by DAVID AXE
The Marines’ MV-22 tilt-rotor is good at a lot of things. It’s fast, responsive and its got excellent avionics. But there’s at least one big flaw. The Osprey was designed without a gun, in contrast to other assault choppers, which have door and ramp-mounted guns for suppressing the enemy at the landing zone.
For the Osprey’s (so-far) three Iraq deployments, the Marines bolted a light machine gun to the bird’s rear ramp, pictured. Later this year, Osprey is headed to Afghanistan for the first time to support the Marines in the south of that country. Landing zones in Afghanistan are “hotter” than those in Iraq, so the Marines decided to add a gun turret to the Osprey, Marine aviation boss Lieutenant General George Trautman said yesterday. “We’ve been working with Air Force Special Operations Command [also a V-22 user] and BAE Systems to look at an interim defensive weapon system that’s all-aspect. It’s small caliber, but provides 360-degree coverage.”
There will be two turrets mounted to the Osprey’s belly: the one in front is for sensors, the one in back for the gun. An extra crewman will fire the gun remotely, aiming with the sensor. It’s not very accurate, Trautman said. “We’re not going to be killing a lot of people with this.” But it will hopefully force the Taliban to keep their heads down.
The gun should wrap up testing in August, in time for the fall deployment.
(Photo: Navy)
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Time vs. Osprey
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Ready for Primetime? Part Three
Ready for Primetime? Part Two
Ready for Primetime? Part One
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[...] You might recall the Marines designed their V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor without side guns. For Afghanistan, the Marines are adding a belly turret, in addition to the standard ramp gun. The idea is to squirt rounds to keep the Taliban fighters’ heads down while the V-22 unloads. [...]
“But there’s at least one big flaw. The Osprey was designed without a gun…” This is incorrect. The MV-22 was designed with a chin mounted GAU-19 in mind, but the funding for this was cut during the Osprey’s troubled years in the early 2000s.