Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II

Ainen said:
Point of CAS aircraft (rather than mission; as opposed to strike aircraft) is exactly when you need a specialist aircraft to do the job, in conditions where it can't be done otherwise.
It was this way since 1918 - other than WW2 eastern front (which was stupidity), most CAS never was delivered by specialist aircraft in the first place.
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Respectfully I find this to be a bad comparison. A CAS aircraft of the 2030s does not need to perform the mission as something from the 1920s-1940s lol. The future of CAS can be broken up into a lot of possible scenarios . You do not need a subsonic ground attack aircraft flying around vulnerable to SAMs, small arms, enemy aircraft, or anything you can dream of. A near future call for CAS (~5 years time) could see a ground element using someone like ATAK linked to JADC2 to call in GBU-53/Bs from nearby F-35s. The F-35 never seen the target, they just had to authorize the munition launch. The ground element could order nearby OWA drones or launch ALEs from nearby rotary wing aviation. All without the host platform being “dedicated” to CAS. This isn’t the 1940s anymore. You don’t need a P-47 to fly around doing gun runs. The A-10 doesn’t need a “1-1” replacement. The argument that the Sandy role requires a low altitude, low survivability replacement because “muh gun scary” is nonsense. If the Sandy role absolutely requires a low altitude show of force to support the CSAR element then you could easily have the HC-130 / CSAR platform carry dozens if not hundreds of air launched effects. Those drones could not only provide increased sensor coverage but also strike targets of opportunity and provide this supposedly important show of force aspect.
 
jsport said:
Close Air Support in cluttered complex terrain defines the next battlefield requirement. The current front. although often open terrain, includes highly enmeshed red/blue ground units. Urban environments magnify the problem.

A ground force dedicated craft w/ drone mothership capabilities augmenting precision direct fire capabilities is needed more than ever.
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Probably.

At least 2 crew, likely more.


Hull down said:
The argument that the Sandy role requires a low altitude, low survivability replacement because “muh gun scary” is nonsense. If the Sandy role absolutely requires a low altitude show of force to support the CSAR element then you could easily have the HC-130 / CSAR platform carry dozens if not hundreds of air launched effects. Those drones could not only provide increased sensor coverage but also strike targets of opportunity and provide this supposedly important show of force aspect.
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despite my personal PTSD from P-3 Orions, C-130s are not generally scary.
 
Question: if the A-10's lower minimum/stall speed is one of its primary advantages over the F-35 in certain roles, would it make sense to use the F-35B in those roles? As in, have it pop open the lift fan and do the sort of slow cruise it does while going for a roll-on landing (not to actually hover, of course, because that requires redlining the engine and presumably it will be laden enough to still need lift from the wings to stay airborne) while it does the part of its mission that needs that low speed?

Alternately, if all you need to do CAS is a high altitude platform with precision guided weapons and a good enough targeting system, then I imagine the CAS role is probably going to be taken over by the MQ-9, which has apparently seen *heavy* use in Iran so far, was apparently referred to by a CENTCOM commander as the MVP of the operation, can loiter for literal days, and is attritable.
 
Air Superior said:
Insufficient compared to what, exactly?
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Any helicopter gunship and/or cas big aircraft.
Single hot engine, lack of DIRCM, and modest IR suppression are the obvious call-outs. Low number of IR countermeasures.

This is not to say A-10 has them, but A-10 is a Vietnam era design.

JS23 said:
Alternately, if all you need to do CAS is a high altitude platform with precision guided weapons and a good enough targeting system, then I imagine the CAS role is probably going to be taken over by the MQ-9, which has apparently seen *heavy* use in Iran so far, was apparently referred to by a CENTCOM commander as the MVP of the operation, can loiter for literal days, and is attritable.
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MQ-9 is also the highest loss component of the entire fight (which can be doubled if we take into account Israeli MALEs).
Notably, MQ-9s often couldn't maintain their safe altitude - whether for the need of higher resolution or to use terrain mask.

