Word: dilger
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...