America’s Toughest, Ugliest Warplane
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While the airframe still makes for a great weapons platform, the sensor suites, avionics, and countermeasures are obsolete, and not in a good way. They've been doing a lot of nasty hacks to allow it to support modern weapon systems and electronics but there are a growing number of important capabilities that simply cannot be "backported" to that airframe.
This has been increasing its vulnerability to more advanced threats and reducing its ability to deploy more advanced weapons over time. Its shelf-life has been extended by virtue of it being used in practice against adversaries with unsophisticated weaponry. This makes it immediately useful in practice but the military is well-aware that it would not be nearly as successful against a more sophisticated adversary and this is why they have been angling for an alternative.
It is a relic of the Cold War not just in its history but, unfortunately, also in its defenses and weaponry with no obvious upgrade path. Its survivability and effectiveness are predicated on being used against Cold War level adversaries. To replace it with something that could support the capabilities they desire, they would need to design a completely new airframe.
I don't get rid of my only computer because it's a Pentium 3 because it's old, until I have something that can actually replace it (and no, it won't/can't be replaced by the JSF).
Also, I point out that the A-10 is actually young compared to some of the planes we're still flying. B52 anyone? U-2? We don't stop flying planes because they're old, we stop flying them because there is something better to replace them. At this time, no such thing exists for the A-10.
Also, it's insane to say that the missions that the plane "Might" be used for in the future don't suit the plane, considering the missions it actually has, are almost perfect for it (ground support in Iraq as the article states).
The truth is that the Air Force doesn't want the plane and they're trying to come up with any excuse to kill it, despite the fact that it actually saves US troops lives.
I'm not disputing the truth of this (as their actions seem to agree with you), but what do you think motivates the air force to want to get rid of such a successful platform?
Close air support really should be an Army responsibility, but the Air Force doesn't want the other services flying planes. The only reason the Army is allowed to have helicopters, is because they're not "real" airplanes.
The Air Force doesn't want the Army flying fixed-wing manned combat aircraft. All services (Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force) have manned aircraft, all services have fixed-wing manned aircraft, all services have manned combat aircraft, and all services except the Army have fixed-wing manned combat aircraft.
This is why they are the favorite military service of the useless scions of the nobility that we most definitely don't have.
That these arguments come up only show how brain washed we are by the media.
none of these new planes actually come anywhere close to fulfilling the close ground support role the A-10 offers. its much akin to wanting the best fantasy stat players on your sports team but come to find those metrics don't win championships / make teams.
What makes you think that way? Low-end missions can be fulfilled by drones and apaches, and high-end obviously by F-35. A-10 is obsolete mostly because high precision bombs and missiles combined with good sensors are much more efficient than what A-10 has.
Drones - limited arms. Though they may be the future when they beef them up a bit.
Apaches - the enemy machine guns them. Not protected enough.
Here's a story from 2007 when the high end B1 screwed up, the Apaches were challenged and the A-10 helped save things:
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/a-10s-saved-the-day-in-botc...
The real reason is that it has always been the red-headed step-child of the ch-Air Force. There has never been any real interest in the CAS role from the mgmt, other than to keep that turf away from the Army and Marine Corps.
>While the airframe still makes for a great weapons platform, the sensor suites, avionics, and countermeasures are obsolete, and not in a good way. They've been doing a lot of nasty hacks to allow it to support modern weapon systems and electronics but there are a growing number of important capabilities that simply cannot be "backported" to that airframe.
I was about to make a similar comment that the A10 performs its role well despite having relatively primitive weapons / targeting systems. But I disagree about the reason for the obsolete weapons / electronics. Sensors and computers have only gotten smaller and better, and I am afraid I don't understand why you think that the A10 cannot be fitted with proper electronics and sensors.
>This has been increasing its vulnerability to more advanced threats
The definition of a CAS role practically implies that the airplane can only operate in an arena where air-superiority is assured. The A10 is by definition vulnerable to "more advanced threats" and so will any acceptable substitute share similar vulnerabilities.
>Its shelf-life has been extended by virtue of it being used in practice against adversaries with unsophisticated weaponry.
Exactly the kind of adversary it is being deployed against, though it has proven itself against others as well.
>It is a relic of the Cold War not just in its history but, unfortunately, also in its defenses and weaponry with no obvious upgrade path. To replace it with something that could support the capabilities they desire, they would need to design a completely new airframe.
I agree, and I hope they call it the A10-mkII, and that it is practically a modern rebuild of the A10.
Basically, the US military is concerned because they know that they already have ground threat capabilities that would significantly reduce the survivability of platforms like the A-10. Looking forward, they expect this level of weapon sophistication to trickle down to increasingly unsophisticated adversaries. The A-10 lacks the power systems required to drive modern defenses and weapons.
It is no different than how the US military has been planning for the obsolescence of heavy armor.
"On 4 October 1999, a Su-25 was shot down by a MANPADS during a reconnaissance mission over the village of Tolstoy-Yurt killing its pilot. The wings of the aircraft were put on a pedestal in the central square in Grozny."
The CAS role consists of two things: 1st, bring death from above with heavy firepower and weapons capable of seriously damaging and mobile threat in the area of engagement; 2nd, be the invincible angels, surviving everything from small arms fire to light Flak cannons through to even a stinger missile or two.
