Posted on 10/16/2001 6:32:25 AM PDT by Pericles
Tuesday October 16 7:40 AM ET
Special Forces Gunship Enters Fighting
By KATHY GANNON,
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A U.S. special-forces gunship went into action Tuesday, raking a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan with heavy machine gun and cannon fire. U.S. jets returned to Kabul, blasting military sites north of the city.
First use of the low-flying, lumbering turboprop AC-130 over the Taliban headquarters of Kandahar followed the fiercest daylight raids of the offensive and marked a stepping-up of attacks on Taliban bases and leadership.
It also signaled U.S. confidence that more than a week of attacks by ship-launched cruise missiles and high-flying jets had greatly eased the threat from Taliban air defense.
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in neighboring Pakistan to shore up support for the U.S.-led campaign, said Afghanistan's Islamic regime was ``under enormous pressure'' but refused to say whether he thought it near collapse.
Tuesday's fresh waves of air strikes targeted the Taliban at multiple fronts - military bases and airports outside the capital of Kabul, Taliban leaders' southern base city of Kandahar and the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
In mid-afternoon, two jets dropped five bombs on military targets in the Kheir Khana section of northern Kabul and two more bombs around the airport, raising a huge cloud of black smoke.
Taliban Information Ministry official Abdul Himat said 13 civilians died in the pre-dawn assault at Kandahar. The Taliban also said two people were killed in Tuesday's attack on Mazar-e-Sharif. The claims could not be independently verified.
In Washington, a defense official confirmed the overnight attack was led by an AC-130, marking the first acknowledged use of special-forces aircraft in the offensive, which began on Oct. 7. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
Previous raids had targeted anti-aircraft artillery sites and other military installations with the aim of making the skies safe for aircraft like the AC-130. The Taliban are believed to still hold an unknown number of shoulder-fired Stinger missiles capable of bringing down aircraft, however.
High-firepower AC-130s typically are used to support ground forces trained for small-unit operations. There was no word whether the gunship's deployment meant special forces had entered the battle on the ground.
Aiming to make the skies safe, U.S. forces have made particular targets out of airports in Taliban territory throughout the campaign. Attacks put the Jalalabad airport in eastern Afghanistan out of commission almost from the start.
Other strikes have pounded Taliban jets at Kabul and the sprawling airport complex at Kandahar, which holds at least 300 housing units of Osama bin Laden's followers.
The only other major airfields in Taliban territory, at Shindand in southwestern Afghanistan and in Herat, have also taken repeated strikes.
The United States launched the air campaign to root out bin Laden - the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States - and to punish Afghanistan's rulers, the Taliban Islamic militia, who harbor him.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking at the Pentagon, suggested Monday that U.S. airstrikes could next start targeting Taliban front-line positions facing Afghan opposition fighters in the northeast.
``I suspect that in the period ahead that's not going to be a very safe place to be'' for Taliban fighters, Rumsfeld said. ``We hope to have improved targeting information in the period ahead.
Taking advantage of the massive assaults, opposition forces on the ground claimed Monday to have advanced within miles of their former stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif.
In the Tajikistan capital Dushanbe, a spokesman for the opposition northern alliance said opposition troops were approaching Mazar-e-Sharif from the northeast and northwest and that some units were as close as 4 miles away.
The claim by Abdul Vadud, the military attache of the opposition-controlled Afghan Embassy in Dushanbe, could not be confirmed.
Mazar-e-Sharif is the largest city in northern Afghanistan and is dominated by ethnic minority Uzbeks. The fundamentalist Taliban, who are Sunni Muslims, captured the city in 1998 and have since ruled it with an iron hand.
Taking the city would enable the opposition to consolidate its grip on the small area it controls in the north, since the town controls routes running east to west and linking pockets of the northern alliance's strength.
Pakistan, which has agreed to lend logistical support for the campaign, has pressed for the U.S. and British offensive to avoid directly helping opposition troops. Pakistan fears the northern alliance, its longtime opponent, will seize power from the Taliban.
With Powell beside him, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told an Islamabad news conference Tuesday the military strikes should ``short and targeted.''
