Richard Riley wrote:
In the latest version all the cannons are trainable - they aren't
fixed anymore. The pilot keeps the target in sight, the weapons
officers do the actual targeting.

They've also moved from the 7.62 and 20 mm gattling guns to 30 mm
cannons. A much lower rate of fire, but each impact is huge.

The Spooky's night & all-weather capability makes visual targeting
unnecessary.

A quick search showed the new AC-130U has a trainable 25mm Gatling-type
cannon and a single 40mm Bofors mount in addition to the 105mm
howitzer. All the guns can be slaved to sensors for fire control, so
when the aicraft is orbiting (autopilot?) the FC computer is making all
the corrections as the radar is tracking outgoing 40 & 105 rounds and
the low light TV & infrared sensor allows visual verification. My guess
is a platform that sophisticated probably has an autopilot interface
with the FC computer so the pilot doesn't have to yaw the plane to
adjust the gun's aim point.