And that over an open large country; CAS aircraft is assumed more often than not to live around the GBAD envelope. Flying high should be done whenever it's feasible. But you just have to assume situations where you can't fly high, you have to fly(loiter, escort) low for extended periods of time.
 
Hull down said:
Respectfully I find this to be a bad comparison. A CAS aircraft of the 2030s does not need to perform the mission as something from the 1920s-1940s lol. The future of CAS can be broken up into a lot of possible scenarios . You do not need a subsonic ground attack aircraft flying around vulnerable to SAMs, small arms, enemy aircraft, or anything you can dream of. A near future call for CAS (~5 years time) could see a ground element using someone like ATAK linked to JADC2 to call in GBU-53/Bs from nearby F-35s. The F-35 never seen the target, they just had to authorize the munition launch. The ground element could order nearby OWA drones or launch ALEs from nearby rotary wing aviation. All without the host platform being “dedicated” to CAS. This isn’t the 1940s anymore. You don’t need a P-47 to fly around doing gun runs. The A-10 doesn’t need a “1-1” replacement. The argument that the Sandy role requires a low altitude, low survivability replacement because “muh gun scary” is nonsense. If the Sandy role absolutely requires a low altitude show of force to support the CSAR element then you could easily have the HC-130 / CSAR platform carry dozens if not hundreds of air launched effects. Those drones could not only provide increased sensor coverage but also strike targets of opportunity and provide this supposedly important show of force aspect.
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Fighter-bombers of the 1940s weren't were direct ancestors of strike fighters of today, so there isn't that much difference; they don't serve as stand in to A-10; rather to F-35. They could also deliver air strikes with higher survivability to flak when compared to actual ground attack aircraft - at the expense of CAS effectiveness. Or, they could go lower and take risks, becoming both more vulnerable and less effective. That's likely exactly what F-35 did when it was hit in the last war(head-on launch by a small IR missile).

Yes, F-35 (or anything else, including A-10; you don't need F-35 for that, a HIMARS truck will do) can deliver SDBs to designated targets; this is not the point. The point of CAS aircraft is exactly when ground control can not give you the picture. They're pinned into the mud and dying, for example.

Drones, especially small ones from a mother ship(capability requiring preparation and setup time), are a different capability altogether.

And honestly it's almost funny, how an organization of the level of USAF for 50 years fights an aircraft, which it just can not exceed. Feels a bit like the Royal Society ghosting the Royal Navy for 300 years just to avoid their first screw-up.
 
Ainen said:
Fighter-bombers of the 1940s weren't were direct ancestors of strike fighters of today, so there isn't that much difference; they don't serve as stand in to A-10; rather to F-35.
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Point of order!

The Stuka, Shturmovik, A-36 dive bomber, and maybe the SBD are effectively the WW2 predecessors of the Skyraider and A-10.



Ainen said:
The point of CAS aircraft is exactly when ground control can not give you the picture. They're pinned into the mud and dying, for example.
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Exactly, though you're not going to get CAS if your TACP/JTAC isn't on the radio. If they can't talk, they're dead and so is everyone else.

The point of CAS aircraft is when a ground controller is still talking into the radio.


Ainen said:
Drones, especially small ones from a mother ship(capability requiring preparation and setup time), are a different capability altogether.
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I'm not convinced that "Assault Breaker but with drones talking back to a controller" is the correct answer.


Ainen said:
And honestly it's almost funny, how an organization of the level of USAF for 50 years fights an aircraft, which it just can not exceed. Feels a bit like the Royal Society ghosting the Royal Navy for 300 years just to avoid their first screw-up.
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Because the USAF never wanted the A-10, they just wanted the Army to not have the AH-56.
 
