Farewell to the Warthog

[EngineRoom 205]

 

 

The A-10 doesn't have to go down in the weeds to target adequately.

 

Correct, the current model A-10C doesn't. However, if the A-10C is now going to be loitering at medium altitude using precision weapons... well just about every other combat jet can do that too (and has been doing that for over decade), so the A-10 becomes kind of redundant for everything except fighting poorly equipped insurgents.

 

So if you are required to make serious defence cuts and entire aircraft fleets have to go, it maybe begins to become clear why the A-10 is the prime candidate.

[kevinc5 15]

 

 

Sen Ayotte just got USAF to agree to systems updates a couple weeks ago.

Kelly knows best.

[KevinAu 441]

Correct, the current model A-10C doesn't. However, if the A-10C is now going to be loitering at medium altitude using precision weapons... well just about every other combat jet can do that too (and has been doing that for over decade), so the A-10 becomes kind of redundant for everything except fighting poorly equipped insurgents.

 

So if you are required to make serious defence cuts and entire aircraft fleets have to go, it maybe begins to become clear why the A-10 is the prime candidate.

Well, there are better things to cut. You can cut Obamacare, the handouts and the bailouts. We seem to have plenty of money for those. When you devolve the argument to some tit for tat F-35 vs A-10 debate, you miss the big picture of what is really happening and end up giving the administration a pass on some really poor decisions.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I'm almost sorry that I started this thread.

[tf51d 284]

Well it's sad to see the A10 go, but I have to agree with the decision, as it would be a sitting duck if it was against any adversary with any kind of air defense system. It's just too slow. As EngineRoom stated  relegating it  to a medium altitude attack aircraft, would just be redundant, as we have plenty of other assets to fill that role. What I don't like is further cuts to the troops. We still have a few unstable regions in the world, where they may need to be deployed. My main concern would be North Korea. If that area were to blow up, we're going to need much more then that. 

[Raptor 5]

They tried making a fighter the F-4 a close air support plane in Vietnam and it failed which spawned the A-10 now they are going to replace it with a fighter it proves one thing my government can't learn from history. ###### tried using the 262 as a bomber as well and it failed. You'd think the government would learn from history but they are idiots

 

   The A-10 was designed to replace the A-1 Skyraider in the CAS role, NOT the F-4. The F-4 was pressed into the strike role due to the lack of F-105s from losses and attrition during air operations over Nam.

The A-1 Skyraider was the preferred CAS bird in Nam, due to long loiter times, big weapon loads, and slow speed to ID targets. Sound familiar...

 

 The A-10 was a low cost Anti-Armor/CAS alternative to the high cost and increasingly hi-tech attack aircraft of the day.   

The A-10 was designed to operate in similar anti-air enviroments as the A-1 did. AKA, low threat levels, like we found in Viet Nam, not the current highly integrated and deadly enviroment that the USAF will be likely to encounter in future conflicts. Remember, the A-10 was designed for fending off hordes of Soviet tanks running thru the Fulda Gap in Germany, and to operate in the European Threatre in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe under the often less than optimum European winter weather, not the Counter Insurgency/Interdiction missions she is tasked with today in Afghanistan.

 If not for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the A-10 would already be retired, as this isn't the first attempt to do so...

   Single mission aircraft have never had broad support in the USAF, look at the state of Electronic Warfare aircraft in the USAF today. The USAF doesn't have any, having retired the EF-111 Ravens, and has to get the EA-6B Prowlers to do this mission for it from the US Navy.

 It comes down to money in the end. The vast infrastructure is where the real savings are, not in the planes sitting on the tarmac. The airplane sitting there is just the tip of a vast network of support and suppliers the plane requires to fly, and that costs alot of hard currency to maintain.

 Look at USAF plans for the KC-10, she is to be retired before the KC-135R series. Why? 

 Because it will take more money to rebuild 59 airframes to current ATC standards than it would to just keep the KC-135R fleet flying, as the -135's are already ATC compliant to current standards, even though the KC-10's are 20-30 years younger than the KC-135R's.

 And Gen. Adolf Galland told ######, give me ME 262 fighters and I can fend off the bombers, but Generals follow their orders, even if they don't make any sense... 

[z06z33 763]

The problem with your argument, is you didn't have the precision weapons we have today, so accuracy was the issue, that's not the case today. A F-16 at altitude, can be just as accurate as a A-10 on the deck. The only issue I see is loiter time over the target. Since the A-10 is significantly slower, it may be able to engage more targets on one pass, where a faster fighter, may have to make 2 or more passes to engage, because their speed would take them out of range quicker.

