A-10 warthog successor

A_Kid1234

A_Kid1234

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will the A-10 have a successor that can can preform as well or better thant the A-10?
 
All joking aside, I would start with something like this even though I think a near peer engagement with a A-10 or A-10 like aircraft would end up as confetti in the sky. Let the Ukrainian war be the lesson. Save the souls in the cockpit; go with an extremely maneuverable and quick ucav.
 

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djfawcett said:
All joking aside, I would start with something like this even though I think a near peer engagement with a A-10 or A-10 like aircraft would end up as confetti in the sky. Let the Ukrainian war be the lesson. Save the souls in the cockpit; go with an extremely maneuverable and quick ucav.
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having a mostly UAV air force would be interesting, but would they be fully autonomous or have a pilot at a nearby location?
 
djfawcett said:
All joking aside, I would start with something like this even though I think a near peer engagement with a A-10 or A-10 like aircraft would end up as confetti in the sky. Let the Ukrainian war be the lesson. Save the souls in the cockpit; go with an extremely maneuverable and quick ucav.
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djfawcett said:
All joking aside, I would start with something like this even though I think a near peer engagement with a A-10 or A-10 like aircraft would end up as confetti in the sky. Let the Ukrainian war be the lesson. Save the souls in the cockpit; go with an extremely maneuverable and quick ucav.
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The rodrigo-avella-01 looks a lot like Textron's Scorpion.
 
Kid, not fully autonomous, but a pilot/vehicle commander somewhere. AI is not developed to the point to allow life and death decisions.
 
djfawcett said:
Kid, not fully autonomous, but a pilot/vehicle commander somewhere. AI is not developed to the point to allow life and death decisions.
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If you actually read the entire thing you would realize that I suggested what you just said.
 
Bounce said:
Yes, it's called the F-35.
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Entirely different mission types. F-35s should not be wasted flying CAS, it should be flying Battlefield Air Interdiction, dropping bombs before the enemy gets into shooting range of the Army.


A_Kid1234 said:
will the A-10 have a successor that can can preform as well or better thant the A-10?
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There was a fairly serious and well reasoned proposal for the USAF to buy F-18F Super Hornets as the replacement for A-10s. Faster, flies higher, so it can get to a trouble spot faster. Carries about the same weight of boom. Better protected against missiles, since things like APKWS and SDB allow it to be outside of most AA gun and MANPADS range, plus has chaff and flares and jammers already onboard. Supersonic and maneuverable in case someone sends fighters to argue the ownership of the sky. Capable of fairly short takeoffs and landings due to the carrier bits. Overbuilt landing gear for rougher field operations also from the carrier bits. -Fs specifically because that gives the back seater the ability to either wrangle drones or otherwise act as a flying FAC. Plus, the Marines flying the beasts are already good CAS fliers, and can teach the Air Force and ANG folks how to best use a Super Bug for CAS.

I 100% support this idea as an "oh shit China just declared war" item.

I'd rather see a built for purpose plane if we have a decade to work through the governmental contracting BS.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Entirely different mission types. F-35s should not be wasted flying CAS, it should be flying Battlefield Air Interdiction, dropping bombs before the enemy gets into shooting range of the Army.



There was a fairly serious and well reasoned proposal for the USAF to buy F-18F Super Hornets as the replacement for A-10s. Faster, flies higher, so it can get to a trouble spot faster. Carries about the same weight of boom. Better protected against missiles, since things like APKWS and SDB allow it to be outside of most AA gun and MANPADS range, plus has chaff and flares and jammers already onboard. Supersonic and maneuverable in case someone sends fighters to argue the ownership of the sky. Capable of fairly short takeoffs and landings due to the carrier bits. Overbuilt landing gear for rougher field operations also from the carrier bits. -Fs specifically because that gives the back seater the ability to either wrangle drones or otherwise act as a flying FAC. Plus, the Marines flying the beasts are already good CAS fliers, and can teach the Air Force and ANG folks how to best use a Super Bug for CAS.

I 100% support this idea as an "oh shit China just declared war" item.

I'd rather see a built for purpose plane if we have a decade to work through the governmental contracting BS.
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So the F-18 does seem like a good replacement, but isn’t better to fly slow so you have more time to acquire the target and aim properly?
 