Air Superior said:
This is just absolutely not true. The MQ-9 does not need to fly low to increase the resolution of the DAS-5.
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Well, then we have to accept that drones fly at altitudes of 2-3km in places without overcast just because operators need to show enemies their balls... (speaking of which, while US mostly fights in dry places nowadays, SEA is indeed anything but).
There was plenty of footage of american jets and especially drones at lower altitudes over Iran; we saw it both ways(clear detailed civilian videos from the ground, as well as FLIR footage from attacking drones themselves; no one hides it). Some of that was surely attitude/permissive environment(gun runs), but not all and not most. Plus I remember a lot of Bayraktar footage from medium altitude.

Saving F-15 pilots appears to be a particularly primarily low altitude mission, mostly done just under the envelope of active air defenses of Isfahan area.

Scott Kenny said:
Because the USAF never wanted the A-10, they just wanted the Army to not have the AH-56.
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And they're desperate enough to get away from this mistake to let MV-75 into existence. ;)
 
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Ainen said:
And they're desperate enough to get away from this mistake to let MV-75 into existence. ;)
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The USAF sure doesn't want to have thousands of pilots shuffling grunts around. That is below an actual Air Force pilot's dignity.
 
Air Superior said:
How are you gauging this? All on-screen metadata is immediately redacted as it is CUI so where are you getting your information for this claim?
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You can reasonably guess altitude from oblique angle and speed of angular movement. It's rather simple geometry after all.
Especially if you watched a lot of similar videos(for example, TB2 ones) before.
Air Superior said:
And this isn't even full resolution!
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Those are damn cool optics indeed.
But my understanding is sometimes - often, in fact, combat requires it.

I am not a drone pilot, so my guesses are common sense only.
 
Wes O'Donnell has a video out about the A-10 and a as yet unwon country who wants to buy some retired A-10s, it could be Jordan or it could be Ukraine*:


A mystery country just asked the U.S. if they could buy retired A-10 Warthogs. The Pentagon said no. Then it pointed them toward the OA-1K Skyraider II; which is what you get when somebody looks at an agricultural aircraft, the kind that sprays soybean fields in Iowa, and decides it needs Hellfire missiles and a mission-planning cell. That sounds like a joke. It's also a completely serious aircraft the Air Force is flying right now.​
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In this video: what the OA-1K can actually do versus what the A-10 was built for, why the honest conclusion is "close, but not the Warthog," and who the mystery country is, because the evidence points somewhere different than you might think.​
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Video Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...ON4zsmclRC-YRs/edit?usp=sharing&v=75eQRPivyvE
#A10Warthog #Military #Ukraine #UkraineWar #Aviation #USAF #OA1K #Skyraider #DefenseNews #Jordan
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* Ukraine would put it to good use hunting not only Russian drones but also Russian cruise-missiles such as the AS-15 Kent, AS-23 Kodiak and SS-N-27 Sizzler.
 
NMaude said:
* Ukraine would put it to good use hunting not only Russian drones but also Russian cruise-missiles such as the AS-15 Kent, AS-23 Kodiak and SS-N-27 Sizzler.
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All cruise missiles are faster at low altitude cruise than the number a factory fresh, clean A-10 could ever do - at altitude.
 
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NMaude said:
Wes O'Donnell has a video out about the A-10 and a as yet unwon country who wants to buy some retired A-10s, it could be Jordan or it could be Ukraine*:






* Ukraine would put it to good use hunting not only Russian drones but also Russian cruise-missiles such as the AS-15 Kent, AS-23 Kodiak and SS-N-27 Sizzler.
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Even Ukraine wouldn’t want those. Just another airframe to maintain but with far less value than an F-16.
 
At some point the cult of the A-10 just needs to die. Literally every comment section about the A-10 and the plans for its divestment is littered with these nonsense comments about how "The Army will take 'em in a heartbeat once the Air Force parks them", "I hear the Marine Corps plans to put them into service", "Our allies are chomping at the bit to fly them - we need to transfer them to friendly nations".