The survival part of their role necessitates not going in blind, a CAS plane has no place doing a recon flight. It would be like riding a wounded horse through a hungry pride of lions to check on how hungry they are.
In a world of satellites and drones, recon is their job, they are unmatched at it, smaller, safer, cheaper. Tasking a CAS airframe with recon work is going to cost you a plane, and possibly a pilot as well.
This is why the A-10 remains effective. It's a bone saw or a rib spreader, designed for a task. Yes these days with a da vinci robot you don't need to crack open the ribs as often, but when you need the rib cage open or you need to saw through the humerus to amputate, those are the tools you use.
The A-10 is a dedicated specialist the airforce wishes to replace with more general purpose planes, which may work some of the time, but won't work all the time.
I suspect the "reconnaissance" was tactical recon: they were hunting things to shoot up. They didn't have people on the ground there.
>Basically, the US military...
Chair force types itching for a new jet.
> Looking forward, they expect this level of weapon sophistication to trickle down to increasingly unsophisticated adversaries.
That is a totally reasonable assumption. I agree that MANPADS may prove problematic. There is the potential to develop countermeasure for these, just not the will, which is a shame because the rotors would benefit from it as well. But, the AF doesn't care for those, either.
>The A-10 lacks the power systems required to drive modern defenses and weapons.
You state this as if it were some kind of objective proven fact. It isn't. It may be the case that some existing weapons system can't be bolted on; but it is not a credible assertion to say that that a suitable solution cannot be developed.
>It is no different than how the US military has been planning for the obsolescence of heavy armor.
It is quite different. Heavy armor is useless, everyone knows it, and to the .mil's credit they are phasing it out. The A10 fills an important CAS role that other platforms can't replace. The F35 definitely isn't going to perform well as an A10 replacement. The Apache works well, but for some reason (sortie cost / availability?) it hasn't obsoleted the A10. Some yet undeveloped unmanned drone might be able to do so, but that is yet to be demonstrated.
I think the Apache's are not able to take being hit nearly as well as A10s, plus have less fire power and take longer to get places.
There's an article here on the problems http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/...
And a story here where Warthogs saved 60 US soldiers in 2013, where "because people were shooting all over the place, the JTAC didn't feel safe bringing in helicopters in to evacuate the wounded personnel."
http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/4667...
No, they definitely can't! But they are much better at avoiding taking fire in the first place.
>plus have less fire power and take longer to get places.
This, and the higher maint-man/hour per flight hour.
>"...the JTAC didn't feel safe bringing in helicopters in to evacuate the wounded personnel."
Thanks for that link, hadn't seen it.
>...the convoy's commander approved the pilots to engage "danger-close." The term is meant to clearly communicate to the ground and air forces that the need for support is so grave the ground commander is willing to accept the potential risk to the friendly unit for the life-saving employment from the air.
Scheisse. Gives you chills if you really think about it.
I know this because he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and made me read it, as part of up-close and personal counseling.
To eradicate the enemy, and save his company, he pointed the tube of his mortar straight up, dropped a shit-load of rounds down the tube, one at a time. The rounds went up (pretty far, but I no longer recall how high up they go) and came back down all over the place.
Risky, but Marines, generally, were in their holes, the bad guy were not, and so were more exposed to blast and shrapnel.
From what I've read, that really depends on the terrain. The Apache, from what sources I've seen, was really designed to take on Soviet ground forces in Germany. It's a tank hunter, designed to hide around and behind rolling hills, make quick attack passes on advancing armor columns, and then get the hell out of Dodge before AA can shoot back. Unlike its Soviet counterpart, the Mi-24 "Hind", the Apache isn't very well armored. This makes it not very well suited to the sort of mission where it has to loiter in an area and provide fire support for friendly forces.
Here's a video of something like that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPvVacN41lY
Another thing is the limited amount of aircraft carriers, their lack of agility. F35s and helis can take off smaller, cheaper,more numerous amphibious vehicule carriers. Thats why theyre even making the f35...
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/28/army-says-no-to-m...
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/the-end-of-th...
At the end of the day, it's kind of hard to do a thunder run [1] without tanks.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baghdad_%282003%29#Th...
No, those links don't. Forgive me, it's the most recent / best that I could find in a single web-query. I also didn't find a better link for you after searching again today. (search results too full of RTS game related junk)
The tank's day is done though, and while we'll maintain a small number of them, our war strategies do no rely on them, nor should they. If that were so, then any opposing force with one (of the many available) Javelin missile[1] like capability could stop our tank forces in their tracks. Killing tanks cheaply is a solved problem.
[1] See also Shershen, Metis, Spike, etc.
Didn't they used to call that Blitzkrieg?
I get the impression that Saddam's conception of war was strictly WWI era (right down to chemical warfare, although perhaps the issue there is why it wasn't widely used in WWII (ask for details if you're interested)), although this was most relevant in the First Gulf War, where we tricked him into thinking he would receive a frontal attack, and we hooked around his right flank. This avoided the expense of a frontal attack, he was no doubt hoping would cause us problems back home or worse.
