I don't understand the point of firing so many rounds so fast and then having short "fire time" due to all that ammo being gone. Can't you do as well with slower bursts, having the ammo last longer and aiming to hit the target?
Mike:
I think what you're seeing is more of a demo to 'shock and awe' everyone watching. In reality, one would really have to be careful using this because of possible collateral damage. The person manning this gun could drop more innocents than the original bad guys if not careful.
In the Cobra, we carried between 30 and 45 seconds of ammo. We had two trigger settings 3,000 rpm and 6,000 rpm; later that was changed a bit to slow it down. If we wanted it to last for an entire fire support (ground support) mission, we used 3 or 4 second bursts. That was usually more than enough to engage one target before moving to another. I can't imagine of a need to fire for this length of time for more than the psychological effect on the target. Even in instance where we used these in base defense ops, short bursts were enough to break up any target; even when the 99th horde was in the full frontal attack mode. They'd at least duck for cover and regroup if this was brought to bear.
I agree, tracers can be used to walk to the target, but that can be done pretty quickly and one doesn't need much time on the target with this.
For a role like this is in, maybe it's mainly suppressive to make an escape. Still, it wouldn't take the length of time shown and once on target, short bursts would be fine. I just can't imagine this being unleashed very often. One would have to be out in an open area where the friendlies wouldn't create more carnage than the bad guys.
Now, this (the 7.62mm) was the small mini guy <g>. We also carried a 20mm under the left wing store on some snakes. That caused the bird to yaw when fired. It also had great penetration. The 7.62 was more for troops in the open. The 20mm could penetrate some armor and light bunkers.
Best,
Dave