A_Kid1234 said:
So the F-18 does seem like a good replacement, but isn’t better to fly slow so you have more time to acquire the target and aim properly?
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If you're doing gun runs or dropping dumb bombs, sure. And the F-18 can slow down to about 200knots or less and still fly if you need to.

But if you're using APKWS laser-guided rockets or JDAMs or SDB, the pilot isn't aiming those.
 
Scott Kenny said:
If you're doing gun runs or dropping dumb bombs, sure. And the F-18 can slow down to about 200knots or less and still fly if you need to.

But if you're using APKWS laser-guided rockets or JDAMs or SDB, the pilot isn't aiming those.
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Good information, but how do aircraft stay efficient at subsonic and supersonic speeds?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Generally? they don't.

You can optimize for subsonic or for supersonic. Not that many planes will be supersonic with external ordnance.
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That’s interesting, I keep seeing things about aircraft that are optimal for multiple speed zones
 
A_Kid1234 said:
That’s interesting, I keep seeing things about aircraft that are optimal for multiple speed zones
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I've usually seen that in reference to low and high subsonic, which can be done with a supercritical wing design. Not subsonic and supersonic. Good low speed handling and low takeoff speed due to the blunt leading edge and high camber once the flaps get into action, but also low drag when at high speeds. That wing shape even works relatively well supersonic, it was tested on a NASA F-8 Crusader.

But "optimal"? Nope, there's only one place any design works optimally. Everything else is how much % efficiency you are relative to that optimum.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Entirely different mission types. F-35s should not be wasted flying CAS, it should be flying Battlefield Air Interdiction, dropping bombs before the enemy gets into shooting range of the Army.
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That's my point, the A-10 is toast and the F-35 does everything it can do better from further and safer, the mission has moved on. Also Isreal has been using their in CAS.
 
Bounce said:
That's my point, the A-10 is toast and the F-35 does everything it can do better from further and safer, the mission has moved on. Also Isreal has been using their in CAS.
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But in a scenario where the enemy has gotten to the threshold where CAS is required, the A-10 is still useful.
 
Reading comprehension 101 lads.

Back to reality. That replacement is called the LockMart F-35, because the USAF is neither rich enough to buy another expensive A-10 rerun nor wasting the goldmine that is LCAAT. Or they are just smart enough to realized that a Hog won't survive modern IADS and when there is none then there are much better options, and chose to not buy any, but still keep the US Congress at bay ( hurr durr no hog no HIConflict win).

Accept it or not, the future of USAF CAS is Lightnings and Stormbreakers. Now I cringe a bit. Who named these?
 
A_Kid1234 said:
So the F-18 does seem like a good replacement, but isn’t better to fly slow so you have more time to acquire the target and aim properly?
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Flying slow also gives the enemy more time to ready his AA guns/manpads/mobile SAM and to aim them properly AT YOU!
 
Didn't we just have two entire separate threads talking about this very topic? I believe the consensus is:
1) A plane capable of doing CAS in a denied environment is far too expensive when the job can be done much cheaper by stuff like HIMARS and drones.
2) A plane capable of doing CAS in a permissive environment can be done easily and already exists AT-802, AT-6, AC-130, any armed trainer, etc...
 
Desertfox said:
Didn't we just have two entire separate threads talking about this very topic? I believe the consensus is:
1) A plane capable of doing CAS in a denied environment is far too expensive when the job can be done much cheaper by stuff like HIMARS and drones.
2) A plane capable of doing CAS in a permissive environment can be done easily and already exists AT-802, AT-6, AC-130, any armed trainer, etc...
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Yeah, I'm expecting a dedicated "CAS in denied environment" plane is going to be about $60-70mil a copy if you give it all the tools itself.

If you start allowing offboard sensors into the mix you can probably get the drone quarterback plane/helicopter/tilt-rotor cheaper (new build AH-64Es are $40mil or so, new build AH-1Zs are ~$33mil), and other people will want to see the sensor feeds from the VLO loitering spotters. And that does kinda legitimately make the drone quarterback fall into the OH-58 role. Flying Cav Scout, minimally armed itself and letting the drones do the spotting and shooting, with a human close to the front for minimal signal delay.

