"End of the Warthog era" Topic

As you well know the USAF wants to retire its fleet of 326 Warthog tank busters to cut costs. Quoting Air Force Chief-of-Staff Mark Welsh, who claimed that he flown the aircraft for 'thousands of hours,' the following article link stated that:

Speaking Thursday before the American Enterprise Institute think-tank in Washington, Welsh stressed that to make the same savings of $3.7 USD billion, "we would have to shut down three to four times as many F-16s squadrons as we do A-10s."

Does it really cost 3 to 4 times as much to maintain an A-10 as it does an F-16? Really?

Call this my Tango01 contribution of the day.

It does seem, on the face of it, to be vastly improbable. And I suspect that are still some ground-pounders who would rather lose the 3-4 f-16 sqns.

All the best,

John.

I'm indifferent to the fate of the A-10. I understand it's been more than useful in destroying tanks over the decades but…there'll always be those two blue-on-blue incidents in the Gulf War 1991 and the Iraq war 2003. The official reports make sombre reading; I won't dwell on them because it will likely offend both British and Americans so it's farewell to a useful, but unloved aircraft for me.

So, what are they going to use as a tank buster now? PBI?

Yeah, PBI's armed with nothing more than Molotov cocktails and an ounce of suicidal courage :)

From the article, it sounds like F-16's configured for CAS, F-35's and Apaches. Of course, none of them with the possible exception of the AH-64 are going to be as good a 'dedicated' ground support platform as the A-10 is. The operative word being 'dedicated.'

The AF's argument is that it no longer can afford to maintain a fleet of 'dedicated' A-10's that can only provide CAS. It wants 'multi-role' aircraft that can perform both air-to-air and air-to-ground roles, even if such 'jack of all trades' aircraft are masters of none.

Those blue on blue incidents would have happened regardless of aircraft type used. I remember seeing an Apache shoot up an APC then finding out it was a friendly. It is simply a cost of such lethal weapons systems which must be balanced against the otherwise overwhelming victories modern armies equipped with such weaponry are able to achieve.

Next time we fight tanks we will learn the same old lesson all over again and look for a replacement for the A10.

Regarding tank busting it's now usually done with Laser Guided Bombs anyhow – at least in the types of wars the West choses to fight.

You can get a B-52 or B-1 to do tank busting.

Does it really cost 3 to 4 times as much to maintain an A-10 as it does an F-16? Really?

Well, the A10 needs dedicated maintenance and loading troops AND has dedicated support equipment that's shared with NO other aircraft in the entire US fleet. Even the 30mm Chain Gun on the Apache doesn't fire the same round as the GAU8. GAU8 fires the 30x173mm, the M230 fires the 30x113mm.

The USAF is counting all those costs on the A10s, since they still remain if the F16s are cut. So they may well be right in saying that it would take 900+ F16s cut to equal the same savings.

I'm not sure the F16 can handle the recoil of the 30x173mm round at all, so I think that an "A16" would be best served with an M230 or a Gatling based on the 30x113.

I still expect the US Army to make a bid for the A10s, just like the last 6 times the USAF has tried to cut the A10.

F/A-16 with cut down GAU8 was trialed in Desert Storm and performed poorly.

The USAF has a whole heap of specialist aircraft that are maintenance intensive hogs and which are either of limited usage or whose role can be performed more cheaply – F-15C/D, F-22, B-1B etc.

Sounds like Zoomie propaganda to me.

They never liked the Warthog.

I suggest an objective field trial/flyoff.

They should fly both an A-10, and a F-16 over the test range, and hit it with a SAM, or some flak guns, and see which one brings its pilot back safely.

Then, they should repair the one that makes it back to base, and keep them in the inventory, and scrap the other one (it'll probably be wreckage on the ground, after the pilot punches out, anyway), especially since 95% – 99%+ of all air sorties are air-to-ground ones anyway.

No one wants to fight the USAF in air-to-air combat.

Taking the A-10s away from the USAF and giving them to the army sounds like a good idea. Perhaps they should get all the other air-to-ground fighters too, and rename the force the US Army Air Corps, which is the name of the service back in WWII.

Think of all the money we'd save firing all those USAF generals, and chiefs-of-staff, in the Pentagon.

Surely the question to ask is why have a seperate Air Force in the first place – what role do they perform that the Army and Navy counldn't resume?

Think of the savings in 5 Star Hotel accommodation alone!

Personally was very impressed by the A-10 the only time I have seen one 'live' at a firepower demo at the school of infantry. Scary even to watch from friendly ground…

No one wants to fight the USAF in air-to-air combat/

Mainly cause most countries can't. What most countries call an airforce, we'd call a junkyard full of non-airworthy museum pieces.

