In this era of missiles, why do fighters still need to install guns?

Modern warfare in all types of fighter aircraft equipped with aviation guns, its main role is nothing more than two points, one is in close quarters to fight, and the second is in the necessary time to hit the ground targets, strafing.

F-35 gun shooting

For the aviation gun, in recent years there has been a relatively large controversy, some of the key to the modern warplane equipped with the gun is not applicable, after all, its flight speed has generally been supersonic, in this case, even if the two sides meet is also in the minutes and seconds to quickly pull away, available for the gun to be used in an extremely short period of time, and even seconds to describe it seems to be a little bit too long. There is news that in the U.S. military, whether F-22, or F-35 two five-generation aircraft have been equipped with machine guns, but our J-20 does not seem to be equipped with machine guns, from this point of view, the two sides have a more obvious distinction.

Early stage of development

If we turn to the history of the cannon, we will find that from the First World War seems to have seen the figure of the cannon, when both pilots in order to be able to shoot down each other's fighter, can only use a more primitive pistol, in the two sides of the fighter when the use of handguns to shoot, but basically can only rely on the other side of the pilot to injure or kill the hope of destroying the war machine, want to shoot down the war machine directly The pistol is too powerful to be used for this purpose.

World War II air war

Standing to the peak

But turn to the Second World War, in the Second World War fighter air war can be said to be the pinnacle of history, in the absence of missiles in the era, the two sides can only rely on the physical combat in this stage of the machine guns have been a long way, whether it is the speed of fire, the range or the power of the machine guns have been a long way to go. In the Second World War can be said that in addition to the ground fire strike downed aircraft, both sides of the fight caused by the destruction, damage all from the gun, and this period of time, I'm afraid that more is more familiar with the "Gatling principle" gun, with a very high rate of fire, the type of gun peak for a while.

Firing advance

Toward the decline

However, after the peak, naturally began to decline, after the end of the Second World War due to the emergence of air-to-air missiles, countries will target this, after all, its operation is simple, powerful, and damaging, which, like the U.S. Army's F-4 fighters, even if it is the early missiles equipped with the warplane. However, the opposite is true, in the case of technology is not yet mature categorically give up, the result is bound to be a failure.

Vietnam F-4s

Rebirth

The Vietnam War can be said to give the United States and even most of the Western countries a hard lesson in the Vietnam War, the U.S. F-4 began to rely on large-scale air-to-air missiles to carry out the task of striking, and even said that at this point in time the world's absolute majority of the warplanes have given up the gun. However? In the face of the MiG-17 in close combat, it became powerless. As we all know, since the air-to-air missile has a minimum range, the F-4 can only do nothing within 3,000 meters, so a lot of F-4s have become more suitable for fighting the MiG-17's defeat, in this case, the gun is back on the aircraft, and has been to the present day.

Summary

Final summary, the current stage of the warplane equipped with cannon, or the main fear of once there is a close-range fighting, the shooting limit of the situation, so in the current stage is equipped with most of the cannon is still for the protection of life, as for the strike on the ground, although it is also useful, but at present, the warplane's flight speed is extremely fast, so the use of the scope of the warplane is also not big. But in the end, we still need to mention, due to the gun in high-speed maneuvering or high-speed turning process by the centrifugal force, shooting is very difficult, and modern warfare in close combat opportunities are not big, so the gun's survival space is also getting less and less, which is why some of the current fighters are not equipped with the reason. Some people have flirted with the reason why the U.S. Army F-22 and F-35 equipped with machine guns, I'm afraid it is also afraid to eat the loss of the Vietnam War.