Why aren't armoured self-propelled autocannons more of a thing in conventional terrestrial warfare...

I always thought the ultra-heavy machinegun in ground use was underexplored territory. The Soviets did well with the 14.5mm, but pre-WWI we had machineguns up to 37mm on ground mounts being used against infantry. I know it's rather contentious whether it should be called an autocannon at that point, but the almost universal exclusion of guns this size to vehicle mounts is a waste of potential firepower in my opinion.

HMG ammo isn't so dangerous that it needs to be seperated from the main vehicle, or carry that much ammo. ZPU-4 carries enough ammo for 2 minutes of continuous fire on the gun itself, that's maybe 5 minutes of suppression of an enemy ground assault across a 120 degree arc. It would be easy to double the size of the ammo cans to hold 10 minutes of suppression ability, and then carry maybe a dozen boxes of ammo hanging off the sides of the vehicle to supply it for up to an hour. Those selfsame ammo boxes, when empty, can serve as gap armor.

Autocannon is specifically anything which is autoloaded to fire very rapidly, but also carries explosive filler in the projectile, thus being "cannon". They used to call things which fired inert bullets "rifles" no matter what the size.
Machine guns are different in that they don't have the explosive filler. This reduced complexity means less cost, and often less bulk, which means more bullets to shoot. It also means they don't explode too much when shot, or when on fire.

You mean like this?

Well the Russians have their BMPT-72 which they've finally decided to adopt after it proved itself in Syria. I'm not sure how well armoured standard (the giant turret in particular) SPAAG's are but the BMPT has the armour to survive and the armament.

Even worse than that. It was decided that guns were outdated and so we canceled the t249 vigilante to make a short range SAM launcher, the MIM-46 Mauler, which failed. The U.S. MIC would never go back to gun systems now anyway. If they thought it was outdated back then they will say it's "outdated" today to squeeze more shekels. As far as I know most of the U.S.'s short ranged AA today is the stinger missile slapped onto various vehicles. Only the marines with the Lav-AD have anything half-decent.

LAV-AD have been retired before they had finished to be deployed. They only made 17 and never made any real parts for them that led to them being retired after a couple of years.
Same with the M6 Linebacker they only made 99 and 88 of them were converted back to regular Bradleys.

Autocannons good for AA and infantry? Nice idea but probably be mounted on a non-tank chassis.

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Could an autocannon be a useful weapon against a tank? I doubt that the best engineers could make a projectile that slow and small punch through the front armour of a tank reliably - but could they be targeted precisely enough to reliably destroy the tanks sights/cameras? It's not a kill, but if the tank can't return fire that's almost as good (and for a much much lower cost than even the shittiest ATGM).

I'm presuming that you are talking about SPAAGs, because of the pictures you posted and the fact that pretty much every country has their own homebrewed IFV/Transport with an autocannon for sale these days.

Historically, dedicated SPAAGs have been fucking expensive, being near or even multiple times the cost of the tanks they were intended to protect. As such, only countries very close to soviet russia tended to invest more in them, as they were actually likely to see the war machine knocking on their door.

The US did mess around with various designs but ultimately said, "yeah fuck all this" and stuck with putting money into aircraft for air superiority instead.

Also we have stingers, which are laughably cheap, provide an air deterrence of nearly the same range as a SPAAG (though obviously not as severe), and are much easier to spread around and hide from enemy intelligence. Which would you rather have, a Gepard (which will become a big anti-radiation missile magnet everytime it turns on it's radar), or 50 fucking stingers?

Also, SPAAGs don't carry any infantry, so they aren't useful for much in the way of combat tactics and actually help take an area that you need. IFV's are really heavy weapons that support infantry. Also thin armor (and vulnerable electronics/sensors) and incredible rates of fire are also not great for prolonged combat.

Don't get me wrong, they are cool as fuck (The Gepard is downright erotic), and I definitely think that the US has it's head up it's ass when it comes to proper air defence layering, but the more you know about SPAAGs the harder they are to justify on a significant scale.

Pic semi-related, it's a poor neglected cutey-pie SPAD

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That's completely wrong though.

