I would love to have seen the reaction of everyone else in the room when 1 guy stood up and said...''I think we should put a howitzer on a cargo plane''
"What's the biggest damn gun you could fit on this plane?" "I mean, technically a howitzer but I'm not sure that's..." "PERFECT. Put a Howitzer on it. I'll be back in a week for the keys."
smiles all around probably knowing a room full of engineers bent on making stuff that blows other stuff up. hell I get the feeling it was more than one engineer. like, "Hey jim are you thinking what I'm thinking? bigger gun tom?, yeah thats what I'm thinking too. biggest gun we can get."
- The AC-47 designator was "Spooky". Puff the Magic Dragon was then nose art of one specific aircraft, not the name of the fleet. - "Surprise Package" was the name of the project that swapped out the 40mm Bofors in position 6 for a 105mm. These modifications were not done in the field, but required the aircraft to return stateside for the upgrade. - The 105mm was added to counter the enemies use of barges to move supplies. It was far more effective than the 40mm it replaced. There are a few more minor errors in this piece, but they don't stand out as much as the afore mentioned ones do.
@@Frankie5Angels150 nah, I just actually served in that unit with the guys who were there in Vietnam. Spent four years maintaining and deploying with the 1st Special Operations Wing out of then Hurlburt Field. But go ahead with your assumptions Frankie, whatever makes you feel good>
Heard from another AC-130 crew member (Afghanistan iirc) that there's serious problems with chemical buildups inside the plane from weapons fire. Things were toxic enough that on any normal site the crew would be wearing serious respirators. Guy also said there's a bit of a death cult mentality among the crews who man those planes. While I still love the design, apparently though the airframes get stress fractures from firing the cannon overtime which is an issue due to their cost. Might be time to make a new generation of them.
@@Captain1nsaneo the interior can get a bit smokey during live fires. This can normally be dealt with using cabin pressurization. While the original gunships couldn't pressurize at altitude due to the unsealed holes in the side of the fuselage, they can use the cabin pressure system to help push the smoke out.
@@davidplatter7671 From what I remember it wasn't the smoke that was the issue but the heavy metals and other contaminates which would hang around and build up. Causing damage over time rather than anything immediate.
To my knowledge Col. Ron Terry was an ordinary Air Force officer when he developed the concept by firing a rifle from a small plane circling a target. I was an Engineer on the later AC-130U design and we hired some of his contemporarys as consultants and heard many stories. This video is ok but no 100% accurate
@@shaggy7087 The good ol flying bathtub. It ain't the best plane, but it's pretty good at keeping insurgents in their caves. Too bad the airforce is jacking it around as a budget pawn instead of letting the army air cavalry have the damn things.
Don't forget that in WW2 the British put a 57 on the mosquito, the Americans and germans put a 75 on the B25 and hs129 respectively, and the Italians put a 102 on the P108
Y'all forgetting the Soviets and Thier little obsession with strapping 57mm, 75 mm and 105(?)mm recoilless rifles on bi-planes (all of which failed miserably)
Having done maintenance on the 130 gunships in the 80’s don’t forget how deadly those machine guns can be! A ten second burst from the machine guns can place a bullet every square foot of a football field
Fun fact. The ac-130 J and W was supposed to have a very different armaments of 30mm bushmaster ll, weapon system with launch tube for agm 176 griffin or gbu's, and wing mounted agm 114 hellfire. However, because it still have enough power they decided to put the 105 howitzer back on the plane which they weren't going to put.
@@Rotorhead1651 I did. Was both the best and worst job I ever had. The best because I got to work on AC130s. Worst because I was stuck at cannon afb new Mexico. Basically middle of nowhere. Hurlburt field is AFSOC headquarters in Florida and much nicer location. Expensive to live there tho.
Interesting. I was an Engineer on the original AC-130U with 105mm, 40mm, and 25mm Gatling. I had heard they were trying to standardize munitions due to logistics etc
@@gravestone9831 Cool. I was a Crew Chief on the MH-53H Pavelow IIIs, 20th A.M.U. Hurby's Pea Patch was my first duty assignment. I had many friends who worked both the ACs & MCs.
Awesome video, as usual! Idea: If you can, you should do a full video on laser weapons. I bet there might be a bit more content to cover since that short you posted two years ago.
Well, they are basically just fireworks, but I agree because fireworks are obviously nice to watch. There's just not much to say about small colorless basic fireworks so a video on just them might be way too short. Just search for cool compilations of them because the mechanism behind it is literally thousands of years old, that's how simple they are. A little gunpowder shoots a comparably slower burning ball out of a tube and that ball burns up in the air over a few seconds. Just like firework batteries or closer "roman lights", you could even make your own with fairly simple chemicals and techniques. The heat signature of those burning balls confuse heat seeking missiles so they (hopefully) follow those instead of the plane and that's already it, not much more to say.
