The relatively slow A-10 Thunderbolt is a "close-support" aircraft, intended to swoop in low over a battlefield and savage the enemy's infantry and armor. When the prototype jets started flying in 1975, some Air Force brass were worried that its GAU8 antitank cannon was not up to snuff. The nose-mounted, 30-mm weapon was like a Gatling gun, with seven rotating barrels. And like a Gatling gun, it seemed a little oldfashioned, unworthy of a state-of-the-art Air Force. Colonel Bob Dilger was ordered to Dayton to take over the GAU8 program.
It did not take...
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