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

[Kommander]

Remember the question here is not if the A-10 is a good plane but if the F-35 can take over its mission. If the F-35 can't the we need to keep the A-10 until it can be replaced.

[Jericho941]

Remember the question here is not if the A-10 is a good plane but if the F-35 can take over its mission. If the F-35 can't the we need to keep the A-10 until it can be replaced.

That just depends on how dedicated you are to the GAU-8.

To clarify:

The A-10's original purpose is gone. Even if Putin decided to invade Germany, Russian SAMs mean that the A-10 would be effectively sidelined while stealth and multirole aircraft do all the heavy lifting. What remains is CAS in areas without any threat to aircraft greater than a DShK or possibly MANPADS. While it can do it, it's also awfully big and expensive for that one job. Sure, the multiroles are more expensive, but you also get more out of them.

That's why I mentioned the Skyraider. It doesn't have to literally be a Skyraider, but something of similar size, armament and performance, kitted out with what it's going to need for that job: MWS, IR/laser targeting capabilities, and radios. Much smaller and cheaper to operate, does the job just as well.

[skb12172]

My dad, a US Naval Aviation vet during Korea, has always said we should have continued to upgrade the Corsair for this role. Now, he's been proven right, except we are buying a slightly inferior plane from Brazil for the same role.

[Greg]

I thought the whole point of the GAU-8 was top attack. I don't think anything out there has top armor worth the name.

[Jericho941]

http://imgur.com/a/SD8Ew

I thought the whole point of the GAU-8 was top attack. I don't think anything out there has top armor worth the name.

Consider that with a gun, this means pointing your plane straight at the ground at around 4,000 feet or less.

[Aesop]

http://imgur.com/a/SD8Ew

I thought the whole point of the GAU-8 was top attack. I don't think anything out there has top armor worth the name.

Consider that with a gun, this means pointing your plane straight at the ground at around 4,000 feet or less.

Um, no. And even for you, that's a bit bridge-dwellerish.

First of all, there's no way to point a gun "crooked at the ground", so every gun used in ground attack is pointed "straight a the ground".
Strafing has been rather well-understood as such since about 1915, so this isn't exactly news.
And the stated range for the GAU-8 is 8,000 (horizontal) ft., so even allowing for slant range, that's a distance to target of around a country mile or more.

Popping up from cover or low altitude until just before that run complicates things for return fire somewhat, or as in GW I, the standard low-threat environment had them flying above 10K', and leisurely strafing targets of opportunity from well above the danger from AAA, because the range of the gun increases with altitude.

So let's not be playing Silly Buggers about the concept of ground attack with guns, shall we?

The simply fact is that the Hog can strafe 10 targets in 10 passes, with a pK of >80%, which is as many kills as the F-35 Thunderjug can achieve fully armed and loaded out assuming it gets 100% kills (which will never happen). And at which point it's about as stealthy as a steel barn.

And before they load up the other 11 hardpoints on the A-10 with anything at all.

When they come up with something that'll do the job better, they should by all means adopt it.
But it ain't the F-35, and Congress knows it, which is why they've shoved a crowbar up USAF command's ass to pull their heads out, and halt shelving a more capable plane in favor of a ruptured turkey.

[dfwmtx]

I'm surprised there isn't a drone or UAV to take over for CAS work.

[Aesop]

Something about guys on the ground not trusting their asses to the marksmanship skills of flight school dropouts sitting in a trailer two satellite uplinks away.

When they get to the point that the JAC can run the show with a hand controller and video display in a foxhole on the line, it's going to get a lot more fun all around.

[Jericho941]

http://imgur.com/a/SD8Ew

I thought the whole point of the GAU-8 was top attack. I don't think anything out there has top armor worth the name.

Consider that with a gun, this means pointing your plane straight at the ground at around 4,000 feet or less.

Um, no. And even for you, that's a bit bridge-dwellerish.

Oh, this should be good.

