WHY THE FUCK DID WE STOP USING FIXED WING GUNSHIPS. THEY ARE

>>32466583
I saw an AC-130 literally yesterday.

Wtf are you talking about nigger

>>32466583

Why do that when you can just stick a laser guided bomb on an F-16?

What happens when you're operating in any kind of contested airspace?

Why spend thousands of dollars of a situational piece of equipment when you could just stick said bomb on said F-16

Why make this thread? Cause you like dicks

>Slow
>Big
>Cant fly during the day
>Limited in what surfaces it can land on
A10s are shit, no doubt, but helis and drones have them beat in all courts.

They're literally planning on having an operational fleet of like 30 in a couple years.

ac-130's are expensive as fucking hell to operate

They are just a "killing helpless goatfuckers" tool

>>32466583

WTF are you talking about.

The AC-130 is still around. They're even developing a new advanced version called the AC-130J Ghostrider.

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>>32466626
F-16s are too fast and can't provide proper air support. An AC-130 can circle arround an area and fire its weapons freely. In Vietnam they were even often sent without any previous recon and so they can operate alone. A jet can only strafe and dromb some bombs. It's literally like a reusable missile that comes back to base after it's done delivering its warhead. On the other hand we have the AC-130 which can stay in the air for much longer and because of its speed it can circle arround an AO so easily. Think about it. Even if a jet makes a second strafe against a target it still has to turn arround and fly into a position to which it can strafe back. That takes a while and leaves troops on the ground unprotected. But the AC-130 is constantly flying over the AO with its eyes on the ground, watching both friendlies and enemies. It also has aimable guns unlike any other fixed wing attack aircraft and so it can hit an enemy more easily and with more accuracy. When you have something like an A-10 the only way to use your guns is to dive straight into the enemy and brrrrrrt them. An AC-130 doesn't have to dive into the enemy because it's guns work like the turret of an attack helicopter. The AC-130 does a lot of things that tactical bomers or CAS jets such as the F-16 or A-10 don't do and it's literally a transport aircraft with some guns mounted on the side. If fixed wing gunships had as much investing as rotary wing gunships I'm very sure the overall design of the thing would look different and it would be much better in general, outclassing anything else at CAS.

>>32466751
That's a fucking screenshot from modern warfare you mongoloid

>>32466778
Yes, and?

>>32466778
all the youtube vids of ac130's and apaches blowing up tellybanned are aktchually recorded in the military version of modern warfare. Its all a ruse

>>32466751

Two dudes with a stinger, four dudes with an igla?

A ZSU-23-2? A Shilka?

CAS against sandniggers is all well and good. It's easy enough to to bomb fucking farmers into the dirt with no way to fight back. Try fighting a real war like that and see how it goes

>>32466622
Yeah they users ac130's all the time. Maybe you should actually know wtf your talking about.

>>32466807
>Try fighting a real war like that and see how it goes
Not him but fixed wing gunships would be an excellent tool for third world nations, specially those with jungles. Imagine an AC-130 flying over somewhere in Africa or South America. Those countries usually have poor AA capabilities. Literally no third world country bar Iran, Pakistan, India, China and Russia have LRAAMs.

>>32466583
OP confirmed for extremely ignorant retard who knows nothing about aircraft or CAS.

Gunships only survive in very permissive environments. They are not for nation-state war, and can't survive in daylight unless the target has no MANPADS at all. Warthog survived HIGHLY NON-permissive warfare in Desert Storm, not least because it was designed to stop the Soviet horde crashing through the Fulda Gap.

Gunships are great in their niche, but it is absolutely a niche weapon system. Here's what happens to gunships in daylight:

http://www.shadowspear.com/vb/threads/in-memory-of-spirit-03-jan-31-1991.19898/

Gunship loiter is quite nice because the US scrapped all its loitering fixed wing CAS assets except the A-10 and even getting that built was an uphill fight. We should buy a shitload of Tucanos or tool up to make new OV-10s since the original airframe pool is exhausted. They are more survivable then helos and can stay on station a long time, especially Bronco. with a centerline tank. Having many light CAS birds is optimal for the global constabulary actions we really fight. If Marcus Luttrell and deadSEALbros had Tucano or Bronco overhead they'd have had LOS radio comms (in the case of Bronco an epic flying radio relay) and survivable agile fire support with MG, FFAR or whatever one wants to hang off the hardpoints. Bronco is ideal for FAC/CAS because backseater. Helos suck at altitude and have no endurance besides being fat slow targets.