Most autocannons hover around 30-40mm nowadays, 20 and 25mm has mostly been phased out since you just need something a bit bigger. 30 and 35mm APFSDS can roughly get 110-130mm RHA penetration from what I recall.
You MIGHT be able to knock out sights/cameras and essentially disable the gun but your chances are middling at best and it requires a lot of training and experience for the guys. You have a bit more potential of killing something inside the thing from the behind or sides, since tanks are generally poorly protected from there…
…but this is all very risky and will put the lives of 2+ crewmen and a IFV at risk, losing which will be more expensive than a fire and forget ATGM bolted on which will nearly guarantee a turret kill, a potential crew member kill, possibly ignite the ammo and make it susceptible to more fire from infantry HEAT rounds and APFSDS from the IFV to finish off what is inside or force it to retreat.

You're right, they can even exceed the range of a SPAAG not that accurate and public info on ranges for AA weapons is actually out there
Some things are just outdated man. I like AT rifles, but I think we can both agree they're pretty impractical today.

Came here to post this. OP just described an IFV and asked why they don't exist.

Thanks for pointing that out.

The reason is because the USA wants to whore out money for aircraft.

They love aircraft for EVERYTHING which is why they cut funding for any cheaper vehicles alternative and just put everything on next gen aircraft, which costs billions and billions (and line up the politician and generals' markets).

It's a shame tbh, and one day the USA military will pay dearly for it.

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If you can shoot the tank, the tank can shoot you and its gun doesn't need to do anything clever to take you out.

Can't think of a single IFV with that rate of fire or ammo carriage.

Does any land based unit use the Warthog's gun?

The yanks tried to put it into a Patton as I recall, the Chinks strapped a copy of one to a truck and Goalkeeper exists.

As compared to what? Why are you shifting goalposts when goalposts were never established in the first place? The only criterion mentioned by OP is a supportive, armoured vehicle with an autocannon as its main armament, which may be capable of fighting tanks. That's the definition of an IFV. Did you reply to the wrong post?

The UNSC Army and UNSCMC

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Anything remotely controlled can be hacked. It's harder for flying drones due to their distance and speed but apparently not impossible. For tanks unless you come up with an ED-type AI that can manage firewalls in real time it will be cracked in days and you'll end up with the thing firing at you in no time. Still better off with people inside for now.

You mean a gatling gun? You betcha. Lots of countries have stuck one on a M113 or similar chassis, and the US used them a fair amount in vietnam I believe. I'm not clear, but I think they may have been used in iraq/afganistan as well.

They were intended as a short range AA, but ended up being used primarily to deal with enemy in thick foliage, or in forward bases as a defense against rushes. The volume of ammo makes up for the optics of the time being terrible.

Also the warthog is likely literally just copying pic related.

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As a dedicated vehicle this is true, but for example the CV90 has an AA variant that is the same as the basic vehicle (with the 40mm Bofors), but it has a radar and carries more ammunition instead of troops.
military-today.com/artillery/lvkv_90.htm
You could go from there, and make an unmanned turret that has a radar and enough ammunition for its job, and turn every IFV into a SPAAG. Of course network them together as part of your air defence system. Or to beat an old horse of mine, do it with the 76.2mm Oto Melara gun, and make something that can take our everything short of MBTs and heavy fortifications.

I suggest you read OPs post again, he brings up the volume of fire several times. That goalpost was already there, you just missed the goal buddy.
Maybe if an IFV had a bustle turret and a few thousand shells of ammo on a feed system… instead of a few hundred rounds fed manually with clips.

Was that cancelled? It looks like it was cancelled.

Damn, I'll have buy something like this if I'll ever have the money…

GAU-19s are used on ships, Kiowas, humvees and also transport helicopters as ramp and door guns.

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Seriously? Was it deployed on humvees in Afghanistan or Iraq??

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Bradley
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster

Go back to cuckchan.

A SPAAG carries 2000+ rounds and has a rate of fire exceeding 4000 rounds per minute.

Yeah, you don't belong here.

You are retarded.

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???
You also can't read your own source as the Bradly carries 900 rounds of autocannon shells.

He's a nigger, and also didn't see where it mentions the M242 can fire at up to 1000 RPM. He's from cuckchan. Just filter, report, and move on.

A) It's not my source, the other guy posted it.
B) Those shells are stored on outside ammo racks, they may as well be on mars in a firefight. Put them on a feed system and I'll retract my objection.

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