AC-130W Dragon Spear CAS

Machinery of War Discussion Aircraft
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I highly doubt that cargo plane turned gunship has 360° AESA radar coverage, feature not seen on F-35s. So either provide source or that is just made up. plane doestn seem any different to normal AC-130, so where would the radar dish be? if it had 360° i would expect it to have some bulges like pic related

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at least, or dish similiar to AWACS planes.

However what i am willing to believe it has 360° coverage of radar warning reciever, which would make more sense and its how aircraft usually work. However the word reciever plays big part here, as it recieves radar radiaion from other planes - meaning that plane approaching nose cold wont be picked up. It doest emit anything by itself.

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Source

To me it seems it is navigational radar, not combat one. moreso if you look at the picture, the radar is in the nose of the plane. wouldnt provide 360° coverage.

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source

last may they announced plans to test the thing, not that they implemented it.

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source

here it mentions placing AESA radar in the nose of the aircraft, which would , again, rule out 360° coverage.

im sure if i wasnt lazy, i would be able to find an aircraft already present in warthunder with similiar speed, wing span, wing area, weight and thrust to weight like the AC-130 (my blind guess B-25J?) and simply measure how long does it take for it to bring guns from left side to right.

and i can totally see it not being fast enough to counter approaching fighter jet, nor missile.

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moreso i found this:

aesa2

source

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Testing is the standard we go by in this game, if it wasn’t for that then soviet TT would be nerfed. We don’t need to hold the US TT to a standard the soviet TT isn’t held to. Many of the vehicles currently in game were just “test” models. That is a good enough standard for the AC130 to get its AESA systems by this games current soviet TT standards.

Keep the guns pointed down range, and stay outside the effective range. This also makes the assumption the team has no SPAA the fighter has to pass over, and the team itself has no fighters in the air.

But it is capable of doing it, and that is what matters. Their is plenty of reaction time at 40km away. Despite how it works in game, the Pantsir needs 6 seconds to acquire and fire on a target properly IRL. Then we need to account for the DIRCM and other counter measures. At 1300mps (the actual flight speed of the pantsir missiles) plus the getting up to speed, And this is if it can defeat the ECM and DIRCM you would have 40 seconds to react. The AC-130 can pull 60 degree bank angles and at 380mph you are looking at roughly 6 degrees per second. Or less than 30 seconds. With the 1.5x multiplier in war thunder for G limits and structural stability we can make it closer to 20 seconds. That’s more than enough time.

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Perhaps the missiles from Pantsir-SM can have a speed of 3000 m/s, you will have less time to escape from it

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AESA systems you dont even know how are implemented.

this point entirely hinges on fact that you ignore most of my post about radar equipment of AC-130 and you just assume AC-130 is going to have a 360° active radar coverage - something not even F-35, a dedicated fighter plane has.

and why would even AC-130 be equipped for anti-air role if that is not its role?

moreso

it is actually incredibly easy to, you know, not fly directly over enemy AA when going for enemy air spawn. I know it because i do it regularly.

We dont have ECM and DIRCM wont do anything to counter radar missiles or bullets.

are you actually trolling? DESPITE HOW IT WORKS IN GAME?

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Because the maps in War thunder are very mountainous. And Pantsir is poorly implemented in the game

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My point is that it can be done, not as to why.

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You are making assumptions. Wrong ones, but you shouldn’t assume what other people do or don’t know.

You are also ignoring the fact that the math checks out.

Because soviets have the pantsir. If they balanced the game, this would be entirely different. Aim-120 SPAA would change this entirely, and should have been added with the F15C.

This aircraft does. I am not talking about what we don’t have. I am talking about what the aircraft does have.

No. I am stating facts. The system takes 6+ seconds realistically to lock and engage properly. Likely not implemented properly (surprise its soviet).

This isn’t a discussion about the maps or the pantsir at the end of the day, this is off topic. This topic is about the AC-130W, which would function just fine with this terrain.

This is off topic and belongs somewhere else we aren’t talking about an SPAA not in game, this thread is about the AC-130W not the 57E6M-E advertised at 1300MPS but when you account for soviet reality/propaganda and reduce it by 25% (minimum to make up for false advertising) its going to be real world closer to 1000 mps.

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im going off by sources i posted. unlike you, who posted a

A) airforce page that doesnt mention AESA radar at all
B) brochure that doesnt mention AESA radar in relation to AC-130 at all

YOU are making baseless assumptions.

literally what math you mentioned in relation to AESA radars?

Ive been flying F-4F late, MiG-23MLA and MiG-29 9.12A/G, Tornado ASSTA1, all of which could face Pantsir (albeit F-4F late only pre-BR split), and often did face Pantsir. And it was never an issue, because, you know, you can actually fly outside of its range, or nap of the earth on some maps, behind mountais.

cool beans, irrelevant till they introduce it in warthunder.

No, you are making assumptions, without providing evidence.

Big difference.

You are also saying this plane would be completly fine as AA platform due to IRL capabilities, and then go about what we have in game. Either talk about game, or IRL, not both.

at the end of the day, you provided nothing close to evidence of AC-130W having 360° AESA radar, nor that the AN/APN-241 radar, radar the C-130 actually carries, can be used for air to air combat.

Best of luck to actually convincing gajin about capabilities of this plane when you cant even convince random forum user.

2 Likes
37

This would be amazing only If they add the Lego version of this but if not, then I don’t want it cause I want be able to use my Lego Hellfires.

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Wah wah wah

I get that you need those fancy forum notifications, but seriously?

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Lego weapons are too OP for the game :P

6 Likes
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You can see my latest messages))

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This Thread will remain Civilized…

Off Topic stuff needs to go elseware…

So, enough Arguing and trolling… for everyone…

Debate issues and or machines in a civilized manner, Thanks!

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Why were my messages hidden? And his messages weren’t hidden?

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This is NOT up for debate…

READ the Rules before posting again… you signed them and agreed to them so that means you have read the rules and so you would know…

Warnings will be issued if this continues…

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I zink zet ac130 isnt good like u zink bcs it very big planez it ze world

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You think that thing is going to get an air spawn when the nuke plane does not?

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it could easy have a place in the game when gaijin would bring a proper pve mode, like armored warfare or other games have. it would open the door for so many vehicle, and even more premium ones gaijobble!

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You mean a proper PvE mode that would easily shoot it down? Or a proper PvE mode where it’s completely uncontested and therefore it would be gamebreaking?

Considering how the control schemes work and what would be required to make it even maybe 25% playable - it’s simply not feasible.