A-10 Warthog's Tusks Are Being Sharpened For A High-End Fight

...Vertical cuts - cutting an entire platform - are the best way to cut costs.

If you have a program of record, like an airplane, there is a huge personnel and infrastructure cost that supports it. To fly an airplane, you need a school for the pilots, a school for the maintainers, with instructors at both. You need dedicated test equipment and spare parts inventories. You’re paying for unique defense suppliers that build unique parts for that platform....
This is the absolute truth. In my previous "jobs", I've seen the costs associated with equipment roll outs. Training and support personnel and the costs for those are "hidden", but very real and must be planned for.

The tip of the spear fights - but the rest of the spear gets it to the fight.

I love the A-10, but it's time to move on and use the money more wisely on newer, more capable and robust systems.
 
The B-52H models that I worked on long ago were built in the early 1960's. They were re-winged at Tinker and many other upgrades over the years and some still soldier on being operational at a couple bases yet. I never really followed the decision making of the procurement and operational process, as we often seem to build huge numbers of many A/C over history and often are scrapped after a fairly short life. Others much longer, but it sometimes seems uneven and political.
 
The B-52H models that I worked on long ago were built in the early 1960's. They were re-winged at Tinker and many other upgrades over the years and some still soldier on being operational at a couple bases yet. I never really followed the decision making of the procurement and operational process, as we often seem to build huge numbers of many A/C over history and often are scrapped after a fairly short life. Others much longer, but it sometimes seems uneven and political.

They go into boneyards. There are lots of A-10s in the Davis-Monthan boneyard.

718150230c9846cb9740252b238dbc8d.jpg


This one came back from storage.

 
Good Article in the WSJ.. The A-10 is a jobs program.

"Every day, teams of technicians at a vast Air Force base in Tucson, Ariz., tend to a fleet of attack jets the Pentagon has been trying to retire for more than a decade. They have picked replacement parts from the base’s famous “Boneyard,” where old military planes go for scrap, which stretches far into the surrounding desert.

The Air Force has said for years that the A-10 jets, nicknamed Warthogs for their bulky silhouette and toughness in a fight, have passed their prime and will be vulnerable in the wars of the future. The production line where they were made fell silent in the mid-1980s, and the average A-10 here is four decades old. Its job can be done by newer, more advanced planes, the Air Force says.


“The A-10, while it has served us well, is simply not a part of the battlefield of the future,” said Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs.
Congress has other ideas. Bowing to members whose constituencies are dependent on the jet for jobs and the flow of federal tax dollars, it has instead insisted nearly all the planes keep flying at a cost of more than $4 billion over the past 10 years.
This kind of intervention is common—and is impairing the U.S.’s ability to respond to rapidly modernizing Chinese forces in a new era of great-power competition, say current and former senior defense officials and military analysts. ".....
 
Good Article in the WSJ.. The A-10 is a jobs program.

"Every day, teams of technicians at a vast Air Force base in Tucson, Ariz., tend to a fleet of attack jets the Pentagon has been trying to retire for more than a decade. They have picked replacement parts from the base’s famous “Boneyard,” where old military planes go for scrap, which stretches far into the surrounding desert.

The Air Force has said for years that the A-10 jets, nicknamed Warthogs for their bulky silhouette and toughness in a fight, have passed their prime and will be vulnerable in the wars of the future. The production line where they were made fell silent in the mid-1980s, and the average A-10 here is four decades old. Its job can be done by newer, more advanced planes, the Air Force says.


“The A-10, while it has served us well, is simply not a part of the battlefield of the future,” said Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs.
Congress has other ideas. Bowing to members whose constituencies are dependent on the jet for jobs and the flow of federal tax dollars, it has instead insisted nearly all the planes keep flying at a cost of more than $4 billion over the past 10 years.
This kind of intervention is common—and is impairing the U.S.’s ability to respond to rapidly modernizing Chinese forces in a new era of great-power competition, say current and former senior defense officials and military analysts. ".....

The A-10 gets a massive amount of good press. And I totally get how that's so. It's the plucky underdog that ground troops loved because they could actually see it coming to the the rescue rather than dropping laser guided bombs from 10,000 feet.

But there were public documents that stated that even in the past the Pentagon expected that they would be destroyed quickly in a war against an opponent with decent antiaircraft capabilities. They were just hoping to disable enough tanks to make it worth losing that many A-10s.

There has been this mythic reputation that the A-10 can somehow take tons of damage that other aircraft can't take, which is total BS. There are all these pictures of A-10s that took small arms fire, which is cool and everything, but most most military aircraft can fly with lots of small holes. I know there are pictures of the stabilizers being blown off by MANPADS, but there are also those of other aircraft that were missing large pieces, like this F-14.

without-a-wing.jpg
 
The A-10 gets a massive amount of good press. And I totally get how that's so. It's the plucky underdog that ground troops loved because they could actually see it coming to the the rescue rather than dropping laser guided bombs from 10,000 feet.

