"Watch the A-10 Movie the U.S. Air Force Doesn’t Want " Topic

…You to See.

"The U.S. Air Force has practically begged Congress to allow it to retire its roughly 300 A-10 Warthogs, those venerable twin-jet attackers that saved countless soldiers' lives in Iraq and Afghanistan—and which recently returned to Iraq to help battle Islamic State.

The flying branch argues that the new F-35 stealth fighter is an adequate replacement for the low- and slow-flying Warthog—and the Air Force should spend its money buying F-35s instead of maintaining the A-10s and their unique 30-millimeter cannons…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

This A-10 idiocy is getting out of hand.

Any jet can lob PGMs or AGMs in the 21st century. Most have a meaty cannon – 30mm is fine but 20mm isn't exactly something to be sneezed at.

This is all about keeping some Congress people elected and nothing to do with combat capability.

I suspect most of you know my position by now…….

I like the A-10 but the A-10 is dead when sent against modern man-packed SAMs and automated guns.

The A-10 was designed as a cheap platform to be thrown into the grinder to buy a few days for NATO against the Soviets. The modern airforce is too small to accept the casualty rates that the A-10 would take against a modern opponent.

That said it should be replaced by a cheap COIN airframe, not the F-35.

Excellent film – shame about the blurred faces but good nonetheless

John T

As had been said….if the Air Force doesn't want them, I think the Army would gladly take them….

Oh wait…that would give the Air Force even less of a job then…..

silly me…

I like the A-10 but the A-10 is dead when sent against modern man-packed SAMs and automated guns

Are we talking about the same A-10? IIRC the A-10 was built to dive into a Soviet SAM/AA envelope and get the job done and get out. Exactly how many have we lost to hostile ground fire (and did the source of the ground fire survive)?

Sabre 6,
IIRC there were 6 A-10s destroyed in desert storm. 4 shot down outright (1KIA) and 2 destroyed on landing their battled damaged aircraft ( 1KIA). In addition, there were several more very badly battle damaged. One of them sits in the USAF museum. All were either hit by AAA ( usually 57mm) and IR Manpads.

We lost 1 A-10 in the invasion of Iraq ( to AAA in think) and one very badly battle damaged. These were the only fixed wing losses to Enemy action. We had two crashes, one of which was due to disorientation and we had two losses to US Army Patriots-a navy F-18 and an RAF Tornado--both crews were lost.

I am fairly certain at all offenders survived their shots at the hog. Whether they survived subsequently is unknown. We did believe in revenge fire but had other things going on when we had a loss. What we can't determine is how many otherHogs we would have lost if we had not targeted the AAA pieces when possible.

OK there is a need for a new A-10 type air craft until there is one, the A-10 needs to keep doing the job and even KC-130s can't do it alone.

I think we can all agree with that.

Let's see what they can do against ISIS!

Amicalement
Armand

The F-35 is far less survivable to ground fire, and MANPADS.

That fancy stealth coating will splinter to pieces, if hit, I suspect, unlike armored plating.

I would like to see and A-10 strike on one of these:)

LOL :)

Is the USAF unaware that their primary purpose these days is to move material (i.e. fly cargo aircraft) and mud (i.e ground support)? When was the last time a USAF aircraft even engaged in air-to-air combat?

Thanks Viperguy.

Which supports some of my point. They are being used (were used) almost daily and we are NOT lossing them daily.

But then I'm a ground type and always wish the A-10s are in cab ranks

We are preparing for the next war with a power that is building and an economy that has finally outgrown our own I suspect.

I was doing some reading about the Mk44 chaingun, which is designed for the same ammo as the A10.

Then I found out about the "Super 40mm," 40x180mm ammo. It's the same overall length and size as the 30x173mm used in the GAU8, and hits about 3-5x harder in APFSDS form (punches >140mm @1500m, while the PGU-14B used by the A10 only punches 70mm @500m and 38mm @1000m. The Russian 3UBR8 30mm cannon shell only penetrates 25mm @1500m).

So I was thinking about an evil upgunning of the A10 (or it's replacement) to 40x180mm, since the only change necessary to the entire system would be new barrels on the GAU8. 40mm shells are also big enough to hold a decent amount of explosive and a smart fuse that can do airbursts.

Either that or building an airplane-friendly round the equivalent of the US's M919 'silver bullet' 25mm shell, and upgunning all USAF birds to carry the GAU12 Equalizer 25mm cannon instead of the M61 20mm.

Unfortunately, discarding sabot ammo is not friendly to airplanes. Nobody wants their engine(s) to eat a sabot petal or 20, so you'd need to get 'creative' to make a full-caliber round as effective as an APFSDS-DU.

Obviously, making a 'new' A10 would be preferable from the Grunt's POV, but I do appreciate that the A10 imposes a good bit of unique costs onto the USAF. Engines are unique, half the ground service equipment is unique, weapons hanging is unique (but that's true of all aircraft. F15 hangs differently than F16, etc). And then you gotta add the people who maintain all that unique equipment.

