[1] http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/strike/20...
F-35A test aircraft AF-02 has completed initial test firings of the internal gun on the F-35A variant, both on the ground [1] and in flight [2]. The F-35B and F-35C carry their gun externally, in a centerline gun pod [3]. The gun pod has been tested over the past several years [4] on the ground, and will be tested on those variants later this year.
The 2017 date in that article you posted refers to when the cannon on all variants will be integrated with the mission systems software.
So just as it is disingenuous to say "the F-35 cannon testing is complete" it's also not completely accurate to say "it doesn't have a functioning cannon yet." The engineering reality is more nuanced than that.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFoJ93Kb5z0
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEAhFZG022M
[3]: http://aviationintel.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/20120222...
The most efficient way to destroy things on the ground is with guided missiles and bombs. An F-35 with a brace of SDBs is going to do a lot more damage than an A-10, both because smart bombs are much more effective on a pound-for-pound basis and because it can get on station much more quickly. A strike aircraft with modern optics it can fly above AAA and shoulder launched SAM range and still engage moving targets on the ground.
The troops like the A-10 because it's loud and impressive and makes them feel like they haven't been forgotten.
Politicians like the A-10, too, because by staving off the ax once again they can make it look like they're doing something to support the little guy on the ground.
The Army brass likes the A-10 because they suspect when the shit hits the fan the Air Force will decide the multi-role aircraft all belong in some other role and abandon the Army altogether.
But none of that has any bearing on the effectiveness of the air frame itself. Not many people realize the A-10 only carried out 20% of the CAS missions in Afghanistan. The A-10 was the bee's knees when it was new and we were worried about thousands of Soviet tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap. But it's not 1985 any more.
Even if this is entirely true, moral goes a hell of a long way on in the army as does the fear this creates with the enemy.
That said I was of the understanding the A-10 was very effective for supporting troops in areas like Afghanistan and similar low tech ground wars. The real issue the Air Force are tasked with protecting the country in the case of a 'real war' with more modernized opponents like China or Russia. In this case and A-10 is old tech and wont deliver much in terms of defense capability hence their lack of interest in maintaining/upgrading it.
And there's no reason to keep it around for low tech wars - if we need a dedicated aircraft to destroy mud huts we'd be better off with something cheap and easy to maintain, like Embraer's Super Tucano II.
Afghanistan is a hard nut to crack due to being landlocked, surrounded by enemies, and with primitive facilities. B-1s do well in this situation since they can fly out of Diego Garcia, carry a shit ton of fuel, and munitions, and have a crew that is used to long duration flights. Once it was equipped with the AN/AAQ-28 Litening pod, it really came into its own for providing CAS.
People also misunderstand what CAS is. CAS stands for Close Air Support, but doesn't mean the aircraft providing it has to be close, but that the munitions are hitting close to the FEBA (where our troops are).
But keeping all that old hardware flying...
The A10 is still good at CAS that's what it was designed to do. 1 A10 caries a much, much larger bomb load than an F35. If you have air superiority you need a good bomb truck a lot more useful than a stealth fighter.
What were the other 80% of CAS missions carried out by? What % of aircraft deployed were A10s? That 20% figure needs more to back it up.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/a-10... https://web.archive.org/web/20110317113904/http://www.lockhe...
That's not really true. The A-10 was designed to destroy tanks in Europe. CAS was always a secondary role.
>If you have air superiority you need a good bomb truck a lot more useful than a stealth fighter.
If that's the argument then the right thing to do is retire the A-10 and reactivate some B-1s.
>What were the other 80% of CAS missions carried out by? What % of aircraft deployed were A10s? That 20% figure needs more to back it up.
>Eighty percent of CAS missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have been conducted not by the A-10, but by an array of other aircraft, including AC-130’s, F-15E’s, F-16’s, MQ-1’, B-52’s, and yes, the B-1.
http://blogs.cfr.org/davidson/2014/05/20/if-the-air-force-ha...
The thrust of the article is correct. The reason people don't want to see the A-10 retired is the Air Force doesn't have a lot of credibility when it comes to CAS.
