Gunship

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AC-130H Specter Gunship

Gunship ( English for "gunboat" ) refers to aircraft and helicopters specially equipped for ground combat or close air support . They differ from ground attack aircraft in terms of their armament and tactics .

In the Navy the name Gunship since the mid-18th century as a synonym for is gunboat familiar (English gunboat ).

history

The American company Larsen (licensee of Junkers) built the Junkers F 13 into the first Gunship JL-12 " in 1922 , which was equipped with (details vary) up to 28-30 Thompson submachine guns in the passenger compartment. The weapons were not, Pointed forward like a fighter plane, but fired diagonally downwards. This allowed the overflown area to be covered with a hail of bullets according to the watering can principle. The idea of ​​over-heavy armament of aircraft was therefore not new in the 1960s either; so there was for example, the North American B-25 , the Henschel Hs 129 with a 7.5 cm gun and the Ju-87 G with two 3.7-cm cannon as a special construction already in the Second world war . What was new in the gunships but the Side-to-side armament and the use of transport aircraft for close air support and night- air lockdown.

The "inventors" of the Gunship idea are Ralph Flexman, the deputy chief engineer at Bell Aerosystems and major in the Air Force Reserve, as well as Gilmour C. MacDonald, an inventor who developed the basic tactics for the use of aircraft during the Second World War Had proposed anti-submarine combat. According to other sources, the idea was proposed to the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) as early as 1926 . However, World War II ended before the concept could have been tested in action.

However, at a chance meeting of Flexman and MacDonald at Eglin AFB in the early 1960s, the idea was revived. Flexman had read about a method used by bush pilots in South America to deliver mail. Here, the pilot flies a curve over a clearing and lets an additionally weighted mail bag on a rope to the ground. If an exact circle ( pylon turn ) is flown, the bag remains in one place and a person on the ground can remove the mail and insert new ones in the bag.

Flexman concluded that, according to this principle, it should also be possible for an aircraft to permanently concentrate the fire on one point on the ground with armament in the side windows. The urgent need for new COIN weapon systems at this time led to the first practical implementation attempts. The first gunship was a converted Convair C-131 , which was successfully tested over the Gulf of Mexico in August 1964.

The USAF captain Ronald W. Terry played an important role in the further practical implementation and the development for operational readiness in Vietnam .

During the Vietnam War , the tried and tested Douglas DC-3 were equipped with eight or ten M-2 machine guns and an aiming device was installed for the pilot . The models equipped in this way were initially called FC-47 (" Fighter / Cargo "); later the ten individual machine guns were replaced by three 7.62-mm miniguns and the design was renamed AC-47 ("Attack / Cargo"); the first use took place on December 15, 1964. Later, the larger Fairchild AC-119 and Lockheed AC-130 were used as gunships, with further reinforced armament, including a 105-mm howitzer . The aiming facility has also been continuously improved. The AC-130 is still used today (2018) by SOCOM in the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). Leonardo developed a version of the Alenia C-27 as the AC-27J "Stinger II" for the AFSOC. As all C-27Js were mothballed to save money, the AC-27J program was also canceled.

During the Vietnam War, UH-1 helicopters armed with multiple rocket launchers and automatic cannons were used to support infantry units. Heavy CH-47s were also used on a trial basis as support helicopters. Specially equipped military helicopters or combat helicopters such as the Boeing AH-64 Apache are also known as gunships .

Examples

UH-1B Aerial Rocket Artillery
USAF Fairchild AC-119

Planes

helicopter

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Lou Drendel: TAC. squadron / signal publications, p. 38, 1978
  2. http://www.ac-119gunships.com/history/hist1.htm