Smaller gunship designs such as the Fairchild AU-23 Peacemaker and the Helio AU-24 Stallion were also designed by the United States during the Vietnam War. The Douglas AC-47 Spooky, the Fairchild AC-119, and the AC-130 Spectre/Spooky, were vulnerable, and meant to operate only after achieving air superiority. These heavily armed aircraft used a variety of weapon systems, including 7.62 mm GAU-2/A Miniguns, 20 mm (0.787 in) M61 Vulcan six-barrel rotary cannons, 25 mm (0.984 in) GAU-12/U Equalizer five-barreled rotary cannons, 30 mm Mk44 Bushmaster II chain guns, 40 mm (1.58 in) L/60 Bofors autocannons, and 105 mm (4.13 in) M102 howitzers. ![]() It was the later and larger Lockheed AC-130 Gunship II that became the modern, post–World War II origin of the term "gunship" in military aviation. At the time the aircraft was known as "dragonship" or "Puff, the Magic Dragon" (officially designated FC-47, later corrected to AC-47). Īs the first notable case of the now-standard use of "gunship", in 1964, during the Vietnam War, the popular Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport was successfully modified by the United States Air Force with side-firing Miniguns for circling attacks. 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). These gunships were configured to circle the target instead of performing strafing runs. firing to the side) to attack ground or sea targets. In the more modern, post-World War II fixed-wing aircraft category, a gunship is an aircraft having laterally-mounted heavy armaments (i.e. Post-World War II aviation Fixed-wing aircraft None of the German twin-engined "gunship" types were "produced" or converted in large numbers. Similar attempts by the British and Germans to create twin-engined "gunships" carrying similarly heavy cannon-style ordnance resulted in the seventeen examples built of the de Havilland Mosquito FB Mk XVIII, bearing an auto-loader equipped aviation version of the 57mm calibre Ordnance QF 6-pounder and the sizable number of German Zerstörer heavy fighter types using examples of the Bordkanone heavy-calibre guns: in contrast to the handfiul of "tankbuster"-dedicated Kanonenvogel Ju 87Gs, armed with the BK 3,7 twin 37mm autocannon in underwing gun pods, aircraft like the Ju 88P were used for both "tankbuster" and bomber destroyer duties as "gunships", using all three calibre sizes (37, 50 and 75mm) of the Borkanone series ordnance in its four known subtypes, while the Umrüst-Bausatz /U4 factory conversion package for the Me 410 Hornisse armed it with the same BK 5 cannon 50mm calibre ordnance as the Ju 88P-4 used, almost solely for bomber destroyer duties. (130 mm) high velocity aircraft rockets (HVAR). Later the B-25J was additionally armed with eight 5 in. ![]() 50-cal machine guns, more than any other contemporary American aircraft: eight in the nose, four in under-cockpit conformal flank-mount gun pod packages, two in the dorsal turret when aimed directly forward, one each in the pair of waist positions, and a pair in the tail -with fourteen of the guns either permanently aimed forward, or aimable directly forward in the dorsal turret - relocated to a forward position for both the -H and -J subtypes as produced - for strafing missions. The most-built B-25J variant omitted such heavy-calibre weaponry, but could in some cases, carry an impressive total of eighteen "Ma Deuce" AN/M2 Browning. The 405 examples produced of the B-25G variant were armed with a 75 mm (2.95 in) M4 cannon and the thousand examples produced of the B-25H followed with a lighter TE13E1 cannon of the same caliber. Attack aircraftĭuring World War II, the urgent need for hard-hitting attack aircraft led to the development of the heavily armed gunship versions of the North American B-25 Mitchell. The YB-40 was sometimes described as a "gunship" and a small 25-aircraft batch of the B-17-derived "gunships" were built, with a dozen of these deployed to Europe while the XB-41 remained a prototype only. 50 cal machine guns as the Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress and Consolidated XB-41 Liberator " heavy fighters" respectively each meant to accompany regular heavy bomber formations over occupied Europe on strategic bombing raids for long-range escort duties. During 19, the lack of a usable escort fighter for the United States Army Air Forces in the European Theatre of Operations led to experiments in dramatically increasing the armament of a standard Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress, and later a single Consolidated B-24D Liberator to each have 14 to 16 Browning AN/M2.
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