![]() ![]() ![]() Cruising in an overhead left-hand orbit at 120 knots air speed at an altitude of 3,000 feet (910 m), the gunship could put a bullet or glowing red tracer (every fifth round) into every square yard of a football field–sized target in potentially less than 10 seconds. Its three 7.62 mm miniguns could selectively fire either 50 or 100 rounds per second. At the time the aircraft was known as a "Dragonship", "Puff, the Magic Dragon" or "Spooky" (officially designated FC-47, later corrected to AC-47). In 1964, during the Vietnam War, the popular Douglas C-47 Skytrain transport was successfully modified into a gunship by the United States Air Force with three side-firing Miniguns for circling attacks. The Douglas AC-47 Spooky was the first notable modern gunship. Such aircraft have their armament on one side harmonized to fire at the apex of an imaginary cone formed by the aircraft and the ground when performing a pylon turn ( banking turn). These gunships were configured to circle the target instead of performing strafing runs. firing to the side) to attack ground or sea targets. In the more modern, post-World War II fixed-wing aircraft category, a gunship is an aircraft having laterally-mounted heavy armaments (i.e. The AC-47 provided CAS with three port side mounted 7.62 mm miniguns. Post–World War II aviation Fixed-wing aircraft None of the German twin-engine heavy fighters types were produced or converted in large numbers. The Me 410 Hornisse were armed with the same BK 50mm autocannon as the Ju 88P-4, but were only used as bomber destroyers. The Ju 88P gunships were armed with 37mm, 50mm and 75mm guns, and were used as tankbusters and as bomber destroyers. Dedicated "tankbuster" aircraft such as the Ju 87Gs ( Kanonenvogel) were armed with two BK 37mm autocannon in underwing gun pods. The Germans also made a sizable number of heavy fighter types ( Zerstörer-"destroyer") armed with heavy guns ( Bordkanone). De Havilland also produced seventeen Mosquito FB Mk XVIIIs armed with a 57 mm QF 6-pdr anti-tank gun with autoloader, which were used against German ships and U-boats. 303 (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns, together with up to 4,000 pounds of bombs in the bomb bay and on racks housed in streamlined fairings under each wing, or up to eight "60lb" RP-3 rockets. The de Havilland Mosquito FB.VI had a fixed armament of four 20 mm Hispano Mk.II cannon and four. The British also made large numbers of twin-engined fighter bombers. (130 mm) high velocity aircraft rockets (HVARs). Later the B-25J was armed with eight 5 in. The B-25J variant removed the 75mm gun but carried a total of eighteen 0.50 cal (12.7 mm) AN/ M2 Browning machine guns, more than any other contemporary American aircraft: eight in the nose, four in under-cockpit conformal flank-mount gun pod packages, two in the dorsal turret, one each in the pair of waist positions, and a pair in the tail, giving a maximum of fourteen guns firing forward in strafing runs. The H models, delivered from August 1943, moved the dorsal turret forward to just behind the cockpit and were armed with the lighter 75mm T13E1 cannon. For use against shipping in the Pacific 405 B-25Gs were armed with a 75 mm (2.95 in) M4 cannon and a thousand B-25Hs followed. The YB-40 was sometimes described as a gunship, and a small 25-aircraft batch of the B-17-derived gunships were built, with a dozen of these deployed to Europe the XB-41 had problems with stability and did not progress.ĭuring World War II, the urgent need for hard-hitting attack aircraft led to the development of the heavily armed gunship versions of the North American B-25 Mitchell. These were to accompany regular heavy bomber formations over occupied Europe on strategic bombing raids for long-range escort duties as "flying destroyer gunships". 50 cal machine guns as the Boeing YB-40 Flying Fortress and Consolidated XB-41 Liberator respectively. ![]() 50 caliber machine guns.ĭuring 19, the lack of a usable escort fighter for the United States Army Air Forces in the European Theatre of Operations led to experiments in dramatically increasing the armament of a standard Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress, and later a single Consolidated B-24D Liberator, to each have 14 to 16 Browning AN/M2. ![]() The B-25 bomber was heavily armed with 75mm and. ![]()
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