AC-130's moved to Iraq

Anyone else noticed this story? According to an AP report, the Pentagon has ordered in AC-130 Gunships to fight insurgents in Iraq.



What good is an AC-130 going to do against insurgents who use car bombs as their primairy weapon? It seems like they're pretty desperate, do they really think this is going to keep US troops any safer? This won't prevent all the car bomb attacks we hear about every day... maybe they've prepairing to level another city like Fallujah. Or Iran...



[edit on 3-4-2006 by Zion Mainframe]

Well I saw a thing on TV about this... Or it was actually a TV-clip I downlaoded... The AC-130 don't just shoot and kill, they do a lot of other stuff too... They work very clsoe with the Spec.Ops... they give them live camera feed etc. etc... and support if needed... they can't do anything alone... but they help the special forces... And aren't they the ones who can beat the terrorists...

The only thing I can think of is this: Perhaps they are going to use its long loiter and firepower too shoot at those roadside devices along highways?

Other than that, I do not see them being of much value at least over cities filled with non-combatants.

This also may be a sign that the Pentagon feels civil war is brewing and they need the firepower????

An ac-130 specter is a precision instrument - Its accuracy is within 1 meter of its aim point with all of its radar guided weapons. It is able to give direct and precise ground fire in support of troops on the ground because of this very accuracy.
If there are non-combatants around, the ac-130 is a much better support craft than an A-10, or a F-15 with unguided or smart weapons due to the fact that cluster munitions and cannon fire from an A-10 is very inaccurate, and a smart weapon from an F-15 has a 4 meter target impact foot print.

Mogadishu taught US spec war groups the value of close air support from the spookys, because they gopt a pounding when they didn't have them. Just shows how desperate the US forces must be to need these aircraft.

Targeting within one meter? No doubt the AC-130's can do that, however, thats where the shell will hit, the blast effects go much further out esp with that 105 cannon.

Yes, I do agree that its not a positive sign. But it also adds more evidence that Rummy thought he could do this on the cheap and did not send enough int he first place.

I agree the AC-130 can be quite acurate, and is also used for intelligence gathering, and more usefull than an A-10 in fighting insurgents. But as I said before, it won't keep the troups much safer. Most damage is being done in Iraqi cities, with car bombs.
They could use it at night to search for insurgents planting road-side bombs, but something tells me they're bringing them in for another reason.
Either they're preparing for civil war in Iraq, or for strikes in Iran...

ZM,

>>
The U.S. Air Force has begun moving heavily armed AC-130 airplanes - the lethal "flying gunships" of the Vietnam War - to a base in Iraq as commanders search for new tools to counter the Iraqi resistance, The Associated Press has learned.
>>

Oh please. The /Iraqis/ did what should have been done _months_ ago in shutting down ALL access to vehicle traffic. So that the 'innocents could feel the oppression of the guilty' in terms of perhaps sponsoring a few more tips-from-X revellations of bombmakers.

And _still_ they continued on with Mortar attacks that killed 23 and 37 people at a time. HOW does one /begin to guess/ these people are able to stage mortar attacks and _walk away_ with 'U.S. Jets Overhead Supplying Aircover'. Unless said jets are really incompetent at the job?

An AC-130 /may/ provide one answer to this because it's sensors are all lower-hemisphere optimized and thus it -may- have, among other classified capabilities, the option to track /threat/ rounds with it's APQ-180 or whatever.

The real (laughable) issue is that the Herk is hardly a quiet ship. It's constant drone is something that could only put a grunt to sleep with a smile on his face.

But then again, maybe that's the point. Make the little barbarian savages get a real taste of 'We Are WATCHING _You_' Big Brotherism by which their little stupid 'stop the car, there's a bunch of kids playing soccer I wanna gun down!' fun and games comes with a real fear that maybe /they don't want to meet Allah just now/.

The sadness then being tha the Herk costs as much if not more than any fast jet per hour of flight time so this is only a short term solution, at best.

Morons.

