Marine Harvest Hawk Team Completes Afghan Mission – KC-130J Used for Close Air Support

June 24, 2012. David Pugliese - Defence Watch

From September 2011 until June 2012, the U.S. Marines flew in Afghanistan an aircraft called Harvest Hawk, a KC-130J Hercules equipped with a weapons.

A Harvest Hawk-equipped KC-130J Hercules carries four Hellfire and 10 Griffin missiles to support Marines and their Afghan and coalition partners conducting counterinsurgency operations in southwestern Afghanistan, according to the Corps.

The Havest-Hawk crew operated out of Camp Dwyer and Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan.

Over the nine-month deployment, the Harvest Hawk team stayed overhead in Helmand province for nearly 5,000 hours, the Marines noted in a news release.

They were in place to provide ground fires in support of coalition forces if needed, but also conducted aerial reconnaissance and surveillance.

The KC-130J Hercules has supported combat oeprations with a transport and aerial refueling capability for decades.

But in this case the KC-130J Hercules was used to provide close-air support.