The U.S. secretary of state found himself struggling to calm tensions between Pakistan and India after new fighting in the disputed province of Kashmir.
The United States had been trying to head off just such a flare in hostilities between the longtime rivals, fearing they would district key ally Pakistan for the campaign in Afghanistan.
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EDITOR'S NOTE - Kathy Gannon contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan.
I wouldn't want to try shooting an incoming shoulder-fired SAM end-on, even with a 20mm Vulcan. (Remember that all the guns are on the left side of the plane: if somebody launches a missile from the right-hand side, the plane is defenseless until it manages to lumber around 180 degrees and bring its guns to bear.) When the article said "blind," my guess is that it was referring to the staggering IR decoy-flare capabilities of the C-130. When somebody mashes the flare button, three huge flare ejectors (right, left, bottom) toward the rear of the plane start throwing out (this is a guess) between ten and twenty magnesium flares per second until the button is released. It creates an amazing spectacle that nearly blinds humans, let alone the simple seeker head of a missile small enough to be fired from the shoulder.
I have a 2MB MPEG of a standard C-130 (not an AC-130 Spectre, just a C-130 Hercules) squirting hundreds of flares while flying over water, leaving a tremendous umbrella of smoke in the sky, but I have no idea how to post it.
During the Battle of Khafji, a Specter was shot down, killing all 14 of its crew.
AC-119G mini guns
Link for more info and pics on the AC-119 gunship
Quote from the above website on AC-119 gunships,
With the advantage of hindsight, however, it can be argued that the truest testimony of the AC-119s' worth is not measured on engine performance charts, The most obvious sign of success was when a GI on the ground, about to be overrun by VC troops, told the FAC pilot "F#@%! the F-4s - Get me a Shadow!
Upon witnessing the wrath that the AC-47 brought down on the VC attackers that night, he reported that visual effect of the tracers, 1 in every 5 rounds or 20 per second, gave the appearance of dragon's breath. He also tied the roar of the guns into the description. Upon reading the account in the Stars and Stripes, the CO of the 1st Commando Squadron exclaimed "Well, I'll be damned! Puff, the Magic Dragon." from a child's song recently popularized in the U.S. by the trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Captured VC documents later told of orders not to attack the Dragon as weapons are useless and it will only infuriate the monster.
My service in the USAF special ops was a bit after the Vietnam war. A few of the old sergeants I worked with related how the mere mention of Puff on the radio sent the VC scurrying out of the area. Sometimes they even simulated a call to Puff to get the same effect when no Puff was available.
More AC-130 websites AC-130 GUNSHIP THE FABULOUS FOUR ENGINE FIGHTERS
Also link to the book "The Fence" on AC-130 gunships at the link above. "The Fence is a hard hitting and accurate account of the heroism of the brave airmen that flew the AC-130 Spectre Gunship during the Vietnam War. A must read selection for Special Operations enthusiasts." Hugh Hunter, Colonel, USAF [Ret] Commander 1st Special Operations Wing, Hulburt Field, Florida [1983-85]
The General Electric GAU-8, 30MM Gatlin cannon, which fires 4800 rounds a minute, is ALWAYS useful. Some may remember in Granada, when a A-10 fored into a building, it REMOVED the entire second floor in one burst. Aerial artillary, it ain't just for tanks.
Gotta agree, it "ain't just for tanks anymore!" The ammunition for the 30mm "Avenger" cannon has become diverse - including some that act as anti-personnel fragmentation grenades when they impact. An A-10 pilot could "paint" an area with a two-second cannon burst and the Taliban troops would find themselves in the middle of *hundreds* of bursting grenades.
The A-10s could pop up over a ridgeline and surprise some of the bad guys, unlike the higher-flying C-130-based gunships. The right tool, for the right job. I suspect they'll use the Warthogs if they're over there. Besides, you never know when some Taliban sympathizers in Pakistan might send some tanks over to "help".
The newest AC-130U model is named Spooky. AC-130H model is the renowned Spectre. The AC-130U is the most complex aircraft weapon system in the world today.
More info on AC-130U
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