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| Afghanistan |
| AC-130 Gunship IR Video |
| 2003-04-05 |
| This isn't a hard news item, but what is allegedly a 7-minute video from an AC-130 on a strike in, I assume, Afghanistan. It's mostly unedited. In the literal sense of the word, it's awesome. |
| Posted by:Dar Steckelberg |
| #8 Thanks guys! |
| Posted by: Rebecca 2003-04-06 14:10:56 |
| #7 The Herk is a mighty versatile aircraft, and has some unbelievable stats. Most of the time the AC model is in "working mode", it's usually throttled back to about 140kt - about 155 miles per hour. It usually tilts about 35 degrees (but can hold a 55 to 60 degree bank, if needed), and "hoses" the ground. It can literally fly in circles so tight the target area on the ground doesn't change appreciably. Normal armament includes 4 7.62 quad machine guns and 4 20mm cannon, plus a 105mm recoilless rifle on the back tailgate. The book says it's weapons can place a 7.62mm shell on every square inch of a football field, without hitting anyone in the stands. There's a Forward-looking Infrared (FLIR) system for targeting, as well as a low-light television system and radar. The FLIR system is a bit misnamed, as it can also be aimed out the side of the aircraft for ground targeting. It's great for destroying enemy troop concentrations, unarmored vehicles, and with the 105mm cannon on the tailgate, anything smaller than a tank, and even a few of them. Crew of six for the regular "trash-haulers" (Cargo version), but the AC model has a crew of fourteen to seventeen. Of all the aircraft used in the Vietnam war, the North Vietnamese hated the AC-130 (Spectre) the most, for good reason. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2003-04-06 00:16:25 |
| #6 The AC-130 is a fixed wing, turbo-prop aircraft - it does not hover, but it is capable of rather slow airspeeds - it can circle slowly enough and in a tight enough radius to strafe a "small-ish" area. The crew aboard the gunship are weapons loaders (my old field - though I never worked AC-130's) - they are in charge of loading the ammo for the bigger guns in-flight, loading the smaller guns before flight, and working in-flight jams or breakdowns on the smaller guns (smaller guns being the 20 or 25 mm gatling guns - depending on the model of the Ac-130)... They do not actually fire the weapons - the officers up on the flight deck actually do that - but they can and do observe the guns at work. |
| Posted by: Steve W. 2003-04-05 23:48:19 |
| #5 I saw this video a while ago but if i remember correctly Rebecca, the video was actually from a UAV but i could be wrong. I believe a very effective technique in Afaghanistan was linking the UAV video to the AC-130 so they could operate in real time. So you may be hearing the AC-130 crew but watching a predator video? |
| Posted by: scott 2003-04-05 23:20:51 |
| #4 At the risk of sounding totally stupid, it seems to me that this video was shot from something that's either going pretty darned slow or else hovering. I thought the AC-130 was a fixed-wing aircraft. Somebody help me out here. |
| Posted by: Rebecca 2003-04-05 22:03:58 |
| #3 Sounds like a gunner/loader yelling "ready" when the 105 is loaded and ready to shoot. |
| Posted by: John 2003-04-05 17:31:01 |
| #2 I may already have seen that one, from a french pro-israeli site; much less "cinematic" than I would have assumed - there is at least one taleb who manages to run away - but really impressive. That's probably what iraki grunts must be thinking theses times, anyway. Never could understand what the gunner (?) shouted just before each shot, though. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-04-05 10:31:29 |
| #1 Hey, that was pretty cool... nice to see the tax dollars at work. It's a 5.6Mb download. |
| Posted by: Mark IV 2003-04-05 09:34:01 |