They tried to use the F-16 in the 90s to do that and it failed to live up to the A-10

 

   The A-10 was designed to replace the A-1 Skyraider in the CAS role, NOT the F-4. The F-4 was pressed into the strike role due to the lack of F-105s from losses and attrition during air operations over Nam.

The A-1 Skyraider was the preferred CAS bird in Nam, due to long loiter times, big weapon loads, and slow speed to ID targets. Sound familiar...

 

 The A-10 was a low cost Anti-Armor/CAS alternative to the high cost and increasingly hi-tech attack aircraft of the day.   

The A-10 was designed to operate in similar anti-air enviroments as the A-1 did. AKA, low threat levels, like we found in Viet Nam, not the current highly integrated and deadly enviroment that the USAF will be likely to encounter in future conflicts. Remember, the A-10 was designed for fending off hordes of Soviet tanks running thru the Fulda Gap in Germany, and to operate in the European Threatre in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe under the often less than optimum European winter weather, not the Counter Insurgency/Interdiction missions she is tasked with today in Afghanistan.

 If not for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the A-10 would already be retired, as this isn't the first attempt to do so...

   Single mission aircraft have never had broad support in the USAF, look at the state of Electronic Warfare aircraft in the USAF today. The USAF doesn't have any, having retired the EF-111 Ravens, and has to get the EA-6B Prowlers to do this mission for it from the US Navy.

 It comes down to money in the end. The vast infrastructure is where the real savings are, not in the planes sitting on the tarmac. The airplane sitting there is just the tip of a vast network of support and suppliers the plane requires to fly, and that costs alot of hard currency to maintain.

 Look at USAF plans for the KC-10, she is to be retired before the KC-135R series. Why? 

 Because it will take more money to rebuild 59 airframes to current ATC standards than it would to just keep the KC-135R fleet flying, as the -135's are already ATC compliant to current standards, even though the KC-10's are 20-30 years younger than the KC-135R's.

 And Gen. Adolf Galland told ######, give me ME 262 fighters and I can fend off the bombers, but Generals follow their orders, even if they don't make any sense... 

Vietnam had one of the most advanced air defense networks in the world at that time. The next war we fight will be in Asia and it will be a a major war possibly a world war and it will be over oil or our huge debt to a certain Asian nation. They will attack with over a million troops and 10's of thousands of tanks and the same number of planes.We will scramble to get A-10s, F-4s,F-15s and what ever else we can find out of the boneyard and into combat as we no can no longer make mass numbers of war planes like we did during the second world war and will be forced to use old hardware in a desperate attempt to defend our Asian allies. The industrial might that won WW2 now belongs to our potential foe, and with over a billion people a shortage of troops will not be a problem for them. Yes we will inflict great losses but human wave tactics will over power our troops just like the Soviets did to the Germans and the Chinese to us during Korea. Will the US see an invasion? You never know. This Asian nation is investing in port facility's in the US and investing very heavily in South America. And if they allied with Russia they could advance from the north as well. Out numbered fighting a two front war we would fall. My point is that just because we don't see a threat from a major army now and, the fight against terrorists is our focus. 40 years ago we had no idea what a terrorist was and planned to fight the Soviets and we got caught with our pants down and I fear that will happen again but on a much worse scale. I know this sounds like some off the wall theory but so did the idea of sinking the entire US pacific fleet in one attack and look what that led to. And no I don't think keeping the A-10 will save us what Im speaking of is the nee jerk reaction to threats that our government is taking in changing the military. Yes terrorists are a threat but they will never have the capacity to destroy our nation like the army of another nation could.

[Raptor 5]

I'm almost sorry that I started this thread.

 

 Don't be, it's been a good discussion.

 Except for a few who are still hungup on defunding Obamacare. Quit beating a dead horse, and no I don't like it either...

 

 Korea is one place the A-10 would be a good weapon to have around. Lots of N Koreans streaming over the border in masse, just like the Fulda Gap situation...

 

 EngineRoom makes valid points in his posts. 

 

"And Gen. Adolf Galland told ######, give me"  YGBSMe...  He was a historical factual figure... Evil to be sure, but we can't speak his name?

 

 Ok, then,  And Gen Adolf Galland told the other "Adolf", give me ME 262 fighters and I can fend off the bombers, but Generals follow their orders, even if they don't make any sense... 

 Mao Tse-tung, Joeseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Genghis Khan

 

[thibodba57 462]

 

 

IMO the A10 is the most relevant plane the US flies in combat.

