The term "gunship" is used in several contexts, all sharing the general idea of a light craft armed with heavy guns.
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In the Navy, the term originally appeared in the mid-19th century as a less-common synonym for gunboat.
In fixed-wing aircraft category, a gunship is an aircraft having laterally-mounted[1] heavy armaments (i.e. firing to the side) to attack ground or sea targets.[2] Most often, a gunship attacks the target while circling over it, performing a constant pylon turn.[1][2] This is in contrast to a standard attack aircraft equipped with forward-firing weapon, that flies at the target and then passes over it.
Rotary-wing aircraft (helicopters) can use a variety of combat maneuvers to approach target. In their case, the term gunship is synonymous[3][4] with heavily armed helicopter. Specifically, dedicated attack helicopters also fit this meaning.
In any of these cases, the gunship armaments include machine guns, autocannon, missiles, etc.
As the first notable case of the now-standard use of "gunship", in 1964, during the Vietnam War,[1] a popular C-47 Dakota transport was successfully modified with side-firing guns for circling attacks. At the time the aircraft was known as "dragonship" or "Puff, the Magic Dragon" (officially designated FC-47, later corrected to AC-47). It was the later and larger AC-130 Gunship II design that became the origin of the term "gunship" in military aviation.[5]
These gunships were configured to circle its target instead of performing strafing runs. Such aircraft have their armament on one side harmonized to fire at the apex of an imaginary cone formed by the aircraft and the ground when performing a pylon turn (banking turn).[2] The Douglas AC-47 Spooky, the AC-130 Spectre/Spooky, [6] and the Fairchild AC-119[7] were vulnerable, and meant to operate only after achieving air superiority.[1]
Early helicopter gunships also operated in the side-firing configuration, an example being the Aérospatiale Alouette III used during the South African Border War and Rhodesian Bush War.[8]
During the Vietnam War, ubiquitous UH-1 helicopters were modified into gunships by mounting the U.S. Helicopter Armament Subsystems - these were fixed, forward-firing weapons, such as rockets, cannon, etc.