Russia plans to create a new military aircraft to support the ground forces.

As part of the Army-2019 forum, it became known about the intentions of the Russian developers to create a ground support aircraft for the ground forces, which would become the equivalent of the American AC-130 Gunship. Nevertheless, it became known that the aircraft with more than 60-year history - An-12 will be used as a base.

According to the information provided by the source in the military-industrial complex, to date, the demand for ground support units in the fire support aircraft has been very high, since this greatly increases the effectiveness of offensive operations.

It is reported that the plane of fire support is expected to equip large-caliber machine guns, automatic aircraft guns, as well as automatic grenade launchers. However, analysts drew attention to the fact. that the Soviet An-12, which is one of the oldest military aircraft in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces, will be used as the basis.

When it is planned to implement this project, so far remains unknown, but given the fact that work in this direction has just begun, analysts believe that the development will be completed no earlier than 2025 of the year.