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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim S who wrote (36070)	7/28/2009 4:07:26 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

I can't say definitively, I'm not a fighter pilot, or someone who regularly interacts with them. But I don't think that's really the one air-to-air scenario where a gun would be useful. Also being able to pull a higher G turn doesn't mean that your automatically going to get a kill or even a good missile solution. Like air-to-air drones air-to-air (and ground to air) missiles aren't limited by a human's G resistance, but that doesn't mean that pilots can't avoid them. Which isn't to say that even on manned aircraft a gun is as useful air-to-air as it used to be, let alone that it would be as useful in a high G drone. I do think such drones could get by without one. But the issue wasn't really guns as much as it was situational awareness (and how useful and important it is). Even missile combat isn't all about long range shots where you only see the enemy on radar. Higher maximum G loads, and potential greater numbers (because the drones could be smaller and cheaper) can make up for that disadvantage, I'm not saying its definitive, only that it is indeed a disadvantage.