"Another year, another battle over A-10s" Topic

USAF wants to retire a number of older aircraft including 44 A-10s (out of 281).

Also USAF wants to retire some of slogged out B-1 bomber fleet, some ancient Vietnam-era C-130s, some Eisenhower era KC-135S and 1980s KC-10s as well as about 24 large MQ-4 UAVs which never worked as intended.

Again Congress opposes huge chunks of this plan.

What's particularly strange is the refusal to allow ANG to divest older assets, even if newer assets are being made available (eg replacement of C-130H by newer C-130J)! Clearly ANG with its tiny bases is more important as a jobs creation enterprise than delivering an up-to-date defense capability.

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It all reeks of the same congressional interference a few years ago that forced USN to retain ancient barely serviceable cruisers which in turn ramped up the maintenance backlog in already stretched ship yards.

The B-1 is especially problematic – having been used as a CAS asset, they are slogged out and require huge amounts of maintenance. In 2019 less than 10 out of 62 "operational" airframes were combat capable!

It's also interesting that Congress wishes USAF to retain the MQ-4 despite air force trying to divest them for a considerable time now.

The defense acquisition process in Washington is a bloated mess dictated by political and pork barrel economic considerations as opposed to common sense.

Having said that, most people here will vehemently oppose any suggestion to retire or reduce the A-10 fleet, as the Hog is a sacred cow darling on TMP.

Fanatik, totally agree. And defence acquisition often does nothing to improve defence capability.

Indeed the air force plan was to cut 44 A-10s and then divert those assets to maintaining the remaining 237 aircraft to 2040s.

Not good enough for Congress who would prefer to maintain 281 aircraft at lower capability.

At some point the A-10 will have to go. The last A-10 rolled off the production line in 1984! The oldest in service is around 40 years old (A-10C 78-0582). Some but not most had their wings upgraded but the air frame and systems are still anywhere up to 42 years old (and in some cases older as they were reclaimed from older retired jets).

Against the Chinese or Russians, it's a death trap – too slow and it requires dedicated fighter and EW support (noting modern multirole jets can accomplish this in within a single squadron whereas an A-10 sortie requires involvement of multiple squadrons in a high intensity conflict).

The air force knows this and is withdrawing them from a high intensity warfare role.

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Yet against Taliban or other similar insurgents, the best bet is a drone thanks to phenomenal loiter time. An A-10 still needs topping up with gas and it's capability is often underutilised especially due to limitations of COIN ops.

True, but many here will argue that no other platform, manned (e.g. F-16 or B-1 used for CAS) or unmanned (drones) offer the same punch as the Hog with its tank and bunker busting 30mm Avenger gatling cannon. It's not overkill to defend overkill when it comes to the A-10.

My question with the A10 is why are we so set on using old tech designed to fight Soviet hordes that don't exist anymore. If we fight a land war with China outside of defending Taiwan we are dumb and deserve what is coming.
I've read about the work being done with Apaches and Spike missiles. I'd rather use those than A10s to support me in a fight with the Russians. Along with some drones.
A10 would seem to only be particularly useful on the Korean Peninsula where they would face hordes in antiquated equipment.

I've always heard that the Army likes the A-10 but the Air Force leadership has wanted to replace it for a long time now.

Military acquisitions has always been a mess because the end user of the weapons systems doesn't get a say in the matter. It's all politics and money.

The A10 is an amazing aircraft that is now quite long in tooth. It was never terribly fast but very survivable. The Air Force needed to replace it 20 years ago but people won't let it retire. Infantry prefer a live pilot to give CAS and value the symbol of what the A10 provides over an automated drone. I love the plane, but its time has come and gone and would prove quite vulnerable in a near peer matchup.

That said, keeping around 50 or so of them for specific situations where air superiority is not a question and putting the rest in mothballs for parts would be prudent in the near term. Keeping the whole fleet going seems silly.

True, but many here will argue that no other platform, manned (e.g. F-16 or B-1 used for CAS) or unmanned (drones) offer the same punch as the Hog with its tank and bunker busting 30mm Avenger gatling cannon. It's not overkill to defend overkill when it comes to the A-10.

