Downtown Turns War Zone (C-130 Gunships)

Mobile Register ^ | 3-10-2006 | Nadia Mohandseei

[blam]

Well, we got our terrorist training done last night, who's next?

[Slings and Arrows]

About 60 Air Force personnel flooded lower Dauphin Street and the surrounding area Thursday night in mock combat battles that looked a little more like a scene from West Side Story than one from downtown Baghdad.

West Side Story has gunships?! I never knew musical theater was so exciting!

[Mount Athos]

I sure hope it didn't look like west side story, with our troops skipping and singing and snapping their fingers

[lormand]

No such thing as a C-130 gunship is there?

[rottndog]

No such thing as a C-130 gunship is there?


Yup!

[Slings and Arrows]

It's actually the AC-130 Spectre.

[lormand]

Those look like AC-130s to me.

THIS is a C-130

[lormand]

I was just knitpicking the title :)

[RunningWolf]

That not a Sheridan recon vehicle he is unloading is it?

Those were junk, they looked exotic and fast, but the aluminum hull made them a death trap and the main gun system did not work to well either.

They used a few Sheridan's in Desert Storm 1, I cant believe it, the things were obsolete in 1976.

W.

[Slings and Arrows]

I was just knitpicking the title :)

Don't; it'll become infected.

[rottndog]

Aren't they all just a variation of the same airframe?

[WideGlide]

Did that aircraft just $hit a tank? (:^*)

[csvset]

Well, we got our terrorist training done last night, who's next?

Fallujah factor: Iraqi tactics tested on U.S. soil

Norfolk, VA. , earlier this week. They're hosting elements of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

[newfreep]

That's gotta leave a mark!

[lormand]

I think the "A" in AC-130 means attack. The "C" just mean cargo, but I will stand corrected if I am wrong.

[xp38]

When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.

[RunningWolf]

That would sound right since the original airframe was developed and fielded as a C-XXX.

It would be somewhat akin to early gunship versions of the Huey which would gave been the M conversion of the UH-1B Huey, later M models were based on the UH1H I believe.

W

[rottndog]

Either way, that's an awsome bird. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near its firing zone. Just curious...do you know how well it is armored?

[lormand]

I don't know if it is up armored.

I used to chat with a guy here on FR who used to be a crewmember on one, but dont remember his username.

[1rudeboy]

Anybody remember when this sort of story would bring out the black helicopter/contrail/concentration camp/marshall [sic] law crowd? Those were the days.