I generally talk about small arms, and small arms accessories. However let’s take a break and check out some extremely heavy firepower– the GAU-8 Avenger cannon.
Since the US Army took an experimental Lewis machinegun up on a canvas and bamboo biplane in 1912, there has been a move to arm aircraft. After those tests in which an officer asked, “Why would anyone want to put a gun on an airplane?” ordnance has gotten bigger and more effective.
The US military spent most of the time period between 1948 and 1989 obsessed with a plain in central Germany known as the Fulda Gap. The Fulda Gap was the most obvious route for a hypothetical Soviet tank attack upon West Germany (and NATO) from Eastern Europe. It was envisioned that thousands of Soviet and Warsaw Pact tanks would swarm into the Fulda. If the US could stop them there, World War III could be won. If not, we’d all be speaking Russian today.
Enter the Avenger.
The rest in my column at Firearms Talk.
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About laststandonzombieisland
Let me introduce myself. I am a bit of a conflict junkie. I am fascinated by war and warfare, assassination, personal protection and weaponry ranging from spud guns and flame throwers to thermonuclear bombs and soviet-trained Ebola monkeys. In short, if it’s violent or a tool to create violence it is kind of my thing.
I have written a few hundred articles on the dry encyclopedia side for such websites as History Times, Firearms Talk.com, GUNS.com, Suite 101 (where I am the contracted Feature Writer for Military History) and Combat Forums; as well as for print publications like England Expects, and Strike First Strike Fast. Several magazines such as Sea Classics, Military Historian and Collector, Mississippi Sportsman and Warship International have carried my pieces. Additionally I am on staff as a naval consultant and writer for Eye Spy Intelligence Magazine.
Currently I am working on several book projects, including a section in the upcoming Mississippi Encyclopedia (to be published by Ole Miss this summer), an alternative history novel about the US-German War of 1916, and a biography of Bennett Doty. My first novel, about the coming zombie apocalypse was released this Spring by Necro Publications and can be found at Amazon.com.
In my day job I am a contractor for the US federal government in what could best be described as the ‘Force Protection’ field. In this I am a certified Firearms, and less-than-lethal combat instructor.
