The 2022 A-10 Bomb Truck Configuration.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O340puloCE

Awesome ground attack aircraft. I don't understand why so many
in command want to retire it.

I want one……

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
Awesome ground attack aircraft. I don't understand why so many
in command want to retire it.

Because it's relatively cheap and simple to maintain perhaps? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
Awesome ground attack aircraft. I don't understand why so many
in command want to retire it.

Because the unofficial motto of the USAF is 'Not a pound for Air to Ground'.

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
I don't understand why so many in command want to retire it.

Because it’s the Air Force, not the Ground (ooo, ooo; icky, icky) Support Force—?

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
Awesome ground attack aircraft. I don't understand why so many
in command want to retire it.

Have you seen what has been happening to the SU-25’s over in Ukraine? Air Force budget gymnastics aside, current CAS platforms like the A-10 and probably the AH-64 as well have a real survivability problem. It turns out that your enemy doesn’t need fancy air defenses to take them out of the fight if they are operating low and slow. The A-10 can probably survive a hit from a MANPAD, but it isn’t going to be flying any more missions for a while after it lands.

Honestly, using it as a bomb truck full of SDB’s it probably a direct response to how unsafe it has become to operate at low altitude. You can stay higher up and the newer SDBs will glide their way through the more dangerous altitudes without having to risk the whole plane. Of course, you could do that with a drone as well, but the A-10 can carry more ordnance than our current drones. It’s great against enemies with no real air defenses, but we have a lot of enemies that don’t meet that criteria anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the A-10. I just don’t think we have a real good answer to keeping big, expensive aircraft that want to operate close to the ground safe right now, even with air superiority.

- Bret

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
Awesome ground attack aircraft. I don't understand why so many
in command want to retire it.

As much as I love the A10 (as a former Infantryman), the reality is that in a near-peer conflict (China, Russia, etc), the A10 is very vulnerable to air defense systems.

In Iraq/Afg, the US had total air supremacy. Outside of the occasional Strella/Stinger or RPG, the only threats to the A10 were small arms and 23/57mm AAA.

Although the AF wants the F/A35 to be its next CAS airframe, it just does not have the loiter capabilities of the A10.

What is the solution? Perhaps a faster/stealthier version of the AH64 Apache? Who knows.

The only sure thing is that the defense contractors will be the winners.

EDIT: Beat by a couple of minutes...

There's something redneck about an A10 Bomb Truck and I love it.

USAF doesn't like the A10 because its not a sexy high-tech fighter

its a doer

it does its job well, better than anything else

and its replacement is a finicky over-priced stealth fighter with systems that don't work and that only wants to get close to the ground when its time to land

can't get mud on that precious stealth coating.

That aircraft was developed with the specific mission in mind to destroy communist tanks if Russia invaded NATO countries. It proved its worth for CAS in the Middle East and has been extended far beyond its originally intended service life as a result. The A-10 still has its place for CAS where we have total air superiority. But it is not stealthy, it is slow, and not much air-to-air capability. The Joint Strike Fighter program, the F35, which is used by our Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as a number of our allies, was to take up the mission of CAS. The VTOL capabilities of the F35 allows deployment near ground combat units where legacy aircraft cannot. The Chief of Staff of the Air Force directed a special program to develop specific CAS weapons systems for the F35. A multi mission aircraft can carry air superiority ordnance and CAS ordnance on the same mission. It is correct that the F35 does not have the loiter time of the A-10 but that is offset somewhat by speed and maneuverability. I also admire the A-10 and believe it will be around in some variation for years to come.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:

I want one……

Me too. But . . .

Even if we could find enough $$$ for maintenance, insurance, and fuel, how much does the ammunition cost for that gun? It fires what, something like 65 rounds per second? It would take a long time to load enough for one flight with a Dillon 550.

HayesGreener, the F-35 is also more failure-prone and more maintenance-intensive than the A-10, is it not? A lot more, if memory serves?

Meanwhile, the opinion of a guy who's been there and done that: (With air superiority) If you could choose a plane for cas, would you choose the a-10 or f-35?

His bottom line:

quote:

It’s all about battlefield effects

As an Airborne Forward Air Controller and Air Liaison Officer, I’ve controlled aircraft from the air and the ground. Part of my job was knowing the capabilities and limitations of friendly aircraft, weapon systems, and enemy air defense systems.

If I’m on the ground and up to my eyeballs in hurt, I’m really going to be happy with anything that shows up to help me survive the fight. There may even be times when a B-52 would be my delivery truck of choice.

