Tuesday, November 20, 2007
4 insurgents getting killed by gunfire
The original text accompanying this said it was an A-10, but the rate of fire of that plane's only gun, the General Electric 30mm, 7 barrel gatling type GAU-8 Avenger, is 3600/min. or 650/sec. When it fires, it sounds like a saw not a machine gun. This is pretty clearly an M233 chain gun on the 'chin' of an Apache helicopter. That gun, also in 30mm, has a rate of fire about 10/sec. Since it fires two 2 second bursts, you would expect 40 rounds and indeed the round counter, center right low, shows 303 rounds to start and 263 at the end. 40 rounds. The firing shakes the forward looking infrared (FLIR)camera which is pretty clearly hovering (as opposed to strafing).
Very nice shootin', Tex, and good that the dog got away as well.
10 30mm rounds tends to spread you around a little, don't they? Man, oh man.
You're right...the GAU-8/A on the A-10 sounds nothing like that...we used to describe the sound as that of a dragon's fart. I'll admit that the first time I saw/heard it, I nearly crapped my pants.
As good as the A 10 is against armored vehicles, I'm not sure it's the perfect weapon for the war being waged against us.
Dragon fart, however, is something I'll remember. Thanks for the comment.
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