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Comment by valec | Hacker News Reader

Copying this comment directly from a previous discussion:

The F-35 has a much faster response time than the A-10--and, more importantly, survivability. In a contested environment, "suboptimal" CAS from an F-35 dropping precision munitions is much better than none at all (A-10 would get shot out of the sky by any near-peer before it could approach the theater). The A-10 also has high maintenance costs and a relatively low loiter time. For fighting terrorists in flipflops, something like a super-tucano does its job for a tenth of the operating cost. Fundamentally, the A-10 was not built for CAS. It was built as a last-ditch, suicide strafer of Soviet convoys during a land war in Europe. Very few were projected to survive past the first week.

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The A-10 is designed to be able to take hits and keep flying. The F-35 is designed to avoid hits via stealth. If it is going to be close enough to the ground in a CAS role that machine guns are a threat, the F-35's stealth features are useless. How survivable is the F-35 when taking hits? I doubt it is as good as the A-10. :/

That said, unless the military plans to have people fighting on the ground without air superiority, there is no need for CAS aircraft to face interceptors or other things that would shoot them down. They only have to worry about small arms fire.

The A-10 is not surviving a SAM or air-to-air-missile. Even a hit by a MANPAAD is a mission kill.

> How survivable is the F-35 when taking hits?

the point of the F-35 is that it is less likely to take these hits (hits which would destroy both planes) in the first place

> there is no need for CAS aircraft to face interceptors or other things that would shoot them down. They only have to worry about small arms fire.

exactly, so in a COIN scenario the super-tucano, which has a tenth of the A-10's operating cost and longer loiter time, is the better choice

> The A-10 is not surviving a SAM or air-to-air-missile. Even a hit by a MANPAAD is a mission kill.

This is why there are decoy flares.

Anyway, WWII-style antiair guns would easily down a F-35 in a CAS role unless it is so high that its ability to handle that is compromised. Things that shoot bullets are the real threat to CAS aircraft. Also, the F-35 has so few shots that it can only fire a fraction of the bullets that the A-10 could fire. Combine that with reduced accuracy from having to fly higher up and it is almost useless in a CAS role.

That being said, it is lousy in all of its roles. Multirole aircraft that are capable of fewer roles are far better than the F-35 in just about every role imaginable. The F-22 is an excellent example of this. :/

> This is why there are decoy flares.

..are you serious. chaff/flare is a last-ditch countermeasure for when the missile is completely depleted of energy for final evasive maneuvers, not a first line of defense after a modern missile. against a manpaad there's a higher success rate but even then it's not 100%.

> Anyway, WWII-style antiair guns would easily down a F-35 in a CAS role unless it is so high that its ability to handle that is compromised.

are you under the impression the f-35 is going on strafing runs???

> Things that shoot bullets are the real threat to CAS aircraft. Also, the F-35 has so few shots that it can only fire a fraction of the bullets that the A-10 could fire.

...

> Combine that with reduced accuracy from having to fly higher up and it is almost useless in a CAS role.

i'm not sure how to even respond to this

CAS = Close Air Support, which means being close to the ground.

They did try to replace the A-10 with the F-16, but failed:

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/heres-f-16s-cas-variants-fai...

Apparently, when they get close to the ground, they can be shot down, while the A-10 keeps flying.

No, close air support does not mean being close to the ground. It means engaging targets in close proximity to friendly forces

> In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as aerial warfare actions—often air-to-ground actions such as strafes or airstrikes—by military aircraft against hostile targets in close proximity to friendly forces

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_air_support

With guided munitions and better targeting pods, close air support has shifted to dropping precision munitions from further away to minimize the risk from short range air defenses.

The problem with precision munitions is that you cannot manufacture, transport and drop enough of them to achieve as much as you can with bullets. The country footing the bill is likely to be impoverished by them if used at any large scale. :/

You need to be close to the ground if using bullets.

As I point out in another comment, the cost of a laser guided bomb is $20K [1]. Less than the operational cost of flying the f-16 for one hour [2]. The idea that precision munitions are prohibitively expensive to use for close air support is a fantasy.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GBU-12_Paveway_II

2. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a41956551...

Now I think the F-16 is prohibitively expensive. Interestingly, the A-10 costs $19,000 per hour to fly too:

https://www.military.com/equipment/military-aircraft/everyth...

Lets say we have 6 targets and a 2 hour mission. Let us assume that the F-16 and A-10 both cost $20,000 per hour to fly. That would be $160,000 for the F-16. Lets assume the ammunition for the warthog costs $1 each. That would be $40,780 for the A-10.

