RPGMemes

This probably isn't the right place for my original comment, much less a sprawling debate about US vs. Rest-Of-World doctrine in regards to air superiority, but....the AC-130 is more so than just about any other airplane in the inventory very exposed to enemy fire, and can only be used in a totally permissive environment. Flares are a 'defense' against some surface to air missiles (smaller heat seeking MANPADs, specifically), and theoretically against air-to-air heat seeking missiles as well - but even though C-130s (and C-17s and C-5s) have the capacity to deploy flares, they're a tactic of last resort. A C-130 (and by extension, an AC-130) is going to be totally defenseless against even a very bad, very old fighter jet (like the MiG-17 or MiG-21), will be a sitting duck against any sort of AAA (like a ZSU-23), and even particularly vulnerable to a 'bad guy' with a MANPAD, because it literally flies circles around whatever it's shooting at. Position yourself in its 'orbit' and pop off a Stinger or SA-24, and it's going to be a very bad day for the AC-130 crew.

Any airplane configured for CAS (i.e. flying low with a large bomb load) is going to run into the same threats. But the AC-130 has no other mission. It's a SPECOPs weapon because it's for punching down - it's incredibly useful against dudes on the ground with rifles, and maybe some lightly armored 'technicals'. It has almost no other uses - in Vietnam they assisted in Search and Rescue missions to recover down crew, but that's about it. It doesn't have the survivability of an A-10, nor the multi-mission capability of an F-16/F-15E/F-35/F-18. I guess it's faster than attack helicopters - but if you've seen how short of a life span they can have in a non permissive environment, well...even more so for an AC-130. An AH-64 or AH-1 can duck behind a tree line. Where the Hell is an AC-130 supposed to hide?

I should've just giggled - yes, 130 is an incredibly high armor class! You'll never hit it with an attack roll unless it's a critical! Ha!

But I sort of do have a problem if the AC-130 is your 'favorite' plane. Unique? Sure. Cool? Maybe - there's definitely nothing else out there flying around with a 105 mm howitzer. Ingenious? Sure.

But if you have any conception of the missions that AC-130s have been flying for the last 50 years (and maybe no one here does!) it's an awfully strange choice for 'favorite' airplane. It's designed to turn 'bad guys' into chunks of meat. It does it cheaply, with a high degree of precision, and with very low threat to SPECOPs operators or friendlies.

In many ways thats what every piece of military hardware is for - and that doesn't stop me from being impressed with F-15s or B-2s or a whole host of interestingly engineered aircraft. Maybe they all fit into the conception of America as a bully, blowing up dudes with rifles that hate us because someday they might get a missile or a rocket. 🤷‍♂️

If that's how you get down - cool! Maybe the mistake was on my part; I could've just downvoted and kept it moving and thought how morbid it is. And next time I will, I guess.