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[Heron TSG]

Funny anecdote I heard two days ago from a 40 year Australian Army veteran. He's flying along in a gunship with the rest of his squad and then suddenly, out of nowhere, the two Gatling guns on the side of the gunship lock on to a target on the ground and spit 50 thousand rounds at it, terrifying the hell out of everyone. Then an American voice comes over the radio:
"Sorry guys. Looks like that guy won't be welding any more."
The guns are set to automatically return fire, and they define enemy fire as flashes of light from the ground. Apparently, this time, they'd wasted an Iraqi welding his car. Not the biggest fan of how America fights wars, let me tell you.

Wait... so an Australian army helicopter shoots down a welder, and then an American points out that he won't be welding? And they were using 1860's steam-powered machine guns? What kind of bizarro world is this?

[Flying Dice]

Funny anecdote I heard two days ago from a 40 year Australian Army veteran. He's flying along in a gunship with the rest of his squad and then suddenly, out of nowhere, the two Gatling guns on the side of the gunship lock on to a target on the ground and spit 50 thousand rounds at it, terrifying the hell out of everyone. Then an American voice comes over the radio:
"Sorry guys. Looks like that guy won't be welding any more."
The guns are set to automatically return fire, and they define enemy fire as flashes of light from the ground. Apparently, this time, they'd wasted an Iraqi welding his car. Not the biggest fan of how America fights wars, let me tell you.

Wait... so an Australian army helicopter shoots down a welder, and then an American points out that he won't be welding? And they were using 1860's steam-powered machine guns? What kind of bizarro world is this?

What I take from that is that it was probably a squad of Aussie soldiers being transported by an American helicopter (the voice was the pilot?), and that Jackrabbit meant 'minigun', rather than Gatling gun. Though Gatling guns were hand-cranked, not steam powered.

[Jackrabbit]

Ah, I wasn't entirely sure if they were still called gatling guns or not; Wikipedia told me the Vulcan is and I missed the bit about it only being on fixed wing aircraft. Anyway yeah, miniguns. I'm assuming it was an American gunship (I dunno if the term gunship means anything special in the world of helicopters, that's the word the vet used to describe it) that was transporting Australian Army units but the real point of the story was that the miniguns were computerized and programmed to lock onto literally any flash from the ground. Since hearing it, I can't help but wonder if it'd lock onto the flash from a kid playing with a mirror or similar.

[Flying Dice]

Drawing from my decidedly nonexpert knowledge, a gunship would be a helicopter designed to provide fire support and fill an antiarmor role, with troop transport being a secondary function, though that term could refer to anything from a pure attack helicopter to something like a Blackhawk or a Huey with a troop bay and mounted weapons, in this case one of the latter category, given that it was transporting soldiers.

[Mr. Palau]

Drawing from my decidedly nonexpert knowledge, a gunship would be a helicopter designed to provide fire support and fill an antiarmor role, with troop transport being a secondary function, though that term could refer to anything from a pure attack helicopter to something like a Blackhawk or a Huey with a troop bay and mounted weapons, in this case one of the latter category, given that it was transporting soldiers.

Yeah a gunship is just that, a (flying) ship with guns to provide fire support to troops on the ground. I think it just needs a substiantial armorment to classify as a gunship, regardless of other equipment.