True but the Azeris, Turks and Israelis showed us there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Indeed the Azeris never even deployed their Su-25s which is the Soviet equivalent.

Flying at an altitude where every single MANPADS, SHORADS and AAA can easily spot you is not clever especially when many of those asset cannot be suppressed easily.

I get the feeling the troop preference for A-10 support over anything else is that the A-10 makes a lot of noise and is far more visible than a drone firing a Hellfire or an F-16/B-1 dropping a 500-1000 pound JDAM from 30,000 feet (until it hits that is).

"I get the feeling the troop preference for A-10 support over anything else is that the A-10 makes a lot of noise and is far more visible than a drone firing a Hellfire or an F-16/B-1 dropping a 500-1000 pound JDAM from 30,000 feet (until it hits that is)."

Exactly that. The morale-boosting effect is considerable, from what I've heard from friends who had their bacon saved by the timely arrival of an A-10 or two a few years ago.

You can't trick out a Pinto…

The Air Force needed to replace it 20 years ago but people won't let it retire.

That's because the Air Force does not want to design and fly a replacement dedicated CAS aircraft. It keeps trying to multi-role some stealthy fighter jet to do that, when everyone knows it won't work. So either the political leadership tells USAF "you must do this" or they should let the Army create and maintain its own CAS capability.

As I've said before, and will say again, I'm fine if they retire them when we have better replacements, but in both cases there are none to be found currently, let alone funded and forthcoming anytime soon.

The USAF has larger numbers of first-line fighters, so those can provide air cover for the A-10s, which can, and were built to fight top tier opponents like Russia and China.

There is no more survivable aircraft than the A-10 Warthog.

We have so few B-2 and B-52 bombers, that it would be folly to retire any of the B-1s.

Perhaps they need to cut some generals in the Pentagon to help fund maintenance on war fighting equipment.

If the USAF doesn't plan on ever doing a dedicated CAS mission they should just up and say so. IIRC CAS was very nice in our latest conflicts and sounds like an asset to have and improve, in whatever way is best. We may be coming up on something with the PRC but in the meantime if the US wants to continue playing around in smaller states it'll need that type of capability where the AA threat is small.

The USAF thinks it's sacrilege for the army to operate fixed-wing CAS aircraft. That's why the army only flies Apaches for fire support. Oh, once in a while the air force will trot out light prop-driven attack aircraft (like the A-29 Tucano or AT-6 Texan) as a cheap alternative to the A-10 for use in low-threat COIN situations but they were not serious and so it never amounted to anything.

If it's not Mach 2 capable they're just not interested.

CAS aircraft should be given to the Army and Marines, where it belongs, since clearly the USAF "zoomies" have NO interest in providing that.

The A-10 should still be around for sometime to come.

Do Drones have the numbers to provide the all the CAS ground pounders need ?

My Airforce brethren hate what I am about to say. Everything that the ground forces need to survive and dominate the battlefield is critical for saving lives. At no time has a war ever been won without the ability to control the ground and that means boots on the ground.

When the Airforce gets serious about their slice of the control the ground mission, then they will put together a real replacement to the A-10. Until then the Army and Marines will keep asking for CAS, drones don't do the same job (perhaps with a LOT more drones – but hard to tell as the Airforce doesn't really like those either).

For all you ex or current Army guys, you do realise that A-10 has always provided a small percentage of CAS? The rest is/was provided by A-6, A-7, AV-8, F-14/-15E/-16/-18, B-1, B-52, AC-130, AH-1 and AH-64 and in more recent times UCAVs as well as allied jets (often F-16s but also Tornado or M2000).

Simply looking at fleet sizes and squadron deployments, most troops that have recieved CAS over last 20 years from a fast jet would have received it from an F-16 or F/A-18 rather than an A-10. Indeed A-10 has flown 19% of all CAS missions over Iraq and Afghanistan compared to 33% for F-16!

And the results speak for themselves. Sure the A-10 does it well but those other assets do it pretty well as well. Indeed the heavy bombers (B-1 and B-52) do it better than A-10 (greater loiter time and payload) and the UCAVs as well in terms of loiter capability.

