Gunship

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Helicopter gunship
)
AC-130H gunship from the 16th Special Operations Squadron

A gunship is a military aircraft armed with heavy aircraft guns, primarily intended for attacking ground targets either as airstrike or as close air support.[1]

In modern usage the term "gunship" refers to

ironclad steamships used during the American Civil War.[4]

The term helicopter gunship is commonly used to describe armed helicopters.

World War II aviation

Bomber escort

.

During 1942 and 1943, the lack of a usable

Browning AN/M2 .50 cal machine guns as the Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress and Consolidated XB-41 Liberator respectively. These were to accompany regular heavy bomber formations over occupied Europe on strategic bombing raids for long-range escort duties as "flying destroyer gunships".[5] The YB-40 was sometimes described as a gunship,[6]
and a small 25-aircraft batch of the B-17-derived gunships were built, with a dozen of these deployed to Europe; the XB-41 had problems with stability and did not progress.

Attack aircraft

During

dorsal turret, one each in the pair of waist positions, and a pair in the tail,[7] giving a maximum of fourteen guns firing forward in strafing runs.[8] Later the B-25J was armed with eight 5 in. (130 mm) high velocity aircraft rockets (HVARs).[7][9]

The British also made large numbers of twin-engined fighter bombers. The de Havilland Mosquito FB.VI had a fixed armament of four 20 mm Hispano Mk.II cannon and four .303 (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns, together with up to 4,000 pounds of bombs in the bomb bay and on racks housed in streamlined fairings under each wing, or up to eight "60lb" RP-3 rockets. De Havilland also produced seventeen Mosquito FB Mk XVIIIs armed with a 57 mm QF 6-pdr anti-tank gun with autoloader, which were used against German ships and U-boats.

The Germans also made a sizable number of heavy fighter types (Zerstörer—"destroyer") armed with heavy guns (Bordkanone). Dedicated "tankbuster" aircraft such as the

BK 50mm autocannon
as the Ju 88P-4, but were only used as bomber destroyers. None of the German twin-engine heavy fighters types were produced or converted in large numbers.

Post–World War II aviation

Fixed-wing aircraft

The AC-47 provided CAS with three port side mounted 7.62 mm miniguns.

In the more modern, post-World War II fixed-wing aircraft category, a gunship is an aircraft having laterally-mounted heavy armaments (i.e. firing to the side) to attack ground or sea targets.[2][3] These gunships were configured to circle the target instead of performing strafing runs. Such aircraft have their armament on one side harmonized to fire at the apex of an imaginary cone formed by the aircraft and the ground when performing a pylon turn (banking turn).[2][3]

The

Miniguns for circling attacks. At the time the aircraft was known as a "Dragonship", "Puff, the Magic Dragon" or "Spooky" (officially designated FC-47, later corrected to AC-47). Its three 7.62 mm miniguns could selectively fire either 50 or 100 rounds per second.[10] Cruising in an overhead left-hand orbit at 120 knots air speed at an altitude of 3,000 feet (910 m), the gunship could put a bullet or glowing red tracer (every fifth round) into every square yard of a football field–sized target in potentially less than 10 seconds.[11]
And, as long as its 45-flare and 24,000-round basic load of ammunition held out, it could do this intermittently while loitering over the target for hours.

The lesser known

AC-119K Stingers were twin-engine piston-powered gunships developed by the United States during the Vietnam War. Armed with four 7.62 mm GAU-2/A Miniguns (and two 20 mm (0.787 in) M61 Vulcan six-barrel rotary cannons in the AC-119K version), they replaced the Douglas AC-47 Spooky and operated alongside the early versions of the AC-130 Spectre
gunship.

It was the later and larger

Smaller gunship designs such as the

Republic of Vietnam Air Force
as well as limited use by the United States Air Force.

Renewed interest in the concept of gunships has resulted in the development of a gunship variant of the

C-145A Skytruck armed with a GAU-18 twin-mount .50-calibre machine gun system.[16]

Helicopter gunships

The Mil Mi-24 was one of the first dedicated gunship helicopters.

