In the Army, I was a 16R Vulcan crew member. Very similar weapon, but 20mm and mounted on an APC. Lots of fun to shoot
Very familiar with that, as i worked as an armament specialist on A-10s for 15 years. CTANG JAW
Of additional interest is the ALA (ammunition loading assembly) which simultaneously loads new ammo as the old "brass" (Al) is unloaded.
Driven off of aircraft hydraulics, interesting stuff @ 1:30
Boy the sound @ :30 brings back the memories
I was told of the (few apparently) times the M113/Vulcan was used on convoy duty in SVN. If there was ever a sniper or even the suspicion that there was a possible ambush setup the Vulcan would just chew down the jungle to 3-400 yards deep. Even the VC had better sense than to hit those. The problem was they were few and far between.
Very cool planes. We have 2 or 4 fly over our house on a weekly basis. Sometimes more.
I had a teacher who was involved with the design of this gun. Didn’t know the slugs were depleted uranium until I heard the story.
HiThere are (4) types of ammunition used;
High explosive
Incendiary
Depleted uranium
Training
The "training" ammunition has a steel head and is still used in combat for destroying lightly armor or trucks.
When in Kuwait we loaded what is referred as a "combat mix"; the rounds are a mix of the above 4 type.
(i.e 1 HE, 1 incendiary, 1 depleted uranium, 1 training, rinse repeat)
99.98% of the rounds i loaded were blue tipped (training)
Hi
Do they still use the depleted uranium rounds? I know that after gulf war and bosnia, there were many health concerns involving that type of munition.