Highly doubtful. See below.
We’ve practiced engaging helicopters in the UCOFT (Unit Conduct Of Fire Trainer) tank gunnery simulator, and that includes everything from full-up computer-assisted to engaging manually (hand cranking the turret through azimuth and elevation), at night, with the auxiliary sight, using mortar-flares for illumination.
It ain’t easy; with practice, it’s certainly doable.
But like you say, that’s engaging a stationary or slowly moving helicopter at near-ground altitudes. Most aircraft, and certainly an AC-130 operating at the altitudes LSLGuy describes, is quite outside an Abram’s engagement envelope, in both range and angularity. Even at near-ground level, “fast movers” (just about any fixed-wing aircraft) will be very difficult to hit, even with computer assist, unless you get just the right angle on them; the system just isn’t designed to hit targets moving that fast.
And aircraft show up very well in the thermal sight.
Oh, certainly. Computer-assisted gyro stabilization does wonders. The tank can be turning left, while the gunner tracks a target moving right, lase it for range, the computer adjusts, and one big bang/pow later, you have one dead target (assuming the gunner doesn’t bobble the shot). We even practiced doing that completely manually, with zero computer assist, with the auxiliary sight, at night, in the UCOFT.
Again, it ain’t easy. But with practice, and some small degree of skill, it is doable.
And just for the record, the Abrams is hardly alone in the world of Armor in having these capabilites. The English, Germans, French, and to a lesser degree, the Russians, can do these kinds of things. Hell, the Chinese might be able to do it.
Whether they devote the kind of doctrinal/gunnery training to do it is another matter entirely.
