Marine Corps considers new cannon for airborne gunship.

• Author: Ake, David C.
• Position: Air Power

Less than a year after it successfully fielded an "off-the-shelf" gunship to improve its close-air support capabilities, the Marine Corps is already considering upgrades for its newest aircraft.

The service in 2010 took KC-130J airborne tankers and outfitted them with a kit comprising already developed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance packages and weapon systems. The Harvest Hawk, like the Air Force Special Operations Command's AC-130 gunships, can loiter for long periods at night, peer down at enemies and engage them when called upon.

The program has proven successful enough for the service to consider an upgrade, the addition of a 30mm GAU-23 cannon to Harvest Hawk's weapons configuration, said Maj. Richard Roberts, a KC-130/Operational Support Airlift requirements officer at headquarters Marine Corps aviation.

The GAU-23 is considered a low-risk choice because the Navy and Marine Corps already use it. The Marine Corps deferred adding the cannon in June 2009 because "the 30mm cannon integration technology was not sufficiently mature to allow inclusion," Roberts said. In the future, if technology permits, the Marine Corps may bolt the 30mm cannon to the cargo floor in an arrangement that allows it to fire out of the left side paratrooper door and still remain true to the modular concept of the aircraft.

The "hawk" part of the name is an acronym for the C-130 "Hercules airborne weapons kit."

The Marine Corps will have a contract for the sixth Harvest Hawk by the end of the year, but it awaits a decision from aviation leadership to purchase additional units beyond that, Roberts said. The first three kits have been acquired and delivered. The second will soon replace the Harvest Hawk currently operating in Afghanistan so it can be rotated into training for other crews.

The Harvest Hawk fills a gap in Marine air power, officials said. At the behest of Marine Corps Central Command, the service began developing the Harvest Hawk in 2009 when commanders put in an urgent universal needs statement requesting a weapons platform that could perform ISR with a long-loiter capability for close-air support. The first Harvest Hawk was deployed to Afghanistan in October 2010.

Unlike the fixed-wing Harrier jump jet and Cobra attack helicopter--the air-support workhorses of marines--the Harvest Hawk can remain on station for more than seven hours. It has a weapon load similar to a Cobra, giving marines support on the ground via an ISR pod mounted...