 

Actually I would give this to the AC-130 to be perfectly honest.  Given the NUMEROUS deployments I've done to Bagram AB, Afghanistan.  There was a few years in there that the F-15 and F-16 was the only ground support there.  But there has never been a point where the AC-130 was taken out of any Operational area.

[Raptor 5]

They tried to use the F-16 in the 90s to do that and it failed to live up to the A-10

 

Vietnam had one of the most advanced air defense networks in the world at that time. The next war we fight will be in Asia and it will be a a major war possibly a world war and it will be over oil or our huge debt to a certain Asian nation. They will attack with over a million troops and 10's of thousands of tanks and the same number of planes.We will scramble to get A-10s, F-4s,F-15s and what ever else we can find out of the boneyard and into combat as we no can no longer make mass numbers of war planes like we did during the second world war. That industrial might now belongs to our potential foe, and with over a billion people a shortage of troops will not be a problem for them. Yes we will inflict great losses but human wave tactics will over power our troops just like the Soviets did to the Germans and the Chinese to us during Korea. Will the US see an invasion you never know the this Asian nation is investing in port facility's in the US and investing very heavily in South America. And if they allied with Russia they could advance from the north as well. Out numbered fighting a two front war we would fall. My point is that just because we don't see a threat from a major army now and, the fight against terrorists is our focus. 40 years ago we had no idea what a terrorist was and planned to fight the Soviets and we got caught with our pants down and I fear that will happen again but on a much worse scale.

 

 Valid points. Viet Nam was the most heavily defended airspace we have operated in to date, but wasn't nearly as bad as we would have faced in the Fulda Gap scenario. After the war, it was found that alot of the losses in Nam were attributed to the plain old gun, either the AAA gun, or the plain old AK-47 butt down, muzzle up spraying lead along the path of the US plane.

  We did have PGM's back then. Paveway I's were coming into the use with the F-4 and the Pavetack and Pave Penney systems, but free fall dumb munitions was the norm, as it was in the 1991 Gulf War as well. Maverick,HOBOS and Walleye were all in the inventory during the Viet Nam conflict.

 

 Understand, I am not advocating retiring the A-10, just clearing up that the A-10 wasn't originally designed for the mission it is being tasked with today. It does its present day mission, very well.

 But, Republic Aircraft always did excell at whatever mission was given to them, even if it was different from original design.

P-47, Killed alot of Luftwaffe aircraft, both in the air, but especially on the ground, straffing airfields. Why the P-47, her air cooled radial engine could take hits that the Mustang's liquid cooled Merlin could not. Lose coolant from the Merlin and you are done, Lose a cylinder jug from the R-2800 engine and she keeps on ticking and gets you home.

F-105, A nuclear bomber, that happed to have one of the highest speeds at low altitude. It just ran away from Migs...

 The same can be said of the F-16 Viper.  She was sold as the "low" portion of the "High/Low mix" with the F-15 in the High role. A low tech dogfighter to supplement the F-15, a way of putting more tails on the ramp for X amount of money, given the unit cost of the F-15.  But in service it was the F-16's ATG role that has been it's predominate mission, not it's air to air abilities.

 The same argument was used for the F-22/F-35 programs. The High/low mix was a selling point for both programs.

 

 As to your Asia scenario, the question becomes one of where will it happen. Korean Pensula or the S China Sea?

Perhaps Red Dawn?  That one was studied very seriously at Pentagon. Either version is plausable...

 

 My opinion is to retain capability, as you said, you never know what the threat will be a few years from now. And history tells us, the generals will fight tommorrows war as they did todays war...   The American Civil War is one glaring example, a war fought with Revolutionary War tactics with 1860's tech weapons... AKA: the rifled musket...

Actually I would give this to the AC-130 to be perfectly honest.  Given the NUMEROUS deployments I've done to Bagram AB, Afghanistan.  There was a few years in there that the F-15 and F-16 was the only ground support there.  But there has never been a point where the AC-130 was taken out of any Operational area.

It has never been used in a "High Threat Enviroment". only when we have had the advantage of air supremency, as we did in Nam, and Afghanistan. The last few wars have been fought without the threat of the enemy being able to use it's airpower against our forces. We have become accustomed to that being the norm, but we haven't gone up against the likes of the Chinese or the Russians, or the N Koreans for that matter.

 We in the West value Quality over Quantity... High Tech vs brute numbers...

 as one Russian designer put it, Quantity has a Quality all its own... AKA, numbers have a certain advantage...

Put a republican back in the White House, we will bring that A10 back.

Hell, will bring the A7 Corsair back.....

 

 

Kin M.

