In 1861 Richard J. Gatling designed and developed the Gatling gun, a rapid and continuous firing weapon to be used by the Union forces in the American Civil War. Through years of research and upgrades, the United States Military slowly redesigned this deadly machine until it could be most effectively used in modern day battlefields. In 1977, the newest form of the Gatling gun was introduced into the service of the U.S. Military. This weapon is now commonly known as the GAU-8 Avenger, a weapon so powerful and destructive that it forced the military to develop plans for a completely new aircraft, the A-10 Warthog, simply to be able to transport it efficiently.
This weapon, weighing just under 2 tons, measures roughly 19 feet and 5.5 inches (5.931 m) from the muzzle to the farthest point of the ammunition system. All together, the gun in its entirety takes up a little over a 3rd of the plane, which reaches 53 feet and 4 inches (16.16 m) from nose to tail. Because of its impressive size, the nose wheel of the A-10 Warthog must be offset to make room for the massive gun along the central axis. In essence, although the A-10 does carry various forms of explosives in its arsenal, the GAU-8 Avenger dominates the aircraft.
In order to avoid overheating, the GAU-8 utilizes 7 barrels, each measuring over 5 meters long. When active, the gun spins at such a rapid rate that it has a potential of firing 4200 rounds per minute. Each of these 30mm rounds, along with the plastic and metal casing surrounding them, are 29 cm long and weigh more than .5 kg. Because of the weapon’s impressive length, along with internal rifling grooves, each round can travel up to 6 km, accurately striking up to 80% of its rounds within 10 meters of its target.
The GAU-8 fires two different types of ammunition, the PGU-14/B Armor Piercing Incendiary and the PGU-13/B High Explosive Incendiary, each round reaching a velocity of 3,500 f/s (roughly 1,070 m/s). Because of the high mass of the ammunition and the explosive nature of each round, the weapon is fully capable of penetrating 38mm of armor at a distance of 1000 meters. This is saying that each individual round has the capacity to penetrate any vehicle supporting 1.5 inches of armor before exploding, very likely destroying vital machinery and killing anybody unfortunate enough to be nearby.
Here’s a video link for all you lazy people out there who just skimmed the information above… http://youtu.be/1Oc-xbpy-OI
To summarize, this gun was created with the single minded goal of messing tanks up. And the best part of all is that this was all made possible by mankind’s knowledge of applied physics. And so I ask you, what other forms of aircraft technology and accessories can you think of whose creation can be credited to modern day physics? Can you think of any improvements to technology that will become available to us in the future? If so, explain.