>>
A reporter saw the first of the turboprop-driven aircraft after it landed at the airfield this week. Four are expected.
>>

Did they have little tear drop fairing gamingus' on the sides of the rear fuselage with AAQ-24 cylindrical drums imbedded? You want 'precision fires' you talk what happens when AC-130s, flying predictable sky-hole-boring routes, hour after hour, start to collect MANPADS shots in irritation from the top of every 'collaterals dense' hotel, apartment building and government office block in a five mile wide radius. Down comes the fast-blimp, across 1-2 miles of impact lane for instant urban renewal of some tenement Slum Ugly.

>>
The Iraq-based special forces command controlling the AC-130s, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force, said it would have no comment on the deployment. But the plan's general outline was confirmed by other Air Force officers, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject.
>>

We are LOSING this war. Indeed we likely /lost/ the war when our guilt over our motivation for entering into the theater led us to glad-hand a bunch of murderous butchers who can barely walk on two legs. Had we treated them as an _enemy_ civillian populace. Completely denuding the entire place of guns. Had we acted like we WANTED TO WIN by sending 300,000 men over-there until it was over, over-there. Things might have been different.

NOW, anything we do just looks desperate and given the sweet stench of Abu Ghraib, anything 'desperate' is _bound_ to be deemed as OPPRESSIVE.

Because after all, 'why didn't we do it before?'

Morons.

>>
Military officials warned that disclosing the location of the aircraft's new base would violate security provisions of rules governing media access to U.S. installations.
>>

Oh please. The U.S. has been using SOF troops and 'local talent' to blow away any and ALL (truly independent) reporters not 'with the team' in both Iraq -and- Afghanistan. How much more 'controlled' can the access get?

Nobody knows what's really going on over there. If we did, Bush' piss and vinegar 'stay the course' (nobody at the wheel) PRBS would be laughed out of house.

>>
What good is an AC-130 going to do against insurgents who use car bombs as their primairy weapon? It seems like they're pretty desperate, do they really think this is going to keep US troops any safer? This won't prevent all the car bomb attacks we hear about every day... maybe they've prepairing to level another city like Fallujah. Or Iran...
>>

If I wanted to level a city, I would bring in 155 howitzers or B-52s bucko. Not 20,000 dollar an hour manned target drones.

If I wanted to go into Iran, you can _sure as hell_ bet I wouldn't be using a freaking 200 square meter radar target moving at all of 320 knots to do so.

Don't sought-hysteria overplay what you know not a single fracking thing about.


KPl.


P.S. I realize having an image of some Chinese fellow suffering a major case of constipation may seem cute. But to be honest, any peanut gallery comments coming from a source seemingly outside the U.S. loses about 90% of it's credibility before you even start. Just something for your 'marketing division' to think about.

ch1466, could you please NOT respond to any of my threads from now on, 90% of what you write is completely irrelevant.

Thanks

BTW, THe AC-130 was used during the assult on Fallujah. Using an AC-130 for that kind of work isn't such a bad idea, they're far more accurate than howitzers.

[edit on 3-4-2006 by Zion Mainframe]

Oh you got the curse of CH1466 have you? put him on ignore like I have and you don't have to have his drivel ruin your posting session.

On the up side, im sure the US Forces would feel one hell of alot better if the old smokey is sat at 10, 000 feet ready to lay the smack down on the enemy!

Long live the Smokey!

ABOUT TIME!!!!!finally we are showing we are not afriad to do a little damage over there, i saw get like 10 or 20 of the ac 130s over there and level the whole coutry, thats just me, but maybe they are thinking ofpulling another fallujah, and if they are, i wonder what city they will go after, oh well.........BOMB THEM ALL

Well Blackhumvee, no offense, but that response is a little bit shortsighted.

I agree, that the deployment of the AC-130's to Iraq is somewhat of a bad sign, a bit foreshadowing of possible future actions.

Shattered OUT...

just wait till they have the laser gunship deployed

Boeing's laser gunship

Zion Mainframe,

>>
ch1466, could you please NOT respond to any of my threads from now on, 90% of what you write is completely irrelevant.
>>

And I find your posts to be offensive in their inflammatory nature. The AC-130 is vulnerable and it is limited as a force protection asset. You make it sound like a juggernaut when in fact the simplest of VSHORAD systems can and have driven it off station, even destroying one as recently as Desert Storm when this 'mighty' Vampiric hunter dared stay to long into the dawn.