(Klax)

 

 Bring the SLUF back???

 YGBSMe...

[thibodba57 462]

 

 

It has never been used in a "High Threat Enviroment". only when we have had the advantage of air supremency, as we did in Nam, and Afghanistan. The last few wars have been fought without the threat of the enemy being able to use it's airpower against our forces. We have become accustomed to that being the norm, but we haven't gone up against the likes of the Chinese or the Russians, or the N Koreans for that matter.
 We in the West value Quality over Quantity... High Tech vs brute numbers...
 as one Russian designer put it, Quantity has a Quality all its own... AKA, numbers have a certain advantage...

 

I think you might have missed what I was commenting on Raptor.  I didn't say the AC-130 would be the first into any fight.  In fact neither are the majority of the ground forces or the A-10 for that matter.  Most of that goes to the B-2 nowadays.  

Either way, what I was commenting on was whether or not the A-10 was the most relevant aircraft the US Flies.  As in currently.  And quite simply it is not.  The A-10 is a awesome Weapon system but its not the most relevant.  That would mean it goes to the Aircraft that is utilized the most.  I can tell you now, that it is the AC-130.  It's not some hypothetical what if we started a war with such and such.  We shouldn't be trying to have conversations like that anyways.  But given our current Operations globally, the AC-130 is everywhere helping the ground forces.  The A-10 is not, they rotate in and out of theater just like every other fighter.  The AC is ALWAYS there.  That's all I was commenting on.

[EngineRoom 205]

The AC-130 is a pretty mean system, but much like the A-10 it needs a permissive environment to work in. From what I've read the demand for AC-130s outstrips the supply by quite a bit. Another interesting platform that has come out of Afghanistan is the USMC's Harvest HAWK. Then of course you can consider UAVs such as the MQ-1 and MQ-9.

 

The whole CAS game has changed dramatically in the last decade. Prior to Afghanistan it was something of a niche capability performed by selected platforms. Nowadays pretty much every aircraft can perform it and the capabilities in terms of sensors, datalinks/networking and weapons have improved dramatically.

[Dillon 2,195]

The US government proposes to eliminate it's entire fleet of A-10s :http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/politics/pentagon-plans-to-shrink-army-to-pre-world-war-ii-level.html?hp&_r=0

 

I'm seeing allot of post here where people either don't watch the news or are completely clueless as to the real issue here. Obama ran on downsizing the military and do to accepted liberal thinking no matter what the reality is on the ground he is dead set on downsizing the military. He hired Chuck Hagel to bring our military to pre Pearl Harbor levels and that's what he's hell bent on doing. Forget what's happening in the Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, or extremeisum now they want to cut the military as much as possible (even more than possible). NASA went through the same thing a couple of years ago. So cutting the A10 even though it's one of the most needed airframes for ATG operations makes since for thier agenda. History repeating itself I remember the thinking on missles where the Phantom didn't need guns because of the new technology, the thinking is there's more of a threat in the cyber world versus having boots on the ground if needed. Just like what happened in Vietname we needed both missles and guns. This knowlege is lost on people who done't read history and operate on theory. Very sad but as usual like 911 the general population pays for elected government's foolish decisions. This is not isolated to the US as Europe and oher nations controlled by progressive free thinkers are at risk of this very same cancer of illogical thinking. China and Russia by contrast are building up thier military, go figure...

[WotanUK 289]

As a British taxpayer helping to fund the <even> worse version of the F35, i am personally sorry to see the A-10 retired, i can't see how the F35 will be a suitable let alone better aircraft for close support.

 

I guess the thinking goes the AH-64 replaces the close support role, the F35 the more stand-off role.

 

Still love the A-10.

[Dillon 2,195]

I'm almost sorry that I started this thread.

 

I'm glade you did because the big elephant in the room is not only much needed airframes will be cut but good personel will be axed as well. When I got out of the Navy back in 1994 Clinton had something similar to this going on. Many soldiers/airman/sailers we're rail roaded out for dubious reasons to get the troop level down. If one get's kicked out of the service with anything other than an 'Honorable Discharge' life is hard. I feel for our service members at this point in time because many will get screwed out of so much for going in for very good intentions in why they signed up. This ugly reality is swept under the rug and not that many people know about. So a perfectly good platform like the A10 that is very much viable and needed brings to light more uglyness that many here don't know about. Think of it like a private sector job that needs to downsize. If they can fire you and save on paying benefits, they'll go that route faster than other options. Problem is getting kicked out of the military is far more serious than getting fired from a job for something that normally was a non-issue.

 

Thanks for starting this thread....