I used to have a link to a chart with percentages, but I can't find it.
Nobody in Chair Force command ever liked the A10. And the A10 is performing CAS as a secondary role, not the one it was originally intended for; and it is worn out and obsolete, and does need replacement. The F35 just isn't the tool for the job and it won't ever be. The Super Tucano is much closer, but I'm still skeptical of it too.
Gulf war 1: Destroyed more than 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 other military vehicles and 1,200 artillery pieces for the loss of four A-10s
Syria 2015: Single A-10 takes out 116 ISIS fuel trucks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ37y0yeSgc&feature=youtu.be...
It still has it's uses. Also consider the costs - if you're using a high flying F-35 and laser guided bombs they'll cost I don't know $20k each and it can only carry a few so the cost of taking out fuel trucks would quite likely be more than the value of the trucks. A big old cannon can probably do it quicker and much cheaper.
In Syria... well, we could have used just about anything, from the AC-130 to the gun on the F-16. Fuel trucks are a pretty soft target.
One could argue that today's combat landscape is not ideal for the A-10 and that it wouldn't survive against modern air defenses. Which is a very good point. But, if you are going against modern defenses, what do you need a cannon for? Specially an external one which will ruin your radar signature.
But no, it doesn't matter whether or not the cannon works. It's not what you'd use to engage targets on the ground. Or the air, for that matter.
Probably through a lot of box-ticking.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have cost significantly less (1/4 the total?) if the military hadn’t forced square fighter jets into the round hole of CAS (add up $10k / hr vs $600, plus airborne tankers, plus carriers, plus increased supply costs). Not only did this cost multiples more, provide less effective support to Americans risking their lives on the ground, it damaged the fleet of fighters for other tasks in the future. How many flight hours where burned “in country” on already aging platforms? I know I got some.
Senior military aviation leadership boxed themselves into a corner burning up the fleet in ways it shouldn’t have and betting on a do-it-all turd called the F-35. The cannon could fall of this thing and it would be better for everyone. Dog-fighting is dead and people will scream F-4 / Vietnam, but I’d rather have an extra aim-9x than a fucking gun pod in this day and age [3, 4]. So the plane sucks for CAS and the gun pod is irrelevant for BFM. But don’t worry, the plane is so magical who knows. Just know you’re being sold a bill of goods when leadership talks about CAS and the F-35.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-4_Phantom_...
We can't plan on having air supremacy. It's nice that we've had it since Nam, but counting on it isn't always going to be an option, and we'll need to provide CAS to troops when it's necessary.
I still don’t believe F-35 is the right platform for CAS. In a medium to high threat environment, I would prefer bombers (perhaps stealthy) or drones (expendable) at altitude with a payload of JDAM and LGBs, than a fighter with just a couple. And rolling in with the gun in a fighter is silly. If the environment is that high threat, limiting collateral damage with gun runs isn’t a concern.
I feel like we are building platforms that can beat up medium threats (Iraq/Iran), won’t work against big threats (China), and bankrupt the country against small threats (counter insurgency operations). I’d favor a more diversified set of assets for specific roles and don’t think the F-35 fits the bill.
But when architecting the military, the #1 consideration has to be the deterrence of existential threats. That means planning for contested air space (contested everything, really).
The U.S. is the uncontested strongest military in the world. It would probably be a mistake to take that for granted, though, by making all our decisions in the context of expeditions to the Middle East.
Destabilize the region to ensure petro-dollar existence, replace leadership who don't want to bow, sell weapons and infrastructure.
But regarding CAS, I feel we should focus on low threat primarily and shouldn’t be using expensive jets to fill the roll. In fact, I would fund low intensity conflicts through SOCOM and let them choose the assets they want, not what big military wants to provide (i.e. the super tacano vs fighter jets).
In the event that we find ourselves in an existential threat war (really only two countries I can think of), other factors such as Nuclear, Space, Cyber, and Air Supremacy are so much more important than high threat CAS. In my mind, high threat CAS and manned Strike aren’t the best use of resources to fight this war