I imagine it was most used against close air support, not high-altitude bombing. Seeing what to bomb in the dense woods would require flying pretty low and slow, which makes you a great target for a big semi-auto gun like this.
Another good motivator is that a bigass rifle is really flexible (sort of). You can shoot at vehicles, bunkers, snipers, harass tanks, and apparently also planes.
A twin-mounted full-auto variant was kept in service till the late 70s, mostly for anti-helicopter purposes, so it’s probably a pretty decent piece of kit.
I imagine it was most used against close air support, not high-altitude bombing. Seeing what to bomb in the dense woods would require flying pretty low and slow, which makes you a great target for a big semi-auto gun like this.
Another good motivator is that a bigass rifle is really flexible (sort of). You can shoot at vehicles, bunkers, snipers, harass tanks, and apparently also planes.
A twin-mounted full-auto variant was kept in service till the late 70s, mostly for anti-helicopter purposes, so it’s probably a pretty decent piece of kit.