Footage released from the Karenni State of Myanmar shows an Anti-Junta militant engaging in anti-aircraft fire against a Junta fighter jet. While the fighter is unlikely to score a direct kill, this type of aerial suppression is effective at making pilots fly in a more conservative fashion, and hits can force pilots to return to base long before their loiter time is up.

First and foremost, it's worth noting that this style of suppression against aircraft is mostly ineffective unless the right type of ammunition is being used. In this case, the gunner appears to be using a heavy machine gun which is great, but only if they're using a higher grade ammunition like armor piercing or armor piercing incendiary ammo. SLAP rounds can also be used to great effect when conducting this type of machine gunnery, but we can't get wrapped up in the quality discussion too much when we're talking about Anti-Junta rebels in Myanmar who were fighting dominantly with 3D printed single-shot rifles just one year ago.

The above said, heavy machine guns are best used against low-flying and low-performance aircraft in defensive situations. This means, slow moving fighter aircraft that are often employed to conduct close air support like attack helicopters and older model fighter jets. Engaging any aircraft outside of 800m isn't advised either, as the lead required to score direct hits would be far too great to estimate with just your bog standard MK1 Eyeball.

If you would like to read more about anti-aircraft machine gunnery, I highly recommend checking out MCWP 3-15.1 - Machine Guns and Machine Gun Gunnery. The chapter specifically relevant to this topic is Chapter 14, and it has in-depth sections on how to properly lead and adjust anti-aircraft machine gun fire to obtain effective suppression against aerial targets as well as extensive section on how to effectively employ your weapon systems for proper defense against aircraft.

They don't want you to know this, but every warfighting doctrine publication in existence exists online for free in the public domain.

About the Author

Josh Brooks

Josh is an American writer and former USMC machine gunner with eight years of experience in ground combat arms throughout the GWOT. He is currently based in Texas and specializes in combat footage analysis and digital marketing.Follow Josh at OfficialJoshBrooks.com