AC-130U.

This is coolbert:

A blast from the past literally so!! Combine the old and the new and for the better too!

From the Internet web site The Drive and the article by Joseph Trevithick.

"The USAF Is Rebuilding World War II-Era 40mm Shells for its AC-130U Gunships"

"The service is the last user of the Bofors cannon in the US military and has had to go hunting for more ammunition."

"The U.S. Air Force is rebuilding tens of thousands of World War II-era cannon rounds specifically for the 40mm cannons on its AC-130U Spooky II."

". . .  The new version combines decades old components with a fuze that is safer and more reliable than the original model. Some of the brass cartridge cases had production date stamps dating to 1944."

Old wine in a new bottle or is it old wine in a new bottle? A much more advanced and better fuze with the old casing and you are good to go. 40mm for a long time [still?] the smallest caliber for which could be fitted with a proximity fuze.

By now I had thought the AC-130 gunships would ALL have that 40mm Bofors gun replaced by the 30mm gun [several of them] but this does not appear to be the case.

The photo accompanying this blog entry shows the 30mm gun on the left, 40mm gun on the right and in between what possibly is a domed and shielded low-level camera of some sort.

AC-130 called in Iraq by the insurgents the "spitting witch"!

coolbert.