But there were public documents that stated that even in the past the Pentagon expected that they would be destroyed quickly in a war against an opponent with decent antiaircraft capabilities. They were just hoping to disable enough tanks to make it worth losing that many A-10s.

There has been this mythic reputation that the A-10 can somehow take tons of damage that other aircraft can't take, which is total BS. There are all these pictures of A-10s that took small arms fire, which is cool and everything, but most most military aircraft can fly with lots of small holes. I know there are pictures of the stabilizers being blown off by MANPADS, but there are also those of other aircraft that were missing large pieces, like this F-14.

without-a-wing.jpg
We were for too long involved in the war where we never had to worry about air supremacy. A-10 does not work well in situations where you have someone else flying around. Ground troops never thought of that, and the press never thought of that. Heck, for many, the war itself became associated with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many went to Ukraine thinking it will work the same way and came back with a different "view" of reality. I was asked A10 question recently by one person in some setting, and my answer was: it is telling that Ukrainians never asked for that airplane.
 
We were for too long involved in the war where we never had to worry about air supremacy. A-10 does not work well in situations where you have someone else flying around. Ground troops never thought of that, and the press never thought of that. Heck, for many, the war itself became associated with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many went to Ukraine thinking it will work the same way and came back with a different "view" of reality. I was asked A10 question recently by one person in some setting, and my answer was: it is telling that Ukrainians never asked for that airplane.
Exactly right.
The Ukrainians have proven very astute in their requests for and deployment of Western equipment.
If they haven't asked for the Warthog then that means they don't see it as useful in their defense.
Maybe more of a pilot killer than an armor killer?
 
I toured an Air Force Base a couple of years before the first Desert Storm fights and there was a lot of talk then that the A-10 was going to be retired. Then we saw how valuable it really was once air superiority really is established. The A-10 will not be needed anymore whenever boots on the ground are not needed anymore.

Granted, there are some really effective fighting platforms with the Army's helicopters. But if an adversary has tanks the A10 is one of the valuable ways of removing them from the battle.
 
Exactly right.
The Ukrainians have proven very astute in their requests for and deployment of Western equipment.
If they haven't asked for the Warthog then that means they don't see it as useful in their defense.
Maybe more of a pilot killer than an armor killer?
Well, I have no doubt they would fly them if they had them. But if it is between F16 and A10, it is F16.
Both sides don’t have air superiority. Both sides proved to manage air defense well.
The real problem now is shortage of missiles, particularly for BUK systems. Only Finland operated BUK as they got several batteries in for of debt payment. Right now priority is how to integrate western missiles and onto BUK launchers. Sea Sparrow is also one option now.
 
I toured an Air Force Base a couple of years before the first Desert Storm fights and there was a lot of talk then that the A-10 was going to be retired. Then we saw how valuable it really was once air superiority really is established. The A-10 will not be needed anymore whenever boots on the ground are not needed anymore.

Granted, there are some really effective fighting platforms with the Army's helicopters. But if an adversary has tanks the A10 is one of the valuable ways of removing them from the battle.
Adversary like Iraq or Talibans, yes. Adversary like Russia, it is highly problematic.
During NATO bombing of Serbia, A10 saw very limited action in areas where Serbs started to pull out. After they shot down F117, planes were limited to 10,000ft. While Serbia neglected military for bit over a decade, they proved capable in managing air defense effectively. Russians are even bigger issue.
There is a lot in this conflict that reminded us about how nasty these 3rd generation wars are. Put this on a side, real issue for us is incapability of military industrial complex to provide enough resources on demand. “Just in time” logistics doesn’t work here.
 
Not really a flying tank.

Built for austere fields and good turn performance.
Man. that's an understatement. We have Warhogs stationed here in Michigan. A few years ago prior to a flyby of the local college football stadium, I went outside to view what I thought was an incoming jetliner crash and looked directly up at very low altitude to a roaring Warthog that appeared to turn an extreme tight right angle turn on a dime............ I was in awe.
 
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.

Just saw this again in a search. But there's a movie for that. So far there aren't any green band trailers, so I'll avoid posting the official ones with the salty language that are seen in YouTube ads.

Synopsis
"Mr. Clay" is a former operative of a clandestine organization called "Beekeepers". After his friend and neighbor commits suicide after falling for a phishing scam, Mr. Clay sets out to exact revenge against the company responsible.​

I do find it remarkable that the plot of this movie somehow centers on a flashy operation based in the United States that has massive TVs showing random images like some dance club or concert and neon pink/blue mood lighting like a Miami Vice clone.

More likely that not these operations would be based in India or Pakistan, using VoIP where caller ID will identify them as US phone numbers. Sometimes the operators are sometimes under the impression that they're legitimate businesses working on behalf of the IRS, Microsoft, etc. And in a crammed office building in Chennai or Bangalore.

 
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