The U.S. Air Force's 'Ultimate Battle Plane' Is Nearly Ready for Combat

[DemolitionMan]

By Jared Keller

The AC-130J Ghostrider, the next-generation gunship the Air Force once dubbed its “ultimate battle plane” and “a bomb truck with guns,” will be ready to rain hellfire down on unsuspecting enemies by the end of September, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command announced on Sept. 19.

“We are declaring IOC, Initial Operating Capability, this month on the AC-J,” AFSOC chief Lt. Gen Marshall Webb told reporters at the Air Force Association’s annual conference, per Military.com. “This is a fully configured gunship.”


http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-us-air-forces-ultimate-battle-plane-nearly-ready-combat-22410

[jpsb]

C-130 still flying after all these years, ok it's not really a C-130 it's an AC-130.

[DemolitionMan]

C-130 still flying after all these years, ok it's not really a C-130 it's an AC-130.

But the crown jewel of the Ghostrider is the brutal 105mm M102 howitzer system, which can fire off 10 50-pound shells a minute with devastating accuracy. The Air Force is thinking of adding a laser to the plane.  As one weapons system officer told Air Force Times in October 2016: “It’s literally an artillery weapon that we decided to shoot down from the sky, instead of up from the ground.”