moving down the road. A call thus
went out to an F-4 armed with a
2000-pounder LGB which impacted
the same distance from the lead tank.
Batie reflected: “When the smoke
cleared, the tank was sitting on the
edge of the crater; the second tank
pulled up, stopped, and then motored
off on down the road. Nobody got
out of the first tank – you couldn’t see
any hot spots, just that tank.”
Missile threat
By 1972, gunships were no longer
operating with impunity over Laos.
From 37mm up to 100mm guns,
AAA proliferated, many of the
guns directed by fire control radars.
Once Batie’s Spectre was engaged
and hit by 37mm AAA. A ‘Fire
Can’ radar had gathered enough
information about the target to
accurately point the guns even
though it was being jammed by the
ALQ-87.
Beyond guns, the AC-130E had
to increasingly deal with SA-2
missiles. The Soviet-designed
SA-2 was first deployed to North
Vietnam in 1965, but was not seen
in Laos until early 1972.
Although this command-guided
SAM was built to protect cities and
other strategic targets, the Vietnam
People’s Air Force became very
proficient in moving the ungainly
batteries in a rapid manner. This
included within the thick jungles
of Laos.
To defend against SA-2s, Batie
had the ALQ-87 and Trim-7A
jammers as well as the manoeuvring
skills of the pilot - if the crew
managed to react in time. As for
the SA-2 that Batie and his crew
first noted over Laos on that night
back in March 1972, it succeeded
in shooting down another AC-130
two nights later.
The man portable SA-7 system
was just as hard to defeat as the
SA-2 — it was impossible to spoton imagery. The SA-7 made its
appearance by downing a twin-
engined Cessna O-2A forward
air controller on May 5,^1972
and succeeded in knocking down
another eight fixed-wing aircraft
over the next two months.
One of those losses was a 16th OS
AC-130A that was engaged over
the A Shau Valley in South Vietnam
on June 18, 1972. This was not
the first time the AC-130 had
encountered an SA-7. On the day
the O-2 was downed, five missiles
engaged an AC-130 near An Loc.
In this case, however, the pilot was
able to recover the aircraft.
The gunships responded to the
SA-7 threat by giving flare pistols to
the ‘scanners’ who rode the aircraft’s
open rear ramp, looking for threats.
Another solution was to alter the
timers for the Mk.24 illumination
flares used to help visually acquire
targets.
Batie: “We would take oneMarch 2018 FLYPAST 39“With so many airborne assets conducting diverse missions, the potential
for close calls was probably as much of a concern as the Fan Song radars
tracking them on the ground”
Left
Publicity image of a
Spectre in action.
KEY COLLECTIONAbove
The cockpit of an AC-130,
May 1971. KEY COLLECTIONAbove left
AC-130E 69-6570 of the
16th SOS showing the
rear-mounted 105mm
howitzer. KEY COLLECTION