AC-130 SIDE FIRING AIRCRAFT BASIC COMBAT OPERATIONS

[Music] la [Music] the hoochi Min Trail the enemy's Lifeline to the war in South Vietnam and Cambodia is an intricate and complex Road system thousands of trucks racing and plunging along this Maze of trails carry the materials of War materials of war that enable the Viet Kong and North Vietnamese to terrorize and attack our allies and our own Ground Forces believe it the trucks are there but they're not easy to find an enemy truck Convoy can always divert from one road system to another hide under the teered canopies of tropical forests Park and refuel under camouflage and because of our daytime tactical air strikes they always run under the cover of night the only way to stop this flow of War supplies is to search out the trucks in the night acquire them as targets and Destroy them with powerful and accurate gunfire for this Mission the Aeronautical Systems division has developed for tactical employment a remarkably successful weapon system for the Air Force the ac130 side firing aircraft flying a small percentage of the interdiction sorties over the trails the aircraft in this program have accounted for an impressive number of all enemy trucks destroyed or damaged night armed reconnaissance is the primary mission of these aircraft but they're highly versatile they're also effective in other night combat operations such as interdiction strikes deep in enemy territory close air support of troops escort of ground convoys of friendly trains trucks and River ships and because of their ability to locate an orbited Target Target and to see in the dark they're frequently used as Forward Air controllers for fighter strikes however sophisticated the weapon system is it is only as effective as the combat crew who flies it 14 of you acting as one the great majority of your missions will be flown in darkness and every one of you in the crew contributes to the accuracy of every shot as well as to the safety of every mission now the whole trick in being a successful AC-130 combat team is to understand the basic geometry of the firing orbit develop your skills in operating the sophisticated sensors Fire Control System and weapons and to coordinate with one another in split-second timing for all side firing aircraft AC 47s the AC 119s or the ac-130s the basic firing geometry is the same the aircraft flies a left turn orbit in a 30° bank at a constant altitude with a specified true air speed around an aim point this geometry establishes a definite slant range to the aim Point that's superimposed over the target for each different attack altitude your guns are readjusted and fixed so that your fire will hit the aim point for each attack altitude a different sight line therefore a different gun depression Angle now a sight line is a straight line but of course the ballistic path is not there's a ballistic drop here that must be compensated for in the gun settings these settings are obtained by boriding on the ground but but when you're Airborne each gun must be fired to check the accuracy of these settings it is this sight and gun angle adjustment that enables the aircraft to fly its 30° angle of bank for all attack altitudes I notice that regardless of the attack altitude the radius of the pylon turn will be nearly constant the attack altitude and the true air speed must selected before entering the firing orbit to compensate for the forward velocity of the aircraft the guns are adjusted to fire slightly aft of the sight Line This angle is called the gun lag angle obviously as air speed increases the gun lag angle must be increased now with your sight line directly on the target your guns are aimed at a point might be about here this compensates for the forward car of the aircraft and for the ballistic drop this simple firing geometry enables the pilot to zero win on his Target throughout a prolonged attack keeping the Target under constant surveillance from 360° of course there's always something to complicate a basic Theory wind wind not only affects aircraft position and travel it also displaces the impact point of the ordinance the pilot will maneuver the aircraft to compensate for Wind Drift he will increase his angle of bank on the downwind Arc of the firing orbit he will decrease it on the upwind arc now as you can see a 30° angle of bank can be maintained in these areas of the firing orbit and it's from these arcs that he will usually fire the aim point for firing will be offset into the wind just as you offset for wind on the rifle range now if your shots consistently group off Target that indicates an error caused by wind of course on board a weapon system as sophisticated as the AC-130 side firing aircraft you have a computer a computer that's quite capable of compensating for Wind Drift now how do you crew members and your weapon system fit into this geometry let's start with the Gunners uh but first I better explain that the pictures we're going to show you are not of the photographic quality of the film you're looking at right now but the training and combat photography and the battle damage assessment footage will give you an idea of what you will actually see how the fight really goes so now let's get with those Gunners on the other side of the bulkhead behind and below the pilot is the forward gun station these first two guns are 20 mm Vulcan cannon with a rate of fire of 2,500 rounds per minute they're manned by two forward Gunners and when these Cannon are fired you two men will be busy loading and Manning the third and fourth guns are the Min guns 7.6 2 mm they have a rate of fire of 3 or 6,000 rounds a minute they're used for strafing in special situations such as support of friendly troops and contact with the Enemy they're manned as needed by one Gunner from the forward or aft gun crews in addition one of the Gunners must man the right forward scanner