Fighter experience in Vietnam demonstrated that combat aircraft need a gun for closest range encounters. The fatal mistake of exclusive reliance on BVR weapons culminated in only half of the two-crew F-4 Phantoms sent into enemy territory making it back to their launch points. The surprising success of the cheaper but smaller, more maneuverable and tighter-turning single-seater MiG-17 contributed to these appalling combat losses. In addition to the new AIM-7 Sparrow's initial failure rate of some 90 percent, many historians consider the chronic deterioration in dog-fighting skills among American pilots a contributing factor.
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Perhaps the most tangible aspect was the notable absence of a close-range gun in Vietnam-era U.S. fighters. Today the cannon is standard apparatus in subsequent generations of frontline U.S. combat aircraft. For the Hornet, the gun is the General Electric M61A1 Vulcan, basically a 1950s piece of technology. A ram-driven version forms the central hardware for the SUU-16A pod for those aircraft on which the gun is externally mounted.