For the rematch, well, he certainly had a lot less force, I would suspect the "thunder run" might vaguely resemble Patton's dash after the breakout from Normandy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Patton#Normandy_brea...), or if you want Nazi analogies, the crushing of small/relatively weak countries prior to France.
It just seems strange to me -- computers have gotten faster, batteries have gotten smaller, etc. If all of your avionics are theoretically lighter and smaller, how is it an issue to pack more functionality into the same airframe? Hell, remove the pilot and armoured bath-tub and make it into a drone.
The A-10 is an old school design, and there was no use case for installing large power systems when it was originally built. Unlike some other ancient airframes which had the spare room to retrofit power systems, the A-10 had little room to spare in its original design for a modern power system.
Man, the DoD is just not thinking outside the box.
The other truth is that the Air Force doesn't like it and never has. I seriously believe that they have lost sight of their origin and am starting to think as a cost saving measure the Air Force should be put back under the Army. They want fighters not something that gets dirty.
"Its survivability and effectiveness are predicated on being used against Cold War level adversaries."
It does pretty well against the Taliban.
To what extent do/will drones fill this role? My understanding was that flight time was an area they often excelled at.
It's more game theory: If you have state of the art weaponry, the competition is less likely to start a war with you.
This mentality also lead to the nuclear arms race, and today it is more about a race for automation and precision than just mass destruction.
http://news.yahoo.com/us-army-may-station-tanks-eastern-euro...
Army families pay close attention to the deployment of A-10's for good reason. On one side, A-10's provide critical assistance against enemy tanks and armored vehicles (combat leverage). On the other, it means soldiers (family members) are being deployed for possible ground combat.
A military is like a parachute. It seems pretty useless until you need it.
Iran would obviously retaliate against efforts to destroy their nuclear infrastructure. Russia has stated that it will defend Russians anywhere leaving many Eastern European countries in question. China has stated quite clearly this year that it will start to assert its position as a counterweight superpower to the US.
More to the point, it is taking away resources to field the planes that would be needed for that hypothetical fight against an adversary with a modern military. Worse, the inability of the U.S. military to fight and win against states with modern militaries makes war more likely, not less likely.
While the A-10 is certainly a good CAS platform against armed forces unable to oppose it with even 20-year old anti-air defenses, the U.S. does have other aircraft that can perform that role (even if not to the standard as the A-10). Between the AC-130, Army helicopter aviation, F-15, -16, -22 and -35, there's no lack of capability to put ordnance on target in support of ground troops.
The big thing those airframes are missing (except for the helos and AC-130) is loiter time and cannons that go "brrrpt", but neither of those are so critical to CAS as is popularly implied.
In other words, the USAF is arguing against maintaining a weapon system that doesn't deter conflict against states one iota, doesn't deter conflict against extremists (who are not deterrable by the same military calculus in any event), and whose most prominent capability isn't that much of a leap ahead of other platforms the USAF (and US Army) already have to maintain and field anyways.
Although it can certainly kill people, the A-10 was designed to hunt and destroy Soviet tanks, and yet you don't see too many tanks being fielded by ISIS (even with the Iraqi tanks they've captured, they don't have the logistical or maintenance capabilities needed to properly employ them).
>In other words, the USAF is arguing against maintaining a weapon system that doesn't deter conflict against states one iota,
None of that other garbage deterred any conflict.
>doesn't deter conflict against extremists (who are not deterrable by the same military calculus in any event),
Right, so, why mention it?
> and whose most prominent capability isn't that much of a leap ahead of other platforms the USAF (and US Army) already have to maintain and field anyways.
[x] Can draw enemy fire while wingman locates attackers.
Not a capability of any other aircraft in the stable. Thanks to another poster (tim333) we have yet another recent example of an A10 actually doing a job like that, which no other group would do. http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/4667...
I don't know where the AC130 were but the helicopters didn't want any part of it. The A10 pilots were all like "I'll go draw some fire while you look for 'em." You can't do that in a helicopter.
Sure, but A-10 is one of only many txt files USAF is trying to delete so they can defragment.
> > doesn't deter conflict against extremists (who are not deterrable by the same military calculus in any event), > Right, so, why mention it?
Because it demonstrates that A-10 provides just as much value-add in the deterrence equation (i.e., none at all) that other weapons platforms in the U.S. inventory do.
> I don't know where the AC130 were but the helicopters didn't want any part of it. The A10 pilots were all like "I'll go draw some fire while you look for 'em." You can't do that in a helicopter.
It's a pity the Army got rid of Kiowa, their pilots were precisely crazy enough to do that kind of thing, "armored bathtub" or not.
Either way, no one is saying that A-10 provides nothing at all above other platforms (my comment you replied to acknowledges as much). Rather, the argument is that the cost of maintaining A-10 and its entire associated long tail of maintenance, sustainment, training pipelines, etc., does not provide enough marginal benefit to warrant its price tag.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YktOuoqA-I&feature=youtu.be...
It's quite an interesting documentary in general on the A10s role. "Grunts of the Air." Made by the air force then shelved.
I have a hard time seeing that. Serious nasty hacks to retrofit new avionics systems into improbably obtuse spaces is par for the course. My wrists are totally destroyed from years of screwing and unscrewing retrofitted black boxes with a screwdriver at weird angles.