position the fifth and sixth guns the 40 mm are the truck killers and there is accurate as sporting rifles The Long Reach of these guns gives you a greater slant range that means greater standoff distance which greatly reduces your vulnerability to the enemy's anti-aircraft artillery Triple A the Gunners who man the 40s will be spelled and helped by the two forward Gunners in hostile areas that AAA has a bad habit of coming up at you every man in the crew who can see it watches for it but one crew member is a specialist he's the Illuminator operator and his position in the aircraft is unusual to say the least he lies prone on the open ramp in the rear and watches below for AAA if it's coming directly at you he calls it accurate and the pilot takes evasive action if the AAA angles away from you he calls it inaccurate and the pilot continues in the firing orbit while he plays this tricky game he drops ground markers when they light up on the ground a fighter strike can be called in against the AAA Gun bunkers if you have what it takes to be in this crew position you'll also operate the 40kw Illuminator and the flare launcher when they're installed the sensor operators Booth located on the right in the center area of the cargo compartment is acoustically treated to keep out the bang and Roar of the guns it's air conditioned protected by steel armor and covered with Ballistic repellent material there are three officers who operate the sophisticated sensors and a fire control officer who coordinates sensor operations the electronic warfare officer operates several sensors for example Black Crow A specialized electronic sensor and the beacon tracking radar using the black crow sensor he will usually be the first one to detect a Truck moving along a trail that radar is used principally to locate a friendly troop position where a transponder Beacon is located on the ground in bad weather which is when the enemy is likely to attack this can be of the greatest importance to ground forces in such a situation fire support is directed against the enemy an offset distance away from the friendlies this officer also operates the trim 7 and other Advanced electronic countermeasure systems the infrared reconnaissance system the low light level television and the two officers who operate them are the real Night Eyes of the AC-130 weapon system the infrared sensor the IR is an extremely precise heat sensor so sensitive it can detect minute temperature differences and show it in real-time imagery much like black and white television Vision Target images are magnified by a factor of four and the aiming reticles are etched into the display if you're the IR operator you will learn there are many tricks in operating this sensor and it's your job to know them all you can see through Haze when the TV cannot you can search the roads beneath with a wide range picture you you can change scale for a close-up look you can select white hot or cold hot polarity depending on which mode shows the target best jungles are cool roads are warm and running truck engines are hot there are lots of questions but you don't have to answer all of them by yourself you're part of a team and you can always cross check with the TV op operator either one of you can slave his picture to the other fellas television needs only Moonlight or Starlight to present you with a picture of the earth below the 2kw Illuminator is slaved to the TV to brighten the image on a dark night that Illuminator a Xenon Arc lamp of extreme intensity can be operated in either a visible white light mode or in an invisible IR spectrum it is always operated in the IR mode while in combat so that it is not visible to the enemy below a distinct advantage to the operator of the TV is its narrow field of view that enlarges the Target by a factor of six every man in the crew who is acquiring or tracking a Target is measuring the aim point in terms of Mills everybody's talking the same language but that's still a fine sighting to make from a moving aircraft if you're sighting and firing along a 12,000 ft slant range one mil of tracking error and you missed the Target by 12 ft for the IR and TV operators that means stay steady track your target slowly and evenly and leave a moving Target by about two lengths for every estimated 10 mph of the truck's travel if it's a truck Convoy destroy the lead truck first that jams up the Convoy he in the open or something like in the open Roger you're cleared okay just sped up considerably he is a he is a mover and he has got his lights on we him he slowed down considerably but he's still moving there's another one up the road okay down 300 ft that's all right take the Le Roger [Music] that we got dozens I don't have gun going after the Le you need go down 300 ft I want a gun you got how to stop [Music] them5 six truck okay we're all right let's [Music] get hit on number two hit on number I can't breaking out give Gunners just blew up the truck that was on fire blew up come up to 10605 and P we're going to move down the road far block this up we're moving down to truck number five what are we doing that for because we cannot see the other sorry he just blew up again uh and that fire is big enough to blow all the trucks on the curve in fact it's blocking my truck out now Rob we just got some more trucks Oh beautiful yeah we I think we got them all all right uhoh get out of here right keep your head in keep your head in in don't let keep on keep on keep on a STI there's one other sensor switch that's particularly important the consent switch on the operator control panel when you depress the consent switch you give the pilot a light signal that tells him you're on the target the firing circuit is interrupted when the switch is red depressed and the pilot cannot fire in the automatic mode what happens to all this target information you fellas are picking up