by What is the “Vulcan cannon” used in the future world?
In addition to laser weapons, a wide variety of live ammunition weapons, such as the 60mm Vulcan Cannon and 120mm Machine Gun, appear in the anime “Mobile Suit Gundam.” Many are also hand-held weapons of giant humanoid weapons, ” mobile suits ” with a size of about 18m. This is a real bazooka! A quick look at various shells from 37mm to 410mm
How big are these universal-century weapons compared to weapons in the real world? Let’s take a look at the representative seven in ascending order.
30mm Vulcan cannon
The 30mm Vulcan Cannon is a machine gun equipped on the nose of the Core Fighter and the head of the Zaku dedicated to Garma Zabi. In the real world, the “Vulcan cannon” refers to the 20mm multi-barrel machine gun M61, equipped with US Air Force fighters and Air Self-Defense Force F-15J and F-2 fighters. Six 20mm barrels are bundled like a Gatling gun and rotated at high speed to fire. By the way, “Vulcan” is registered as a trademark, so only the M61 20mm cannon can be called a Vulcan cannon.
The 30mm rotary multi-barreled GAU-8 of the A-10 “Thunderbolt II” attack aircraft, which has the same caliber as the “Core Fighter,” etc., is called the “Avenger.” Why many machine guns in “Gundam” are called Vulcan guns is unknown. Still, it is possible that the manufacturing company TOTO Cunningham (fictitious) has developed and manufactured the 20mm multi-barreled machine gun M61 in the future world. It may have inherited the trademark from General Electric Company (actual).
60mm Vulcan cannon
The 60mm Vulcan cannon is a machine gun equipped on the head of the Earth Federation Forces “Gundam” and “GM.” Since the maximum caliber of multi-barreled machine guns in the real world is 30mm, the Vulcan cannon is a large-caliber cannon similar to the tank gun used during World War II. The one in “Gundam” is a 60mm cartless 3-barreled short-barreled Vulcan with 50 to 600 bullets (depending on the document). Performance is 640 shots per minute, range 6000m (effective range 3500m). By the way, the 20mm Vulcan cannon M61 mentioned above boasts a rate of fire of more than 4000 rounds per minute on fighter planes. Still, it is a derivative type of Vulcan cannon mounted on the Maritime Self-Defense Force minesweepers and transport boats.
The JM61-M is limited to 450-500 rounds per minute, so it has a rapid-fire performance close to this one. The rate of fire is probably suppressed in terms of recoil and the number of shots that can be fired. As for the range, the actual Vulcan cannon M61 has an effective range of 810 to 1490m, so the content is long because the caliber is large and there are many explosives. For reference, the 57mm 70 caliber cannon Mk.3, which is Bofors’ active carrier gun, has a rate of fire of 220 shots per minute and a maximum range of 21,000m. Russia also has a 57mm autocannon in its 2S38 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, which has a rate of fire of 30 rounds per minute and a maximum range of 6000m.