Though I am oddly amused by the idea of building a drone with a big gun and about half the A10's bombload.

americanvalor.net/heroes/332

Looks like one took some hits in 2003 and got the pilot back ok. Would like to here more on the two friendly fire cases from Desert Storm that Viper Guy mentioned.

Lion:

Can you imagine how much 12.7mm ammo would fit in that large rotary tub space to feed a smaller gatling or two?

The Warthog would probably run out of fuel before it would run out of ammo, while loitering, and looking for targets.

The F-35 is far less survivable to ground fire, and MANPADS.

Except US tactics involve medium – high altitude which means flying above ground fire and manpads.

British tactics and subsequent losses in Iraq in 1991 disproved low level tactics in dense air defence environments.

We lost 1 A-10 in the invasion of Iraq ( to AAA in think)

From memory it was to a Roland SAM supplied by the French in 1980s.

Mako,
The only armored section of the A-10 is the cockpit known as the "titanium bath tub" or jokingly by the pilots as the titanium catcher's mitt depending on where the rounds hit. The front glare shield is in theory bullet proof up to a specific calibre. But the rest of the jet has thin metal skin just like all the rest. Certainly there are other design characteristics that help it survive battle damage but trying to compare that to other modern aircraft is apples to oranges.

A log of CAS can't be done from 10,000 – 20,000+ feet, so……

The rest of the aircraft is not just like all the rest. It's got redundant flight controls and wiring, widely space engines, twin tails to cover up the engine exhausts a bit to make I/R missile tracking more difficult, etc., etc., so it can take a lot more beating than the F-35, and it costs far less too.

It's just plain stupid to use a $150 USD – $200 USD million a copy aircraft to kill a few jihadis on the ground, or to knock out their $10,000 USD truck.

However, since we now seem to be living in an "Alice in Wonderland" world, where what's right is wrong, and vice versa, I have no doubt that will be the new policy, in short order.

We are preparing for the next war with a power that is building and an economy that has finally outgrown our own I suspect.

The only power that fits that description is also a nuclear one and one with viable ICBM missiles at present. War between nuclear powers is a fools game. The moment the first shot in such a war is fired everyone, even neutrals, loses.

Except US tactics involve medium – high altitude which means flying above ground fire and manpads.

Which is needlessly expensive, and in the modern age unaffordable for even a small scale conflict, since it requires expensive smart weapons in order to be effective. Those aircraft are expensive precisely because they have capacities that are needless in the actual conflicts the USAF fights.It is a strategy based not on effectiveness, but on justifying expensive and generally unnecessary aircraft purchases.

The A-10 with a 30mm cannon is far more cost-effective than any US fighter aircraft. It is, however, not supersonic or new and so the USAF esques it.

British tactics and subsequent losses in Iraq in 1991 disproved low level tactics in dense air defence environments.

A great deal has changed since 1991, and those lessons may not be applicable in future conflicts. It is entirely questionable if those lessons would apply if the defenders were armed with (for example) S-400 missiles.

Beyond that the US has fought few conflicts where opponents possessed any ability to seriously threaten USAF aircraft. On the other hand the US has fought many conflicts where their opponents lacked any modern air force or anti-aircraft weaponry.

SEAD is the first task of the USAF when they do face active air defenses and the USAF has ample means to do that.

"British tactics and subsequent losses in Iraq in 1991 disproved low level tactics in dense air defence environments."

No. It didn't.

What it proved was that it was unnecessarily costly to continue operations at low level once the dense air defence environment had been degraded.

I think the real problem is that we need two completely different aircraft because there are two completely different jobs to be done.

One mission is high-intensity-war close air support. Where the air defense environment is extreme, and where SEAD is not easy to do because of all the mobile and potentially armored SAMs and guns. The fight the A10 was designed for.

The other mission is COIN or low-intensity-war. You might need to worry about guns and MANPADS, but no heavier systems. In this mission, it doesn't matter what is carrying the bombs, but you may need anywhere from a AMG176 Griffin (13lb warhead) all the way up to a 2000lb bomb or a Fuel-Air explosive, all during the same mission time!

Even within those two different missions, there is still a need for extreme precision weapons, for when the enemy is danger-close. The A10's gun is sufficiently precise that the Air Force invites some members of the press out to sit at the referee's score-table for the gun target, roughly 200 yards off the flight track, and possibly closer. That's about as close as you can drop an artillery shell and not get too many fragments flying past you. I would imagine that the A10s can come within about 200 feet without much risk at all, and within 100 feet on a typical mission. Given that 80% of the rounds will land within a 40 foot diameter circle at 4000ft range, I'm pretty sure 50 feet away from the flight track is too close.

So whatever you have providing your air support, it needs to be able to deliver a wide range of force potentially as close as 25-30m from friendly positions. So that's what the Army will expect from their CAS. Can the F35 do that?

Why not? They do that with Hawks, Tornados, F15s and god-knows what else a few miles from here – 100m from the range-warden's tower and 400m from a tourist caravan park.