MiG-29's GSh-30-1

[Cruel Angel's Thesis]

As a perfectionist, i tend to go overboard when desigining mechs, and the MiG-29 from Macross Zero is no exception. After spending almost 3 hours on the net searching, i have found nothing about the ammo being fired from the GSh-30-1, the 30mm cannon. Anyone of the gun or aircraft guru's know this? Any help is appreciated. Arigato.

Cruel Angel's Thesis

[twich]

Sorry, dont mean to be an ass, but I would assume that it is the standard 30mm shell fired from aircraft. I dont think it is the depleted uranium shell that is fired from the A-10.

Hope this helps.

Twich

[Murphy]

i dont know if this helps but on the "discovery wings channel", now called the "military channel" it had a program about a US/Germany joint combat training called "red october" they take two US Navy F-18 squadrens and fly them to germany to practice dogfighting with their russian bought mig-29 fulcrums. it was pretty cool to watch. but anyway when the german pilot was showing the armament of his mig-29 he said that it only held 150 rounds of the 30mm, compared to the hundreds of rounds the US F-18 had. he said it carred less ammo because the round was bigger and did more damage.

Edited March 25, 2005 by Murphy

[Opus]

Does this help?

http://www.canit.se/~griffon/aviation/text/akandata.htm

[Cruel Angel's Thesis]

What i mean is the type of round, is it AP, HE, HEI, SAP?

Cruel Angel's Thesis

[David Hingtgen]

I'd be surprised if it was anything but HEI.

[Akilae]

I was actually wondering about that... what do fighters use? A mixture of rounds? Or some exotic HE-AP-I combo round that does everything?

[VF-19]

I was actually wondering about that... what do fighters use? A mixture of rounds? Or some exotic HE-AP-I combo round that does everything?

Don't know about modern fighters, but WW2 fighters had a mixture of ammo in their gunbelts.

For example, a German 20 mm cannon mounted on a FW-190, could fire high explosive, armour peircing, tracers, delay explosive (basically exploded inside the target), hydro explosive (explodes on contact with liquid, IE, the fuel tank), and incindiary ammo. Lots of fun for the poor sod on the receiving end...

[Cruel Angel's Thesis]

Well the current favorite of the USAF and US Navy, despite its tendecy to go off is the PGU-28, its described as at Semi-Armor Piercing Hi-Explosive Incendary (SAPHEI). This was to replace the old M56 or M53 for the 20mm (M61A1). However there has been 12 incendents (maybe more by now) of the rounds going off, possible cook-off from the temperature of the gun.

The Warthog with its 30mm of depeleted uranium chain death cycles between incendary and AP rounds. Its a 4 to 1 ratio, but i can't remember which way it goes.

Cruel Angel's Thesis

[David Hingtgen]

If it's a fighter jet, going out to fight, it's got HEI. A-10's of course have their tank-busting ammo, but that's certainly not your standard anti-air load... (it's 4:1 AP:HEI btw)

The "does everything" round still isn't that common in the US AFAIK. Because it likes to explode...

There's little need for AP because aircraft no longer have armor. The only reason the new SAP/HEI came about is because so many planes nowaday are multi-role, and are 100x more likely to be firing at tanks, jeeps, trucks, bunkers, SAM sites, infantry, etc than they are another plane. The only time a US F-14 has ever used its gun has been for strafing. The F-15E, F-16CG, etc are probably going to get a LOT more use out of a "stops vehicles dead" round than a "makes fuel-filled aircraft wings burn" round.

Basically---since the MiG-29 (in original form) is about as pure air-to-air as it comes, it'd almost certainly be loaded with HEI. The MiG-29 isn't nearly as adaptable to the strike role as the Flanker, and will probably remain primarily air-to-air with only limited air-to-ground for its entire existence.

[F-ZeroOne]

i dont know if this helps but on the "discovery wings channel", now called the "military channel" it had a program about a US/Germany joint combat training called "red october" they take two US Navy F-18 squadrens and fly them to germany to practice dogfighting with their russian bought mig-29 fulcrums. it was pretty cool to watch. but anyway when the german pilot was showing the armament of his mig-29 he said that it only held 150 rounds of the 30mm, compared to the hundreds of rounds the US F-18 had. he said it carred less ammo because the round was bigger and did more damage.

American planes use - generally - the 20mm Vulcan, which has a rate of fire of a few thousand rounds a minute, hence big ammunition storage.

The MiG-29 has a laser rangefinder for use with the cannon. The Russians claim that this makes the cannon extremely accurate; theres a story that during early tests the cannon had a habit of jamming after only a few rounds, but that it was so accurate the target was usually destroyed anyway.

[Retracting Head Ter Ter]

The MiG-29 has a laser rangefinder for use with the cannon. The Russians claim that this makes the cannon extremely accurate; theres a story that during early tests the cannon had a habit of jamming after only a few rounds, but that it was so accurate the target was usually destroyed anyway.

Eh? Is that like some computerised automatic fire system? The sensors determine when to fire and autofires one the nose is pointed correctly?

[F-ZeroOne]

The MiG-29 has a laser rangefinder for use with the cannon. The Russians claim that this makes the cannon extremely accurate; 

Eh? Is that like some computerised automatic fire system? The sensors determine when to fire and autofires one the nose is pointed correctly?

As far as I know, the firing system isn't automatic - the pilot still has to press the trigger - but the rangefinder provides accurate ranging information, just like modern tanks use laser rangefinders. Many aircraft use ranging data from radar instead.

[Knight26]

Actually, the pilot can set the cannon to auto fire on the MiG-29 and Su-27 when using he GsH-301. When that happens the laser range finder data determines the best shot and when that occurs it will automaticallty fire a 5-10 rounds burst off the gun. The gun has something like an 80+% chance of hitting the target in such cases and testing shows that it only takes between 3-4 hits to take down an F-16 if it hits the fuselage.

[Shin Densetsu Kai 7.0]

That's what I heard too back on Discovery back when Wings used to be on in 97. They said this when they were questioned about the seemingly small amount of ammo at full capacity in the drum,(150 rounds)