Those large pod-things under the wings ARE NOT BOMBS. They are external fuel tanks, so this plane could fly further without refueling. |
From here, you can see 5 of the 6-8 air-air missiles. |
Second, the A-10: A terrifyingly excellent attack plane, built around its main gun, not its thousands of pounds of missiles/bombs. Its main gun, however, probably posed a huge problem in its inception: you can't just mount a 7-barrel, 35mm chaingun on anything. That said, it had its advantages, like being able to provide close air support and blow up tanks, hence one of its nicknames, the tankbuster. The only plane that followed the same principal rule (if it can have a larger gun, put one on; if it can't, put on more guns/rockets/missiles/bombs) was the Henschel He-129, used by Nazi Germany during WWII. The He-129E (experimental) had four 20mm machineguns, but that was not sufficient, so the He-129A had four 30mm machineguns. The B and C versions just had upgraded mechanisms for the machineguns. Later though, they decided that a 30mm round couldn't take out very many types of tanks, so they put a single, nose-mounted 75mm self-loading cannon.
No comments:
Post a Comment