First of all, there's no way to point a gun "crooked at the ground", so every gun used in ground attack is pointed "straight a the ground".

Even for you, that's absurdly obtuse. If you can't tell from context that I'm talking about an excessively steep dive angle, then you have no business complaining about the reading comprehension of the average public high schooler.

Strafing has been rather well-understood as such since about 1915, so this isn't exactly news.
And the stated range for the GAU-8 is 8,000 (horizontal) ft., so even allowing for slant range, that's a distance to target of around a country mile or more.

Ducky! But we're not talking about horizontal range. We're talking about the range at which the GAU-8 can be used to attack the top armor of a tank, penetrate it, and do so enough times to disable it. Which brings me to the next bit.

Popping up from cover or low altitude until just before that run complicates things for return fire somewhat, or as in GW I, the standard low-threat environment had them flying above 10K', and leisurely strafing targets of opportunity from well above the danger from AAA, because the range of the gun increases with altitude.

Yeah, about that. The GAU-8 will penetrate 38mm of armor from a thousand meters, or 3,280 feet. The roof of a T-62's turret is 40mm thick. If you try it from 10,000 feet up, you're not going to accomplish a damn thing. You're also going to miss a lot more, since under ideal conditions, with the PACS upgrade, 80% of your shots are going to go into roughly tank-sized target at... 4,000 feet.

These were not numbers I pulled out of my ass. Attacking the roof of a tank with the gun requires a steep dive angle at low altitude, which dramatically decreases the amount of time you can spend with the reticle on the target, which decreases the number of bullets you can shoot at it, which decreases the number of bullets you can actually put in it.

It makes a lot more sense to try and disable the tank's engine by attacking it from behind at a shallower dive angle.

So let's not be playing Silly Buggers about the concept of ground attack with guns, shall we?

Hey, you started it.

The simply fact is that the Hog can strafe 10 targets in 10 passes, with a pK of >80%, which is as many kills as the F-35 Thunderjug can achieve fully armed and loaded out assuming it gets 100% kills (which will never happen). And at which point it's about as stealthy as a steel barn.

And before they load up the other 11 hardpoints on the A-10 with anything at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FopyRHHlt3M

If stealth is a concern for the F-35, the A-10 can strafe 0 out of 0 targets in 0 passes, because it's either safely tucked away far from the AO or it's a burning crater.

I'm also curious as to where you're getting these ridiculous numbers. Look up the Small Diameter Bomb and things like BRU racks. Foxtrot Alpha is not a valid source. A "fully armed and loaded out" F-35 will carry more than 10 individual weapons.

When they come up with something that'll do the job better, they should by all means adopt it.

We already have something that'll do the job better. It's called the F-15E. Unless you're talking about low-intensity conflict fixed-wing CAS, in which case everything we've got is a bit much, but at least we get more utility out of everything that's not a Hawg.

When they come up with something that'll do the job better, they should by all means adopt it.
But it ain't the F-35, and Congress knows it, which is why they've shoved a crowbar up USAF command's ass to pull their heads out, and halt shelving a more capable plane in favor of a ruptured turkey.

This is a populist move, nothing more. A-10 fanboys are the bronies of the aviation world.

You can tell because they don't plan on paying for it.

[Termite]

Fact: The Chair Force doesn't like doing CAS.
Fact: The Hog is getting really long in the tooth, and was designed decades ago.
Fact: Fast movers doing CAS work make US Army grunts REALLY nervous. There's a reason Pawpaw and his troopers said "danger close" when radioing in A-10s for CAS practice missions.

Solutions: there are no perfect ones. I think that a "Super Bronco" would be the bees knees in a non- to -low SAM threat area, if you only need light to medium load outs, that can get there quickly. And have a plane that can literally use 2-lane highways for a runway.

An AC-130 can absolutely devastate an area.....if there's no SAM threat.

Apaches are superb tank, APC, and truck killers. But they are somewhat vulnerable to ground fire.

As I said......there are no perfect solutions.