Finally most A-10 missions involve dropping of same types of ordnance as an D-16 or MQ-1 – laser guided bombs or guided missiles like AGM-65 Maverick.

Thus the A-10 is currently nice to have but not essential. It doesn't stand up in a peer level fight especially as it a singel A-10 sortie in a high threat environment needs a lot more support than F-16/-18/-35 or MQ-1.

A-10 may be survivable but a few have been shot down over the years and even if jeta return to base damaged they are still out of the fight.

For all you ex or current Army guys, you do realise that A-10 has always provided a small percentage of CAS? The rest is/was provided by A-6, A-7, AV-8, F-14/-15E/-16/-18, B-1, B-52, AC-130, AH-1 and AH-64 and in more recent times UCAVs as well as allied jets (often F-16s but also Tornado or M2000).

I don't think you realize, we don't care what is providing CAS, just so we have it in a timely, accurate and in the proper volume. When needed … 😎

The A-10's rep was kind of like the JU-87's at the beginning of WWII. The shock affect of those Stukas screaming down on targets bringing impending death was a plus.

The A-10 got a similar rep in e.g. Iraq. When Iraqi AFVs crews saw/heard them coming in, they'd abandon their vehicles and ran away. Trying to get as far away from the deathtrap that was their main weapon, as possible.

AH-64s also got a similar rep in Iraq, not just among the enemy but the non-combatants that were nearby. Their mere presents was a cause of "terror" for both of them them. With the ability to hover just above the ground, behind cover, then pop-up and "deal death" was and is a "good" thing if they are flying support for you.

The US Army/USAF developed a tactic known as a Join Air Attack Team[JAAT] during the Cold War. And I was trained to use it as a Bn Air Ops Officer[S3A] in the 101.

Combining both the A-10 and AH-1 [then AH-64] together. To help stem the USSR/WP tide of armored forces, etc., crossing the IGB, etc. I'm sure if used properly it would have caused a lot of looses on the "badd guys", i.e the guys that were trying to kill us.

I also know this for a fact from a USAF "Zoomie" who piloted both an A-10 and F-16. He said everything an A-10 can do an F-16 can do or maybe even better.

So again from a Ground Pounder's POV, whoever is flying support for us is good. Just so it's there.

For that matter, why are we still flying B-52s around? That design is way older than the A-10.

Regarding CAS and LIC applications, we Army types need something that addresses our needs on the ground. If the Air Force only wants to fight other aircraft, so be it, but as someone pointed out above, it's the Army and Marines who take and hold ground. We saw in Bosnia, et. al., the limitations of air power.

There are other CAS/LIC-oriented aircraft out there, but none of them have the capabilities of the A-10. The A-10 can carry 25,000 lbs. of ordnance; the Super Tocano can carry just 5,000 lbs. The whole genesis behind the development of the A-10 was that the Century fighters and F-4 Phantom were generally lousy at targeted ground strikes during Vietnam. It was essentially a jet-powered Skyraider.

As a former groundpounder myself, I'd say we need to keep the A-10 until there is an equal or more effective replacement for it. Until then, the Air Force needs to keep it flying for the sake of the troops on the ground.

As a former groundpounder myself, I'd say we need to keep the A-10 until there is an equal or more effective replacement for it. Until then, the Air Force needs to keep it flying for the sake of the troops on the ground.

BINGO !!!!

Javelin98, as I mentioned previously if you are a groundpounder who needs air support you only have a less than 1 in 5 chance of getting an A-10 to deliver it. More probably it is an F-16.

As for A-10 compared to Century series/F-4, the world has moved on. An F-16 or F/A-18 is just as good at delivering timely and accurate CAS as an A-10.

And the world is continuing to move. Given latest developments in Nagorno Karabak it is possible to foresee where a battalion brings its own air support in the form of loitering munitions (kamikaze drones).

No doubt we will see more drones on the battlefield and at a tactical level. Will they be replacing all CAS, I'm not sure about that?

Smaller nations can't afford a lot of high tech expensive aircraft. But drones do present a cheaper alternative.