Of course this is something we have known since 1972 when we lost three of them to SA-7's in 4 months. Even though they were Pronto'd up with the 40mm.

>>
BTW, THe AC-130 was used during the assult on Fallujah. Using an AC-130 for that kind of work isn't such a bad idea, they're far more accurate than howitzers.
>>

So, now that I've made you face your own deliberate or otherwise ignorance in stating-

>>>
...maybe they've prepairing to level another city like Fallujah. Or Iran...
>>>


You are suddenly willing to admit that the AC-130 is far more precise and indeed _singular_ in it's capabilities? We have something like 13 AC-130U and 8 Spectres people, of which, the combination of the CTF units (2), high maintenance times and continuing modifications (4-6 down is not uncommon) and deployment calls mean about 5-6 are 'available' at any one moment.

Such is not something Iran needs to be worried about. I most certainly is not going to do a _damn thing_ in Iraq.


KPl.


LINKS-
What it was
www.spectrumwd.com...

What is (warning 159mb video)
d-n-i.net...

www.globalspecops.com...

What it will never be ('a squadron for every LID')
www.afa.org...

[edit on 5-3-2006 by ch1466]

AC 130 is an interdiction / area effect weapon.

Its use in an urban environment where there are many non-combatants is wholly inappropriate unless you're working on the 'free fire zone' basis (anyone dead is a dead insurgent).

What's next 'Arclight'?

Originally posted by ch1466
And I find your posts to be offensive in their inflammatory nature.

It was intended that way. Many users have complained about your comments. Just try to stay on topic with your replies, you certainly know a thing or two about this stuff, it's sad you screw up your replies with useless information and rants.

The AC-130 is vulnerable and it is limited as a force protection asset. You make it sound like a juggernaut when in fact the simplest of VSHORAD systems can and have driven it off station, even destroying one as recently as Desert Storm when this 'mighty' Vampiric hunter dared stay to long into the dawn.

Sure, they're vulnerable. But the Iraqi insurgents don't have AA-guns or stinger missiles (I hope). They're quite safe over Iraqi cities.

So, now that I've made you face your own deliberate or otherwise ignorance in stating-

>>>
...maybe they've prepairing to level another city like Fallujah. Or Iran...
>>>
You are suddenly willing to admit that the AC-130 is far more precise and indeed _singular_ in it's capabilities?

..

Such is not something Iran needs to be worried about. I most certainly is not going to do a _damn thing_ in Iraq.

Well, they're far more accurate and effective than howitzers, that's what I meant with that answer.

Tell me then, to your opinion, why would they want to move in 4 AC-130's?


I've posted a video about an AC-130 attacking an Afghan/ Al-Qaeda camp a couple of years ago: AC-130 Gunship Video Over Afghanistan

Originally posted by ShatteredSkies
Well Blackhumvee, no offense, but that response is a little bit shortsighted.

I agree, that the deployment of the AC-130's to Iraq is somewhat of a bad sign, a bit foreshadowing of possible future actions.

Shattered OUT...

yeah your right, and none taken

Gentlemen,

You shouldn't talk about these weapons on ATS as the PJ's lives could be in danger. The enemy monitors this site exclusively for idiots willing to expose bits and pieces of information. They are excellent compilers. Please practice COMSEC. This is classified information and you make get a visitor or even a virus to your computer.

declair, I believe the information Zion Mainframe posted is from a news source, which means that the Military has made this information public, now, if the military thought this to be classified, why would the news displace this information to the public?

Seems to me that even if our current enemy knew that the AC-130's were coming, there would be nothing they can do to stop them as they lack the necessary military assets.

Shattered OUT...

Sure, they're vulnerable. But the Iraqi insurgents don't have AA-guns or stinger missiles (I hope). They're quite safe over Iraqi cities

i agree, how are the vulnerable when the best a group of insurgants have is an ak-47. they definetly aren't going to bring it down with sticks and stones. it flies out of range of an rpg, a stinger could do it but they have flairs for that, they definetly don't have aa guns or sam's.

the only real time they are at risk is take off and landing when all aircraft are at their most vunerable state.

