Tigre firing in French Alps

[Mugatu]

Videos speak louder than words, I'm struggling to find any Ka-50 cannon vids at long range. The only one I can find is a short burst at very close range, nothing Mi-28, Apache or Tiger couldn't replicate.

 

:joystick:

 

There was an article linked from another thread discussing this question that was a history of the development of the Ka-50, & it stated in that, that the main reason for mounting the gun where it is, was that this allowed it to be attached to a rigid structural member that could take the recoil of the cannon without having to make the whole front half of the aircraft stiff enough to carry such a powerful a weapon (thereby saving weight & room).

 

As it turned out it has advantages - which were undoubtedly foreseen by the developers & reckoned a fair swap for the loss of range of movement.

[Force_Feedback]

Yoink, http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fb3_1178974309

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1a9_1179704508 (0:54)

BTW, I always thought the 'dispersement' was an excuse for the inherent inaccuracy of Gatling guns, due to the barrels rotational moment acting on the flying bullet. If it's 'designed' that way, why not include this 'Pinpoint/Area' switch then ;)

Same lane as the whining about the 'low' rate of fire of the Gsh-30-1, which is half the weight of contemporary European designs, and has a 30% rate of fire, and is accurate. Poor lazy and conservative Western weapon designers use this propaganda to sell their own stuff.

 

The Ka-50's autocannon is a powerful beast, but also keep in mind it has a minimum 10 round salvo (or was that only in high speed firing mode?), which is meant to counteract the accuracy.... Riiiiiight, it's meant to ensure multiple rounds hit the same target, not for spacing.

[Sundowner.pl]

The 'dispersement' is a myth. Any cannon that have a moving barrel will be inaccurate in some degree, it doesn't matter if the barrel is rotating or going back and forward, there will be a 'shotgun pattern'. Plus in case of Gatling guns there is a problem of gun stability. In case of GAU-8 in A-10, the barrels are mounted on a bearing in 2/3 of the length that prevent them from oscillating, making it the most accurate Gatling gun platform so far. Plus while the barrels spin there is also the gyroscopic precession and few other factors. Plus remember that the GAU-12 for F-35, was reduced from 5, to 4 barrels (re designated as GAU-22/A), making it more accurate.

[diditopgun]

I translate an article from "Air Fan" french magazine (june 2001) about Tigre gun:

 

"At 1000m on a 5m diameter target, 9/10 shells in the goal and 6/10 at 1500m."

"Dispersement is 1mrad only, so that a very maneuvering target such as an attack helicopter has less than 50% of chance to survive a burst of ten shells at 1000m."

 

I hope it's understandable...:happy:

[AlphaOneSix]

The 'dispersement' is a myth.

 

 

Got this from F16.net in regards to the M61 20mm cannon on the F-16:

 

"At the muzzle end, the 6 barrels are fitted in a clamp. This clamp can be replaced by other models, thereby offering a means to vary the barrel angles and create slightly different dispersion patterns."

 

And from another site with data regarding the M61A1 cannon:

 

"There are three dispersion patterns with normal, oval and large dispersion clamps. These give 4.5 mils, 8 (height) x 38 (width) mils and 16 mils respectively."

 

Of course, I suspect this type of dispersion can only effectively be used with multi-barreled weapons. I can't imagine how this would work on a cannon with a single barrel.

[Weta43]

Videos speak louder than words, I'm struggling to find any Ka-50 cannon vids at long range. The only one I can find is a short burst at very close range, nothing Mi-28, Apache or Tiger couldn't replicate.

 

They may speak louder, but it doesn't mean they actually tell you any more.

 

You only found 1 vid - Are you seriously going to generalise on the accuracy of the gun on the basis that the one video you managed to find was of it firing at short range ???

[Mugatu]

There you go FF!! The poor lazy western designers :detective_2:

 

1 mrad for the Tiger (Apache would be close to that)

2-4 mrad for the Ka50

 

Not that I take those figures with a grain of salt but nevertheless, they're the only published numbers available.

 

 

 

 

Yoink, http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fb3_1178974309

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1a9_1179704508 (0:54)

BTW, I always thought the 'dispersement' was an excuse for the inherent inaccuracy of Gatling guns, due to the barrels rotational moment acting on the flying bullet. If it's 'designed' that way, why not include this 'Pinpoint/Area' switch then ;)

Same lane as the whining about the 'low' rate of fire of the Gsh-30-1, which is half the weight of contemporary European designs, and has a 30% rate of fire, and is accurate. Poor lazy and conservative Western weapon designers use this propaganda to sell their own stuff.

 

The Ka-50's autocannon is a powerful beast, but also keep in mind it has a minimum 10 round salvo (or was that only in high speed firing mode?), which is meant to counteract the accuracy.... Riiiiiight, it's meant to ensure multiple rounds hit the same target, not for spacing.

[Sundowner.pl]

yeah, I heard about those, but that was on the F-104, there were several clamps with the holes for barrels put on a spiral, so every barrel was on a bit deferent angle. But since late Vietnam conflict, when very often jets were used for a fighter escort in one mission, and CAS in other it wasn't useful anymore, because in CAP you would need the accuracy. Then times changed even more with the F-16 and F-15 with quite accurate targeting systems. I once asked a Netherlands Falcon Keeper if they got those things, and he even didn't know what that was :smilewink:

 

The M61 design didn't change much over the years, so you could put those clamps on it, but what's the point ?