>>32466880
Russia & China are/were 2nd world if you insist on using cold war terminology.

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Why does nobody ever talk about the time it takes to get on target in CAS threads?

The AC-130 is great once it gets on station, and regardless of how effective the A-10's gun actually is it's a great morale boost for the guys on the ground. But something like a Harrier can get to where it's needed twice as fast, and that make the difference between winning and losing, or life and death.

>>32466980
>Tucanos, OV-10, Broncos, AC-130s

You know what's more survivable and has a longer loitering time than all of the above? Reapers, Predators, and Gray Eagles.

They also have a faster response time than fast movers, because they stay with the unit the entire time its out (and can cycle new drones on/offline as necessary, most drone systems have 4 or 5 actual aircraft per system). Unlike jets that take 30 minutes to scramble and then transit to a new area, the drone pilots are already used to the terrain, know exactly where the friendlies, civilians, and "civilians" are, and have a response time almost as fast as the TIC.

>>32466880
The new hotness is twin-prop gunships. Jordan, Saudi, the UAE as well IIRC.

Why not build a drone gunship?

>>32466880


lol you can shoot down an ac130 with a strela or even manually operated AA guns its so slow and low

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>>32467137
You might be on to something.

Now, I don't want to be that guy, but doesn't the F-35's ability to practically hover if required give it the potential to be a great CAS? It can go harrier speed to where it's needed and go low and slower than an A-10 when it precision is required.

>>32467404
>low and slow
>needed in 2016 with precision munitions
anon...

>>32467404

No. Not only is slowing down like that literally suicidal, it also burns more fuel than you can shake a stick at.

>>32467404
not all variants have the lift fan also, it will just drop precision guided bombs from above the range of shitty middle-eastern SAMs

>>32466778

Oh you mean CoD 4.

>>32466751
>Too fast, can't support
Terrain moves really fucking slow at altitude, retard.
>AC-130 can circle around and fire freely
With shit that's a lot less effective than a JDAM, with millions of times the risk, and only at night.
>Vietnam
Was over 50 years ago.
>Jet can only strafe and drop some bombs
KEKLAMOTHERFUCKING KEK. Gunships can only circle slowly, being incredibly vulnerable while firing from only one direction. What's your point?

You're a fucking nigger that just got done playing Call of Duty for the first time, thinking you're now an expert on military hardware and doctrine. People orders of magnitude smarter and more educated than you have already thought of every possible pro and con to the use of various platforms, the best ways to use them, when, how to deploy them, and tempered this with in-field observations.

You're too fucking dense to even imagine that this is the case, so no fucking shit you think you know everything about nothing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

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>>32466807
>somebody shoots an igla or a stinger
>angelofdeath.jpg
>zsu fires at you and hits body
>return fire and destroy with 105 howitzer
You act like all a plane can do is run or hide when engaged by AA.

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>>32467764
>terrain moves slow at altitude durr durr hurr.
Why the fuck would you fly in radar range of the enemy missile? You get locked and fucked at altitude. Missiles are also faster than jets moron. Also, without ground locking cameras that zoom in targets are either really fucking small or really fucking fast, retard.
>muh JDAMs can do everything!
No. They can destroy large areas with FUCKLOADS of collateral damage, when you could use a Gatling cannon to nail APCs and individual troops without killing friendly soldiers at the same time. Also, they have a 105mm howitzer for a reason, to fuck shit up like a bomb would.
Shitpost somewhere else kiddo.

>>32467242
supcommmmmm

best part of that game was the gunships. still not as smooth as TA