Zion Mainframe,

>>
Sure, they're vulnerable. But the Iraqi insurgents don't have AA-guns or stinger missiles (I hope). They're quite safe over Iraqi cities.
>>

Christ on a blanking crutch. When was /any/ battle last won on 'hope'?

WHAT do you /think/ hit Captain Campbell's A-10 as she was working with infantry to clear approach lanes into BIA? Strong language?

usaattacked.com...
www.talkingproud.us...

'Bullet holes' my lilly white heineken.

The Coalition started a buy up program for the /thousands/ of MANPADS stolen from Saddam's armories. At 500 bucks apiece.

Thus far, of 5,000 known missing, less than a third have been recovered.

www.lexingtoninstitute.org...
www.fas.org...

Allah only knows how many of those have working batteries and coolant.

Yet the threat is _so bad_ in Iraq that U.S. helicopters fly mainly at night or foul weather, especially when near the Syrian border where 'rumours say' that Soviet SA-16/18 are available and _unstoppable_ with conventional EXCM/IRCM (_1_ bucket of M130 + non-coherent, omni = ALQ-144 and 157) which continue to be the only anti-heat option 90% of U.S. combat helicopters have.

In the 'big cities' U.S. helicopters /prefer/ being shot at by snipers and AHMs from high buildings (where they can't shoot back into) because they can at least use them as masking against manportables.

Helicopters having been shot down by MANPADS as little as 6 miles from downtown Baghdad _proving_ that we have ZERO means to suppress these weapons. Even using the simplest of (155 or HIMARS counterbattery) cued shots from drones 'flying along' (reverse AMUST) to spot and record the downings and blow away anyone who approaches the crash sites.

www.cuttingedge.org...
www.washingtonpost.com...
www.washingtonpost.com...

Don't spew 'hope' all over my shirt Mister. I'll spit a loogey in your eye.

Note-
1. It takes upwards of FIFTY MILES of cleared airspace baselane to bring in heavies on final. Even if you reduce that to ten with a tactical STOL letdown, you cannot keep a determined enemy from launching so close that the MAWS doesn't have time to cue enough expendables to beat the weapon. Because AB security patrols are more afraid of small ambush and IED and there is no indication of Camp Sentinel or similar MTI systems being used with preemptive fires to sterilize the surrounds.

2. The highest altitude (according to Guiness BOWR) at which any aircraft has been hit is 25,000ft wherein a Hunter was hit over Oman or Yemen because the pilot 'didn't think it was possible' and so did nothing about it. There is thus _firm proof_ that the British C-130 which was lost somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000ft could well have been hit at this height because it's even slower. More importantly, if it is using (typical) UV based MAWS, it may well be saturated out at altitude. Or indeed simply not /able/ to detect a coasting weapon.

3. The Iranians have or had RBS-70. They have -access to- QW-3/4. Both of which _PAY NO ATTENTION WHATSOEVER_ to conventional EXCM and virtually scared the Iraqi AF off the battlefield in PGW-I. And are feared the world over because they have larger LARs due to the superior aerodynamics and larger motor. Indeed, almost all the late model 'MANPADS' (actually VSHORADS) in fact have _separabale booster_ segments well able to take the weapon over 12,000ft. Even if they are IR homers.

>>
Tell me then, to your opinion, why would they want to move in 4 AC-130's?
>>

Because they are desperate.

Because they have lost sensor overwatch and/or need a sustained vertical fires weapon to gain 'precision' firepower in the cities where mortar attacks haven't stopped, even with shut down of the transport grid. And helicopters can't cut it because they are too badly threatened themselves.

Because by making it /seem/ like they are 'doing something' (droning oppressive 'presence', even if it is restricted in where it can shoot, 24:7) they hope to coast through this latest Tetian proof that our 'professional' armed farces don't know a damn thing about how to cut an insurgency off at the neck as well as the grassroots knees.

www.military.com...

The reality is, as I have stated for the last week and a half on other boards:

A. By bombing the Golden Mosque, the Iraqi's have lost whatever credibility as 'offended pious peoples' because while they won't let _U.S._ into them to remove arms cache` they are not above striking each other's to retaliate for sectarian killings that comes down to Shiia regime 'security forces' (death squads by any other name, the only uniformed force allowed off reservation without explicit orders) 'solving' the Sunni problem by making random-terror examples 10-20-50 'by a roadside'. They have ZERO right to judge us. When THEY have proven, irrevocably, that 'whether we are there or not' they will slaughter each other. In direct contravention of the Koran.

