Today we will look at the remaining weapons available to us when flying the Comanche. The M197 20mm canon is likely the weapon you will turn to as a last resort. The 20mm canon lacks both the range and the punch of your rocket powered missiles, but it does offer certain advantages that your other ordnance lacks. The canon is a 3-barrel Gatling gun that carries 500 rounds of ammunition with a 750 round-per-minute rate of fire. The canon is normally stored in an internal bay under the nose to reduce radar reflectivity until it is selected then it swings out and is slaved to the pilot’s HIDSS (Helmet Integrated Display and Sight System). The HIDSS integrated with TrackIR allows for a true “look and shoot” capability in EECH. The canon range of motion is limited to +/- 120 degrees left or right and +10 to -60 degrees up and down. Maximum range for the canon is 1600 meters (1.6 km) although it is advisable to close to a shorter range to ensure the largest percentage of hits on the target.





The canon is effective against soft targets such as tents, trucks, utility vehicles, infantry and other non-armored items. Speaking of infantry, keep in mind that they do not show up on the radar and are often embedded in towns. Some of them carry shoulder fired surface to air missiles so don’t drop your guard when overflying enemy held territory.





The major drawbacks to the canon include limited destructive power and the obvious disadvantage of having to close within canon range to engage a target that might decide to shoot back at you. Once you start firing it may take up to several seconds to destroy the target as well, giving them ample opportunity to return fire.



When conducting “mop up” operations on enemy FARPs the helmet mounted sighting is very convenient for identifying and engaging targets at close range. Typical FARP infrastructure targets take about 25 rounds of canon fire to destroy.



Cont…