and approximately 10 meters forward of our
positions. We do this quickly, everyone is ready
and the pilot, who will fire on a backward count
of 10, tells us to take cover now.

Deliverance.
It’s like steel rain, an awesome, wonderful
experience—for us, that is. Each of the guns is
firing at the rate of 3000 rounds per minute. The
first indication is long tongues of flame from out
of the darkness (of course we can’t see the plane
itself), the grinding sound of the mini-guns and
almost solid streams of red tracer coming down.
Tracer burnout occurs at 900m for the 7.62 round
and the tracers are gone before they hit the
ground. We hear a continuous shredding noise just
forward of our positions as the hundreds of rounds
rip through the trees and hit the ground. All the
while, the crew keeps dropping the huge flares,
lighting-up the entire area.

After a bit they
stop firing with all guns but give continuous
support with a single gun at targets their sensors