reason for that lies in its massive armor- shredding 30mm gatling gun that sprouts from its chin — the GAU-8-A Avenger cannon. But as legendary as that gun has become, much of the A-10’s early ...

Each bullet had the length of a pint bottle. By 1974, the GAU-8 Avenger was ready for testing. The seven-barrel, gatling-style gun fired from as high as 25,000 feet and as low as 100 feet.

You can plainly see how the massive, 4,000 pound (including ammo), almost 20-foot long GAU-8 Avenger dwarfs the classic VW bug next to it. The firepower of that gun has become the stuff of legend ...