#Aircraft

If you’re looking for a history of military weaponry book with a twist, check out what’s coming soon from Canfora Publishing in Sweden. In coming days, they will release Aircraft Weapons Of World War I, a collection of photos of the wild and weird weaponry of aviators in the Great War.

In Norse mythology, the valkyries were angelic female shepherds of the dead slain in battle, who chose from among them the warriors who would prepare for the coming of Ragnarok, and and who would whisk the chosen away through the sky to Valhalla. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, valkyries became reality – after a fashion. Great aluminum machines with whirring blades carried men into battle for the first time, and, when needed, swooped down onto the battlefield to carry off the wounded for treatment. The age of airmobile infantry – the age of the helicopter – had begun.

The A-10 “Warthog” attack aircraft is beloved by pilots and gun enthusiasts alike, and not the least because of its powerful 30mm GAU-8 Gatling cannon. On the other side the Cold War, though, another aircraft was developed with matched an equally rugged and dependable airframe to an equally fearsome cannon: The Sukhoi Su-25 is called the “Frogfoot” by NATO, but to those who fly it and those who depend on it alike, it is the “Grach” (Грач, “Rook”). This red bird of death has overseen battlefields from Afghanistan to Syria, packing rockets, missiles, and its own potent 30mm gun. It is a twin engined jet with a pragmatic appearance, somewhat smaller than the A-10, and designed more as a generalist attack aircraft than a direct counter to enemy armor. The concept behind the Su-25 goes all the way back to before World War II, when the Soviet Union was exploring attack aircraft as part of a program that eventually led to the famous Il-2 Sturmovik. A tactical aircraft that can carry bombs, guns, and rockets in direct support of infantry was a concept that the Russians pioneered, and which had its baptism in fire on the Eastern Front of WWII against the Germans. Today, the Su-25 carries on that legacy in service with the Russian Federation and 22 other countries. But this is a gun blog, so let’s talk about its gun.

The days of the Air Force‘s first stealth air superiority fighter, the F-22 Raptor, may already be numbered. US Air Force General Mike Holmes told Aviation Week that the requirements for the next-generation “Penetrating Counter Air” (PCA) program are taking shape. Although the F-22 remains the most advanced and capable fully operational fighter in the world, new foreign developments have emerged which may threaten its dominance. Specifically, the Russian Su-57 stealth fighter resulting from the PAK FA program, and the already in service S-400 Triumf (NATO reporting name SA-21 Growler) air defense missile system were cited by the General as being two systems that could potentially threaten the F-22. Therefore, a new fighter program is needed to maintain air dominance, according to the general.

In January, just before the 2017 SHOT Show, I got the opportunity to travel to Cody Wyoming to visit the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, to see some of their rare firearms and bring photos of them to our readers.

In World War I, the Germans developed a secret technology that helped them dominate the skies during 1915 and early 1916. The tech? A device that synchronized the firing of a machine gun with the rotation of an aircraft’s propeller, allowing accurate low-mounted forward-firing weapons on warplanes for the first time.

One of the early automatic rifles that has caught my interest for several years going now is the Winchester Machine Rifle, also known as the Burton Machine Rifle or the Light Machine Rifle. The Burton – as I’ll call it for the purposes of today’s post – is interesting primarily because it qualifies retroactively as an “assault rifle”, sharing all the normally ennumered characteristics of that class of firearms, 26 years before the MP. 43 would erupt onto the world’s stage.