Got this from F16.net in regards to the M61 20mm cannon on the F-16:

 

"At the muzzle end, the 6 barrels are fitted in a clamp. This clamp can be replaced by other models, thereby offering a means to vary the barrel angles and create slightly different dispersion patterns."

 

And from another site with data regarding the M61A1 cannon:

 

"There are three dispersion patterns with normal, oval and large dispersion clamps. These give 4.5 mils, 8 (height) x 38 (width) mils and 16 mils respectively."

 

Of course, I suspect this type of dispersion can only effectively be used with multi-barreled weapons. I can't imagine how this would work on a cannon with a single barrel.

[Force_Feedback]

There you go FF!! The poor lazy western designers :detective_2:

 

1 mrad for the Tiger (Apache would be close to that)

2-4 mrad for the Ka50

 

All from 3 km like in ka-50s case?

[Weta43]

Hmmm....

 

AlphaOneSix posted this :

"Got this from F16.net in regards to the M61 20mm cannon on the F-16: There are three dispersion patterns with normal, oval and large dispersion clamps. These give 4.5 mils, 8 (height) x 38 (width) mils and 16 mils respectively."

 

(In target shooting, the mil is often understood to mean 1 milliradian - 1 mrad)

 

That makes 4 mrad 'normal' for a six barrel gattling gun.

 

Which would make its accuracy comparable with the figure of <4 mrad for the 2A42 auto cannon of the Ka-50 given by Mugatu.

 

Which would kind of make saying that the Ka-50 has an accurate weapon difficult to defend.

 

Which makes me think that if it were true every Western site that carried info on the Ka-50 & says that it's pilot workload is too high for it to be effective would aslo be blathering on about how its claimed high accuracy cannon is a crock.

 

Which makes me think that the 2-4 mrad figure is probably a crock, but as with everything on the internet, once something's out it just gets accepted by everyone uncritically.

 

If you compare the wording, pretty much all the sites giving 2-4 mrad accuracy for the Ka-50 are quoting the same source.

 

Like the fake topless picture of your favourite actress that appears on every single fan sites site.

[Kusch]

http://www.helicopassion.com/fr/02/gam02.htm

 

 

 

[Force_Feedback]

I have Russian sources stating the 2a42 on the Ka-50 has a 1-2 mrad dispersion, which is 4 times less than that of the Ah-64A. Just use common sense guys, the barrel is more than twice the length and it's more than twice as heavy, combine that with a more powerful round. Well, the rest is ballistic physics and wind deflection.

 

Surprisingly, the engagement limits of the 2a42 and m230 are similar, which is remarkable due to the lighter and smaller 30mm rounds used in the m230 (as they're not subcalliber). infrantry: 4000m for both, lightly armored targets, 1500m for both. and subsonic air targets 2500m for the 2a42.

 

So roughly the 2a42 is at least twice as powerful and 4 times as accurate as the m230, and all that is cool in lomac where you don't have different wind speeds over the trajectory of the bullet, in the real world you have some more variables. good to know 10 rounds if the minimum we can fire.

 

PS that last pic is surreal, really nice photo.

[Legolasindar]

Another video example of the low accuracy of the rockets and also with post accident.

 

 

[Mugatu]

The only russian source I can find states 2-4mrad. And far the biggest factor in accuracy is stabilizing and predicting where the rounds will go. Also where do you get the range of 4000m, the same russian site stats 4km for sighting range???

 

 

I have Russian sources stating the 2a42 on the Ka-50 has a 1-2 mrad dispersion, which is 4 times less than that of the Ah-64A. Just use common sense guys, the barrel is more than twice the length and it's more than twice as heavy, combine that with a more powerful round. Well, the rest is ballistic physics and wind deflection.

 

Surprisingly, the engagement limits of the 2a42 and m230 are similar, which is remarkable due to the lighter and smaller 30mm rounds used in the m230 (as they're not subcalliber). infrantry: 4000m for both, lightly armored targets, 1500m for both. and subsonic air targets 2500m for the 2a42.

 

So roughly the 2a42 is at least twice as powerful and 4 times as accurate as the m230, and all that is cool in lomac where you don't have different wind speeds over the trajectory of the bullet, in the real world you have some more variables. good to know 10 rounds if the minimum we can fire.

 

PS that last pic is surreal, really nice photo.

[predaeus]

@Kusch, great shots thanks for posting!

[Dvst]

I think it is interesting to know that the Bundeswehr rejected the chin mounted cannon because the GIAT AM-30781 was found to have far to much recoil and in result poor accuracy. So the footage of that Tigre doesn't show the most accurate gun the designers were able to come up with. A RMK 30 f.e. has tremendously higher accuracy and next to no recoil.

[Mugatu]

That's a gun for a different purpose than the GIAT

http://www.waffenhq.de/flugzeuge/rmk30.html

 

 

I think it is interesting to know that the Bundeswehr rejected the chin mounted cannon because the GIAT AM-30781 was found to have far to much recoil and in result poor accuracy. So the footage of that Tigre doesn't show the most accurate gun the designers were able to come up with. A RMK 30 f.e. has tremendously higher accuracy and next to no recoil.

[Dvst]

And how do you come to this conclusion ( wich is false )?

[Mugatu]

Might have something to do with the recoil and the MMS, it's fine on the RMS. But it's a very capable gun will be nice to see how it performs once it gets airborne?