 feet per second, that's like mach 3 In a dogfight modern jets wold be going mach 1 at most, the speed of aircraft during dogfights has not changed since the 1950s.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        > mach 3 muzzle velocity

        that drops off pretty quickly...

        this is not Korean war - missiles really are a thing as they can follow the target instead of relaying on pure luck and trying to guess where the next evasive maneuver will take the enemy plane... faster planes mean higher engagement range - and shorter the time when cannon is effective - with higher lead its more difficult to hit even relatively big targets...

  21. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The F-35A keeps it under a concealed flap because Stealth but the B and C variants don't carry one. Modern planes have gotten so fast that there's a big question of if there's a point to putting guns on them.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >Modern planes have gotten so fast that there's a big question of if there's a point to putting guns on them.
      Fighters have gotten slower since the cold war when intercepting bombers was a priority and everything was Mach 2+ capable.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        And in exchanged they've become more agile. How are you supposed to shoot a plane with supermaneuverability? How do you get into a gunfight with someone that can falling leaf inside your turning circle?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          the A-10 has a better turning radius than any military jet in the air right now. It can easily dogfight the F-35 and win.
          Embarrassing, honestly

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >2 planes
            >2 tanks
            So all the bomb decals are attacks that didn't take something out?

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              Those are people anon. A10 is here to take souls.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                Yeah, the souls of the British

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            pretty sure a P-51 has a better turning radius than any military jet in the air right now too.

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              I mean

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                This is moronic.

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                well, it's a forced dogfight so it's not like the F-22 will boom and zoom like it should

              • 2 years ago
                Anonymous

                >boom and zoom
                you mean fire a missile from over the horizon?

            • 2 years ago
              Anonymous

              of course it does its a prop plane

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >f22 stencil
            doubt[x]

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          except im not shooting planes 98% of the time. Its jim and his three friends i don't want to waste a JDAM on. Or ivan and his rotarywing deathtrap which might as well be stationary with how slow it goes

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Supermaneuverability talks about having controls in the post-stall region, doing so, will make your plane a big target.

  22. 2 years ago
    afatoldman
  23. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The guns on modern fighters are worse than useless as they consumed internal space. When the US mounted a gun pod on the f4 in Vietnam due to pressure it turned out air to air kills weren't affected. Now they are even more useless.

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