"The Real Reason the Air Force Wants to Retire the A-10" Topic

"The A-10 is a beloved fighter, but the Air Force can't afford to keep it and keep up with the United States' adversaries at the same time.

"Listen, I love the A-10. I think it's a fantastic aircraft with a phenomenal combat record. But if someone tells me I can only afford to keep two out of three aircraft -- the A-10, the F-16 and the F-35 -- I have to pick the F-16 and F-35, because they can fly more kinds of missions."
-- General Herbert Carlisle, per BreakingDefense.com

When it comes to the fight over whether or not to retire the A-10, there are two distinct sides: the Air Force, which wants to retire the A-10, and Congress, which wants to keep the A-10. And while it may be tempting to chalk this fight up to a power struggle between Congress and the Air Force, there's more going on in this disagreement than meets the eye.

The question is: Why does the Air Force really want to retire the A-10, and could this impact Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet orders?…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Excuse an old Digger but how the hell did you Americans let Congressmen tell the professional soldiers/Sailors/Airmen how to spend their budget? We keep hearing that you can't get X because Congressman Smith has a factory in his district that produces the predecessor to X and he won't let the Army/Navy/Air Force shut that down.
Whatever happened to giving the soldier/sailor/airman what he needs to win the battle? Do votes mean more to your Congressmen than American lives?
Over here, we give the Military their budget and , within limits, let them decide how it is spent. The Government of the day is who decides the limits, i.e, the protected troop vehicles should have a 60% Australian component. But if the Army says their competitive testing shows that rifle XYZ is better than Rifle ABC, then there had better be a really, really good reason for the Government to reject that finding.
Just puzzled with this.
LGKM

What is not appearant in that article (which was written to hopefully guide investors in what to invest in) is the fact that Congress IS giving the military what they say they need to win battles with.

If you recall, the aging A-10 is good at being low and slow; doing what it was solely designed for- supporting ground forces. The problem is that we are losing our advantage of keeping air superiority in the upcoming years.

The DoD (specifically the USAF) feels that the F-35 can fulfill both roles within the current and ever decreasing funding. an A-10 cannot do it's job if it takes it into hostile airspace.

What makes many feel unsecure about the F-35 is the untested (in battle) ability to fulfill the ground support role. Notice that the F-16 (Block 40, IIRC) can fill that gap in both roles in the short term.

The control of airspace is critical for supporting any Joint Force Task Force Commander's Operational plans. Doctrine had to be changed to allow for weapons systems that could be quickly reconfigured and be in theatre, with trained crews that have the training/capability to fulfil multiple roles. Gone are the days where the USAF had loads of pilots-most with specialized skill sets to fly a multitude of weapons platforms. There simply is not the funding anymore to sustain such operations yet operational requirements remain unchanged.

So in another example, in armor, a tank as a weapons system must be good at all 3 aspects of a good tank: weapons, protection and mobility. (I add a 4th: sustainability because if a vechile is deadlined for power packs or ammunition, it has been a waste of reseources.) Same with the F-35. To do multiple taskings, we have the F-15, 16, etc. but neither is best at all taskings. The F-35 is supposed to be designed to be the best at all of them. A very difficult design because it really has not been done before to claim the plane was good at all it was tasked to do.

I see the F-22 being the last single role fighter-type aircraft the US will make for some time. (Air Superiority)

One last point to make: Congress AND the US Military is tasked to get the best bang for the buck as trustees of the taxpayer's dollar. Both are trying to do just that in this day of the shrinking dollar. It used to be fashionable to claim, "You cannot do more with less, only less." Now, we sucessfully have had to do it for so long, they think we can do it all with nothing!

Another very real danger is loss of Manufacturing capability if we shut down to many production lines IE the M1 Tank plant at Lima..we Live in a very uncertain world and our enemies may not give us the luxury to start up or train folks to startup those kinds of capabilities unmolested again..

This isn't new news. I read about the budget issues months ago.

I don't know that we have ever successfully designated a single multi-roll aircraft for both the Air Force and Navy. Perhaps the F-4, but it wasn't much of an air-superiority aircraft.

This emphasis on stealth is troubling. It reminds me of the emphasis on missiles at the expense of a gun and maneuverability in the late sixties. The F-4 was a good example. What we found then, and I'm sure we will find again in the future, is that inevitably opposing aircraft close to visual range, and all that hi-tech stuff is extra weight.

New nuggets from the Naval Academy tell me that they are the last generation of pilots to actually fly in their aircraft.

Maybe it will just cost too much to retrofit a large number of A10s into drones.

Yeah they have turned everything from F86 Sabres to F4 Phantoms into drones for testing and targeting purposes, it just hasn't been done on a large scale.

I saw a show on Khe Sahn the other day and they said any type of plane was used to defend the base. Seems like the A-10 being slower if probably better at chewing up the enemy. ISIS has not shown any ability to shoot down aircraft so why not use the lesser expensive plane to blow up ISIS. It seems like the F-35 is being pushed because of the plane being built in so many congressional districts not because it is the better aircraft to fight ISIS with.

I think that it comes down to a (not so) simple question: What kind of war does the US military need to prepare for? Is it a continuation of the kind of counter-insurgency conflicts we have fought recently against a foe with limited area denial capability? Or will it be a conflict against an opponent with a robust integrated defense plan.

The budget cannot support preparing for both. The A-10 would excel at one type of conflict, but would be vulnerable in the other.

Alex757

Agreed but the other kind of conflict has been going on since 2001 and I do not see any end to it. Russia at this point, does not have capability to attack on much of a front. China is limited on their front as well.

"The DoD (specifically the USAF) feels that the F-35 can fulfill both roles within the current and ever decreasing funding."

This is questionable. People who are planning to get retirement pay checks from the F-35 manufacturers say this. Others, not so much. The real issue with the A-10 is their is no money train behind it like the F-35 has. Then, the army is not convinced at all the F-35 can deliver anything near the capability of the A-10 to support them. However, the Airforce doesn't think that job is sexy enough to be important, anyway.