"A-10 Warthogs Are Putting Fear In The Ranks Of ISIS" Topic

"With a roaring engine, 30-mm. cannon and nose painted like a toothsome, snarling beast, the A-10 Thunderbolt sends ISIS fighters scattering like cockroaches on the Iraqi desert plains, but the legendary fighter plane pilots call the "Warthog" may be fighting for its own life.

The venerable plane, first built for destroying Soviet tanks, has been on the chopping block since the sequester of 2011 mandated steep cuts in the Pentagon budget. Although the planes haven't been built in more than 30 years, the Defense Department believes it can save maintenance costs by phasing them out. Air Force brass believes newer, faster aircraft like the F-16, F-15E, and, eventually, Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter can do a better job of the Warthog's mission of providing close air support to soldiers on the ground. But supporters say Islamic State fighters are finding out the hard way what they have said all along.

"The aircraft sparked panic in the ranks of ISIS after bombing its elements and flying in spaces close to the ground," Iraqi News reported last week after a sortie took out several terrorists in ISIS-controlled territory near Mosul. "Elements of the terrorist organization targeted the aircraft with 4 Strela missiles, but that did not cause it any damage, prompting the remaining elements of the organization to leave the bodies of their dead and carry the wounded to escape …"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

Go Warthogs… Go!

Amicalement
Armand

Friend of mine used an A10 as an IED removal system. Had this strip of ground with a couple walls and liberally seeded with IEDs, couldn't get permission to drop arty on it or apply a MCLC. But he could get permission for a gun run from an A10. One long BRAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPP and a lot of secondary explosions later, there were no IEDs left in that spot and it was ready for redevelopment into a garden (being freshly plowed and all…)

One of the best weapon designs this side of WWII.

Gotta love it when they design a vehicle around a weapons system like that, at least if you're on our side.

I suspect the enemy despise it.

However, we must retire it, because it has outlived its usefulness…

In what way has it outlived it's usefulness?

If most of your wars are going to be against tribal nuts in pick-ups (ISIS) or possibly a state armed with lots of awful tanks (North Korea) then the A10 seems a much more cost-effective way of fighting than using a Typhoon armed with Brimestone missiles.

We need more planes like the A10 – wish the RAF had something similar.

Though I note there's a lot of apaches suddenly exercising around Snowdonia this week….

You can only put a Band-aid on those old airframes for so long. Low level maneuvering is not something that lets a plane live a long life.

It was built around the weapon, for low and slow close air support. It was built to land and take off from unimproved airfields. Try doing that with an F-16, F15E or the F-35. The Air Forces idea of close air support is locking on to a target 15 miles out, screaming through the air space at Mach and then trying to deliver a bomb to target. No hang time at all. Air force likes it showy and spiffy. Grunts like it functional. Transfer the A-10's to the Army and get some new ones.

what they need is to design and build 1000 A-11's around 2 30mm guns :)maybe just 1, let the USMC have them. and sell enough to our friends so they don't cost the US anything. See what I did there I used my brain and attacked the problem from outside the box, something US office holders don't seem to be able to do. :)

The thread that won't die

If ISIS hates the A-10, imagine how they'd feel about a B-52 strike or two

A B52 strike is great if you want to flatten the entire damn ZIP Code. (And there are a few ZIP codes I'd like to see flattened that way…)

But when you want to hit the Red house and NOT the green house right next to it, you really need to use something low and slow.

what they need is to design and build 1000 A-11's around 2 30mm guns :)maybe just 1, let the USMC have them. and sell enough to our friends so they don't cost the US anything. See what I did there I used my brain and attacked the problem from outside the box, something US office holders don't seem to be able to do. :)

Why 2 guns when one has worked well so far? What would be the benefit? What would justify the cost? A single GAU-8 already offbalances the A-10. How would you fit 2, even if you could justify usefulness?

So you are thinking outside the box by proposing billions to be spent to develop a new weapons system that is outright ludicrous without any real need application?

Keeping the A-10 is one thing, wasting billions to design something that wouldn't fly…

In what way has it outlived it's usefulness?….

Easy – the military industrial complex will make much more money on a new money pit of an aircraft that doesn't do the job nearly as well

Outlived it's usefulness as a profit generator for DC's corporate masters donating millions to campaigns

Close-in, ground attack is where it's at, in our current wars.

Since our opponents don't have air forces, and/or won't come up and play, air superiority fighters are relegated to their hangars, or should be, most of the time.

