this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2026
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When at top speed, yeah, traditional guns wouldn't work well. You could still shoot, sure, but the bullets would quickly be slowed down by air resistance, while the aircraft keeps flying ... there could be a very real danger of overtaking your own bullets and hitting them from behind. The relative speed wouldn't be very high, so they probably wouldn't do much damage on impact, but they could do a lot of damage if one of the engines ingests one, so still a bad idea.
But when at top speed, it's already traveling faster than most bullets. At that point, you don't need a 'gun' anymore. Just drop some inert projectiles while doing your flyby, and those projectiles will hit your target with the force of bullets.
Would have been funny to put in a tail gun.