Britain's Jaguar and Tornado pilots visiting the show are likely to take a wistful look at the 27 mm Mauser revolver cannon displayed under the nose of the Eurofighter mockup in the BAE Systems exhibit area. When they finally get to trade-in their present mounts for the multi-nation multi-role wonderplane, the Mauser will no longer feature among its equipment-a victim of UK defense budget economies.

Although installed and cleared for use through planned Military Aircraft Release schedules in the RAF's first 37 Eurofighters, transfer of funding for the Mausers' expensive operational support to vital UK military C4 programs will effectively preclude their employment. The RAF's Harrier GR.7s have already lost their 30 mm ventral ADEN gun-pods.

Up to 10 new Matra BAe ASRAAM close-combat and Meteor BVRAAM beyond-visual-range air-to-air missiles are currently considered more than enough by RAF staff pundits for the planned air-defense roles allocated to initially-procured Eurofighters. Elimination of the cannon, weighing about 450 lbs with its 150 rounds of ammunition, will also solve its accompanying structural and equipment stress, corrosion, weight and space problems.

Many RAF pilots have signaled their opinion that these advantages may be overvalued in a situation when they have launched all their missiles, a few bad guys remain too close for comfort, and the cavalry is nowhere in sight. This was a lesson the U.S. Air Force learned the hard way with the F-4 Phantom in Vietnam.

RAF Eurofighter drivers with added ground-attack roles may also feel disadvantaged from being limited by available weapons stations to carrying only a few defensive short-range ASRAAMs. Elimination of a ground-strafing capability is another consideration, although the rationality of using close to $100 million worth of ironmongery (compositemongery?) to zap low-value targets is certainly debatable.

But gun attacks by fighter aircraft are certainly cheaper and arguably more effective than missiles in dealing with low-flying helicopter and increasingly important UAV targets. At the moment, Britain is alone among the four Eurofighter partners, in saying goodbye to guns.

By John Fricker