Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Evolution Of The AC-130 Gunship


AFSOC Would (Almost) Kill for New Gunships -- Defense Tech

If Lt. Gen. Donald Wurster, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command, could put his hands on one more dollar to spend he would buy a heavily armed version of the new Joint Cargo Aircraft. In fact, he wants them so badly that after spending that dollar, he’d “go down the table, stab the others in the back and take their dollars” for the program. Or at least that’s what he said during a roundtable of four-star generals at the annual Air Force Association conference.

The command, based at Hurlburt Field, Fla., needs a successor to the aging AC-130 gunship, and so it’s asking to redirect about $32 million from its current fiscal year budget to buy a prototype from JCA maker Alenia Aeronautica and its U.S. partner, L3 Communications.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blog headline is inaccurate. AC-27J Stinger II is not a replacement for the AC-130. It is an added capability for AFSOC and will help relieve some of the load on the bigger, aging AC-130 gunships.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Jason Decker. You are right. I was thinking of something else when I wrote the headline