@@ToBeIsWasWere I don't think that's accurate, sorry. Those flares are much brighter than fireworks, and some involve parachutes. And considering he made an interesting video out of an easy question (why the air force put a big gun on a plane - to make things go boom), I'm sure it would be interesting
Flares are exactly what we think, so I don't know how he would fit "it's not what you think" into that lol. He's gonna think intensely on it for 3 hours and give up because his brain is fuming.
A Drone can't linger and lend near continuous artillery support. As one of the Engineers who developed the AC-130U I always thought of gunships as artillery for light mobile forces
Basically, if the enemy lacks anti ship missiles and planes the battleship can do some crazy work, same with the gunships. If the enemy has a counter however, there is some serious risk.
Having been on the ground whilst the spooky is working over head is something. I'm British but worked with the US a lot, they have amazing weaponry, I've seen spooky work, but the A10 is something I'll never forget. By the way, the smaller cannons are bofors I believe.
I've actually been supported and watched an AC-130 level a city block while in Iraq, in '03. We kept getting mortared from a certain area and they were up there waiting for them, one night. Needless to say, it sounded like WW III outside the wall. I saw before and after assessments (and some of the live video, due to who I was assigned to at the time).... I ALMOST felt sorry for them.
That's why the Air Force developed the "Wild Weasel" to go in first, take out the anti-aircraft weapons and radar support, to allow the close support aircraft to provide close support to the troops and scare the living hell out of the enemy.
ah, the good ol days of killstreaks with this baby. on a more serious note, I've always been amazed that they packed so much firepower into those fuselages. It's a whole different level of terrifying when a plane that's just chillin way out there in the sky can broadside you on the ground.
I mean, howitzers were mounted on planes in WW2. The surprising thing about the AC130 to me was that they took the bofors 40mm anti aircraft gun, put it in an aircraft and used it to shoot at targets on the ground.
Anti aircraft guns shoot really heavy projectiles filled with explosives really fast. Ground targets are also vulnerable to heavy things filled with explosives moving really fast.
Make a rainbow Warrior Version, Whenever I want to build a unit from a game or reality, but I cannot get the shape exactly right, or I just don't like the original design 100%, I usually call it the "mercenary edition" I suggest you do so as well =)
I rebuilt those engines at one time, and was test cell qualified. So I stood inches behind the prop while dialing in the control cables to the propeller control. Navy, the most dangerous job you will ever love.
Anytime I see this thing it gives me the chills and the fact that it's literally the tip of the iceberg of crazy overpowered awesomeness doesn't help. You don't know fear and anxiety until you're an enemy of the US military holy JFC man.
Ye, for all the jokes the US is at the butt off, nobody, and I mean *NOBODY*, disrespect the US' military arsenal. Neither in quantity, nor quality, nor creativity.
6:19 the fact that they had to do that means someone got rocked by the howitzer at some point and they said "whoa we better figure out a way to keep that from happening again" lol.
We knew where the targets we needed to hit were -- China and the Soviet Union. That's where the VC's weapons were coming from. We just didn't want to have WW3 over Vientam.
An AC-130 with a Laser defense system capable of downing SAMs and Anti Aircraft Missiles. It will only be a matter of time before those lasers are being used to cause ammo to suddenly Cookoff at Ammo Depots.
maybe in the future, but they are not nearly strong enough for that atm. They dont just burn a hole though the missile (even though that is end goal for the concept) they just disrupt the IR or optical tracker.
Well, the “most advanced” cargo plane at that time was the C-141 (I crewed them). The knock on the C-130 as a gunship was its wings full of fuel in case of groundfire. Once people got over that fear, it was ‘balls to the wall, how much can we jam aboard this crate?’ Now we’re finding out. We used to sit on the barracks steps at Tan Son Nhut and watch the goonies work out. Fly high and upwind, kick out a flare on a ‘chute with a delay timer, then throttle back and glide quietly down to firing position and wait for the flare to ignite. ‘Poof’, and some poor sap screwing his rocket together in a defoliated field near the base was in the crosshairs. Never got tired of watching that
Imagine the guy that thought of this goes into a room with a bunch of engineers and says how about putting a howitzer on board and everyone in the room stares back at him then there’s a long pause and then the engineers go into a huddle and then they say ok we can definitely do that lol
Something like that. I was an Engineer on AC-130U project and we hired a few consultants from early days of AC-130. My recollection was the Air Force did the first modifications in house with their own Engineers working with Col Ron Terry the inventor This video misses that
@@TallerCarnivore when I was a kid I was always fascinated about how things worked if something broke I would take it apart try to figure out why it broke and come up with a thinking outside the box solution to fix it with just what I could find around the house paper clips wire from bread wrapper twist ties wire hangers but had sense enough not to mess with anything that plugged in only battery operated stuff lol in school when I learned the Apollo astronauts made a device to scrub the oxygen inside the capsule with a few things that were on board that was my inspiration and also the tv show macguyver taught me to always think of a solution a Harvard graduate with a dozen degrees couldn’t think of lol
@@jaredharris1970 Personally I was not that type of Engineer. My option was Physics at Caltech so I knew the Mathematics. The AC-130U was an unusual project because it was relatively short and diverse for an Aerospace project and I started as a junior Engineer and ended up a lead after being involved in many subsystems. Last I saw the AC-130U prototype it was being assembled in Palmdale by others
i can only imagine the confidence, and morale boost, this gives to any troops it happens to be supporting, not only that but also the fear it must drive into the enemy just knowing that this plane can pour down steel rain onto you would be absolutely terrifying.