B. When every element, Kurd, Shiia, Sunni can manage to come together at the Prime Minister's home in a _single evening_ to condemn (and forbid) attacks on Mosques. When even Al Sadr 'says so'. It's clear what these places really are: BMC2 nodes. Like a military internet where the dumb can go for their daily dose of propoganda and where /their leaders/ can control-rod their power base via 'sermon'. Whether it be to hate the Americans. Or butcher each other. Destroy/Occupy the nodes (as we should have done, since they used them to shoot at us from Day 1) and the insurgency becomes a low-order mob rather than a focussed hate.

C. The Sunni were doomed to lose from the start. Like whites in South Africa, their only real power lay in the relations they had outside the country and their vested ownership of various resources. As such, the only thing they can /hope/ to do is continue the insurgency indefinitely. Because as long as they 'embarrass the Americans, but not too badly', we will keep fighting the bad fight on pure-stubborn. The moment things 'get real peaceable' they have lost not only all hopes for real power. But also quite likely a month-of-long-knives worth of putting the minority in it's place.
Under the ground.

It is time for U.S. to admit that we have stepped directly into UBL's trap. That by destabilizing Iraq, we have given him /exactly/ what he always wanted. Which was an inroad to bringing revolutionary Islamic fundamentalism throughout the ME.

It is _time_ for us to 'step over the horizon' and let Iraq meltdown completely. Because we lacked the big brass ones to refuse to be told by a /defeated enemy civillian populace/ where we could and could not go. Who would and would not be allowed to form 'private political parties' as insurgent militia's. And most importantly because we are _training_ those militia members to better slaughte civillians because we are so scared that we have blocked ourselves into garrisons, terrified of intervening. Just like the French did when faced by the Viet Minh.

We cannot save Iraq. We cannot save our oil production contracts there. We /may/ be able to put up border guards which isolate her (again) like the rabidly diseased animal she is. So that her violence cannot spread south.

But either way, the moment where 'get to winning or get to leaving' was anything but an illusion of choice has long since past.

And AC-130's won't solve the problem now. The only thing left to determine is how many more dead gun bunny's we want to 'explain' to the Cindy Sheehan's of this world. And whether we still have the righteous authority to continue hunting UBL as the man our focussed WILL should have been mounty-or-bounty behind getting to begin with.

Certainly 'measure fore measure' riding a kettle that is set to blow is stupid if you lack the gusto to start poking holes in the specific personalities and strategic effectors by which the pressure is added from the inside. And those, a 'gunship' is not needed for.

There is a view of cognitive rationalization as a thought process called the Cybernetic Paradigm. It basically states that humans tend to reduce complex problems to a simple template of (perceived) dominant factors and, right or wrong, jam those factors over the existing relational values 'until something fits' and they get the justification for the whole model by virtue of forced agreement with their initial perceptions of it. Politicians, in the wake of Vietnam, have shied away from this on the basis of never being caught looking like fools for saying something is when it isn't. While /not quite/ admitting that they have no better idea of what is going on than Jo Schmuck. The problem is that society itself creates Cybernetic Paradigms and so if you -don't- aggressively LEAD THE WAY an uncertain or complex model variable is perceived, you get left behind by those who ARE willing to say what you yield the field to them on.

A good leader, a STRONG leader, who has a strategic vision beyond the moment can steamroll that nay-sayer peanut gallery opinion. PROVIDED he is willing to speak to each failure of that vision, what is _specifically_ being done about it and how it 'still all fits with the grand plan'. Bush, an incompetent orator and strategic myopian has long since lost that confidence. And so we are now in 'pure coast mode' hoping that things don't blow up beyond a few-per-day current basis. Until a newly 'elected if not representative' force can have the authority if fresh-start politics. In pulling the plug.

I'm about the only guy out there who thinks that even if the are dumber than a sackful of rocks for volunteering to kill for a stranger they don't know. Our muzzle mutts deserve more than a continued attritional intermission with it all hanging out there.

U-Boats be damned.


KPl.