Are US Air Force F-35s expected to be engaging ground targets with their guns?
It is not meant to replace an Apache or Cobra helicopter, but to occasionally take out ground targets.
If all that is actually needed is the high altitude stuff, then the F-35 may be sufficient, but is that a valid assumption?
One of the things that is supposed to make the F-35 as capable as an A-10 in CAS/COIN (counter-insurgency, despite the wildly different approach, is it's "Sensor Fusion" system. Basically it gives the pilot so much information that it offsets the "fast-mover" disadvantages (and then some). Whether it lives up to the claim is no something I can comment on.
Of course, when it comes to recent wars, everything the US military uses is massive overkill and massively expensive (apart from drones, maybe).
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Attack/Armed_Reconnaissa... is supposed to be the "cheap COIN" aircraft for these kinds of conflicts.
There is a popular view held that the Airforce brass doesn't like CAS/COIN (They all about killing MiGs) and that prop planes aren't sexy enough which is why this program has been taking so long.
"Of the 29 returning Apaches, all but one suffered serious damage. On average, each Apache had 15-20 bullet holes. One Apache took 29 hits. Sixteen main rotor blades, six tail blades, six engines, and five drive shafts were damaged beyond repair. In one squadron only a single helicopter was fit to fly. It took a month until the 11th Regiment was ready to fight again. The casualties sustained by the Apaches induced a change of tactics by placing significant restrictions on their use.[11] Attack helicopters would henceforth be used to reveal the location of enemy troops, allowing them to be destroyed by artillery and air strikes.[3]"
The problem is really casualty aversion - we lost 10’s of thousands of airmen in WW2 and that’s not sexy. The fighter mafias in the USAF and USN are real things, driving the specification of unrealistic capabilities in fiscally constrained universes.
Fiscally affordable wars are going to require less bling and a higher tolerance for losses.
Extending your thought we should expect F-35 shortcomings to lead to tactical limitations due to operational risks leaders will be unwilling to take when facing a real peer.
Same with the F-22. Other than a token deployment to the Mideast with a sortie or two in Syria, they won't see combat unless we get in a hot war with a peer. And until recently, they lacked the required capabilities to attack ground targets. No need to risk them for bomb truck missions.
My real worry is that our risk aversion will cause a conventional war to go nuclear in short order, when a more robust conventional military would be able to prevent that. Imagine if we lost a CVN to the Chinese? 5000+ sailors and airmen dead.
That wasn't in their design briefs.
They're for low- (and maybe medium-) risk areas; they're not for Day 0 (or perhaps even 1) operations.
But "victory" is often achieved after a bit of a slog over hill and dale, and high-end gear may not be need for for all of it. Yes, the tip of the spear may need pricey kit, but the baseball bat of suppression may be able to do with a bit less.
This may be getting in "jurisdiction" issues, but if the USAF doesn't really want to do CAS/COIN, why can't the Army do it?
The USAF keeps think clear at >3,500 feet (1000m), and Army CAS planes mops things up for the folks on the ground. If extra muscle is needed USAF ordinance can be dropped or an AC-130 be requested.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunde...
If their command responsibility was transfered to the Army instead of the USAF, how much would change on the logistical back-end?
Curious:
Are helicopters and CAS/A-10 planes effective in the same situations? How much overlap is there?
You end up doing a good amount of work just to try and protect a very expensive plane from Air Force politics. Ideally, the Air Force would just settle on an inexpensive prop plane that could perform the same missions as the A-10 at much less of the cost.
I'm not knowledgeable on how effective a helicopter is for CAS.
Almost every MANPAD uses an IR seeker, not radar. The A-10 engines are mostly hidden from the ground, inside a wrap-around tail. There are few angles from which the exhaust can be seen. It is in fact a very simple form of stealth. The aircraft turns of course, changing the view and causing simple heat seekers to loose the aircraft. Of course, the aircraft also carries flares and other decoys, and it can be accompanied by a Growler.
