The A-10 Warthog Is No Plane – It’s a Flying Cannon

The A-10 Warthog Is No Plane – It’s a Flying Cannon

Key Points and Summary: The A-10 Warthog was literally built around its GAU-8/A Avenger, a 30mm, seven-barrel cannon that spits depleted-uranium rounds at nearly 4,000 rpm and shreds armor with the famous “BRRRT.” Early flight tests in the 1970s exposed nasty problems—gun gas ingestion and residue on the canopy—but fixes turned the system into a reliable tank killer, proven spectacularly in Desert Storm. Years later, a contractor at Iraq’s Balad…