Does AC- 130 have air-to-air capability ...

No, AC- 130 can only fight the Taliban without anti-aircraft fire (especially without high-altitude defense).

The development of AC- 130 originated from the Vietnam War. From the battlefield experience in the early Vietnam War, the US Air Force realized that they needed a tool that could fly to the battlefield quickly and put out sporadic ground resistance with concentrated firepower. The earliest generation of air gunboats (gunboats? I) modification, based on a Douglas C-47 transport aircraft, nicknamed "magic dragon Jet" (Puff? That? Magic? Dragon AC-47 "Ghost" air gunboat. Later, the US Air Force used Fairchild C- 1 19 "flying van" (flying? Boxcar) transport aircraft, developed AC- 1 19G Shadow and AC- 1 19K Stinger air gunboats.

1965, aviation systems department of the us air force (Aeronautical? System? Division) began to convert the mass-produced C-130A (fuselage number 54- 1626) of 1 3 sorties into the second-generation standard air gunboat. The modification scope included the installation of four 20mm Vulcan cannons, four 7.62mm multi-barrel cannons, 1 thermal flare launcher and After this trial machine was successfully tested at the end of 1967, the LTV electronic system (LTV? Electrosystems) immediately won a contract to convert seven JC- 130A missile trackers into AC- 130A. The actual production version of AC- 130A has the same firepower settings as the testing machine, but it includes APQ- 133 beacon tracker and an /APQ- 136 moving target display radar (MTI? Radar) and new analog computers and other sensing equipment. Before the end of 1968, four AC- 130A have already started to station in 14 air assault brigade (14? Air? Commondo？ Wing) delivery. After that, the Air Force installed two 40 mm L/60 Bofors guns controlled by computers on a C- 130 to replace the original 20 mm version. Package, "scare kit" program), and "quick paving" program (Pave? Soon? According to the above standards, nine C- 130A aircraft were added and modified in the scheme, and their radar and fire control systems were strengthened.

Due to the success of the AC- 130 project, the US Air Force is paving the way for ghosts (Pave? Spectre) plans to convert 1 1 C- 130E into an aerial gunboat and become AC-130e "Spectre". The new specifications include heavier armor, better avionics functions, including APQ- 150 beacon tracking radar, and larger bomb load. Starting from 1973, the surviving AC- 130 was equipped with an upgraded Allison T56-A- 15 engine, which became AC- 130H. The last improvement of AC- 130 during the Vietnam War was in Pave? Aegis) plans to replace the amazing 105 mm howitzer and laser aiming scaler.

After the Vietnam War, all the surviving AC- 130A and-130H planes returned to the United States and were stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida (Egelin? AFB 1 special operations brigade (1st? Special? Operation? Wing) operation. The front and rear guns installed on the original aircraft were dismantled one after another, and 1978 installed the air refueling port. 1990' s previous issue "Firepower Enhancement for Special Tasks" (special? Operation? Force? Improve? In SOFI's plan, these AC- 130H have been modified with the most modern sensors, fire control computers, electronic countermeasures (ECM) and navigation and communication equipment.

After the Vietnam War, AC- 130 took part in emergency and violent actions (operation? Urgent? Fury), 1989, the teacher of justice (operation? Just? Reason), and 199 1 year operation desert storm (action? Desert? Storm). Five AC- 130H participated in the operation desert storm, which was responsible for attacking ground targets in the night mission, but unfortunately one of them was damaged. Later, another AC- 130H was damaged in 1994 when the US troops sent troops to Somalia. In addition, AC- 130H also conducts night patrol in NATO peacekeeping mission in Bosnia [2].

Five old AC- 130A aircraft were all retired on1September 1995 10, and the military officially held a commemorative ceremony for them. Among The five retired aircraft, the tail number is 53-3 129, nicknamed "the first lady" (the? First of all? Lady's AC- 130A was actually modified from the first C- 130 prototype that slipped out of Lockheed's Georgia factory in 1953. After retiring, the first lady was placed in the weapons museum at Eglin Air Force Base as a permanent exhibition.

