"AA Guns Making a Come Back?" Topic

Air defense guns have been a controversial weapon in the past, as the guns could not cope effectively with fast, highly maneuvering targets. Yet, with the introduction of slow but illusive UAVs, military forces are wiping the dust from their old cannons, in hope they will be effective against this new threat. Merging trends including new types ammunition, cannons with higher firing accuracy and better command and control are turning these evolving trends into reality.

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Maybe a return of the Quad .50?

I would like to see one of them slow assed drones evade the lead that thing could throw ought. Hook it up to a semi decent thermal image and a basic radar. Heck,even helios would have trouble with that.You can armor them as much as you want,just aim for the rotors.

I just had a vision of a Quad tribarrel .50 HMG's. Yeah, that'll ruin your day.

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tie it into an ageis style net with patriots and avengers.

The problem would be that they would have to emit and to be honest that would get them killed. espeacialy with stand off munitions…Look at our own ADA we are down to Patriot and the avenger and the avenger uses visual aqusition and depends on a Battlefield control system to alert them to inbound Aircraft in zone,IE SHORad..even rotory wing aircraft are now equiped with the latest and greatest threat warning gear…They might walk into that quad 50 once ..but not twice

Don't see any reason you couldn't arm UAV's with a HARM or some other similar missle.

Slow drones? Have you seen the latest generation? Even the Reaper MQ-9 can fly at 250kts and operate at 50,000 feet. Well, well above AA guns. Only the lowest order of cheap drones would be eligable targets, assuming they have enough radar signature to produce a lock on. Most are too small and would require your old radar system to be upgraded. A significant cost.

Cheaper to operate than a single SAM.

The Swiss method-put cheap AA guns on mountains,

Are'nt there passive detection fo AA guns? Like LLTV, IR etc.?

Anyone ever been shot at with a ZSU-23? By the way I saw a Tanduska (the upgrade version of the ZSU) for sale for $8 USD million. Seems a little steep for a Soviet made piece of armor.

They also make a good anti-infantry weapon and chew the hell out of soft skins and light armor … The Quad .50 could even fire indirect, the VC called them "whispering death" …

I assume that was Tunguska. There is no armour to speak of on it, but it does have teeth…

Against illusive UAVs, I should have thought that imaginary flak would have been good enough.

All the best,

John.

AA is only good if you can aquire the target, until then, all this weaponry is just a real cool toy.

Actually, I don't think flak guns have really ever gone out of favor.

Sure, missiles are claimed to be the be all, end all of weaponry, but many have very poor performance against countermeasures. Bullets, and/or larger shells aren't adversely affected by those, if you discount the radar guidance portion of the equation.

A lead curtain can be quite deadly, even against stealth aircraft. Of course, what goes up must come down as well, so there is a downside to barrage fire as well.

I always figured old fashioned flak guns are still useful against helicopters, as well as low flying aircraft.

I wouldn't want to fly a chopper within sight and range of a Tunguska or those old quad .50 brownings, doubly so if trying to disembark some infantry.

Just remember back in the day the Slovakian took out a stealth fighter with AAA

?????

Ah yes, the Slovakian War. What a bastard that was. If you weren't there, you don't know, maaaan. You weren't there.

Aside from the famous Slovakian shoot-down, there was also the Yugoslav success against F117 with a SAM (SA-3 IIRC).