Much appreciate your feed back and cool pictures/drawings Rickshaw and Jeffry Fontaine!!
So the prospects of mounting and employing this ‘modified’ M102 howitzer in an aircraft with a cargo compartment/cabin width of 2.67m (8ft 9in) might be stretching the friendship.
Talking about stretching friendships, does anyone know the technical term for the ‘recoil travel’ of a gun/howitzer on firing? Saying this does anyone know the recoil travel distance of the M102 on firing?
I wonder if the OTO-Melara Mod 56 105 mm pack howitzer would have a smaller dimensional (static and on firing) footprint than the M102, which would allow it to be operational in that cargo compartment/cabin width of 2.67m (8ft 9in)?
P.S. Looking at the topographical cutaway drawing of the AC-130 you've provided, the C-130's internal cargo compartment/cabin width is 3m (10ft) by my recollection, and if the drawing is to scale, then it looks as if at minimum the M102 takes up an estimated ~2m, with an allowance of an additional ~1m for recoil and working space.......
M.A.D