A question on gunships

C-119: Yes

C-5:    No

C-130's are used as gunships however

I should say -- to my knowledge there have been no C-5 gunships  =D

USAF Gunships:

AC-47 Spooky

AC-119 Shadow & Stinger

AC-130 Specter (in use from late Vietnam thru today)

The others were only used during the Vietnam War. The two different 119s were differentiated by if they had additional wing mounted outrigger jet engines or not. The AC-130 has seen continuing upgrades in its 40+ years in service.

The USN also operated an AP-2H gunship version of the Lockheed Neptune in Vietnam.

Revell has a Vietnam era AC-47 out on the market. 48th scale

Italeri has kitted the AC-119K in 1/72  I've had one in the stash since the mid-late 80's

http://shop.italeri.com/Products/7259-153-ac-119k-gunship.aspx

You might find the Testors 1/48 AC-130 on Ebay or at oldmodelkits.com ...  Monogram also had a 1/72 version of the "Spooky" AC-47 back in the late 60s, that shows up now & again...

weren't there two different versions of the C-130 gunships, also?

something like a lighter armed early version and a much heavier armed version later on?

Sort of like the difference in the armament in the two different versions of the C-119, which had more differences than just the engines.

Rex

This might help, it's a few shots I took of the  AC-130 A  & AC-130 H.

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0197.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0195.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0190.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0053-3.jpg

nothing lik a a little low level flying:

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0054-3.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0192.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0197.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0189.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0182.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0181.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0183.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0184.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0179.jpg

i213.photobucket.com/.../scan0406.jpg

TarnShip

weren't there two different versions of the C-130 gunships, also?

something like a lighter armed early version and a much heavier armed version later on?

Sort of like the difference in the armament in the two different versions of the C-119, which had more differences than just the engines.

Rex

There is also the Fairchild AU-23 Peacemaker (available from Roden) as a light Gunship

Thank you gang for the help. I wanted to make a flying boxcar as if it were in a Mad Max style world, patched up, modded up, full of whatever weaponry they could get their hands on. Nice to see on actually existed (so to speak)

And is this "Roden" a good company?

The Monogram AC-47 from the '60s is about 1/90, not 1/72. Airfx/MPC and Italeri or ESCI did do 1/72 AC-47s. Airfix and Italeri also did 1/72 AC-130s.

If I remember correctly, there was a conversion for the Monogram C-47 to an AC-47 available, but I think the biggest and hardest change is the 3 guns.  Most everything else is scratch buildable, because that was the way the original airframes were modified.  Thinking about it, a Mad Max version of the AC-119 would be converted the same way and you could arm it however you want with any mix of weapons that you like.  You could even add things like a top turret to protect the aircraft.

John

CarnivourousDonut

Thank you gang for the help. I wanted to make a flying boxcar as if it were in a Mad Max style world, patched up, modded up, full of whatever weaponry they could get their hands on. Nice to see on actually existed (so to speak)

And is this "Roden" a good company?

Roden makes some very nice kit. I have not yet built one, but I have several of their kits in my stash and they are quite well detailed.

Let me go back and correct some of my earlier stuff on the AC-119- there were also armament differences as well. The earlier AC-119G was armed with strictly miniguns like the AC-47, and no outrigger jets, while the AC-119K added 2x 20mm Vulcans to 4x 7.62mm Miniguns and the outrigger jets...

For a "Mad max" you could really go hog wild adding perhaps a 25mm Bushmaster, a GAU-8 salvaged from an A-10 and Lord knows what else...

apologies to anyone offended by this, but I just stumbled across it while doing image searches for the Shadow/Stinger...

From the pictures I was shown while in Loadmaster school in the Air Force, the 123 wasn't much more than a C.B.U. bomber.  They would roll tall canisters of C.B.U.s over a hole in the cargo deck and hit the release button.  I think they could carry 3-4 of these canisters that looked to be a good 7 feet tall and ran on tracks in the cargo deck. They would look for their targets at night with a simple infrared system and had a flares for illumination, like Spooky.