@@Xiahoud Yeah you're pretty much 100% wrong. Coming from someone who actually worked on these and spoke personally with Afghans, no one should believe any of what you said
The AC-47 had 2 call signs, both "Puff the Magic Dragon" and "Spooky". This is because it wasn't just ONE aircraft. Don't say "actual name", like that's the only one used.
Technically a artillery gun used in direct fire is a cannon, especially a 105mm using full shell. A howitzer as a term is an for indirect fire, been around for long time, well before US was even founded.
As good as this is this kind of concept will be a nightmare in modern battlefield with layers of air defence capablities. One SAM will knock this plane to out of the park. This concept will have same fate of A-10 Warthog in future
towards the end of WWII, 70mm cannons were installed in the nose of some old Lancaster bombers. According to pilots, such was he recoil of these cannons that, "despite full power & in a dive, upon firing the aircraft would almost stop mid-air. Then there was the vibration through the entire airframe. We could only fly 2 or 3 missions before the aircraft became unserviceable".
Army: "I need some ground support. What's that over there...?" (sees 105mm howitzer sticking out the side) Lucius Fox, with a sly smile: "The Spectre...? Oh you wouldn't like that..."
Amazing piece of equipment! And on paper, it looks like something a little boy would draw… Big plane with giant guns, hanging out of the side… That’s America! To all who serve and who have served… Thank you!
But is it really not what you think? I like their content, but it's always exactly what I thought, and it's kind of a pet peeve of mine when he says that and then just says normal military stuff you wouldn't be surprised to hear.
@@Rotorhead1651 many remember the Italian airforce of ww2 due to their top of the line pilots those guys were flying circles around allied planes their machines however could not hold up to the pilots greatness
Enjoy your video. But, let's be clear. The Gunners have no control on whether or not they hit their target. Basically, the Gunner are really just "inflight reloaders".
It's not realistic at all. First off, the airframe can't take the abuse from the recoil, which is significant. There's a very real reason the AC-130 Only has a 105mm cannon, and the MC-22 Osprey is MUCH smaller.
My dad is gulf war era Air Force, we got into an argument about the viability of A-10s and AC-130s in the modern battlefield. As anti-terror weapons they were fantastic, 1980/90s tech fighting 1960s equipped forces made them unstoppable. Against a near peer enemy though they are a lot of risk for a much lower reward. With the rise of drones and Man-PATS, A-10s and AC-130s are slow easy targets; whereas drones and HiMARs are proving to be very effective at by-passing enemy defensive capabilities with lower risk to allied forces.
This part of video sounds weird. I was an Engineer on AC-130U and we had side mounted HUD which had indicators for the center of orbit and at least 2 targets the senors are pointing at. Weird.
The gun ship is one of the most powerful troop suppression aircraft in existence I highly doubt that s400 missile systems could get within operational range of one in time without being hit by an f35, f22 or any other non stealth aircraft if they can find an opening if any pilot finds an opening to kill as s400 or other they will take it without a second thought
The AC-130 is not limited to troop suppression. It can also wreak havoc with supply lines, warehousing, infrastructure, and absolutely DECIMATE enemy bases.
@@Thebootlegengineer ....and have been for decades. Even when I was in, we had both passive (flare & chaffe) and active (electronic) countermeasures for suppressing incoming anti-aircraft systems.
Basically the AC-130 is good at fighting the same things the Russian airforce is good at fighting: Ground targets that hardly move, don't shoot back and aren't protected by any anti-air.
basically the same issues of the A-10, but worse honestly. its upside though is that they can stuff an ungodly amount of countermeasures in one of these things. flares, chaff, laser defense systems, radar jammers. but at the end of the day those are just compensating. You cant do much about optical tracking, or volume of fire.
I used to sword on the weapons system on the Hand U models back in the late 90’s, the ac-130 did not become pressurized until the U model, and then it could only be pressurized when in transit not when it was actually firing the weapons.