If the A-10 does get hit, it will probably be fine. It has quadruple-redundant controls. It can fly with the loss of an engine, half the tail, and 2/3 of one wing. MANPAD explosive charges are small. The A-10 engines are spaced apart from each other, making it unlikely that a hit on one engine could disable the other. Experience shows that the aircraft is tough: they often return to base after getting hit by a missile even larger than a MANPAD, such as truck-mounted Russian equipment.
And against a modern AD system, it'll be toast. Whether it's a Tunguska or worse, it can't survive on the modern battlefield until these systems are attritted via SEAD.
The A-10 of course is capable of SEAD. It carries the equipment. However...
There is no requirement that the A-10 go alone. It can be accompanied by the EA-18G or F-22.
If it mattered, we could have the A-10 carry the AN/ALE-50 towed decoy system. The threat isn't serious enough to bother, but we could.
The A-10 is not tasked with SEAD. The only weapons it could use in that role would be Mavericks, CBU, dumb bombs, and the GAU. It carries the ALQ-131 pod, but that's only for self-defense (jamming). Also, the operational envelope for ALE50 is too high to be useful for the A-10, unless it's going to just be used as a bomb truck at medium altitude. Plus it only has two "buddies" so it's of limited use.
If you can get your hands on some of the literature regarding it's intended deployment in Europe if the GSFG rolled through Fulda, you'd be horrified at it. Both it and the Apache would have attrition rates that would never fly with today's voters.
And it's not that the threat isn't "serious enough to bother", but that it wouldn't be cost effective to increase the A-10s survivability. If the conflict gets too hot, the USAF simply won't deploy the A-10.
Until such a conflict, our enemies have weak air defense.
So either way, the A-10 works. Either we are in the mood for serious war with serious losses, or we're fighting an enemy that can't put up much of a fight.
Night raids would have cut losses markedly and achieved no worse accuracy.
Yeah, well, they kind of said that with the WTC attack, and I guess it's carried us through on a multi trillion dollar war against a bunch of countries that never attacked us, and a growing surveillance hellscape. Pretty sure most people are sick of it. I know I am!
Another attack on US territory; well, if they took out certain areas of the government, I'm about at the point where I would welcome them as liberators.
IIRC, the A-10 was specially and primarily designed to carry that massive gun.
There is a reason why CIA never seemed to give away anti-aircraft weapons while they throw anti-tank weapons at Syrian rebels. Despite manpads would be so valuable against the old Syrian air force.
Guided ammunition has been done for 12.7 mm ammunition. The A-10 carries 30 mm ammunition, so it would be no problem to supply it with guided ammunition.
Mission kill can be achieved by splitting a tread, pitting the surfaces of the sensor lenses, or ripping off an antenna.
Even the most modern armor will fail when repeatedly hit.
MANPADS are not a serious threat. That is just FUD.
C130, yeah, that plane can literally wipe an entire convoy of cars, tanks, and landforces with thousands of heavy rounds, same as the A-10.
Apache helicopters and A-10.
And the list goes one.
I don't think it's wise to use fighters to attack land targets, more than blowing bridges or targeting tanks with missiles. The amount of rounds and the guns used in these fighters aren't suitable in my opinion. Yes, you can fight with it but that doesn't mean it's practical.
The A-10 doesn't carry much ammo though, so if it has to hit more than a few targets it will have to use missiles.
Maybe we have different defnitions on "not much ammo" ?
Targeting should be less dependent on the pilot IMO.
Of course a ground-attack plane shouldn't be dog-fighting in the first place but you gotta have that multi-role capability
Whereas an A-10 may roll in for a gun-run at low altitude the F-35 will be dropping precision SDBs (Small Diameter Bombs) from high altitude instead.
I would be astounded if the F-35's gun gets anywhere within spitting distance of "regular" usage, especially since getting into gun range puts your exceedingly expensive plane into range of MANPADs.
I agreee that it is a requirement of the design but I have serious doubts it will ever be actually used that way.