Oh, and the F-35 costs about $40,000 per hour to fly. For that, the same mission costs $200,000.

> The idea that precision munitions are prohibitively expensive to use for close air support is a fantasy.

Unfortunately, the math does not favor those munitions.

> Lets assume the ammunition for the warthog costs $1 each.

Except they don't don't $1 each. They cost $136 : https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-30mm-GAU-8-round-cost

That's not counting wear on the gun.

And if flying low to strafe results in even one additional loss, all those savings are even more than offset.

But more importantly, this whole comparison is moot because for every hour flying a combat mission, a pilot is flying many more hours in training.

> Regular rounds fired by the GAU 8 also known as PGU-14/B Armour Piercing Incendiary Depleted Uranium Rounds comes at a hefty price of 136.70 dollars a pop.

While those are pricy, the military does not fire those from the A-10 anymore:

> Armor-piercing incendiary rounds “go through soft targets very cleanly and don’t do much damage unless they hit a critical component,” said the former A-10 pilot. “The type of targets in Iraq and Afghanistan did not warrant using API.”

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/a-10-warthog-armor-piercing-...

Non-incendiary rounds are much cheaper. I cannot find an exact price on it, but I imagine that they are negligible in comparison to fuel.

They don't cost a dollar a round, I'll guarantee you. Standard ball .50 BMG ammo is $3 a round on a good day, incindiary is even more than that. I'm very curious how you got this figure of $1 for armor piercing incindiary 30mm shells.

Whatever the cost is, expect it to be neligible, such that even if it were $10 per round, it would not make a difference.

That being said, I do not think the cost to the USAF is public. I picked $1 since no figure that was reasonable would make any difference.

It costs $53 dollars a round, not $10: https://www.dacis.com/budget/budget_pdf/FY10/PROC/F/352010.p...

And again, the point is moot because there way more flight hours to train a pilot than spent flying combat missinons.

The original article said that they used a mix of those rounds and dummy rounds, so the costs are actually lower, but lets assume $53 per round:

3900 rounds per minute / (60 minutes per hour) * 2 seconds per shot * 6 shots * $53 = $41340, compared to $20,000 * 6 = $120,000.

The total cost is half for the A-10 after you add the cost of fuel. However, keep in mind that this does not consider that they also fire the "dummy" ammunition that is just regular bullets.

> And again, the point is moot because there way more flight hours to train a pilot than spent flying combat missinons.

Assuming that a nation is able to keep funding these missions during peace time, then the only real concern would be the costs during war time, which will undoubtedly be prohibitive.

That being said, the A-10 has a history of doing far more in CAS roles than other aircraft. That is because the A-10 is simply better at it.

And a cluster bomb might take out all the targets at once at an even cheaper price: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CBU-87_Combined_Effects_Muni....

Military pilots in peace time average 150 hours of flying per year: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/11/fighter-pilots-aren...

And that's abnormally low hours. With a $20k an hour operational cost, that's $3 million a year. You're going to have to do a lot of strafing to make even a dent in total costs by saving money on munitions.

And again, this is not even including the costs of additional losses from low level flying overy enemies to conduct strafing runs.

Of course the A-10 does more close air support: it can't do anything else! Whereas the f-16 can also do combat air patrols, SEAD, search for ships with its radar, shoot Harpoons, etc.

During a war, they will end up not only flying far more, but also using as much munitions as they possibly can. The A-10 is cheaper here.

We barely afford the military budget in peace time while our war time costs are insane. Being stuck with enormous bills after "winning" is not a real victory.

The F-35 that the military wants to use in place of the A-10 costs twice as much per hour to fly, carries a fraction of the munitions and if it is given a decent load out, it loses its stealth capabilities that were the reason for adopting it in the first place.

The idea that war is going to be so much more affordable if close air support is done with strafing runs than LGBs, is just a bafflingly wack understanding of the military budget's breakdown. Close air support is just one specific role, in one specific branch of the military. Even if 30mm shells were free, it would not appreciably affect the military's budget.

> And if flying low to strafe results in even one additional loss, all those savings are even more than offset.

If flying low saves the life of 1 additional solider, it would be worth it.

And conversely, if precision munitions saves the life of 1 more soldier than strafing, it's worth it.

An A-10 could drop those in addition to firing bullets. Intentionally limiting capabilities by getting rid of the A-10 in favor of the F-35 would be endangering lives. :/

they're cheaper than replacing a plane and especially its pilot I can assure you that

Apparently, the A-10 is designed to minimize the angles at which a MANPAAD can get a good lock:

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/a-10-pilot-explains-how-the-...

And again, the flares are meant to handle them.

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