"Why You Should Not Engage Against An A-10 In A Dogfight" Topic

"While the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is the king of close air support (CAS) — supporting troops on the ground with its blistering array of firepower — many would be surprised to know that it is also no slouch when it comes to air-to-air fighting.

While the "Warthog" isn't optimized for the air superiority role and lacks key capabilities, such as high-speed, radar, and radar-guided long-range missiles that make its fighter brethren such air-to-air supremos, even the greatest fighter pilots are rightfully wary of getting into a close-in turning dogfight with a ‘lowly' mud-moving A-10…."

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Amicalement
Armand

I searched the article in vain for an actual example of an A-10 actually shooting down a Bad Guy in a dogfight.
Maybe I missed it.

Is that an auto-centric website?

I've always found military articles in car magazines and Popular Mechanics to be a little silly. They're aimed at gear-heads, so they're usually just cheerleading. The last thing you want to do in a happy look-at-these-fly-rims magazine is talk about people dying.

I think A-10s shot down a couple of helicopters in Iraq, but that's not really a dogfight.

In just the right conditions the A-10 would be great in a dogfight, but if those conditions ever arose it would mean a very large number of people failed to do their jobs properly.

The F4U Corsairs have shot down MiG-15s during the Korean War and A-1 Skyraiders have shot down MiG-17s during the Vietnam War. Given the right condition a slow moving straight wing aircraft with a lower wing loading can shoot down a fast moving fighter jet. However such condition usually is the result of the pilot of the fast mover doing things wrong.

Anything within 1 – 2 NMs is at severe risk of being churned into scrap metal in short order by that big GAU.

Should make the target turn into Swiss cheese, without the cheese part, given the number of shells it can spit out in a burst.

With those squared off wings, and low speed performance, I wouldn't want to go up against it in a WVR fight.

Kill it from afar with AAMs, or run away – rinse, and repeat.

Folland Gnat – turns on a dime, twin 30mm cannon that will go through an A-10. Probably true of quite a few of the slower.manouverable jets that carried 30mms as well.