William P. Head

Relates the story, and use, of armed military cargo planes as gunships. The development was fast from the first AC-47 *) gunships with three 7.62 mm Gatling guns with a crayon cross on the port cockpit windows as a fore sight to the later AC-130 equipped with low-light-vision TV, infrared read optics, 20 and 40 mm canons and a 105 mm canon in the later versions of the AC-130.

A very interesting book and by many considered as the 'standard book' on the development of gunships

*) Initially the 'type key' should have been FC-47 - as in 'Fighter Cargo'. But the fighter community protested vigorously; They did not want the word 'fighter' connected with a slow, lumbering, WWII vintage cargo plane. That would simply be unbearable.. Hence the AC as in Attack Cargo… (meer)