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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Turning Avenger into a Gun Truck |
| 2005-05-05 |
| May 5, 2005: U.S. Army infantry divisions and armored cavalry regiments are equipped with mobile anti-aircraft vehicles called Avengers. They have not got any use in Iraq until recently, until eight of them were recently converted to operate as gun trucks. The Avengers are hummers with a turret mounted on the back. The turret contains two missile pods (each containing four Stringer anti-aircraft missiles). Under one pod there is an M3P .50 caliber machine gun. The weapons operator has use of a FLIR (night vision device) and a laser range finder. The machine-gun, however, can't fire, at ground targets, towards the front of the vehicle. The 3rd Cavalry Regiment has eight Avengers, and they persuaded the army to send six engineers to Kuwait, where the regiment was preparing to move into Iraq, to modify the Avengers for use as gun trucks. In two days, the engineers removed the right missile pod, and moved the machine-gun up to where the pod was. Some changes were made in the fire control software. All this allowed the machine-gun to fire in any direction, at any elevation. The ammo capacity of the machine-gun was also increased from 250 rounds to 600 rounds. The missiles were removed from the other pod. The two man crew of the Avenger was now ready to use their FLIR and laser range finder to provide accurate long range .50 caliber machine-gun fire day or night. The Avengers were expected to be particularly useful at night. Converting anti-aircraft guns into deadly ground warfare weapons is nothing new. During World War II, the German 88mm anti-aircraft gun became a very effective anti-tank gun early in the war. Later on, the American anti-aircraft halftrack, mounting quad .50 caliber machine-guns, became much more useful for ground combat, and continued in service into the 1950s. Any light, self-propelled anti-aircraft gun system has the potential to become a weapon useful against ground targets. However, many current systems include short-range anti-aircraft missiles, and often are put together so that the gun barrels cannot be depressed enough to hit targets on the ground. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #11 I have to agree, Chuck. My personal philosophy involves a few ashes floating in the wind. Under certain circumstances politeness is counterproductive. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, given what my eyesight can be corrected to... and my tendency toward nightmares when I hurt someone accidentally), nobody will let me play with such toys... or anything else that causes mayhem. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-05-05 23:17 |
| #10 Moose, for some reason people think its not polite to turn your enemy into something that looks like sloppy joes. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2005-05-05 21:48 |
| #9 Do not displease the mighty Vulcan. I saw a demo at Ft Lewis of one of those sumbitches. Sitting on bleachers 30 ft behind the thing, those bleachers were rattling. Hard. Allegedly they used them in an anti-pers role once or twice in Vietnam against human wave attacks, but discontinued it as not being ''polite''. I can dig it. Some weapons just ain't nice. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-05-05 18:20 |
| #8 Vulcan on an armored deuce and a 1/2. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2005-05-05 15:38 |
| #7 Just give me a quad 50 mounted on a M113 and a whole bunch of rounds. |
| Posted by: Inferno 2005-05-05 15:35 |
| #6 All good suggestions, but I wouldn't want to be out front of that fifty when it starts unloading 600 rounds. Hope someone is wise enough not to dismantle all the air defense capablity just in case the Mad Mullahs do something crazier. |
| Posted by: GK 2005-05-05 15:07 |
| #5 Now remove the Left missile pod and replace it with either a 25mm chain gun (if the vehicle can handle it), the 40MM automatic gernade launcher or a GE 7.62MM mini-gun so they can reach ot and touch some one |
| Posted by: Cheaderhead 2005-05-05 13:35 |
| #4 Using a Vulcan or a Dillon mini-gun on ground targets sends a whole lot of lead down range, but is not that effective (except for supression) unless the weapon is remotely operated. While it sounds good and there is a lot of flame and smoke, you can drop more enemy using a 7.62mm on burst. |
| Posted by: remoteman 2005-05-05 13:29 |
| #3 Short-range AAA is designed to put lots of flying (and explosive, if >20mm) pieces of metal out in a hurry. Of course it works well against ground troops. |
| Posted by: Mike 2005-05-05 12:30 |
| #2 I used to have one of those weird stereo-nut sound effect LP, the Vulcan was featured on one tracks - sounded like God's own chainsaw. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-05-05 12:29 |
| #1 Still, nothing beats a Vulcan for anti-infantry work. 100 rounds per second of 20mm goodness. Please, please send a human wave attack. |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-05-05 11:43 |