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Comment by Seenso | Hacker News Reader

> since it can't really carry a huge cannon like the a10.

IIRC, the A-10 was specially and primarily designed to carry that massive gun.

And the purpose of that gun is no longer valid as it won't take out modern tanks. Also if you are fighting modern tanks you would get shot down by MANPADS.

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.

With current ammunition the gun will not quickly and reliably take out modern tanks.

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.

FUD? Tell that to the VVS squadrons flying SU-25s in Afghanistan. These were extremely robust aircraft similar in many ways to the A-10. Facing the Stinger, they had high casualties, forcing them to bomb from higher altitudes and use PGMs instead of strafing and dumb bomb attacks. This was 36 years ago. MANPADs have gotten better in this period.

One was taken down by 12.7 mm ammunition. Clearly the Su-25 was not an extremely robust aircraft. It even has turbojets (hotter exhaust than turbofans) that are completely visible from the ground. A bit of armor around the pilot doesn't make an aircraft equivalent to an A-10.

USAF has many options when it's about gunning all terrain options:

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.

A AC-130 cannot carry "thousands of heavy rounds", it is a plane not a battleship; it has a couple of dozen 105mm "heavy rounds" and a few hundred 25 or 30 mm projectiles. In the modern world, automatic cannon rounds are not classified as heavy.

An AC-130 Spectre, for example, carries 8 cannons: 4x GAU-2B/A (Army M134) 7.62mm "minigun" to tear apart any lightweight vehicles, soldiers, helicopters and more. Another 4x M61 20-27mm caliber dealing 6000 rounds per minute. Let me know where is your definition of "heavy calibers" and quantities.

It's initial design, yes. But after going through IOC, the Maverick AGM become it's primary weapon.

[Edit: not sure what I was thinking of here, seems totally wrong.]

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.

It carries over a thousand rounds which is 5x-10x what most planes carry; Plenty to mission kill a lot more more than a few ground targets (granted that depends on what is being targeted, but they are not going up against many T-70s at the moment.)

Maybe we have different defnitions on "not much ammo" ?

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