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"Gee, and a 105 mm gun wouldn't be useful in a short-range knife fight like Najaf? They may be classified as "obsolete" for tank-on-tank combat, but they would probably do some good in urban combat."

Even if using anti-personnel beehive rounds, the problems with the 105mm cannon include not being able to fire off a round when friendly troops are nearby as well as the vastly slower reloading speed of the manual 105mm loader versus the automated 30mm gattling cannon.

This is why A-10 attack fighters use the GAU-8 gattling cannon for anti-personnel missions instead of being equipped with a 105mm cannon loaded with beehive rounds.

I want that same A-10 anti-personnel firepower on the ground. I want it in what are now our "obsolete" and mothballed M1 tanks, and I want those GAU-8 tanks where ever our troops are located.

5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

Okay, I see your point, only it doesn't work. The GAU-8 does the job on tanks and vehicles because it attacks SINGLE targets, one at a time. A GAU-8 will not take out a building full of guerillas. A GAU-8 will not cause secondary fires/explosions when it's round comes into contact with concrete. A GAU-8 does what it does to tanks because it's ammo is designed to penetrate their armor, not because of the number of rounds it punches out. If it was simply a question of number of bullets and penetrating power, then every AC-130 and A-10 in the world would be over Najaf right now.

It's not exactly an efficient way of doing business against the type of foe we face right now.

The weapons we have are just fine, when they are used in the way they were designed to be used. Tanks and gatling guns are not suitable weapons for urban combat. High explosives and a lack of remorse ARE suitable weapons. Let's use what we have, more intelligently and less sympathetically, before we go designing new combat systems.

If, in the end, the EXPERTS agree that what we have is not up to scratch, they'll make the changes. But stop gaps and wish lists do not win the kinds of fights we're in now. Vietnam proved that. It wasn't the weapons that failed there, but the WILL to use them that did. We have the same problem here.