Surely the question to ask is why have a seperate Air Force in the first place – what role do they perform that the Army and Navy counldn't resume?

Given need for savings scrapping a branch may be a great idea:

link

Personally I reckon:

1. Scrap Air Force tactical air component (including heavy bombers).

2. Retain ANG air defence squadrons and replace their F-15/-16 with licence built JAS-39. JAS-39 is cheap as chips to operate and for most US defence you don't need anything more complicated (they're mainly interecepting civilian aircraft).

3. Bolster Navy and Marine Tac Air and include some lighter carriers.

4. Scrap ICBMs. Nuclear deterrent to rest with USN SLBMs.

5. Fund new air superiority type for Navy/USMC (already looking at this through F/A-XX program).

6. Establish Special Operations as its own branch. This includes transferring all air, sea and ground assets from USN, USMC, USAF, USAR and CIA into one branch.

Consolidate/reduce numbers of spec ops and create economies of scale.

7. USAF to focus on:
- Space Operations
- Air Defence of USA
- Strategic transport and air-to-air tanking.

Intriguing proposals, Thomas. However, replacing indigenously manufactured combat aircraft with license-built foreign ones like the excellent Swedish Gripen is not politically feasible due to our military acquisition tradition of buying overpriced home-grown designs like the F-35 to enrich defense companies and to 'create jobs' in key congressional districts.

But I'm venturing into Blue Fez territory here.

Carrier-based aviation will be insufficient to provide CAS alone. What I would propose instead, would be to move all air-superiority assets to the ANG, and give some air-to-mud to the Army. The active-duty Air Force is completely unnecessary and a terrible use of resources that could be better-spent providing low-cost platforms to the reserve component. I'm thinking something like an up-to-date (new engines and avionics) A-4 or A-7, bought in massive numbers so that everyone and their grandmother's ANG wing could have some, say several thousand total production.

The B-1s and B-52s could be shunted into the Navy's MPA force structure. Land-based ICBMs are effectively obsolete.

I guess it would be cheaper to keep them all sealed up nice and tight at 'The Boneyard' aka the Air Force Materiel Command's 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG)in Arizona. They can sit there right along with all the brand new C-27J cargo planes being sent there. Robert

Yea, I agree, foreign models won't fly here, even though we're buying Russian helos for our "allies" ("allies" is used extremely loosely in this context, and is not meant to signify they will really be, or are our "allies", now, next week, or later).

The only special loading equipment the A-10 uses is the dragon…. Every thing else is standard loading equipment MJU-1As ect, MHU-110's and 141's…. There are very few "special" troops for the A-10.

Actually, ICBMs aren't out of date as deterrent forces.

If they were, I doubt Putin and the Russians would have agreed to buy/build 50 more of them in the coming years.

The only special loading equipment the A-10 uses is the dragon….

The loader for the GAU8, right?

Every thing else is standard loading equipment MJU-1As ect, MHU-110's and 141's…. There are very few "special" troops for the A-10.

Different loading requirements and training, so the loader crew are specifically trained on the A10.

Nothing else in the USAF uses the same engines, so the engine mechanics are specific to the A10.

The airframe has unique repair requirements and parts (for example, wing skins are not flat sheetmetal, they're machined). So the airframe-repair airmen are specific to the A10.

Oh, and all the training staff for the loaders, the mechanics, and the structural repairmen are unique to the A10 as well.

The A-10 uses different pylons than, AFAIK, anything else we fly. It's certainly alone in fixed-wing TACAIR.

Aside from that and the gun, there are more similarities than differences between it and the rest of the fleet.

It appears somebody is trying to keep the A-10:

link

Carrier-based aviation will be insufficient to provide CAS alone.

USN and USMC jets can operate from land. And an F/A-18 does the same things an F-16 does.

Actually, ICBMs aren't out of date as deterrent forces.

If they were, I doubt Putin and the Russians would have agreed to buy/build 50 more of them in the coming years.

Are the Russian ones mobile? The American Minutemen are silo based.

Yea, I agree, foreign models won't fly here

It's a shame cause some foreign models have done or are doing sterling service in US colours – B-57 (Canberra), T-45 (BAe Hawk), UH-72 (EC-135), C-7 (DHC-4 Caribou) etc.

But maintenance of industrial relationships with defence manufacturers seems the primary concern of the DoD and Congress these days, even at the expense of actual defence capabilities.

Signed it. Robert