Aug 312008
Photos of a diagram from 1967, showing a proposed variant of the C-119, a “gunboat.” While heavily armed C-119 gunships were built and flew missions in Viet Nam, this gunboat differed in being rather more heavily armed than normal. Three 20mm M61A1 Gatling guns and three 7.62mm MXU-470/A Gatling guns projected from the port side, and one of each projected from the starboard. The reason for that is murky, to say the least… beacuse if the plane was banked so that the port guns could lay fire on a ground target, the starboard guns would be pointed up into the sky.
The plane was also heavily armored and equipped with flares.
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3 Responses to “Proposal, Gunboat, C-119K”
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Were the weapons on both sides so that one side could be allowed to cool down as the other side engaged the enemy?
That would require targetting systems for the co-pilot, and calls into question the half-scale armor on the starboard side.
I’d’ve rather seen a “gunboat” with all the guns pointed *forward.*
DROOOOOL.
Yeah, but then you would have to make multiple runs on the target rather than circling it; the ground forces would shoot at you after you completed your strafing run and started to turn around for another run on the target.
With a circling attack profile you keep the opponents under constant attack, which will keep their heads down.
Ever see the Soviet Tu-2Sh with the 88 PPSh submachine guns in the bomb-bay, firing forwards and downwards? It was a flop, but one has to admire the wildness of the concept.