A-10s Fly Combat Missions Over Syria

"A-10 Warthogs are attacking Islamic State targets in Syria. But even with this newest round of combat, the U.S. Air Force still asserts that the venerable attack plane isn't worth keeping around.

In November 2014, the flying branch sent the blunt-nosed, straight-winged attack planes back to the Middle East for the first time since the American withdrawal from Iraq.

The Warthogs and crews from the Indiana Air National Guard swung into action to help Baghdad's beleaguered forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Since our opponents don't have air forces, and/or won't come up and play, air superiority fighters are relegated to their hangars, or should be, most of the time.

No, they're relegated to carrying bombs, of all the indignities!

No self-respecting fighter jock would be caught dead with mud-movers under his wings!

[/USAF mentality]

The US really could use some new-build A10s or a modern equivalent/replacement. Something with lots more engine power, A10s are grossly underpowered when loaded (needs at least twice the installed thrust of an A10). If the composites were semi-affordable, having composite wings and tail planes would be an excellent thing. Save some weight and the composites don't age the way metal does.

If the airframes are so aged, why not build NEW ones. I'm sure that there have been some advances in Material since the 80's. I'm sure a Product Improved A10 (that was still Mission capable) would be worth while

Seems logical on the face of it, to build new ones.

However, that eliminates all that R&D development money, payoffs to politicians to back their projects, anemically-armed aircraft so you have to field more of them (which means you have to buy more also), multiple cost over-runs and delays paid for by the American taxpayer without any financial penalties for the builder, ad nauseum, so you see the problem with logic, don't you?

;-)

"But when you want to hit the Red house and NOT the green house right next to it, you really need to use something low and slow."

No, you use a PGM that's released so far and high from the target that its impact comes as a complete and total shock. And you don't risk a pilot falling into enemy hands because you are 'low and slow' and vulnerable to MANPADS and ground fire.

A little reality check: Waaaay back in the '80s, a host of studies were done on just how to use the then new A-10. One glaring result was that the A-10 could not just bull its way into the FEBA and beyond without heavy SEAD. Yes, Virginia, the A-10 was being torn out of the sky by 1980's Soviet AD. Fast forward to the 21st century and that high end AD is even more formidable (which is one reason why stand off PGMs were developed, BTW). On the current high end battlefield, the A-10 (and others like her) would get roasted.

The only reason why they're effective against the ISIS slugs is that they have next to zip in the way of effective AD.

And God help us if one of them gets downed….

But Lord forbid that logic gets in the way of the A-10 fetish crowd….

When was the last time anyone shot down an A-10?

And indeed, doing dangerous things is kind of what pilots sign up to do…

In the last "real war" (Vietnam), where we were up against a second-rate enemy air force, and air defense system, we lost a lot of SEAD aircraft and their escorts too.

There are too schools of thought on the subject, which I suspect is even more relevant today, given the anticipated lethality of SAMs:

- you can fly low, and use terrain masking, and countermeasures to avoid SAMs and other enemy air defenses, or

- you can fly high, and hope the guys on the ground that make the ECM gear, and countermeasures, and maintain it, have done their work properly, to defend against enemy radar and SAMs.

Either way, it is probably a crapshoot, and very dangerous, against a first-rate, enemy air defense system.

God help us if one of them gets down? Then they run the same risk of every door kicker in country.

If the airframes are so aged, why not build NEW ones. I'm sure that there have been some advances in Material since the 80's. I'm sure a Product Improved A10 (that was still Mission capable) would be worth while

It would, but the tooling to build them was destroyed in the late 1980s (about 10 years after last bird was delivered), when the government refused to allow Fairchild/Republic, or whoever bought them out, to continue to claim a tax break for keeping all that hardware in a warehouse.

cwlinsj 2 guns was a joke sir, sorry you did not get it.

While the PGM argument is a good one, it would seem that the smallest PGM we have would take out the red house and the green house next (20 ft ?) to it and all the gardens around it. If your aim is good, a 30mm could destroy one house and not the other.

The A-10 is badass, period. It fills a niche no other birds can, and is the perfect plane for COIN warfare against low-tech "armies" like Daesh.

Unfortunately, the Pentagon bases its weapon procurement decisions on hypothetical conflicts against potential high tech opponents like Russia and China that may or may not occur in the future rather than actual present-day realities in the ME against insurgents. Hence the F-35 gets funding while the A-10 does not.