But, if I had to pick only one jet that I had to rely on to pull my fat out of the fire every time…

A jet that can give me the kind of support I need in any weather condition…

A jet that carries a Swiss Army knife variety of weapons to deal with almost any target…

And one that can hang out over the top of me long enough to make sure I’m safe…

I’d pick the Hawg.

And I’d be forever grateful that the F-35 had gone through first to clear the air for the Hawg to do what it does best.

He addresses the "air superiority" issue, earlier:

quote:

What do you need for effective close air support?

The U.S. military’s own airpower doctrine on CAS lists as “conditions for effective close air support” (among other things):

• Air Superiority
  
• Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses
  

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
Awesome ground attack aircraft. I don't understand why so many
in command want to retire it.

Because there's a lot of things that can shoot it out of the sky in a peer/near-peer conflict.

The A-10's were/are beautiful platforms over Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places were the US dominated the sky; its a very good ground support platform ...given the right conditions. It's a whole different story when the enemy has some capable anti-air capability. This should've been on stark display and very obvious when the 101st Airborne's Apache's got all shot to hell during the 2003 Battle of Karbala. I believe 29 out of 31 helicopters in the assault (is that an entire division's worth?), attempting to do a ground attack mission were put out of action for at least a month. The Iraqi's may not have had sophisticated missiles and tracking technology but, they had no shortage of anti-aircraft cannons and light machine guns to use. See target, shoot target. The US Army is having to take a very hard look at how it employs or, even continues its use of attack helicopters given its vulnerabilities, the A-10 is in the same realm of discussion.

The A-10, given the right conditions and used correctly, are highly capable however, the next war there's likely only a limited range of use for them. Ukraine is showing us what's to come: very reliable anti-air missiles, accurate short/medium range surface-to-surface missiles, loitering munitions available from the squad level, etc...

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
HayesGreener, the F-35 is also more failure-prone and more maintenance-intensive than the A-10, is it not? A lot more, if memory serves?...

The F-35 is on order magnitudes greater complexity than the A-10.
The number of things that can break is tremendously increased.

All platforms go through growth, discovery, remedy and shakedown of upgrades.

Having been in the development side of the business of weapons systems and testing, I saw a thing or two. Sort of "Farmer's Insurance Maintenance"...

Military Aircraft (especially fighters) are more like exotic performance supercars, than any soccer mom's SUV.

You want cutting edge? Your gonna bleed some green.

There is so much more than people reading Popular Mechanics or even industry white papers which barley scratch the surface of the "inside and totality" of day to day readiness and employment of weapons platforms.

"Bad press" travels faster and farther than good, and stays around long after the "best if used by" date.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
The VTOL capabilities of the F35 allows deployment near ground combat units where legacy aircraft cannot.

The Marines still operate the AV-8B Harrier which is fully capable of deployment near ground troops and is a “legacy” aircraft. No, it’s not an A-10 but it is a very capable CAS platform.

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
Awesome ground attack aircraft. I don't understand why so many
in command want to retire it.

It’s not new and sexy.
It’s not high performance why up in the air.

The brass claims the F-35 can replace it.
The F-35 has 182 rounds.the A-10 1,17. The F-35 has 4 seconds of firing.
There was a fly off in 2018. Here’s how the odds were stacked.
“The testing schedule, according to POGO’s sources, allotted the same amount of time and sorties to both aircraft, despite the A-10’s ability to loiter over the battlefield, a major strength. It also downgraded a second major strength of the Warthog: limiting its GAU-8/A 30-mm Gatling gun to a third of its usual ammunition.
The tests also hid the F-35′s weaknesses, according to POGO. Bomb loads were reduced in one test to improve the plane’s maneuverabilty at lower altitudes; the operating ceiling of 10,000 feet ignored that fact that close-air support missions are often carried out at an altitude of 1,000 feet or less, where the A-10 excels; and the high-visibility targets made them easier to hit for the F-35, “where visibility from the cockpit is inferior to the A-10′s,” POGO wrote.”

Don't we have fighters and Growlers to protect our ground attack aircraft?
How much does one F-35 cost?
How much does one A-10 cost?
From what I've read the ground troops love the A-10.
Are all of our next conflicts going to be with China or Russia?

Let the Army or Marines have them if the Air Force doesn't want them.

Hmmm. How would we fit them on a carrier? LOl

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
HayesGreener, the F-35 is also more failure-prone and more maintenance-intensive than the A-10, is it not? A lot more, if memory serves?

[/QUOTE]
Much of the difficulty with the F35 early on was software related. I think they got most of the bugs out but it is an extremely complex system with many variations.