I don't know anything about the A-10 airframe, but I kinda suspect its an airframe structural issue. Your theory isn't impossible or unlikely, but got any documentation?
It is mind blowing to many of us that the USMC didn't buy up all of these things when the Air Force wanted to dump them. Yeah, yeah they can't fly off a carrier. So what. What they can do is hang in there when bullets are flying, loiter for a fairly long time and fly low and slow enough to actually see what's going on on the ground...(yeah, that 30MM gatling gun is pretty handy too..heh)
Side note: the only pilots that ever allowed us to shoot 81mm suppression over the top of the ingress routes to target when training to run CAS were the ANG A10 guys. All the active duty fast movers weren't game, and that included the MC Harrier pilots....
For those of us not in the military, can you translate this for us? It sounds interesting, but I have no idea what any of it means.
The 81 is a semi-portable mortar. Three dudes can carry it although each part is pretty heavy and the ammo is not exactly helium balloons either. So you'll find it "organic" with the troops not so much 20 miles behind the lines. Anyway it's "theirs" so they tell their crew what to do rather than some arty support guy coordinating with the aircrew. Thats why the pilot coordinates with the ground troops telling them to keep firing or cease firing during the airstrike, rather than coordinating with the naval 16 inch battleship guns and the ground troops have no direct involvement in the conversation.
So a good use of a mortar is area denial, keep down and stop moving or you'll get blown up. So you find a concentration of troops and pin them down with a mortar every XYZ seconds and call in an airstrike. Mortars shoot almost straight up so they're indirect fire, you can plink away all day and the enemy can do nothing about it unless they have indirect fire capability (like their own mortar, or their own close air support, or arty support, etc). You can try suppressive fire with a machine gun, but the ammo is really heavy and its direct fire so if you can fire on them, they can fire on you, western gunfight style, so its kinda hazardous. So if you're a ground troop, and you've got an indirect fire weapon like a mortar, you will greatly enjoy using it compared to the alternatives.
Most pilots are unamused at the idea of flying thru actively firing artillery. So stop firing the mortar and hope the enemy doesn't do something bad until the airstrike arrives... Bad being anything from a massive counterattack, or charging your position, or maybe hiding from the airstrike really well. If the enemy does pretty much anything but lay there, its probably bad for the troops on the ground. On the other hand there's a 1 in a zillion chance of the aircraft getting hit by a mortar round or fragments.
The A10 guys let them just keep firing mortars while they attack unlike other pilots.
From a complimentary position, obviously a 400 knot fixed wing aircraft has less than 1/4 chance that a 100 knot helicopter has of accidentally getting hit. And its much more heavily armored than a delicate modern fighter, so taking a hit doesn't really matter as much. Its a flying tank, basically, and/or the pilots are a bit more aggressive so they are willing to take more risks.
Not entirely complimentary, as the A10 guys might also be saying that an incoming modern surface to air missile is more lethal overall than getting hit directly or indirectly off their own guy's mortars. Something like getting a 1 in a million accidental hit from a mortar is less dangerous than a 1 in a hundred hit from a modern enemy surface to air missile. So the mortar fire is stopping the enemy from preparing and firing a SAM at the incoming aircraft. Who's protecting who, exactly?
From the ground troop perspective, anytime somebody doesn't stop you from suppressive fire is a universal good, so that's why they like the A10 so much, regardless of reason.
Assuming, of course, the right number of propellant charges were used, something done by hand if one or more have to be removed, and it doesn't "land short" for any other reason (failure of all the propellant to burn??? Don't know if/how often that happens).
Any time the USAF makes noise about dumping the A10, rumors about the USMC or the Army pop back up, and the USAF soon decides they're not dumping the A10 after all.
I expect the USAF will just run the existing frames until they're gone, at which point they can tell the Army and USMC to fuck off because there's no plane left to grab and fix.
https://www.google.com/search?q=warthog+boneyard&source=lnms...
The guys in those Harriers were Marines. The guys in those F/A-18s were Marines. There are really good reasons for not allowing suppression over ingress routes with those platforms. Think about it... the BEST guys in aviation were slated for Harriers... because you just couldn't have nuggetheads flying Harriers. For a lot of really good reasons.
We don't need us against them type arguments. We need only solve problems. And problem solving requires employing different tools, with different strengths and weaknesses at different times.
and yes, I am blowing a little shit at my brothers in the air wing side of the house but, everything in the Marine Corps exists to support the infantry (that's why MC pilots wear cammo covers on their helmets), and frankly I was disappointed at the time they didn't have a go at it...
Maybe I misunderstood what you mean, but that sounds like a pretty stupid thing to do. When you practice advancing under direct/indirect fire, do you actually have machine guns/mortars firing towards you? I would guess that you don't (we certainly never did in the Finnish Defence Forces).
I can imagine this must be harrowing for the pilots. You actually shoot the 81s over their flight path?
A10 pilots are bit of a different breed and I didn't have to ask twice to get them to do it they were pretty game.
granted this was right after we got back from first gulf-war and so for those of us that had been there this was just run of the mill stuff. i don't know if things are more safety focused now, probably are...
There was, iirc, an article in the Gazette about this. Guy ran the numbers, and it worked out okay: the Corps could run X squadrons per wing, at cost Y per year, plus buy up the spare parts inventory and keep them running for Z years.
