The U.S. military has been here before: fighting an enemy who wears no uniform, one who hits and runs then disappears, blending in with local villagers. It has pursued before, with overwhelming technological superiority, guerrilla fighters who improvise weapons and use the terrain to hide. The rugged mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier, where the Taliban and al Qaeda hide, are as effective at concealment as the dense swamps and forests of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In Vietnam, the U.S. military learned that when striking an elusive enemy, high-performance jet fighters were much more successful when they were directed by lighter, slower airplanes that could wait and watch for the enemy to move.

Last July the Air Force revived its requirement for a slow-moving, light-attack/armed reconnaissance aircraft, and Boeing’s Global Services and Support group responded with an updated version of a Vietnam veteran: the OV-10 Bronco. In Vietnam, the OV-10 (“O” for observation; “V” for short takeoff) was highly adaptable and performed many missions for the Air Force, Navy, and Marines. But it was primarily a forward air control aircraft whose machine guns, rockets, and bombs could quickly make it ferocious.

“You could do quite a bit of damage while you were waiting for the heavier stuff,” says Dennis Darnell, who in 1969 and 1970 was a first lieutenant in VMO-2, an observation squadron supporting the First Marine Division at Da Nang. “And if the situation was right, you wouldn’t even need the heavier stuff. You could get Medevac or troop transport helicopters in and pluck [U.S. infantry] out of difficult situations and that would be the end of it.” The OV-10 was armed with four 7.62-mm machine guns and a variety of external weapons. For the Marines, the ordinary load was four rocket pods: two with white phosphorous rockets for marking targets and two with 2.75-inch, folding-fin rockets for striking them.

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