An AC-130 In Reality.
The Lockheed AC-130 Spectre Gunship is a heavily-armed Ground Attack Aircraft variant of the C-130 transport plane. The basic airframe is manufactured by Lockheed, while Boeing is responsible for the conversion into a gunship and for aircraft support. The AC-130A Gunship II superseded the AC-47 Spooky and AC-119 Shadow during the Vietnam War.
Battlefield 3
— Battlelog description
The Gunship is a vehicle featured in Battlefield 3: Armored Kill. The pilot is AI controlled, and automatically patrols an area of the map by flying in its characteristic circles. The gunship also adjusts for altitude, as seen on Alborz Mountains.
Players can spawn into either of two gunner positions; one for a 25mm autocannon, and one for a large-caliber gun while both can use Zoom Optics. Both gunners can also access top-mounted 360 degree anti-aircraft guns as well as IR Flares. Players can parachute from the vehicle through the Gunship Paradrop spawn point. A similar aircraft, the Dropship, is featured in Battlefield 3: End Game that allows both an infantry and vehicle paradrop.
The gunship is vulnerable to enemy aircraft and anti-air weaponry, as it is quite slow and large. Engineer anti-air weapons inflict about 20% damage, while vehicle-mounted heatseekers do about 11% damage. It does not regenerate damage, but does have a high tolerance and plenty of health and does not disable.
Conquest
Control of the gunship is determined by control of a base—when capturing, an aircraft icon will appear next to the base name, signalling that capturing the base will allow players to use the gunship. However, the gunship itself can remain in possession by the enemy until it is destroyed.
Rush
The gunship is available to the attacking team in Rush. It automatically advances to the next set of M-COMs, its center point slowly drifting into position. A patch was released that resulted in the gunship to only spawn at the start of the match and once every time a set of M-COM stations is destroyed.
Controls
PC
- Select Primary
- Primary weapon (ground attack)
- Select Secondary
- Secondary weapon (anti-air)
- Cycle Weapons
- Switch weapon
- Fire
- Fire weapon
- Alt fire
- Toggle zoom
- Countermeasures
- IR Flares
- Enter/Exit Vehicle
- Exit gunship
- F1
- 25mm gunner position
- F2
- 105mm gunner position
Xbox 360
- B
- Exit
- Y
- Switch weapon
- LB
- Countermeasures
- LT
- Toggle Zoom
- A
- Switch seats (if unoccupied)
- RT
- Fire Weapon
PlayStation 3
- Circle
- Exit
- Triangle
- Switch Weapon
- R1
- Fire Weapon
- L2
- Countermeasures
- L1
- Toggle Zoom
- Cross
- Switch seats (if unoccupied)
Gallery
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Battlefield 4
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The AC-130 Gunship returns in Battlefield 4 as a "main asset" Commander resource. Depending on which team holds control over its associated control point, the commander can deploy the gunship wherever needed.
A deployed gunship acts as a spawn point for the entire team, with players immediately occupying one of three gunner positions. Players below may see a "GUNSHIP OVERHEAD" message if they are within its reach.
This version of the gunship contains the 40mm Bofors cannon as its second gunner seat, moving the 25mm Equalizer cannon to third position. The occupants can freely jump from the gunship at any time, potentially accessing areas that are not currently covered by a spawn point.
The two anti-aircraft batteries appearing in Battlefield 3 are no longer available.
Gunships can receive up to 20% damage by an enemy commander's EMP UAV.[1] Should the gunship control point change hands, the commander can gradually kill the old gunship and its occupants by deploying a new one.
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Trivia
Battlefield 3
- The AC-130 has USAF markings on its tail and wings, regardless of which team is operating it.
- The HUD of the 105mm gunner seat is similar to that of the M1A2 Abrams and M1128, particularly the aiming reticle.
- Interestingly, two AA guns are mounted on top of the gunship even though they do not appear on any variant of the AC-130 in real life. This is most likely done to counter the gunship's very slow speed and size, as without these the gunship would be taken out easily by any air vehicle.
- The period of time that the gunship takes to complete a full circle depends on the map size, ranging from 72–120 seconds.
- Strangely enough, if the gunship is spotted, the player will describe it as a jet.
- On PC, the controls for each position were originally hard-coded to default values, which may have confused players that customized their key bindings. The patch that corrected this removed Thermal Optics from the 105mm cannon position. Both seats now use day optics at all times. Splash damage from the 105mm cannon was also decreased against infantry.
Battlefield 4
- In alpha multiplayer gameplay, the gunship appeared to carry a fourth passenger in addition to the three gunners.[2]
References
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