A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

A place to talk about all things military, paramilitary, tactical, strategic, and logistical.
Post Reply
Aesop
Posts: 6149
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:17 am

A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by Aesop »

The U.S. Air Force has decided to indefinitely postpone the retirement of the legendary A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack plane.
Link

F-35 Thunderjug deployment postponed indefinitely due to being a total POS in 5, 4, 3...
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
User avatar
First Shirt
Posts: 4378
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:32 pm

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by First Shirt »

I was the head intel geek for an A-10 squadron, back in the days of DS1, and I learned a few simple things.
The Air Farce will ditch the A-10s when every swingin' Richard who ever called for air support is mouldering in the grave. Until then, they may bitch about the parts inventory, or the maintenance hassles, or the cost of tea in China, but the guys on the ground ain't givin' it up!
But there ain't many troubles that a man caint fix, with seven hundred dollars and a thirty ought six."
Lindy Cooper Wisdom
User avatar
randy
Posts: 8334
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:33 pm
Location: EM79VQ

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by randy »

Aesop wrote:
The U.S. Air Force, after being beaten into submissive paste by Congress, has decided to indefinitely postpone the retirement of the legendary A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack plane.
Fixed it for them
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
User avatar
PawPaw
Posts: 4493
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:19 pm

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by PawPaw »

Well, good. I always liked the Warthog, and rolled in the shadow of its wing several times.
Dennis Dezendorf
PawPaw's House
User avatar
scipioafricanus
Posts: 1298
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 10:08 pm

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by scipioafricanus »

So like last time the Air Force wanted to retire it, did the Army and Marine Corps say "we'll take'em?"

SA
If there is a Stairway to Heaven, is there an Escalator to Hell?
If God wanted men to play soccer, he wouldn’t have given us arms. - Mike Ditka
User avatar
PawPaw
Posts: 4493
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:19 pm

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by PawPaw »

scipioafricanus wrote:So like last time the Air Force wanted to retire it, did the Army and Marine Corps say "we'll take'em?"

SA
Oh, yeah. The Air Force doesn't want the Army having any winged aircraft that are armed. We've got a few fixed wing that are unarmed, but the AF is very defensive about the subject. It pisses them off that the Army had more aircraft than they do (if you count rotor-wing aircraft).
Dennis Dezendorf
PawPaw's House
User avatar
Jericho941
Posts: 5180
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:30 am

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by Jericho941 »

It's still a 20-ton jet doing a 7-ton plane's job.
Heavily armored and capable of flying low and slow, the A-10 was built to make devastating low-level attacks against Soviet armored columns with missiles, bombs, and its GAU-8/A Avenger 30-millimeter gun.
Partially correct.

The only part that's armored is the damn titanium bathtub, whose sole utility is helping the pilot live long enough to eject, and causing electromagnetic interference problems since there's only one hole in it through which to run all the wires into the cockpit that carry the signals to the avionics that keep the Hawg relevant, since things like "blue-on-blue" tend to be even more frowned upon today than in the 1970s.

Image
A bird strike on the "heavily armored" A-10.

It was intended to take out tanks with bombs and missiles in a threat environment primarily made up of AAA that would seem positively Stone Age today. As for the GAU-8, it was barely capable of damaging T-62s when it came out. Thanks to the PACS upgrade in the 1990s, you're more likely to score a damaging hit on one, but relatively few countries use the T-62 anymore.

Frankly, the GAU-8 is garbage. It's not enough gun to do what it's supposed to do anymore, i.e. take out armored vehicles, and it's too much gun for everything else. You don't need 30mm to shred light vehicles and people, but it does do a nice job rattling the jet apart.
The Air Force contends that the A-10 can no longer survive on the modern battlefield against modern air defenses.
Yeah, with a few widely-publicized exceptions, Desert Storm proved the notion of A-10s taking hits and limping back home was a non-starter. The Strela-10 saw to that. Without SEAD, the A-10 is in serious trouble.
Critics of the retirement plan charge that the fast, unarmored F-35 isn't a real replacement for the A-10, and the limitations of the F-35's gun—which is less powerful than the GAU-8/A and carries a meager 220 rounds—make it less useful in close air support situations. The F-35 will also only be able to carry 1,000 pound GPS-guided bombs and 500 pound laser-guided bombs.
That's what SDBs are for. Additionally, the A-10 can't really carry that much either. If you want it to use smart weapons, you lose a weapon station to a TGP. If you want it to stand a snowball's chance in hell in a radar threat environment, you lose another one to an ECM pod. You lose another one for every external fuel tank you want to mount on it. You can't mount Mavericks -its actual primary anti-tank weapon- near the landing gear pods or you'll melt the exposed tires on launch. And if you're launching the jets out of somewhere up high like Bagram, they don't have the thrust to get off the ground with very much at all.
While the F-35's stealth and electronic warfare capabilities may help it survive on the battlefield longer, the A-10's ability to bring a truckload of air-to-ground weapons to the fight against ISIS is more useful.
See above.

You wanna proper replacement for the A-10? Build some Skyraiders. :P
Malthorn
Posts: 198
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:42 am

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by Malthorn »

Didn't they stop production of new planes back in the 80's?
User avatar
Jericho941
Posts: 5180
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:30 am

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by Jericho941 »

Malthorn wrote:Didn't they stop production of new planes back in the 80's?
Of A-10s? Yeah, the last one rolled out in '84.
Aesop
Posts: 6149
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:17 am

Re: A-10: Like a zombie, back from the dead!!!

Post by Aesop »

Jericho941 wrote:You wanna proper replacement for the A-10? Build some Skyraiders. :P
From your lips to God's ears.
Image
Image
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Post Reply