It is certainly the kind of airplane a Marine would love, and would fit the Corp's persona.
> the only pilots that ever allowed us to shoot 81mm
Well .. you know. A mortar round would bounce off an A-10. Kinda trash a Harrier.
I want to believe we have the technology to make this happen
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=533255
Among them are size (it's wingspan exceeds the F-14) and the structure of the airframe (which wasn't designed for catapults/arrestors).
The other question is how the operational success of the thing doesn't stand up to the political process than creates mudballs.
I think the biggest problem is their huge wingspan. They don't have folding wings, so there is no storage space.
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=bPSElw8qEsI
http://fixyt.com/watch?v=lv5BtJMKamM
Getting competitive: http://fixyt.com/watch?v=tvT5LMhvogw
And a non-Alaskan entry:
If you're landing on a wide range of terrain, much of it unimproved, soft, and/or uneven, large tires will float you over the soggy stuff and smooth out the lumps (large wheels experience less shock with terrain / surface variation than small ones)
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/03/john-boy...
Probably comes from the vague mission, unlimited resources (yes they are a curse sometimes), single super power winner mentality, lack of imminent treats for the us mainland, and lack of political will to do anything.
Unfortunately, the history of trying to make merged designs isn't great. Differences in missions (and, frankly, the fact that those missions have been changing in many cases) seem to lead to designs that cost too much, don't do most tasks especially well, and take too long to design and build.
While it developed some useful things, and pioneered variable geometry (swing) wings, it was almost entirely a debacle. Forced the Air Force to use designed for the Navy F-4s for a long time, which I'm sure they hated (and of course it was obsolescent, required two crewmen, the engines smoked (makes it much easier to spot in ACM), etc. etc.).
I wouldn't be surprised if the Air Force will be forced to use F-18 Super Hornets to replace falling apart F-15s. A nasty failure in the process of going from the design drawing to what was built in the factory resulted in all of our air superiority variants having a nasty weakness in the attachment of the cockpit to the air frame: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle#S... (living back in Missouri at that time it was pretty big news that one simply fell apart around its pilot while doing pretty much normal stuff).
JSF -- a mess
JTRS -- (Joint Tactical Radio_Systems)
etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_...
Given that the original concept was strictly a daytime fighter I'm not at all sure the decision was incorrect.
Boyd never made general.
(lol)
Joint Strike Fighter cost per plane: $618 million [0]
To paraphrase Bill Lind: what the pentagon says only makes sense when you realize that its purpose is graft, not war.
[0] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_...
Why is the difference of 'per aircraft lifecycle cost' so important then? Only plane for which it is comparable (actually greater) than USAF total spent per airframe is B-2A, which is no doubt a unique aircraft worth keeping at all cost, and providing much above average 'value'. So if F-35 will be 600 million per airframe, okay. Low combat attrition and delivery of 8 SDBs per sortie (which probably does several times more damage than B-52 did in Vietnam War, against average target) will make it a good buy anyway.
Now you're ready to compare our AF to someone else's.
>Why is the difference of 'per aircraft lifecycle cost' so important then? Only plane for which it is comparable (actually greater) than USAF total spent per airframe is B-2A,
Because you can compare each platform's "efficiency" at a given mission, as you state in the last part of your post. It relies on getting in lots of wars though to get enough data to make reliable comparisons, "fortunately" we've got that part covered.
>will make it a good buy anyway.
That remains to be seen / demonstrated. The way it shakes out so far is that there is a lot of doubt as to whether the AF will be able to keep enough of them in the air, or enough pilots trained for them to do anything other than make cameo appearances. The unit cost keeps rising, the performance keeps getting revised down. This thing is going to be like the Space Shuttle (IMO), too expensive for what it does and never able to to fulfill all of its intended roles.
EDIT: removed annoying double-double-negative
Yeah, that thing. Also, Robert McNamara.
With his actions at the World Bank after being sacked from the DoD I'm not sure there's a single man who caused more suffering and death than him in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
Shuttle was killed by a lack of market: if it was actually flying 50 missions a year as planned it would provide decent costs and justify most missions - but there appeared to be no market for that. USAF had a second thought on manned military space station (Keyholes and Lacrosses did the job better and cheaper - Soviet Union came to same conclusion scrapping their Almaz project), and civilian satellites became so reliable there was no need to launch many of them, or to repair them on orbit. It was never a technical failure, just overestimation of potential market size (same will happen to SpaceX reusability plans i believe).
My main point was that overall USAF expenses are pretty high, whatever aircraft are in use. So we shouldn't be scared by high per-airframe costs, if F-35 is say 40% better than some 'average' aircraft of comparable role, say F-16, that will be already okay even if F-16 'direct' costs are only 10% of F-35'th. Because indirect costs are high anyway, over a billion bucks per airframe. There is little doubt it will be at least 40% better (because of lower vulnerability and situational awareness) IMO.
I see that and agree. I just don't see how the F35 is ever going to do all of the thing that its supporters want us to believe it will do.
They want to kill the ~300 A10 fleet that costs ~18000/hr to operate in exchange for about a half-dozen F35's that cost who knows what /hr in that same role. That is not a good proposition. There is no way that a half-dozen F35's can replace 300 A10's at any operating cost.
