Am I correct in saying that aircraft guns are different from normal guns of the same calibre and the rounds are more expensive.
Generally yes, if we look through the calibres even the ammo for the old ShKAS rifle calibre machine gun and its upgraded model the UltraShKAS needed special ammo and special belts because their enormous rate of fire put serious tension on the belts and the rounds.
Most cannon rounds used by the air force like the 23x115mm and 30 x 165mm calibre are actually electric fired rounds rather than percussion or firing cap like the ground based versions, and are in terms of ballistics rather different.
The Naval 30mm cannon shells often had longer barrel guns and higher muzzle velocity because weight is not an issue on a ship like it is on a plane or helicopter.
Smaller production runs of aircraft weapons probably makes the ammo more expensive too.
There are special chaff and flare rounds in 23 x 115mm calibre for the tail guns of bombers and transport planes... sounds mad, but modern IR guided missiles are smart and look for IR patterns like an aircraft to home in on so modern flares are normally fired in groups to form heat patterns to fool IR sensors... at 60 shells per second per gun with two guns an Il-76 can launch 120 flares in a burst in one second that could be directed either side of the aircraft and it would move away at speed distracting missiles as it goes... another 1 second burst of chaff dipoles to deploy 1km away amongst the flare cloud and you have a radar return with a complex pattern IR signature... even with good AI many missiles think that is a plane... and by now it is much bigger than the one it locked on to...
Another interesting round is called a cargo round and is an air fired 30 x 165mm round that is essentially a very basic AHEAD round. No smart fuse... just a fixed one that explodes at a specific range or on impact and it is designed for use against enemy troops on teh ground or large area soft targets and it just flys through the air for about 1.8km and then explodes sending tungsten fragments forward in a cone like a claymore mine.
If it hit a plane or helicopter I assume it would blow these fragments through the structure like getting hit with a directed fragmentation round.
For 30 x 165mm ground forces they had HEI, HEIT and APT and APDS that can be used by the 2A42 and 2A72 cannon on ground vehicles and helicopters.
The 2A38 cannon of Tunguska uses the same ammo but not either of the AP rounds.
The naval 30mm rounds are also only HEI and HEIT for the various 30 x 165mm calibre round firing gatlings.
They did have a twin barrel 30mm gun but it was a different weapon with a 30 x 210mm round...
30mm rounds for aircraft use like the GSh-301, as well as the GSh-6-30 and GSh-30 and GSh-30K... (note the GSh-6-30 is the 30mm gun of the MiG-27, while the GSh-30 is used on the Su-25, and the GSh-30K is used on the Hind in the fixed twin barrel mount and the GSh-301 on their fighters from the MiG-29 and Su-27 onwards) include HEI, APT, AP, and CC or cargo carrying.
No subcalibre rounds for aircraft or Tunguska or Pantsir to prevent Sabot fragments destroying jet engine or the induction coils at the muzzles of the AA guns that measure muzzle velocity in real time to improve aim.
I suppose like they did in Libya where the aircraft were knackered, removed the guns and used in fire support is most likely the only reason u would.
If you can't use the plane you might as well stick the gun on the back of a pickup and use the ammo.
In the Ukraine there was video one time of a hand made 23mm calibre barrel section they were attaching to the muzzles of their AKs... presumably they were pulling 23mm cannon shells from the aircrafts 23 x 115mm rounds and muzzle loading them onto these tubes and firing blanks to launch them like grenade launchers. Not very predictable or accurate I would think but certainly a use for them.
Note the projectile of teh 23 x 115mm round is the same as the 23 x 152mm round for the Shilka and ZU-23, but that ammo would be more use from those guns than lobbed in the general direction of the enemy.
It is a desperate measure and is what made me think Russia is not directly giving these guys everything they need to defend themselves... in the back ground of the video a guy was holding a PTRS-41... which would still be a very useful anti material rifle, but not state of the art supported by a military superpower neighbour.
Looking at the pics NK use the 14.5mm Gatling in s defensive manner. And if Russia was to adopt the system I would see no reason why they wouldn't just buy from China or NK rather than go the hassle of designing their own, of course if they bought from NK they can just rename it and say it's their own version to circumvent sanctions. Nobody would ever know lol.
The thing is that the 12.7 x 108mm is half as powerful, but with a SLAP round developed for it could mimic the armour penetration performance already, and going to that length the 23mm gatling carried by the MiG-31 and Su-24 could be adapted for ground use and loaded with Slap rounds with a similar powder capacity and larger calibre meaning a bigger sabot round able to be loaded hotter because the larger calibre means more room for propellent.
I think the 14.5mm round is on the wane in Russia.... it was a good round and I always wondered why they didn't make anti material rifles out of it, or sabot APFSDS rounds whose performance would be astounding and all those light western vehicles who thought they were safe would no longer be safe, but then they revealed a single shot 30 x 165mm anti material rifle for shooting MRAPs that can fire APDS rounds for sneaky beaky special forces use. The 30mm HE round is rather beefy too and would have serious effect on target too.
What about the YakB 12.7mm Gatling gun used in the Mi-24?
Yes, both that one and its replacement.
The YakB-12.7 is a 45kg four barrel gatling with a 4-4.5K per minute rate of fire.
It was replaced by the YakBYu-12.7 which weighed 60kgs and had heavier and stronger barrels so the entire ammo load of 1,440 rounds of 12.7 x 108mm ammo on a Hind could be fired in one burst without the risk of cookoffs and overheating... it fired at 4-5K per minute.
Interestingly the extreme lethality of the large bullets against the human frame led to the developing a duplex round where two bullets are loaded into the one cartridge case so when one round is fired two projectiles head down the barrel and towards the target. The bullets are slightly different weights and half the weight of the normal round but still much heavier than a rifle calibre machine gun round and of course they are 12.7mm calibre so while being lighter they still are big heavy chunks of metal, and of course it doubles the actual rate of fire of the weapon... to 8 to 9 thousand rounds per minute for the older gun and 8 to 10 thousand rounds per minute for the newer model. getting hit by either round would still be very lethal... there is just twice as many in the air...
to crawl back to topic the Kord 12.7mm machine gun on the Ansat attack helo could use duplex rounds if required... as it uses smaller lighter rounds but their weight together makes them a similar weight to the normal projectile so they move at a similar speed rather than a higher speed as you would expect for a single light projectile they are better for dealing with soft targets like humans but less effective against harder targets as they lose armour penetration potential.
Obviously rockets would be better for harder targets.
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