Avenger: Getting a Close-Up on the A-10's 30mm Brrrt Gun
While stomping around Arizona, the Guns.com crew got a good look at the famous GAU-8/A Avenger 30mm cannon as used in the A-10 Thunderbolt.
We were lucky enough to spend a day filming at the incredible Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, which features nearly 400 aircraft spread over 80 acres. Being gun nerds, the Avenger was a must-see.
The A-10 was designed from the ground up as a tank killer, and to this day is the only aircraft to carry the massive GAU-8A.
This 30mm electric Gatling gun delivers seven times the energy per round as the vaunted 20mm M61 Vulcans carried by other American aircraft. For reference, the 30mm PGU-13/14 shells for a GAU-8A weigh 12.48 ounces, while a 20mm shell as used in a Vulcan runs a comparatively puny 3.52 ounces. Also, the GAU-8A can spit out shells at a withering 3,900 rounds per minute.
The GAU-8/A, made by General Electric, is a 19-foot long seven-barreled rotary cannon that fires huge 30x173mm shells — each bigger than a full-sized ketchup bottle – as fast as 3,900 rounds per minute. Unloaded, the gun weighs more than 600 pounds and uses twin hydraulic motors pressurized from two independent hydraulic systems to rotate the barrels and load the cartridges.
While the gun system seems offset, the firing barrel of the GAU-8A is on the exact centerline of the A-10, ensuring accuracy and directing the recoil through the aircraft's center of gravity. (Photo: U.S. Air Force Museum)
The GAU-8A weighs some 4,000 pounds all-up and takes up the first 19 feet of the A-10. (Photo: U.S. Air Force Museum)
In fact, it is so large, the pilot of an A-10 sits behind, over it, and in front of it all at the same time, effectively riding the gun and its 1,350-round magazine drum. To protect them from ground fire, the pilot rests inside a 1,200-pound titanium "bathtub" of armor plate. (Photos: U.S. Air Force Museum)
An inert PGU-13/B HEI shell compared to a standard 5.56 NATO M193. Of note, the 30mm shells used in the Avenger gun system utilize aluminum cases to save weight. The round is also used in the Army's Mk44 Bushmaster II cannons fitted to Stryker Dragoons and the Navy's Mk 46 Mod 2 Gun Weapon System. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Also on hand at Pima was a rare General Electric GAU-13/A, which is a lightweight pneumatically driven four-barreled version of the seven-barreled Avenger.
Designed to be crammed into the 1,800-pound GPU-5/A Pave Claw gun pod that retained the spent brass, the GAU-13 was theoretically to be carried on an F-16 or other fighter in the ground attack role.
With just 353 rounds of ammunition on hand (compared to 1,174 in the A-10), the slower 2,400 rpm rate of fire (compared to the A-10's 3,900 rpm rate) only allowed for about eight seconds of firing. It didn't pan out, but is still around.
