Marines come up with the greatest ideas!

[Louis of PA]

I hope the bad guys don't read about this.

from strategypage.com

Marines Invent The Instant Gunship

April 3, 2009: The U.S. Marine Corps wants gunships, having noted the success of the U.S. Air Force AC-130 aircraft. But they can't afford them, as an AC-130 costs more than three times as much an a marine KC-130J aerial refueling aircraft.

But the marines believe they have a solution. The KC-130J is the latest, and largest, USMC version of the C-130 transport used for aerial refueling. But the KC-130J can also carry cargo, and weapons (bombs and missiles) hung from the wings.

Thus the proposal is to modify a KC-130J so that it can carry a targeting pod, with the data going to a special cargo container containing control equipment (computers, commo and displays) enabling operators use the day/night sensors of the targeting pod, and release smart bombs (like the 250 pound SDB) and missiles (like Maverick or Hellfire) hung from the wings. A 30mm Bushmaster cannon, mounted on a pallet, could also be loaded, with the rear ramp open, so that there would be gunfire support as well.

The Mk44 30mm Bushmaster cannon weighs 344 pounds and fires at 200 or 400 rounds per minute (up to 7 per second). The cannon has 160 rounds available, before needing a reload. That means the gunner has 25-50 seconds worth of ammo, depending on rate of fire used.

Each 30mm round weighs about 25 ounces (depending on type.) The anti-armor shell weighs about half a pound. The armor piercing round will go through 25mm of steel at 2,000 meters range. This will get through the top armor of most vehicles, or the roof of any building, and spray the inside with fragments. At that range, time of flight is about 1.7 seconds. Explosive anti-personnel rounds are also available.

From higher altitudes (up to 6,000 meters), the AC-130 fire control system and night vision sensors, enable the 30mm gunners to accurately hit targets with high explosive shells.

Existing AC-130 gunships are armed with a 105mm howitzer, a 25mm and 40mm automatic cannon. But these guns are being phased out of military service. The air force is considering equipping its gunships with smart bombs and missiles.

Information

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[Quarks]

I hope the bad guys don't read about this.

from strategypage.com

Marines Invent The Instant Gunship

April 3, 2009: The U.S. Marine Corps wants gunships, having noted the success of the U.S. Air Force AC-130 aircraft. But they can't afford them, as an AC-130 costs more than three times as much an a marine KC-130J aerial refueling aircraft.

But the marines believe they have a solution. The KC-130J is the latest, and largest, USMC version of the C-130 transport used for aerial refueling. But the KC-130J can also carry cargo, and weapons (bombs and missiles) hung from the wings.

Thus the proposal is to modify a KC-130J so that it can carry a targeting pod, with the data going to a special cargo container containing control equipment (computers, commo and displays) enabling operators use the day/night sensors of the targeting pod, and release smart bombs (like the 250 pound SDB) and missiles (like Maverick or Hellfire) hung from the wings. A 30mm Bushmaster cannon, mounted on a pallet, could also be loaded, with the rear ramp open, so that there would be gunfire support as well.

The Mk44 30mm Bushmaster cannon weighs 344 pounds and fires at 200 or 400 rounds per minute (up to 7 per second). The cannon has 160 rounds available, before needing a reload. That means the gunner has 25-50 seconds worth of ammo, depending on rate of fire used.

Each 30mm round weighs about 25 ounces (depending on type.) The anti-armor shell weighs about half a pound. The armor piercing round will go through 25mm of steel at 2,000 meters range. This will get through the top armor of most vehicles, or the roof of any building, and spray the inside with fragments. At that range, time of flight is about 1.7 seconds. Explosive anti-personnel rounds are also available.

From higher altitudes (up to 6,000 meters), the AC-130 fire control system and night vision sensors, enable the 30mm gunners to accurately hit targets with high explosive shells.

Existing AC-130 gunships are armed with a 105mm howitzer, a 25mm and 40mm automatic cannon. But these guns are being phased out of military service. The air force is considering equipping its gunships with smart bombs and missiles.

By "bad guys" do you mean the actual bad guys, or do you mean the Army & the Air Force &, specifically, the Navy??

[Fredtheobviouspseudonym]

the B-130.

Heck, during War Two the B-25 carried a 75 mm cannon (not too effective, tho') so why not so designate an aircraft with a Bushmaster?

And it does drop bombs.

[U.S.G.I.]

In the Corps you learn to: Improvise, Adapt, and Over Come...

[Dan Wilson]

The only problem with that is it would severely restrict the KC's primary mission.
For the refueling mission they normally carry Benson tanks in addition to the wing tanks. Benson tanks are mounted in the cargo compartment with a capacity of 11000 pounds each, you add in a 30mm and enough ammo for a fire control mission with associated electronics you will have to pull the Benson out of the aircraft (they take up a good portion of the available cargo compartment) and all of a sudden your really restricted on how much refueling you can accomplish.

Now if they palletize all the equipment, and set it designated as a gunpig for that mission it would not be too bad (other than the poor maintenance guys that have to hump the bunk to change all the gear out) but I don't see the Marines doing that. Sometimes they try to do too much with too little (normally that's really admirable) and in this case I fear that the aircrew would end up with the short end of the stick because leadership gets too ambitous.

The Marines lost one of their KC's from our base in Pakistan in Jan of 2002 just for that reason, they were fragged to fly into a strip with lots of mountains and zip for Navaids during a pitch black night. Only problem was they didn't have any equipment to do this mission with even minimal safety (no NVG's or FLIR) and it bit them the really hard way and lost the crew and aircraft.

The Marines not only refuel helicopters with their KC' but they also do fighters as well. Hell we only did helicopters but and if you get a flight on MH-47's that would suck you dry.

I went out on one mission in Afghanistan loaded with over 80,000 pounds of fuel and when we were returning to base we were sweating bullets if we were going to lose our engines or not due to fuel starvation. We landed with less than 2,000 pounds of fuel -eek and we still had to cut our users off with less than they wanted.

Dan