LinkThe U.S. Air Force has decided to indefinitely postpone the retirement of the legendary A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack plane.
F-35 Thunderjug deployment postponed indefinitely due to being a total POS in 5, 4, 3...
LinkThe U.S. Air Force has decided to indefinitely postpone the retirement of the legendary A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack plane.
Fixed it for themAesop 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.
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).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
Partially correct.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.
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.The Air Force contends that the A-10 can no longer survive on the modern battlefield against modern air defenses.
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.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.
See above.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.
Of A-10s? Yeah, the last one rolled out in '84.Malthorn wrote:Didn't they stop production of new planes back in the 80's?
From your lips to God's ears.Jericho941 wrote:You wanna proper replacement for the A-10? Build some Skyraiders.