06-22-2019, 04:50 PM
JoeH wrote:
[quote=Will Collier]
[quote=Racer X]
I forget which fighter they were talking about for close ground support maybe a decade ago, but it could only have sustained gunfire for 4 seconds, and the A-10 for over 16. Does the F-35 even have guns? Or would it just be a load of missiles?
F-35 does have a gun. Whether it should or not is another matter.
Most fighters have very limited cannon fire duration. It's less than a second for F-15 and F-16 IIRC, they only carry about 500 rounds. The M61 is a 6,000 round per second cannon, so you do the math.
Try 6,000 or 6,600 rounds per minute, not second. That is the actual rate of fire for the main variants of the M61. Some installations limited the rate of fire to a lower amount or had a lower rate selectable.
Duh on me, thank you. It's a pretty quick burst, though. When I was doing Combat Archer guys were fortunate if they got more than one or two trigger pulls at the towed gun drone.