Word: cannonism
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...bombing runs and dogfights with MiGs. Only in the last decade has the Air Force produced a good close-support plane, the A10, which can fly slowly enough to find enemy tanks, is sturdy enough to take hits, and is capably armed with a simple and effective 30-mm cannon. Tactical Air Command pilots ridicule the A10, joking that they fear being hit from the rear by birds. In recent years, the Air Force has tried to delete the plane from its budget...
...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...
...take Dilger, a fighter pilot and former dogfight instructor, long to decide that he did not want to replace the GAU8 with some expensive missile. The General Electric cannon performed spectacularly in tests. Over a simulated battlefield in the Nevada desert, his A-10 pilots destroyed 65% of their targeted tanks at a distance of 3,000 ft., and more than 80% at 2,000 ft. The cannon fires off 70 rounds a second. Says Dilger: "We found that the optimal burst to kill a tank was only 35 rounds...
...ammo that worked, for the lowest possible price. The companies still compete hard, improving efficiency and cutting prices to win the major share of each year's production contract. Average cost per shell: less than $15. Over five years Dilger used the savings to further refine the cannon, yet still managed to turn back a surplus of $124 million that had been allocated for the GAU8 program. He is proud. Dilger's reward? No promotion. A new, unattractive desk job. In 1980, colleagues say, he quit the service in disgust. Today Bob Dilger, 49, raises corn and cattle...
...master's quarters on the 1,200-ft. Santa Monica pier. Beachfront houses in the communities of Venice, San Diego, Seal Beach, Ventura and Sunset Beach were extremely hard-hit. In the exclusive Malibu colony, waves left the homes of Film Stars Bruce Dern, Burgess Meredith and Dyan Cannon awash with debris. "I knew it was all over," said Colony Resident Becky Ilagen, "when I saw the hot tub sail by into the ocean...