A-10 Warthog's Tusks Are Being Sharpened For A High-End Fight
- Thread starter BlueOvalFitter
- Start date
Dollar for dollar the best aircraft we own.
If only we could send them out to destroy evil computer centers. You know, the ones that spew out scam letters and repetitive internet ads.
Then hit any phone centers which robocall.
Then send them up to Iceland where Bitcoins are 'mined'. All in the name of saving energy, of course.
Then hit any phone centers which robocall.
Then send them up to Iceland where Bitcoins are 'mined'. All in the name of saving energy, of course.
Not really "Sharpening Tusks" as much as "Searching for relevance in the near peer fight".
The A-10 is a one trick pony - CAS. It excels at it. But it doesn't do much else.
Hauling MALD into a high end fight and bugging out before you get shot down isn't really an expansion of offensive capability as much as it is a struggle for relevance in an environment in which the A-10 was never designed to operate.
An environment where it's a sitting duck for 4th and 5th generation fighters and high end Air Defense Systems.
The A-10 is a one trick pony - CAS. It excels at it. But it doesn't do much else.
Hauling MALD into a high end fight and bugging out before you get shot down isn't really an expansion of offensive capability as much as it is a struggle for relevance in an environment in which the A-10 was never designed to operate.
An environment where it's a sitting duck for 4th and 5th generation fighters and high end Air Defense Systems.
Sure, if flown in a third world nation where we own the airspace. It's absolutely awesome in a very specific, very limited, set of circumstances that are unlikely to exist in any future fight. The fact that it spent 20 years flying in conflicts that lacked an air defense system has distorted everyone's view of the airplane. If you only had a minivan in a country without cars, you would think your minivan ruled the world. Fast, agile, capable of running away from anything. But when thrown onto the Nürburgring against a Porsche or BMW, you find out that it really sucks. That's it's hopelessly, hilariously, outclassed.
For real fighters, like the MiG-29, shooting down A-10s is like shooting fish in a barrel. So easy to kill the slow moving, low altitude target that can't shoot back. It's not stealth, it can't hide, it can't shoot back, it's slow. It's utterly vulnerable.
Look, the A-10 is slower, with a lower ceiling, than the P-51. If it's carrying bombs, it can't refuel at even medium altitude, which makes the tankers sitting ducks. If it's not carrying bombs, it's irrelevant.
In a high-end fight, the airplane is vulnerable, slow, short range, hard to refuel, and has little to no relevance. It's too vulnerable to modern air defense systems (that the Taliban lacked, and that we removed from Iraq) and too vulnerable 4th generation fighters (that we shot down over Iraq and that the Taliban lacked).
The A-10 guys know it, that's why they're testing upgrades and new missions in a desperate attempt to remain relevant for future conflicts.
Absolutely the truth. Spent three years of my career at Davis-Monthan, and the "will it stay or will it go?" political football was about all that filled the news in Tucson. Looks like it's still going on.
Over the course of the Afghan war (permissive environment), the B-1 flew the most CAS missions. And not by a little. Time to park the A-10.
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Not so long ago we were told the Air Force did not want to keep the A10 flying whatsoever, and the Army was looking into funding/manning the A10 program, primarily to support light infantry units. No idea the accuracy of the story.
That was absolutely a true story, but a story nonetheless. With a few exceptions, the Army doesn't operate fixed-wing assets...and definitely not offensive assets. The training and maintenance tail would have been unsustainable, just as if the Air Force decided they needed to operate tanks to defend airbases.
Parochialism in action? Absolutely. That's the DOD for you.
Parochialism in action? Absolutely. That's the DOD for you.
It is close to being a flying tank. We will see its actual performance when it is used against a formidable enemy
Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel!
Not really a flying tank.
It’s a modest performance airframe with armor for the pilot and a big gun. Built for austere fields and good turn performance. Good endurance from its turbofan engines, but those same turbofans make lousy power as the airplane climbs, limiting max altitude and severely limiting altitude with stores/drag.
No armor for the rest of the airplane, but manual flight control reversion if hydraulics fail. It’s built for battle damage, but that’s small arms type damage. One air to air missile and it’s dead. Pilot lives, probably, protected by the armor around the cockpit.
The plane it self isn’t armored, and it is absolutely an easy kill for anything with a warhead, like a SAM (not MANPADS, SAM) or AAM.
