A-10s carried out strafing runs in Syria to destroy ISIL’s oil trucks

Four A-10s and two AC-130 gunships destroyed a total of 116 ISIL oil trucks near Deir al-Zour in eastern Syria on Nov. 16.

A-10 107th FS Michigan ANG firing gun 2010
By USAF photo by MSgt. Terry Atwell [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

After expanding a dozen of 500lb bombs, the Warthogs continued their destruction by making strafing runs with their GAU-8/A 30mm Gatling cannons. The gunships chipped in with the Gatling guns and 105mm cannons. There were 295 trucks in the area at that time, two-thirds were destroyed by the attack.

This campaign called Tidal Wave II, named after the WWII bombing campaign on Romania’s oil fields, is to disrupt the ISIL’s revenue stream from oil sales.

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