Thursday, November 15, 2018

First To Fire!

Army Air Defense never had a more motivated officer than young Lieutenant Miller.  If it flies, it dies!  Air Defennnnnnnse!

I was a short range air defense officer.  Back in the 80s our weaponry consisted of Vietnam-era Vulcan cannon mounted on M113 armored personnel carriers, as well as shoulder-fired Stinger missiles.  Divisions had Vulcans and Stingers, corps had the Chaparral for short range air defense.  Gawd did I love the lawnmower-like burrrrrp of a 100-round burst from a Vulcan!  The Navy also used the Vulcan for close-in defense of ships, a weapon system they called the Phalanx.

Vulcan had a firing rate of of 3000 rounds per minute, although we could only carry 1100 rounds at a time.  Usually we used 100 round bursts--11 bursts, then you had to stop and reload.  Here's video of the 20mm Vulcan and the 30mm GAU-8 (the A-10's fearsome gun):


Here's Vulcan on a Prius:

What the blank?  On a Prius?  Well, I hope they sell some coffee!




2 comments:

Curmudgeon said...

I was at Eglin AFB when they were testing the GAU8. Warning signs all around the base, would start flashing: "Loud Noise".

Ya think?

Mike Thiac said...

Before we met, when I was in Korea, we were deployed at an exercise, and I was at the brigade forward. We had a fighter liaison officer from the USAF there who coordinated the close air support. We were discussing the use of the A-10 and he said, "I have some videos of what the A-10 does to tanks if you want to see them...." This is a heavy brigade and I was the only non-armor officer in the place. The battle captain said, "No, I don't like seeing that...makes me nervous."