This set of conversations has greatly helped my thought process for a "Colonial Marine" organization, where you're talking about what tools to give a roughly battalion sized force that is intended to be at the far end of a months-long supply line for extended times.
 
Both Desertfox and Scott Kenny are on point. I have said for quite some time, the A-10 is well past it's time in denied environment modern warfare. UCAVs are the answer with a human manager/pilot in the loop. AI is not mature enough to allow the system self identification and elimination. The target can be identified by the manager/pilot, and the "AI vehicle" can determine the best ingress/egress for target elimination. The AI vehicle would be very effective because its maneuvers would not be subject to human pilot limitations - as an example, a sustained 15g pull, pushover, etc. The adversary would find it extremely difficult to target the vehicle. By the time a solution is derived ........BOOM!!!!!!! On to number two............
 
djfawcett said:
Both Desertfox and Scott Kenny are on point. I have said for quite some time, the A-10 is well past it's time in denied environment modern warfare. UCAVs are the answer with a human manager/pilot in the loop. AI is not mature enough to allow the system self identification and elimination. The target can be identified by the manager/pilot, and the "AI vehicle" can determine the best ingress/egress for target elimination. The AI vehicle would be very effective because its maneuvers would not be subject to human pilot limitations - as an example, a sustained 15g pull, pushover, etc. The adversary would find it extremely difficult to target the vehicle. By the time a solution is derived ........BOOM!!!!!!! On to number two............
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So I see the point of having UCAVs with pilots at a separate location, but would the pilot be in a gyro to give them a sense of orientation?
 
A_Kid1234 said:
So I see the point of having UCAVs with pilots at a separate location, but would the pilot be in a gyro to give them a sense of orientation?
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No, he is not flying the aircraft unless there is a necessity. All he is doing for the most part is identifying mission destinations and targets. Then, in theory, the vehicle take over determining flight path etc. depending on the denied environment.
 
djfawcett said:
No, he is not flying the aircraft unless there is a necessity. All he is doing for the most part is identifying mission destinations and targets. Then, in theory, the vehicle take over determining flight path etc. depending on the denied environment.
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So all the operator does is designate targets?
 
Alongside the F-18 for CAS, the wild weasel version and electronic warfare versions would reduce the threat for long enopugh to use other assets where possible. Are they still around? I read somewhere the Marines had withdrawn them from servie but that might just be deployed elsewhere.
 
Foo Fighter said:
Alongside the F-18 for CAS, the wild weasel version and electronic warfare versions would reduce the threat for long enopugh to use other assets where possible. Are they still around? I read somewhere the Marines had withdrawn them from servie but that might just be deployed elsewhere.
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Super Hornets, not Legacy. Don't think there are any Legacy Hornets (FA-18C/D) still in service, but there are still plenty of E/F/Gs in service.
 
The USN has transitioned all F/A-18A/B/C/D squadrons to F/A-18E/Fs and F-35Cs.
They also transitioned their EA-6B squadrons to EA-18Gs (modified F/A-18Fs).


The USMC never got any Super Hornets, just the original models.
When the USMC retired its EA-6Bs they didn't bother getting EA-18Gs at all.

The USMC still has 4 squadrons equipped with F/A-18Cs and 2 with F/A-18Ds.
They have 2 AV-8B squadrons.
They have 7 F-35B squadrons and 2 F-35C squadrons.
 
BlackBat242 said:
The USN has transitioned all F/A-18A/B/C/D squadrons to F/A-18E/Fs and F-35Cs.
They also transitioned their EA-6B squadrons to EA-18Gs (modified F/A-18Fs).


The USMC never got any Super Hornets, just the original models.
When the USMC retired its EA-6Bs they didn't bother getting EA-18Gs at all.

The USMC still has 4 squadrons equipped with F/A-18Cs and 2 with F/A-18Ds.
They have 2 AV-8B squadrons.
They have 7 F-35B squadrons and 2 F-35C squadrons.
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Can't believe that the USMC didn't keep the Electronic Attack squadrons...
 

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