Quote:
Originally Posted by VMFn542bob
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I was really interested to see the M242 was included in this.
I’m a retired M2 Bradley Master Gunner. The M242 “Bushmaster” 25mm cannon is one of my favorite guns of all time; I spent a lot of time working in them and firing them. It’s a fascinating weapon, 1000 meters is considered short range for it. In fact, it is zeroed at 1200 meters. It’s accuracy compared to the M1 was never that great, though. The big problem with it as I could tell, was ammunition. The quality could vary greatly. Essentially (in my day) the M242 could fire armor piercing and high explosive ammunition. There were inert training rounds that replicated the trajectory of the real AP and HE. The training stuff quality varied terribly by lot numbers. Given that the ammo was cased in 30 round boxes, lots could be mixed in a basic load easily, and so identifying a bad lot was near impossible. The Army changed barrel designs in the 90s; they were shorter, heavier and were fluted. This actually seemed to help improve the accuracy.
The M242 was used by numerous vehicular systems, the M2/M3 Bradley, the USMC Lav-25, the coast Guard and I think a version of the Air Forces AC-130 used it (but I’m not sure). The M2/M3 and LAV used a 1.5 Ho motor to drive the chain which made it automatic to a max cyclic rate of 200 rounds per minute. I believe the CG puts a 10 HP motor on theirs and can get up to 600 rods per minute.
The Army has finally decided to replace the M242 with a 30mm variant after nearly 40 years of successful use.
03-17-2019, 10:29 AM
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