The “amazing“ stories of A-10s taking damage and returning to base are all MANPADS or small arms hit. The typical SA-7/14/16/18 has a 3lb warhead. Better than an RPG, but an order of magnitude less than the warhead on a AA-10 for example.
Maybe they can transfer them to the FBI.
So A10's or AH64's to protect ground troops?
People love the gun, so it's a crowd pleaser. I recall seeing one at the "Million Dollar Minute" display at the end of my ROTC advanced camp at Ft Riley back in '86. So it's got the party trick of the gun.
But yeah, that was close to 40 years ago and I doubt the environment where they can operate is less hostile today compared to a couple of generations ago.
Some think they should go to Ukraine, for reasons which we probably shouldn't get into. It would certainly answer some questions.
However, I suspect any Ukraine pilots who find themselves in the US without an airplane are training to fly something like an F15 or F16, not A10s
But yeah, that was close to 40 years ago and I doubt the environment where they can operate is less hostile today compared to a couple of generations ago.
Some think they should go to Ukraine, for reasons which we probably shouldn't get into. It would certainly answer some questions.
However, I suspect any Ukraine pilots who find themselves in the US without an airplane are training to fly something like an F15 or F16, not A10s
Everyone is stuck fighting the war of the last twenty years. Stop thinking that way.
Future wars won’t look anything like Iraq or Afghanistan. We won’t have huge airbases in friendly countries nearby. We won’t spend 20 years building our own bases in-country with hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground.
The A-10 was built to stop Russian armor in the Fulda gap. It also worked great for CAS. It worked great in a permissive environment.
Without that permissive environment, it’s a sitting duck. Ground troops won’t be protected by the shrapnel of falling A-10s. If we have ground troops at all, it won’t be until after the 4th Gen and 5th Gen fighters have done the heavy lifting, and established air superiority.
Without air superiority, ground troops will be killed by enemy fighters, enemy missiles, enemy artillery. The A-10 will be of no help, because it will die on the way into the target area.
Ground troops are much later phase of any campaign. They don’t show up until air superiority has been established.
In most near peer scenarios, ground troops will be irrelevant as the fight will be over, the objectives achieved, before they can be deployed.
We won’t be putting boots on the ground of a peer adversary, unless we start WW III.
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...with a few left over for all the new IRS agents. Would be quite the effective tool for audits.
Well, the F-35 is far too fragile to use for ground support, it's gun still doesn't work, and the gun only has a few seconds worth of ammo. Any dent or hole from battle damage ruins it's stealth coating, and even a stealth aircraft isn't invisible and can be tracked/shot down via visual or infrared guns/missiles. Also, they are too expensive ( at over $100,000,000 a copy) to risk on 'tank-plinking' missions. Against a peer enemy neither the F-35 or the A-10 stands much of a chance surviving ground-strafing missions, both planes will have to use longer range standoff glide bombs/missiles for ground support, and a glide bomb/missile couldn't care less what kind of airplane wing it gets dropped or fired off from, so why not use A 10 wings that are bought/paid for long ago? . The A 10 has been upgraded a lot over the years (including expensive new wings/electronics) so it makes sense not to throw that investment in the trash, it's a mature, proven platform, it's much more rugged for harsh austere battle conditions, no fragile, high maintence stealth coatings to be compromised and far less vulnerable to hidden software bugs and enemy hackers. It's vastly cheaper to operate per flying hour. Moreover, the F 35 is still far too expensive to acquire in substantial numbers, the vast majority of the airforce still is and will be 1970's vintage F-16s and F-15's. You can see this in the Ukraine-Russia war, how quickly Russia burned through their top-of-the-line missiles/tanks inventories and are mainly using 1960's-1970's vintage gear now, and that war is small potatoes compared to a USA/NATO vs Russia war, where both sides would quickly deplete their 'modern' gear inventories and would degenerate to using stockpiles of 'vintage' gear....at least 'vintage' gear is better than no gear!
They’re old, slow, and outdated, but they are still cool. I see some almost weekly fly over my house.
I had a teacher who was involved with creating the ammo for these back in the 70’s. They were made out of depleted uranium. Interesting stuff.
I had a teacher who was involved with creating the ammo for these back in the 70’s. They were made out of depleted uranium. Interesting stuff.
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