The Air Force loves to dream of all the future weaponry it's going to pack on future aircraft, and its future gunship is no exception. The head of Air Force Special Operations Command is convinced that the future gunship will be "gunless," that is, loaded instead with directed energy weapons ranging from lasers to microwaves, according to Defense Daily:
"We are looking at an exotic weapons suite," Lt. Gen. Michael Wooley, AFSOC's commander, said of the notional next-generation gunship during a meeting with the Defense Writers Group on May 9 in Washington, D.C. "In fact, the gunship of the future, in my estimation, will not have any big guns on it. Rather it would have directed energy, lasers, [and] lethal, non-lethal capabilities."
"So the key," he continued, "is going to be keeping the current fleet viable while we push technology to make that transformational leap. We have done that with the CV-22 on the mobility side and now is the time to do that with the gunship, in my estimation."
*The Air Force wants the new gunships circa 2020 to replace its AC-130H Spectre and AC-130U Spooky platforms. The H-models currently support operations in Afghanistan, while the Spooky gunships are seeing continued extensive use in Iraq, Wooley said. *
Plans have been underway for some time to put a chemical laser, called the advanced tactical laser, on a gunship, and David Hambling has written about how other advanced weapons might be integrated. But the future gunship, according to Wooley, won't be based on transport aircraft like the C-130.
Of course, it's easy to talk about "exotic weapons suite" a decade in the future (because anything is possible if you tack 10 years on to the timeframe). But word in the Pentagon has it that current effort to integrate the advanced tactical laser on a gunship is proving, as we'd expect, a tad difficult.
