Special Forces Raids Southern Afghanistan

It's really hard to describe the sights and sounds of AC-130s raining down utter havoc. A-10s come close but they are short gun bursts on each gun run, where the AC-130s are just relentlessly circling. This is about the best description I've ever seen that comes close to putting the destruction into words.

Frank Vaughan, gunner on a AC-130 answering some questions about gunships.

Question to Frank Vaughan: I was wondering what it must look like from the ground if you were on the receiving end of all this firepower?

It really depends upon the weapons. With the 40mm and the 105mm, it was nothing more than exceptionally accurate artillery. In many cases we would fire the first 3 or 4 rounds and the first time Sir Charles knew he was under fire was when the rounds impacted.

Imagine, you are either a conscripted or true "volunteer". Your job is to memorize a 5 to 10km section of winding, twisty trail. Every night you start out with a truck, either alone or part of a carefully spaced convoy, and you haul ass down that trail as fast as you dare with no lights, no trail markers, and often little or no moon to help you. Now, out of nowhere, the truck that is 250 meters ahead of you just vaporizes as it takes a direct hit from a round of 105mm high explosive.

You have no where to run, no where to hide, no turnoffs, no nothing. You slam on the brakes and as soon as the truck slows you bail out (assuming you can-an amazing number of drivers never left their trucks lending speculation that they were chained into the cabs) and run like hell into the jungle. How do we know this happens, because we watch the whole thing on infrared, and watch the little white dot (that's you) jump out of the truck and run away.

Maybe you are as patriotic as all hell and run a couple of klicks and man one of the AAA sites that dot the trail. Great, you fire a few rounds of 37mm at us. Of course, we are painted flat black, we have no lights and the only thing you can do is try and spot our muzzle flash on the other side of the orbit, and try to guess when we are within range of your gun.

Maybe you are a good guesser, or maybe you are just lucky, but your shots at us change from being a mere nuisance to a potential threat. You never see the small grey smoke marker we drop when we go by. You cannot see the plume of bright white smoke that rises. You do not hear us call the F-4 Phantom that has been in a fuel conserving orbit at 45,000 feet overhead. You don't know that we just told him that you are about 1200 meters on the 70 degree radial from the smoke. You never knew that he dropped two canisters of cluster bombs directly over your site, blowing you and your gunsite to hell.

Now imagine a different scenario. You and your buddies have been bothering this Army outpost for about a week now. Lobbing in mortars, probing the defenses, generally raising hell. You've built lots of ladders and lots of coffins and you are ready to attack. You've even brought in some NVA Regulars to help ensure that you kick some American ass.

It's late and dark. Your probing fire becomes more intense, your mortars are hammering the firebase, your sappers are moving in to blow the perimeter, and your buddies are massing in the treeline for the first of many assaults during the night.

The Americans don't back down. They never do. You attack once, twice, three times. You feel the imperialist dogs weakening. You can smell victory. Unfortunately, you didn't hear the radio call that went out a little while ago. You have no idea that an AC-130 gunship is in orbit overhead. You can't hear the engines over the noise of battle.

We've been watching for about 5 minutes. We can see your troop concentrations in the tree lines because our infrared works through the smoke of battle. We've carefully plotted the perimeter. We watch your troop surge across the open ground hoping to breech the American lines. We tighten our orbit and drop the left wing. We put #1 20MM on line, and using our infrared, we target the largest concentrations of your troops.

BBBRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP.

Suddenly long ribbons of red fire reach down from the sky (tracers, usually every 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th or 10th round) and 20mm high explosive shells pepper your formation. In a matter of seconds an area the size of a football field has at least one round hit in every square foot.

BBBRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

Another ribbon of fire, your attack is decimated.

BBBRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

Another ribbon, and now the reserves in the tree line have been reduced to a copper-smelling red mist.

The pattern continues...thousands of rounds are fired. And now the 40mm begin to take its toll. Every time two or three survivors bunch up, they are blown to shreds by 40mm, and never even hear the incoming rounds.

Some of your survivors do make it back to the base camp...and they bring death with them. We now know where your base camp is, because we used our infrared and low light level TV to track your survivors as they struggle back. Using our laser designator, we bring in three flights for F-4D Phantons equipped with laser guided bombs, and obliterate nearly every trace of the camp.

Another scenario.

You're participating in the attack on the provincial capital of An Loc. It is early 1972. You've fooled everyone by bringing armor into play. You are currently sitting in a plantation house on one of the Michelin tire rubber plantations. You feel nice and secure. Surprise. We are overhead, and have just set our 105MM ammo for maximum time delay.

Boom

You never hear us fire the three rounds. The first goes through the roof and detonates inside. The second goes through the remains of the roof and blows out what remains of the outer walls. The third round buries itself in the pile of rubble and when it goes off it scatters debris all over the place.

Aha, but you just left the house, so we missed you. You're in a tank.

We line you up with the 40mm and hit you with three rounds of armor piercing ammo. Unfortunately, this is WWII technology ammo, and other than giving everyone on board the tank a massive headache, we don't even slow you down as you race towards town. No problem, we hit you on the top of the turret with a round of 105mm white phosphorous. The fire sucks all the oxygen out of the tank and you suffocate and die long before any flames reach you.

There you have it.

Given the choices, I'd rather give than receive.

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