Information AboutGun Pod |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT GUN POD | |
| aircraft guns | |
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OVERVIEW Pods for electric Gatling Gun s customarily also contain an electric motor and battery to drive the weapon. Some older pods, such as the USAF SUU-16/A , used a Ram-air Turbine to drive the weapon's mechanism, but those systems often imposed unacceptable drag penalties for the necessary high-speed carrier aircraft. Also, due to the necessary speeds to run the turbine make such gun-pods applicable only on high performance aircraft. Gun pods currently in service around the world are generally self-powered, either by a function of the weapon (most automatic weapons fitted in gun pods are often Recoil Operated or Gas Operated , even including some gatling weapons such as the GAU-4/A ) or by a power source contained within the pod (commonly an electric motor to run either Gatling or Chain Driven cannon). This allows the weapons to be carried on lower performance aircraft, commonly associated with Counter-Insurgency (COIN) operations or similar operations where air defenses are sparse and the intended targets lightly armored, scenarios in which strafing is a viable tactic. Since the Vietnam War , the USAF has moved away from the use of gun pods, feeling that the use of multi-million dollar aircraft for strafing is an economically foolish proposition. The Soviet Union and (subsequently) Russia have remained proponents of strafing, and have continued to develop new systems specifically for that purpose. Soviet experience in Afghanistan in the 1980s led to an unusual innovation in the form of the SPPU series of gun pods, which have traversable barrels allowing them to continue to fire on a fixed target as the aircraft passes overhead. Developing nations, especially those experienceing localized insurgencies or similar internal security issues have also remained fond of such devices, which give greatly increased firepower to low-performance fixed and rotary wing aircraft found in many airforces around the world. Advantages and Disadvantages The advantages of gun pods:
Their disadvantages:
COMMON GUN PODS US GPU-2/A GPU-5/A M18/SUU-11/A M12/SUU-16/A M25/SUU-23/A USSR/Russia UPK-23 Gun Pod SPPU-20 Gun Pod |
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