Spending more money upfront and wisely could have changed that, but once the turkey's design was set in stone its infrequent launches and insane operating costs (especially from all the staff who had to be retained no matter what the launch rate) were baked into the cake and turned it into a public works project. Certainly not something that demonstrated much about a market, given its insane costs/lb and severe restrictions on what it could loft due to safety reasons (e.g. no lithium batteries, Centaur booster canceled post-Challenger, etc. etc.).
And the reason the A-10 is still around is because it take the federal bureaucracy longer to end a program than it does to start a new war. Then they really need the A-10 because it works.
(Ex-Air Force)
From a development cost standpoint I think this is a great experiment as it will skip a lot of the external politics, project managment headaches, requirements changes and politics again. But I fear politics will shun this type of development from taking off.
You mean like they did with the F-20 Tigershark? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_F-20_Tigershark
There is a point to be made: aircraft are chosen for political reasons, not for their suitably to the mission. The A-10 is an example of an exceptionally suitable aircraft as is the B-52. This is not a reflection of good decision making, but just the outcome of random selection. If you build enough boondoogles (i.e. JSF) you eventually accidentally build a useful aircraft. These aircraft prove their utility and are kept around whereas the glass elephants are quietly retired.
For example, consider the B-58. By all measures it was an amazing aircraft that met all of its goals. But by the time it was complete, it was built for a mission that no longer existed. The aircraft literally had no role by the time it became operational.
I'm not really even sure how it is an improvement on the B-52 anyways. The listed payloads on Wikipedia is higher than that of the B-52, but I'm not sure I trust those numbers.
I don't think it much matters that it is supersonic. The US enjoys air superiority in all conflicts by virtue of it being the only one with planes in the air. Perhaps it is slightly less vulnerable to SAMs due to its speed advantage? The US is pretty good at neutralizing SAM installations using missiles, long before any planes get over the battlefield.
I don't see how the B-1B can fit into a modern military.
Maybe they are going to sell these to 3rd world countries to harass revolutionaries? The USAF would not use these to fight other countries.
Edit: or maybe to sell to rich kids who want to pretend that they are fighter pilots (I suppose it would be a hell of a hobbyist ride) :-)
But yes, the idea of that plane going up against any modern fighter is a joke. Even the dated Mig-21 would have no problem destroying that plane using just the cannon.
Many systems people claim are great have worked well against dirt poor "insurgents" in recent foolish wars of choice. Arming against a more serious adversary is a separate question.
As others have already stated, that's pretty much the job of any CAS; go get your butt shot off while trying to destroy the other guy first.
Just because MANPADS are becoming more dangerous and more ubiquitous doesn't mean that the job of CAS no longer exists, it simply means that the ongoing battle of offense versus defense continues. You adapt, you move on.
If the Air Force wants to create a new, better, A-10 (as the A-10 was a new remake of the A-1), and then retire the A-10, I don't think many people would be complaining. But the fact is, the Air Force keeps coming up with rather asinine, nonsensical, and downright lies about why they should get rid of the A-10, but yet they have nothing to replace it with.
The whole argument of "But it's a dangerous environment, it might not survive" doesn't quite fly when you're talking about fighting wars. That's what wars are, dangerous environments in which people might not survive. It doesn't mean that you still don't fight them (ignoring the fact that yes, we've certainly have made poor choices in which wars to start/fight in lately).
Would not surprise me...
The fly really high concept, going back to e.g. the WWII B-25 Superfortress, ended, and the B-1 went in the direction of low level penetration (below radar, and hard to pick up from ground clutter by fighters above it, something the B-52 tried for a while, but it wasn't designed for that), and the B-2 back to flying (fairly) high, but essentially invisible to radar (it can be detected in a general sense by certain types of radar, but not such that you can shoot it down).
We had to transition from piston engines if for no other reason than reliability and maintenance, plus, commonality and safety in fuel, etc. etc. The B-37 was our last in the strategic bomber role, also see the piston powered CAS A-1 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-1_Skyraider), heavily used in Vietnam, which the A-10 replaced.
The A-10 could not penetrate the T-62 from the front, let alone the better armored T-72. For a gun kill, it would need to attack from the rear, but that would put it at significant risk to soviet anti air. The solution was to use a Maverick missile against armor.
There are now far more effective planes to lob missiles at armor. All while staying high and away from danger. The A-10 also was not designed with MANPAD's in mind, because they didn't exist then. Even if they do survive, there is down time in having to repair the platform.
In a cold war gone hot scenario, the airforce estimated that they would have lost all of their A-10's within 2 weeks of conflict.
For the CAS mission an Apache would be just as good. 16 Hellfire missiles along with strafing with a 30mm chain gun throws a hell of a punch, all while being slow enough to accompany ground troops.
Anything which claims to be CAS but can't take some hits without falling out of the sky isn't terribly useful.
The reason Apaches are used is that they're not fixed wing, which means the Air Force isn't demanding to own them, meaning that they can get pilots and commanding officers who do more than pay lip service to the idea of CAS.
Nonsense on stilts.
US production of Redeyes was ended, at about 85,000 total produced, a year before the detailed specifications of the A-10 were finished. The Soviet equivalent went into service a couple years before the latter.