with your sensors it goes into the very heart of the weapon system the fire control computer the fire control officer determines which sensor has the best picture of the target he computes and gives data corrections to the Navigator when shots miss the Target in the ac-130a models the analog Fire Control System on the flight deck displays the target information for the Navigator the Navigator keeps the computer continuously updated with modifying information such as wind direction and velocity Corrections in asouth and elevation heading and slant range true air speed coincidence and Target offset this is the information that is passed to the pilot it is registered continuously on his steering indicator and in his optical Gun Site Guided by this computerized information he flies the aircraft into the attack orbit that's when he turns into his Sid mounted Optical Gun Site and as he does so he calls for armed guns the flight engineer arms the gun that has been selected and that is on the line in the Gun Site the pilot refines his aim by maneuvering the aircraft so that the fixed and movable reticles are superimposed the Navigator confirms that the target is clear of friendlies and he coordinates the clearance to fire the sensor operator is tracking the target the consent light is on and the pilot triggers off the shot direct hit on one of the [Music] trucks no s s turn around okay we're oh direct head on the same truck barge look like drifting away from the water from the shore no right in not if it has it Direct Hit Direct Hit we have a fire on the barge oh up to the middle huh okay that's Target four boat number one you got ship destroyed and burned it's a ship ship of the line 16in guns go now we're on the 307 for 78 off of 94 he's got [Music] us 5 group was good started out two [Music] oh okay okay hold it they got on IR ho we got us up tonight okay this off okay what do we have hey we just hit truck we had the biggest exp big let's get off the trucks stay off here they're getting shot at give me the next one we've been looking at aircraft and what we call the pave Pronto configuration there's a great deal more about this weapon system than we've been able to tell you there's additional equipment like the laser target designator there's tricks of the trade you can learn only by flying the system and there's additional equipment on board that further illustrates the degree of sophistication reached by this weapon system these AC-130 sidef firing aircraft in the pave Pronto configuration have really proven themselves far beyond expectations now in the follow-up AC 130e program one that we call pave Spectre the weapon system is even more advanced a new additional hydraulic system uh very extensive armor plating have been installed to protect you and your equipment uh an advanced digital computer provides increased flexibility to the fire control system this enables the pilot to fire accurately even though he's not on nominal Bank altitude or true air speed for the selected attack orbit if your shots miss the target the fire control officer simply Clicks in the Miss distance and Direction whatever has caused the error wind gun setting sensor alignment or aircraft skid the computer computes the proper asthma and elevation Corrections and that next shot should be on target besides the digital computer the aircraft in the pave Spectre program are equipped with a heads up display that gives the fire control officer and the pilot additional information and greater accuracy for every shot this is a sophisticated weapon system operated by a skilled crew the co-pilot monitors air speed and altitude and he makes what flight adjustments are required of him he's also the man who's coordinating with the gunships fighter escort besides his job of precision navigation the Navigator is in contact with the Airborne command post and he coordinates the clearance to fire he plots friendly positions and keeps the Battle Log along with coordinating and selecting the tracking sensor the fire control officer is responsible for pin Point Corrections in the fire control system and he advises the pilot he operates the battle damage assessment recorder and calls the results of all firing to The Crew He also records additional information for subsequent attacks and for post Mission analysis Beyond his usual engineering chores the flight engineer coordinates with the Gunners on a private intercom and he arms the guns selected to fire the Gunner ERS must keep ahead of the guns keep them constantly loaded ready and on the line one gun jams and instantly they have another on the line their guns are always ready for the next shot at the next Target a Target the sensor operators are constantly searching for acquiring and tracking and let's not forget that scanner that Illuminator operator lying out there on the open r ramp calling and marking enemy anti-aircraft [Music] artillery all this is going on at the same time 14 men linked together by three separate intercom systems acting together as one team the AC-130 sidef firing aircraft developed for the Tactical Air Command are becoming constantly more sophisticated h on the [Music] line but the greatest thing about the AC-130 sidef firing aircraft will always be the combat Crews who fly them there's no substitute for skill and [Music] guts TV's TR that's our big gas truck tvu there you got got to climb now okay we're going up I still don't have secure on two pilot two drivers got out they running to the rear three drivers also they're calling you he moving slow down went they're way behind me now level off no wait a minute they jumped it off the road falling down yeah they jumped it thing rolled off the there it goes there it goes all right we don't have to shoot it then we'll just nail it in a minute just exploded oh no shootter you want to go up yeah just keep her coming up okay we a [Music]