5 Biggest Airplane Guns Before the A-10 Warthog

Few American aircraft have reached legendary status like the Lockheed AC130. This fixed-wing, ground-attack gunship has been around for almost six decades, and it still has a long way to go.

First introduced during the Vietnam War, the AC130 has become the United States' most famous gunship due to its multiple uses and tremendous combat effectiveness.

The C130 Hercules was part of Project Gunship II, an American program that sought to develop a substitute for the Douglas AC47 Spooky gunship.

The American military wanted to produce a gunship with improved range, ammunition capacity, and firepower. In 1967, a modified C130 Hercules was selected as part of the secret program.

The Hercules had been in use since the 1950s as a military transport aircraft, but its versatile airframe would soon be used in a new role.

The modifications to the Hercules included a direct-view night-vision telescope, a primitive forward-looking infrared device near the left wheel, various miniguns and rotary cannons, and other weaponry that was also fixed on the left side.

An analog fire-control computer was specially created to manage the arsenal of the aircraft. It was made with the cooperation of the United States Air Force Avionics Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB and Royal Air Force Wing Commander Tom Pinkerton.

In September of 1967, the modified Hercules, now dubbed AC130, was sent to Nha Trang Air Base in South Vietnam for testing.

The AC130 served the special operators at Katum Special Forces Camp and other military bases with pin-point accuracy, often firing within a perimeter of friendly forces but only striking enemy forces.

By December of 1968, a dozen AC130s were operating in Vietnam escorted by F4 Phantoms.

In May of 1969, the first AC130 gunship was lost to the Vietcong forces. It was shot down at 6,500 feet by 37-millimeter anti-aircraft artillery.

Although the AC130s generally flew at high altitudes, that did not stop the North Vietnamese from striking them down with rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles.

Other Hercules were fitted with different combat configurations, such as the Surprise Package upgrade, which included 20-millimeter rotary cannons and a 40-millimeter Bofors cannon, but ditched the 7.62-millimeter close-support armament. And further versions used a powerful 105-millimeter howitzer cannon.

The Lockheed AC130 is still being used today by the American military to fight the war on terror along with more powerful weapons.

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