Early helicopter gunships also operated in the side-firing configuration, with an early example being the Aérospatiale Alouette III. During the Overseas wars in Africa in the 1960s, the Portuguese Air Force experimented with the installation of M2 Browning .50 caliber machine guns in a side-firing twin-mounting configuration in some of its Alouette III helicopters. Later, the .50 caliber machine guns were replaced by a MG 151 20mm cannon in a single mounting. These helicopters were known in Portuguese service as "helicanhões" (heli-cannons) and were used in the escort of unarmed transport helicopters in air assault operations and in the fire support to the troops in the ground. The South African and Rhodesian air forces later used armed Alouette III in similar configurations as the Portuguese, respectively in the South African Border and Rhodesian Bush wars.[17]

During the

TK-2
kit used later on the UH-1E helicopters of the USMC.

The U.S. Army also experimented with H-34 gunships armed with M2 .50 caliber machine-guns and 2.75-inch rockets. In September 1971, a CH-34 was armed with two M2 .50 caliber machine guns, four M1919 .30 caliber machine guns, forty 2.75-inch rockets, two 5-inch high velocity aerial rockets (HVAR), plus two additional .30 caliber machine guns in the left side aft windows and one .50 caliber machine gun in the right side cargo door. The result was the world's most heavily armed helicopter at the time.

Also, during the Vietnam War, the ubiquitous Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters were modified into gunships by mounting the U.S. Helicopter Armament Subsystems—these were forward-firing weapons, such as machine guns, rockets, and autocannons, that began to appear in 1962–1963.[18] Rotary-wing aircraft (helicopters) can use a variety of combat maneuvers to approach a target. In their case, the term gunship is synonymous with heavily armed helicopter.[19] Specifically, dedicated attack helicopters such as the Bell AH-1 Cobra also fit this meaning.[19] In any case, the gunship armaments include machine guns, rockets, and missiles.[19]

The Soviet

Soviet Air Force and its successors post-1991, and more than 30 other nations.[21] It was heavily armed[21] with a reinforced fuselage, designed to withstand .50 caliber (12.7 mm) machine gun fire. Its armored cockpits and titanium rotor head are able to withstand 20 mm cannon hits.[21]

Examples

Fixed-wing aircraft

The Fairchild AU-23A in flight

Helicopters

A Bell UH-1B gunship in Vietnam

See also

References

Notes

  1. .
  2. ^ a b c d e f Ballard 1982, p. 9.
  3. ^ a b c d Hamlin 1970.
  4. ^ Mystery photo unseen for 30 years may show Civil War gunship, Fox News, February 14, 2015 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |agency= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Buttler, Griffith. American Secret Projects: Fighters, Bombers Attack Aircraft 1937 to 1945. pp. 104-105.
  6. ^ Dorr 2011.
  7. ^ a b c Merriam 2000.
  8. ^ North American B-25B Mitchell Factsheet.
  9. ^ Skaarup 2012, p. 265.
  10. ^ It can be seen in action here.
  11. ^ "AC-47 Factsheet". Archived from the original on 2014-10-11.
  12. ^ Ballard 1982, p. 84, quote: "... the Air Force decided to substitute Gunship II for the more nautical Gunboat designation".
  13. ^ "The AC-119 Gunships". Archived from the original on 2007-01-26. Retrieved 2010-11-12.
  14. ^ "AC-130H Spectre, AC-130U Spooky". FAS.org.
  15. ^ "Italian Air Force to Launch Gunship C-27J".
  16. ^ "The Air Force Tested a Mini-Gunship Last Year". 16 March 2014.
  17. ^ Stringer 2006, p. 124.
  18. ^ Dunstan 2003.
  19. ^ a b c Bishop 2006.
  20. ^ Mil Mi-24 Hind Gunship. By Alexander Miladenov. Osprey Publishing 2010. Pages 4–10.
  21. ^ a b c OPFOR WORLDWIDE EQUIPMENT GUIDE

Sources