As for penetrating MBT frontal armor, I was always under the impression that top hits were the objective if trying to destroy one without using a missile, which the A-10 can carry a lot of. Airplanes do have the advantage of being above land vehicles after all.
The A10 has triple the hardpoints (11 to 4) and 10 times the payload (7200kg to 770) of the Apache… So it's just as good if you have 4 or 5 times as many systems in flight.
How much 'modern armor' has the US come up against in practice in the last two decades? If you want to kill tanks, it's not like there isn't something else in the US military catalogue to use.
The M1A1 and later version's 120 mm canon's "Silver Bullet" amd later version sabot rounds turned out to be good enough to go through a sand berm and then penetrate T-72's frontal armor, negating a standard desert warfare technique.
Getting back to the A-10, we expended 5,000 Maverick missiles in the first Iraq war, and nearly 1,000 in the second, mostly employed by F-16s and A-10s in the first (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-65_Maverick#Deployment).
Which brings up an interesting hack used in the first Iraq war: the Mavericks used at the time fed a 15 degree wide image to a screen in the A-10 cockpit. While officially a daytime plane, they found that by the expedient of mounting on and just using it for imagining, they could do all sorts of nighttime missions that e.g. F-16 declined to take. All this per a book on there deployment during the war, I'm pretty sure it's this one: http://www.amazon.com/Warthog-Flying-10-Gulf-War/dp/00288102...
No, the Apache cannot loiter on station as long as an A-10.
There was an incident in which a mobility kill was scored against an M1. Crew was unharmed and was able to retreat thanks to the other tank covering it. The tank was ordered abandoned and destroyed. The problem was, even firing at it from the other M1 they weren't able to destroy it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger#mediaviewer/File:...
It is an interesting challenge arming up for war. I recall watching nearly every episode of Wings (which was a Discovery channel show that each episode focused on a single plane) and was really impressed at how people thought about things. The show on the A-10 is on youtube in 5 parts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM2KbwPMU18) and its worth a watch.
It has that special elegance that comes from being pure function - it's, after all, a cannon with wings - where no line is afforded if there is not an excellent reason for it to be there.
If the primary mission is to carry the big gun, then they serve the same purpose. I would bet ARES could have benefited from being a bit larger with better armor, but the price tag was around $1M if I recall correctly, and the small size and composite construction may have given it a smaller radar cross section as well. Part of the weight savings is in the non-hydraulic control surfaces. It's nice that the A-10 could revert to manual control when both hydraulic systems failed, but that raises the question "why have them at all?". Simplicity is has been a major part of designs from Scaled Composites.
I doubt it will go away any time soon. D-M is one of Tucson's biggest employers, and Senator McCain will want that to keep existing. Also, people in the military who serve on the ground seem to universally love it. It seems like everyone has an A-10 story. As for the replace it with an F-16 argument, I would think the most likely replacement would be a drone version of the big gun with wings. McCain would get behind that, since a lot of drone work is done 60 miles down the road at Ft Huachuca in Sierra Vista AZ.
Read about an A-10 getting shot and surviving here http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/1172...
Supposedly the argument against the A-10 is that (1) the most important weapon the A-10 has is no longer that amazing gun but one or more of just various missiles and (2) can use an F-16, maybe an F-15, likely an F-18, in time the F-35 to fire such missiles but do it at higher speeds and altitudes where the plane is not so vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire from the ground.
Or, it's great that the A-10 can take so much punishment, but a claim is that it would be better still to fly higher and faster and get nearly no punishment at all.
I'm sure the astounding advantages of the A-10 are well understood. So, if some people want to put the A-10 out to pasture, maybe there is a reason.
I'm just repeating the story I heard and am no expert.
But, to argue for the A-10 again, to destroy an ISIS truck with a 50 caliber machine gun in the back, want to use a ~$1 million missile or a few shots from that amazing A-10 gun?
We seem to be in age of small unit combat against various guerilla-style organizations. They should start building A-10 like aircraft again.
The RAF brass didn't "hate" on the Harriers -- they were just under pressure to take their part of huge defense cuts.
I hope to be able to build a 10 foot wingspan RC model of the A-10 next year.
Someone already linked John Boyd below in the comments. He's worth reading much more about --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Boyd_(military_strategist)...
http://www.amazon.com/Boyd-The-Fighter-Pilot-Changed-ebook/d...
He's often credited with his later-life grand strategy, but his Aerial Attack Study in the early 1960's is actually more impressive to me. He developed a working mathematical model of how fighters (and other aircraft) can gain or lose speed, velocity, turning, etc at different speeds/altitudes/etc based on their specs.
A lot of "sexy-looking" fighters performed pretty poorly, and the Air Force command were aghast at many aspects of the study.
At the time, the "state of the art" was building multi-purpose aircraft that could do reconnaissance, establish air superiority (dogfighting), bomb enemy targets, etc. But these multi-purpose aircraft didn't excel on any parameter: they weren't large enough to carry the fuel and payload to be exceptional bombers, and they weren't fast and light enough to out-dogfight the leading Soviet aircraft.
The book on Boyd I linked talks about the back-and-forth nature of defense contracting and the armed forces in that era, which was a problem. Likewise, it describes the various jockeying for power and budget between the various branches of the armed services: Navy, Air Force, and Army all had aircraft and certain missions assigned to them, and fought to preserve and expand their territory.