Like, dear lord we should be grateful this mindset did not exist all throughout history - we'd still be flying P-51s instead of F-22s and F-35s.
 
HaveVoid said:
At some point the cult of the A-10 just needs to die. Literally every comment section about the A-10 and the plans for its divestment is littered with these nonsense comments about how "The Army will take 'em in a heartbeat once the Air Force parks them", "I hear the Marine Corps plans to put them into service", "Our allies are chomping at the bit to fly them - we need to transfer them to friendly nations".

Like, dear lord we should be grateful this mindset did not exist all throughout history - we'd still be flying P-51s instead of F-22s and F-35s.
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The big problem is that the Reformers are invasive in their cult. The USAF only took the A-10 because an ignorant Congress, which didn't learn the lessons of Vietnam (i.e., high and fast is the only way to fly anything, NOE is becoming a death sentence), forced it upon them.

As long as we don't accept that Edward Bernays isn't wrong, they'll be around forever.
 
GruntFox said:
The big problem is that the Reformers are invasive in their cult. The USAF only took the A-10 because an ignorant Congress, which didn't learn the lessons of Vietnam (i.e., high and fast is the only way to fly anything, NOE is becoming a death sentence), forced it upon them.

As long as we don't accept that Edward Bernays isn't wrong, they'll be around forever.
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I think the USAF rather owed it to everyone to go ahead with their planned A-10 order especially after they'd gone so hard after the Army's AH-56.
 
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GruntFox said:
The big problem is that the Reformers are invasive in their cult. The USAF only took the A-10 because an ignorant Congress, which didn't learn the lessons of Vietnam
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The big problem was that the unique circumstances of the Cold War ending and the GWOT following, made it look like there was a place for the A-10. These circumstances were incredibly unique and won't be replicated in my lifetime. And even in this perfect storm, the A-10 was not ideal for it's role. Now that the writing is on the wall, it's clear that the A-10 can't survive in this environment today.
 
Take the gun out, put a second crewman in and manage the interdiction effort from there.
Lots they could be used for other than the gun.
Give it an "Arnie" vocal makeover and use it/drones to secure mil sites etc, or enforce parking in the red zones.

"I am giving you a ticket.............".

Interdict drugs/people smuggling ops.
 
Foo Fighter said:
Take the gun out, put a second crewman in and manage the interdiction effort from there.
Lots they could be used for other than the gun.
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If you take the gun out the whole plane falls on its tail.

There's a LOT of steel in that gun, the whole gun-and-ammo-hopper combo weighs about 3900lbs.
 
The gun was stupid from the start, surprising that was ever green lit to begin with. Unfortunately taking it out now doesn't make the aircraft any less obsolete. The best course of action is to retire, scrap and recycle them. Make something useful out of them.
 
Foo Fighter said:
Take the gun out, put a second crewman in and manage the interdiction effort from there.
Lots they could be used for other than the gun.
Give it an "Arnie" vocal makeover and use it/drones to secure mil sites etc, or enforce parking in the red zones.

"I am giving you a ticket.............".

Interdict drugs/people smuggling ops.
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Just buy some AT-6s, far cheaper...
 
EmoBirb said:
The gun was stupid from the start, surprising that was ever green lit to begin with. Unfortunately taking it out now doesn't make the aircraft any less obsolete. The best course of action is to retire, scrap and recycle them. Make something useful out of them.
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30mm Guns on 1970s ground attack aircraft are more or less built-in rocket pods. They had their role back then - to a certain degree(CSAR/armed escort) to this day.
 
Ainen said:
30mm Guns on 1970s ground attack aircraft are more or less built-in rocket pods. They had their role back then - to a certain degree(CSAR/armed escort) to this day.
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You can use a gun closer to friendly ground forces than a rocket pod.
 
The British may disagree.

Aside from the fact that neither solution provides the same effectiveness against any given target as precision guided munitions. Although laser guided rockets have come quite a long way nowadays.
 

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