The U.S. Air Force’s top special operations officer says AC-130J Ghostrider gunships will continue being armed with 105mm howitzers for the time being, though this could still change in future. The service had been considering removing these weapons from the AC-130Js amid a growing debate about the relevance of the gunships in future high-end conflicts, such as one in the Pacific against China.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Conley, head of Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), talked about current and future plans for the AC-130Js with The War Zone and others at a media roundtable yesterday. The gathering came on the last day of the Air & Space Forces Association’s 2024 Air, Space & Cyber Conference just outside Washington, D.C.
“The 105[mm howitzer] will continue to be relevant,” Conley said. “The plan is to keep using that in the years to come.”
AFSOC has some 31 AC-130Js in inventory, which are the only AC-130 variants now in service. The Ghostrider’s current armament package includes a 105mm howitzer, as well as a single barrel 30mm GAU-23/A Bushmaster II automatic cannon. The gunships can also employ an array of precision-guided missiles and bombs via Common Launch Tubes (CLT) and underwing racks. You can learn more about how the Air Force AC-130s have evolved since the introduction of the original AC-130A version in the 1960s here and in The War Zone video below.
Operational Ghostriders were initially delivered to AFSOC armed with modified versions of the 105mm M102 howitzer, a weapon that had been found on multiple preceding AC-130 variants dating back to the Vietnam War. The M102 was originally developed during the Cold War as a light towed artillery piece for the U.S. Army, which retired the last of its examples in the early 2000s.
With the M102s becoming increasingly unsupportable, the Air Force, in cooperation with the U.S. Navy, had begun acquiring improved 105mm howitzers for the AC-130J. As of November 2023, 17 Ghostriders had received replacement howitzers, referred to at the time by the interim nomenclature GAU-XX. At that time, however, AFSOC had also confirmed to The War Zone that further integrations had been put on hold “pending the results of the assessment of capabilities of the AC-130J.”
Separate plans to arm a Ghostrider with a laser directed energy weapon, which had previously been described as ideally suited for use in counter-terrorism and other lower-intensity operations, were also notably scrapped last year.
The War Zone has now reached back out to AFSOC about whether the GAU-XX integrations have resumed, how many AC-130Js now have the improved howitzers, and for other additional information.
Speaking at the roundtable yesterday, Lt. Gen. Conley did acknowledge that there could be less emphasis on the 105mm howitzers when employing AC-130Js in a future high-end fight.
“As we look through our training portfolios and what we need to do for future fights, it probably involves less of the 105mm,” Conley said. “It’s got munitions that could sink a ship, … not a capital ship, not a carrier, but it could do damage to smaller ships.”
“In a peer fight, I think our spot is probably on the periphery,” he added. “It [AC-130Js] could harass outlying [enemy] forces.”
“What the gunship’s known for, in many cases, with our ground partners, is just the sound of freedom overhead and knowing that someone’s there watching them,” Conley continued.
The AFSOC commander’s comments here followed the rare appearance of an AC-130J at a sinking exercise (SINKEX) in the Pacific in July. The SINKEX in question, where various assets were used to send the ex-USS Dubuque, a decommissioned U.S. Navy Austin class amphibious warfare ship, to the bottom of the ocean was part of the larger biennial Rim Of The Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, which you can read more about here.
At that time, The War Zone highlighted very similar kinds of potential roles and missions for AC-130Js, as well as challenges those aircraft would face, in a future major conflict, writing:
“During a future major conflict, just getting within gun range of a higher-value target like an amphibious warfare ship, likely operating as part of a larger group of warships further supported by air and other assets, would be a very tall order, if not impossible, for Air Force AC-130s. Ghostriders might still be able to leverage their guns against vessels in lower-risk areas or to help finish off severely damaged vessels separated from their companions. Armed overwatch over and around friendly forces on islands and anchorages could be another future maritime mission in a higher-end fight. It is worth noting that even during operations in largely permissive airspace over countries like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan in the past 20 years or so, AC-130s have almost exclusively operated at night in large part to help reduce their vulnerability to potential threats.”
“We’re looking at options for improved radars [and] other things that a traditional AC-130 would not have been asked to do,” Lt. Gen. Conley noted yesterday.
The Air Force and U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) have a stated interest in adding new active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radars to the Ghostriders. These would give the aircraft important new targeting, threat warning, and potentially even electronic warfare capabilities, along with giving their crews generally improved situational awareness. AC-130Js already have a substantial and still-growing self-protection electronic warfare suite.
Adding smaller and lower-cost cruise missiles to the AC-130J’s arsenal to significantly increase its ability to launch stand-off strikes further away from enemy defenses is also increasingly on the horizon. Lt. Gen. Conley separately highlighted yesterday how AFSOC has been experimenting with using its MC-130 special operations tanker/transports as stand-off strike platforms using the Rapid Dragon palletized munitions system.
AFSOC is looking to increasingly utilize autonomous capabilities, supported by advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, across all of its aircraft fleets and that could also impact how AC-130Js are employed in the future.
“I’d say [what] we’re looking at in AFSOC … is an incremental approach, where what I am asking industry and my team to get after is, what are the things we can do inside the plane right now that allow the aircrew to focus on mission things and not the mechanics of flying an aircraft,” Lt. Gen. Conley said yesterday. “So how do you fully automate [aircraft] startup and all that stuff where you hit a button and everything does it versus reading the old school checklist back and forth. The next step of that would be, okay, is there a point that we could reduce a crew member?”
“I think there’s also an autonomy piece in our mission side, where … like with our [AC-130] gunship, you know, what can we do, as far as sensors and targeting to use the technology that’s out there and getting better to help us with target identification, and kind of take the human out of the loop and put him or her on the loop,” he added.
The head of AFSOC also repeatedly stressed that, while the U.S. military’s primary focus is shifting to preparing for future high-end conflicts, the special operations community in particular remains heavily engaged in lower-intensity operations globally. Those missions, in turn, mean a need is still seen for the traditional capabilities that the AC-130 offers. This reality is also impacting discussions about plans for the planned fleet of OA-1K light attack aircraft, which are facing the same kinds of questions about future relevance as the Ghostriders.
“From when OA-1K was conceptualized and decided on until now, the world’s changed a little bit. And so we look at some different opportunities with it. I think it still provides a cost-effective close air support platform, which is one of the missions that it was designed for. It’s still going to provide an ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] capability,” Conley explained. “But as we move forward, I think there’s opportunity to look at, again, some novel mission sets. …how quick can we get the wings on and off it so we could use it in some sort of crisis response, if we needed to? Where does the role of SIGINT, or ELINT or… some sort of ISR collect [factor in] there. I think there’s opportunity for that. Again, not anything we’ve committed to yet.”
Conley added that AFSOC’s requirement currently remains for a fleet of 75 OA-1Ks despite discussions about potentially truncating those purchases.
All this being said, AFSOC is clearly at a watershed moment in its history, as is the rest of the U.S. special operations community, after spending the bulk of the last two decades focused almost exclusively on counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and other lower-intensity operations. Plans for the AC-130J’s future armament and other capabilities, as well as the gunship’s expected roles and missions, are continuing to evolve as eyes turn to future high-end fights.
In the meantime, at least, the Ghostriders will continue to wield their 105mm howitzers.
Howard Altman contributed to this story.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com