Close Air Support (CAS) is a mission the Air Force was never so crazy about and was somewhat de-prioritizing compared to air superiority and strategic bombing missions... yet, at the same time, they didn't want to lose the mission to the Army for political reasons.
Meanwhile, Boyd and the people he worked with, notably aircraft designer Pierre Sprey who led the A-10's build -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Sprey -- they didn't see their roles as just related to being a technician or soldier, but were very deep historians and scientists.
They noted that a lot of Nazi Germany's early success was the mix of maneuver warfare mixed with close-air support from Stuka Bombers. The Nazi advantage was erased when the Western Allies eventually achieved air superiority, but Luftwaffe CAS was absolutely devastating in the early stages of WWII.
Sprey, Boyd, and the rest built around the theory of CAS and seeing the potential of it for turning a ground war, and then sat to work out an aircraft that was about as un-sexy as it gets, but was incredibly safe for the pilot, could stay involved in the battle for a very long time, and could have devastating impact on enemy ground forces.
The A-10 thus isn't flashy, can't do multi-mission roles (at the time, it was the only pure CAS airplane in the U.S. armed forces; it only did close air support and nothing else), it's not particularly fast, it doesn't look good at an air show, it's not particularly prestigious.
It is, however, devastatingly effective as a tank killer, artillery killer, convoy killer. Rather effective against infantry too.
The lessons from Boyd, aircraft design, etc, are probably worth reading for anyone who deals with technology or organizational development, since they seem timeless -- eventually prestige and politics come to dominate true mission, and how do you navigate around that?
The book "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the World" is worth reading; so are the remnants of various briefings Boyd and colleagues gave with commentary. A useful insight into lots of things, not the least of them how to actually get things done with ingenuity and how to really be service-oriented in a world that often doesn't reward that. Marvelous book, amazing men, great stories, lots of lessons. Highly highly recommended.
http://militaryprofessionalreadinglists.com/books/665-boyd-t...
and it was on last year's Army (!) reading list.
http://pogoarchives.org/labyrinth/09/07.pdf
China has since dramatically intensified their efforts in modernization learning from Iraqi mistakes from Dessert Storm.
Ah Dessert Storm. The most delicious of all the wars.
Edit: I suspect that US troops on the ground don't get a say in this. In other words, it doesn't further some politician's (or politically motivated general's) agenda to champion this plane over something less effective.
Let's fast-forward a few decades. If we have combat robots (not that I'm advocating this, but I think that's where we'll end up) then brain-wise one soldier can know everything that another can. I.e. there's no need for different MOS. You can have one brain that is both a special-operations infantry assaulter, and knows how to service any aircraft in your arsenal. The real differentiator would be morphology of the units.
So, if every unit could conceivably be trained in all tactics and doctrine, what's the point of services vs. just specialities?
Marines are traditionally a power force to be employed from the sea (amphibious) while the army is mostly land-based operations. Do they both see armed combat? Yes, but they are specialized for different scenarios.
If we had a robot armed force, would it be better to have a single, mass-produced ubiquitous unit? Probably not. There you would probably want robots designed and specialized for each of their combat scenarios.
Just in case the collapse of the rouble, precipitous drops in oil prices (traded in dollars printed somewhere else), problems in Ukraine, the technical inability to extract vast hydrocarbons found in the Arctic, and a list of other issues, have a negative impact on Russian decision making.
As much I know, this plane is the most effective plane against ground targets. Some targets just can't be hit effectively from great heights and this plane also stays much longer in the area as other planes can. It might be the best compromise between a helicopter and a plane.
Also it is very cost effective in comparison to some of the more modern planes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YktOuoqA-I
It's a leaked version with blurred out faces, apparently because the Air Force decided not to release it.
yeah, pfffff. Here's what it really sounds like: http://youtu.be/ZAkzrxN5Jn0?t=20s
The article, while perhaps garbage, is "A-10 is best, despite efforts by others to end it". Point by point the author's narrative is clear:
"But it is heavily armored and wickedly armed, making it a ruthlessly effective weapon. And that is why, despite ongoing efforts by Defense Department brass to kill it, the Warthog is headed back into battle to help in the fight against ISIS."
"That makes the A-10 something of a zombie—it refuses to die. The Air Force wants to scuttle the 238 A-10s"
"The A-10, little more than a flying tank, is perfectly suited to the task and beloved by pilots and troops alike."
"The A-10 can take a ton of abuse, and continue flying if it’s lost an engine, a tail or even half of a wing."
and so on... The article is about the A-10 versus the Air Force brass, a continuation of the "Whiz Kids" versus the tried and true. The narrative is not "America is best".
(Btw hyperbolic, although sounding cool, is not what you really wanted to say)
>Campbell kept flying for more than hour
"more than [an] hour"?
Will it this time be different? Unlikely.
Sure, the elite starting these wars for profit are bastards.
But, let's protect the people we ask to protect us. Sometimes, other people do start the fights, and we still need a military unless we want to be run (eventually) by somebody else with a better military.
Work to change who is picking our fights for us, but don't begrudge the people doing the fighting some help.