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Comment by 542458 | Hacker News Reader

> The truth is that the Air Force doesn't want the plane

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?

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You don't get to be an Ace by destroying tanks, or artillery, or other ground threats. You get to be an Ace by defeating another pilot in a dogfight. That's why the Air Force is reluctant to support the A-10. They want to put all that money into their fighter jets.

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 Navy has planes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West_Agreement

> Close air support really should be an Army responsibility, but the Air Force doesn't want the other services flying planes.

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. Fighter Jets are the modern equivalent of mounted knights. Glamorous, lovely and of marginal use in a full-out war.

This is why they are the favorite military service of the useless scions of the nobility that we most definitely don't have.

Marginal utility except in the crucial battle for sir space control. Without fighters, all other airplanes and surface targets are sitting ducks.

Exactly. Fighters intercept bombers. Fighters intercept other fighters. Bombers allow for cheap and reliable mass destruction of any ground target - compared to icbms and ground vehicles.

That these arguments come up only show how brain washed we are by the media.

#1 cost (mostly due to lack of upfront funding to keep costs down) #2 it doesnt look/scound cool like those 'new' planes. it sounds great to have a cool new jet fighter with (some) stealth and can do neat loopty loops and use the latest and greatest air to air and electronic warfare systems, BUT

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.

> none of these new planes actually come anywhere close to fulfilling the close ground support role the A-10 offers

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.

The new planes - they can't look out the window to figure who to shoot so well. Too high and fast.

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 modern Apache fires its weapons from so far away there is no hope of hitting it with a machine gun. Those things are probably the most high tech the Army has, it can communicate with a drone miles ahead of it, that will transmit back the location of a vehicle and the Apache can destroy it without even having line of sight.

For an extensive treatment of this, I recommend the book "Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art Of War".

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