A tweet from the US Department of Defense of an US Air Force gunship has been met with criticism on social media.

The tweet included a video of AC-130 gunship aircraft nicknamed the “Angel of Death”.

It has been shared more than 4,000 times and shows the plane, a converted Hercules cargo aircraft, unleashing anti-missile flares which are intended to confuse heat-seeking projectiles.

They burn at more than 500C and the pattern that emerges resembles a pair of wings.

“Her-cu-les, Her-cu-les! You don’t want to be on the receiving end of this gunship, aka the Angel of Death,” the US Department of Defence tweeted, a line from the 1996 movie The Nutty Professor.

The US Air Force has been using the gunship for 50 years to provide armed reconnaissance and close support to ground troops.

Critics on social media said it was called the Angel of Death because it “murders people”.

Twitter user Zach Carter added: “The Angel of Death was used to flatten most of Indochina, killing millions of people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The blood lust of the US military is disgusting.”