However, the relatively novel AC- 130H continues to serve in the renumbered 16 special task squadron, stationed at Hubert Airport, Florida (Hurlburt? Field).

Since the upgrade to AC- 130E and the abolition of front and rear machine guns, the armed forces of AC- 130 have all concentrated on the port side of the fuselage. Therefore, AC- 130 rotates counterclockwise around the target to be attacked, thus giving the fixed-point target concentrated artillery fire from all directions and instantly disintegrating the ground forces. In the Vietnam War, the AC- 130 fleet destroyed more than 10000 enemy vehicles.

Compared with several earlier versions of AC- 130, which began to develop during the Vietnam War, AC- 130U "Ghost" air gunboat began to develop in the mid-1960s. In order to activate the combat capability of the special forces, in July 1987, Rockwell Company won the contract to start building new aircraft, and was armed on the basis of 13 new C- 130H, and the first AC- 130U was in1990. AFB) intensive testing.

Also using four Allison T56-A- 15 turboprop engines, AC- 130U is equipped with a 40 mm L/60 Bofors gun (Bofors? Artillery) and M 102 105 mm howitzer. However, the original two M6 1 cannons on AC- 130H were replaced by a single 25mm GAU- 12 cannon with 3,000 rounds of ammunition. This new machine gun is mounted on the base of a learning gun, and its automatic loading capacity is as high as 65,438+0,800 rounds per minute, and its range is over 65,438+02,000 feet (3,657 meters).

In addition to strong firepower, the new version of air gunboats has greatly improved the electronic warfare capability. Mainly equipped with Hughes' An /APQ- 180 main battle fire control radar (derivative version of APG-70 on F- 15E fighter), Texas Instruments AAQ-1/7FLIR, Bohr Aerospace (ball? Aerospace) fully active low-light-level night vision camera (fully active? Twilight? Television, installed on the gun base protruding under the nose, has a 360-degree panoramic view) and the launching device of Rockwell ALQ- 172 electronic jammer and other countermeasures (heat flares, etc. ). with four ibms? The main control unit of IP- 102 mission computer connected in series enables AC- 130 to attack two targets at the same time, and the inertial navigation system is combined with the NAVSTAR global satellite positioning system of the US Department of Defense to provide AC- 130U all-weather mission flight capability. Because of the compression chamber, AC- 130U can cruise in higher airspace, so as to reduce the fuel consumption during cruising and increase the maximum range.

Because there are many weapons and equipment on board, AC- 130 has the largest number of operators in the aircraft with attack power of the US Air Force. Among them, AC- 130U needs 13 personnel, including 5 officers (pilot and co-pilot, navigator, fire control officer and electric warfare officer) and 8 soldiers (flight engineer, operator of low-light-level night vision system, operator of infrared reconnaissance equipment, 4 gunners and 1 loader). As for AC- 130H, the number of members is more than AC- 130U, which is 14, because a machine gun is added.

In order to strengthen the attack firepower and battlefield survival rate of AC- 130 gunboat, since 2005, the Air Force Special Mission Command (AFSOC) has also begun to evaluate the replacement of AC- 130/20 mm mortar system. The main gun of 120 mm not only has a longer attack distance and a better destructive power/weight ratio, but also can be more versatile with ammunition used by other US services (for example, the main gun of the Army M 1 main battle vehicle). In addition, the military is also evaluating to equip AC- 130 with an armed system with over-the-horizon strike capability, such as AGM- 1 14 Hellfire Missile, in order to improve the flexibility and combat effectiveness of this model [5]. In addition, in order to simplify the ammunition supply problem caused by the currently configured 20mm and 40mm artillery systems, the military is actually testing the new MK4430mm "Bushmaster II" (Bushmaster? (ii) Feasibility of replacing 20 mm and 40 mm machine guns with machine guns.

An AC- 130H belonging to 16 special warfare squadron dropped a hot flame bomb during formation training.