"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 23:11:01 -0500, Tom Gardner
wrote:

On 1/22/2016 8:23 AM, Larry Jaques wrote:

Soldiers everywhere (and American taxpayer pocketbooks) are
rejoicing
over that wonderful news. Long Live the Warthog!

Designed and built just to haul around that big-ass gun!

That GAU-8 is a kick-ass cannon, wot? YeeeeeeeeeeeHaw!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._VW_Type_1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/34M4T3n.png Installed. This would be perfect for
HelL.A. traffic gridlock, methinks. giggle


We put a big autocannon in a small fighter at the start of WW2, but
the innovative combination's development was troublesome:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_cannon

The P-39 began life as a bomber interceptor. The Air Corps had decreed
that high-altitude engines would use turbochargers instead of
mechanically driven superchargers for very sound technical reasons but
they underestimated the difficulty of packing the necessary bulky duct
work into a sleek single-engine fighter, in which the fuel tank has a
better claim to the space behind the engine so it's changing weight
doesn't upset balance.

The P-39 turbo installation was unsatisfactory for too many reasons
and it was repurposed to ground attack, where the plane also didn't
work so well - neither did the Stuka when confronted by real fighters.

So we swapped in a lighter, cheaper 20mm cannon and unloaded them on
the Russians as Lend-Lease. Neither side on the Eastern Front had
high-altitude bombers to attack or defend, the air fighting was at low
altitude unlike over Europe, and the Russians made very good use of
the P-39 against the Me-109.

Field-expedient flying artillery:
http://www.tailsthroughtime.com/2012...er-bomber.html

-jsw