The Hercules Story by Martin W. Bowman

Author:Martin W. Bowman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Hercules Story
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2012-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

HERCULES GUNSHIPS

A C-130 gunships have evolved since November 1965, when ‘Spooky’ AC-47 gunships were used in Vietnam. The AC-47s demonstrated such highly effective convoy escort and armed reconnaissance over the Ho Chi Minh Trail that in June 1967 flight-testing of a JC-130A modified to Gunship II/‘Plain Jane’ configuration began. It was fitted with four portside-firing General Electric MXU-470 7.62mm GAU-2 miniguns and M-61 20mm Vulcan cannon to fire obliquely downward. Vulcan Express, as the Gunship II was named, was also equipped with a Starlight Image-Intensifying Night-Observation Scope, side-looking radar, computerised fire-control system, beacon tracker, DF homing instrumentation, FM radio transceiver and an inert tank system. A semi-automatic flare dispenser and a steerable 1.5 million candlepower searchlight containing two Xenon arc lights (infra-red and ultra-violet), were mounted on the aft ramp. The Gunship II was dispatched to Nha Trang, South Vietnam, in September 1967 for combat evaluation. Though the complexity of its sophisticated equipment was responsible for many scrubbed missions, Vulcan Express acquitted itself well, and in 1968 received additional evaluation along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Project Gunboat, as it was code-named, went so well that seven more JC-130As were converted to the AC-130A gunship configuration, and were delivered in 1968. These differed from the prototype in having improved systems, including side-looking infra-red and Moving Target Indicator (MTI) sensors and an analog computer. On 31 October 1968, the 16th SOS at Ubon – call sign ‘Spectre’ – were activated, and the First Lady became its first AC-130A gunship, used initially for night interdiction and armed reconnaissance missions during Barrel Roll operations in Laos. Ubon became the home of the AC-130 gunships for the rest of the war; being used to mount operations in Cambodia until shortly before the cease-fire came into effect on 15 August 1973. The AC-130 gunships were used very effectively at night, mainly on out-country operations and, in particular, on the Ho Chi Minh Trail on Commando Hunt interdiction missions. All-weather operation and larger-calibre gun requirements meant the AC-130As were modified to Pave Pronto configuration under the Super Chicken, or Surprise Package, program. They wreaked havoc among enemy convoys at night, and used their laser designator/rangefinder to mark targets for F-4D Phantoms carrying Laser-Guided Bombs (LGBs). Two AC-130As were lost on operations.

In 1970 two AC-130E prototype gunships were built using C-130E airframes whose higher gross weight, stronger airframe and increased power offered a greater payload and longer periods of loitering. More advanced avionics were fitted and the ‘Pave Aegis’ armament configuration was created by installing a 105mm howitzer in place of one of the 40mm cannon in the port parachute door, while retaining the two 20mm cannon forward of the port undercarriage fairing. The howitzer was later attached to a trainable mounting controlled by beacon-tracking radar. Nine more C-130E conversions followed. By the summer of 1971 they became known as ‘Pave Spectre Is’, the first entering combat in the spring of 1972 when they helped repulse the Viet Cong offensive. AC-130Es proved most effective tank killers during night operations and on night interdiction sorties along the notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail.

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