AC-130 Gunship

AC-130 GUNSHIP - "SPOOKY 2-1"

Call in an AC-130H gunship that flies in, banks into a left-hand orbit over your mark and works the area with its 20mm, 40mm and 105mm guns for 3 minutes. Every round is a real projectile fired from the aircraft as it circles, so you get the slow-orbit, tracers-from-the-sky experience instead of a scripted explosion.

See it in action on the Hold The Line server (PvE, US vs Insurgents): search "Hold The Line" in the server browser.

HOW TO CALL IT IN

1. Place a map marker with the text AC130 on the target area.
2. Take out a handheld radio, inspect it (Ctrl+R on PC) and choose "AC-130: REQUEST GUNSHIP".
3. Spooky 2-1 confirms your mark, gives an ETA and arrives about a minute later.
4. "AC-130: STATUS" tells you if it's available, on station, or how long until it can be called again.

Game Masters can place a marker named AC130 NOW to send it in straight away, with no radio and no cooldown.

THE GUNS (matched to the AC-130H)

- 20mm M61A1 Vulcan: HEI bursts that walk from soldier to soldier, about 2,500 rounds per minute.
- 40mm L/60 Bofors: 4-round clips at 120 rounds per minute. Against armour it alternates AP and HE clips, like the real mixed load. HE against everything else.
- 105mm M102 howitzer: one shell every 6 seconds, 15 kg with a 2.18 kg HE warhead. You can watch the shell fly in. A direct hit knocks out light armour: trucks and cars in 1 hit, APCs and IFVs in about 2. Main battle tanks shrug it off.

All three guns work at once: the 105 on armour and abandoned armed vehicles, the 40mm on crewed vehicles and troops, the 20mm on infantry. With no vehicles around, every gun works on the infantry, groups first. Muzzle velocities, rates of fire and dispersion follow the real guns, and rounds are fired from the aircraft's actual gun positions about 1.85 km away.

FIRE CONTROL

- Leads moving vehicles: each round is aimed where the target will be when it arrives.
- First-round accuracy: the 105 lands close on its first shot and corrects onto the target, like the real fire control computer and strike radar.
- Stays on a target until it's destroyed instead of hopping between targets, and holds for a few seconds if it briefly loses line of sight.

HOW IT FIGHTS

- Engages enemies within 400 m of your mark.
- Needs line of sight: no shooting through hills, trees or buildings.
- The 40mm disables crewed vehicles and their crews; the 105 destroys abandoned armed vehicles so the enemy can't get back in.
- Enemies hiding inside buildings get the building shot out from around them.
- Civilians are ignored and never stop it from firing on the enemy.
- Danger close: it won't fire if friendlies are within 10 m (20mm), 15 m (40mm) or 20 m (105mm) of the aim point, and radios when it's holding fire for that reason.

RADIO CALLS

Players within 2 km of the mark hear Spooky 2-1 on the radio: inbound and ETA, on station, enemy armor spotted, enemies in cover, holding fire for friendlies, area clear and RTB, bingo fuel.

IMPACT DAMAGE

40mm hits leave realistic marks on vehicles: a punched hole with a bare-metal lip, soot that fades into the paint and fragment scrapes. Holes have real depth and follow the angle of each hit. Visual only, they fade after 10 minutes.

SOUND

Engine drone and gun sounds come from the aircraft and arrive at the speed of sound, so you see the flash before you hear the shot. The engines are toned down so you can still talk while it loiters.

COOLDOWN

10 minutes after it leaves, or only 30 seconds if it never fired a round.

COMPATIBILITY

- Uses the vanilla handheld radios and map markers, so no extra items are needed.
- The server runs the gunship and every player sees it locally, built for dedicated servers.

FEEDBACK & BUG REPORTS

Found a bug or have an idea? Join the Hold The Line Discord and post in #mod-feedback:
https://discord.gg/EyRnPsNWjf

CREDITS

- AC-130 model: "Lockheed AC-130 Hercules" by helijah, CC BY 4.0 (https://skfb.ly/ASw7). Edited: interior removed, guns rearranged, 105mm added.
- Sounds (Pixabay Content License):
  "Lockheed Electra Turboprop Flyover" - freesound_community (Pixabay)
  "Artillery Shots" - freesound_community (Pixabay)
  "Minigun Burst Audio" - freesound_community (Pixabay)
  "Heavy Shot Sound" - SoundTaker (Pixabay)
- Explosion effects, warheads and ammo base prefabs: Arma Reforger base game, Bohemia Interactive (License: APL-SA)