This is a real moral dilemma for me. I served in the military, and the A-10 is simply the best manned aircraft we have for CAS. However, I also hate the defense lobby.
On the other hand, no other aircraft does what the A-10 does as well, and the Air Force would shut it down if simply given the money in a lump sum with no conditions. The defense contractors associated with the F-35 would love to replace the low-margin A-10 with their newest shiny toy even if it is not as effective.
The fact that this is a debate right now is a sad testament to the power of the defense lobby and poor defense procurement.
They ought to think ahead and refit the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones.
> the A-10 is simply the best manned aircraft we have for CAS
You won't hear it here or on jalopnik et all, but there's substantive disagreement on this.
The A-10 no longer has a primary mission: the gun is not effective enough against modern tanks. For CAS in low intensity conflict it's both overkill and overly expensive per operating hour vs alternatives. The CEP on the big gun is >10m while the CEP on small guided munitions is now <1m. The accuracy of the GAU-8 fire depends heavily on pilot skill, since aiming requires pointing the whole plane. This is why the A-10 has generated more friendly fire incidents than any other aircraft we fly.
Let's compare to Beech's proposed attack variant of the T-6 Texan II. Depending whose numbers you believe, it's 1/5th to 1/10th the total operational cost per flight hour. Since it's our primary trainer essentially every pilot is already familiar with it. Likewise the ground crews can keep them running with ease. There is no parts problem, whereas with the A-10 replacements parts we don't have in the sitting in the AZ desert have to be done as small scale reverse engineering (for the cost of re-winging an A-10 we could have bought a new Texan or Tucano). It has a built in stabilized E/O ball, the advantage of which could be mitigated a bit by putting a pod on the A-10. But the T-6 is also a two seater, which allows situational awareness an A-10 pilot will never have. The back seater can focus exclusively and continuously on the situation on the ground, whereas an A-10 pilot has to re-acquire and re-orient on every pass, losing awareness of changes between passes. The two seats allows operational concepts the A-10 (and F35 for that) matter do not. For example, the back seater doesn't even need to be a pilot: they could be a controller/coordinator from a different branch, service, or even nation. The aircraft could be easily adapted to ISR roles with a back seater specialized in tending the electronics.
There's this huge internet enthusiast crowd that's infatuated with a big gun and can only see taking the A-10 out of service as some sort of conspiracy. But that's not the case, there is straightforward, solid, strategic thinking behind this.
People need to look at A-10 enthusiasm critically, and consider that maybe the planners actually know some of what they're doing, rather than being pawns in congressional conspiracies.
The primary weapon against tanks carried by the A-10 is the Maverick missile. The GAU-8 can do wonders against a tank especially perforating the upper engine deck etc, but it's really designed for destroying soft targets in combination with unguided rocket pods or CBUs. Comparing it's accuracy with PGMs (that it can carry as well) is disingenuous.
Oh, and you seem to be forgetting that the A-10 has had Litening pods for quite a while, giving excellent targeting and ID capabilities.
The A-10 is one of the cheapest a/c the USAF flies, excluding drones which still can't compare with the Hog for effectiveness. There's a lot to be said for the Mark One eyeball in the cockpit. The cost for flying the A-10 would be even lower if the service wasn't continually gutting its support infrastructure.
The Texan/Tucano light prop a/c is always trotted out as the cheap alternative, but the disadvantages are huge. No self-deploy capability, no survivability against MANPADS, single engined so lower ability to overcome mechanical issues, and kleenex for armor against groundfire.
>The GAU-8 can do wonders against a tank especially perforating the upper engine deck etc, but it's really designed for destroying soft targets in combination with unguided rocket pods or CBUs.
If the gun was really designed to destroy soft targets you wouldn't need anywhere near the muzzle velocity. You'd carry something a lot lighter and you'd carry much more ammo.
No, the gun was designed to destroy tanks. For anything else it's overkill.
There is no reason to keep the A-10 around if its only role is a Maverick/Paveway truck chilling at altitude and plinking targets with Sniper/Litening. There are plenty of aircraft that can do that /and keep doing it when there are angry little men on the ground who don't want them to/, something the A-10 can't do.
Show me a working program, for a working aircraft, that has been tested in actual combat then we can talk about replacing the A-10
Most of the conversation about the A-10 seems to focus on the fact the Airforce need to free up resources for the F-35, and the combination of the F-16, F15, and F35 can replace the A-10 completely. I believe this to be false, and doubly so when the F-15 and F16 are also suppose to be replaced with the F-35.... The worst aircraft ever designed by the US Military..
SOCCOM evaluated the Tucano and loved it. The program to acquire them for US inventory was killed (and went back and forth a couple times, might be something screwy there or just the usual bureaucratic stuff). We did chose them for the ~20 aircraft we're giving the Afghan Army. They're well proven in low intensity conflict across South America.
Yup, SOCOM likes them because they're able to cherry pick equipment without having to worry about whether it's suitable for the entire Army. They have always had custom aircraft, whether it was Little Birds, or the Stealth Blackhawk. But that doesn't mean the Army should choose what SOCOM likes; different roles, and funding. The reason the Tucano and its ilk are popular is low cost and easier training. Getting the Afghan AF up to speed on maintaining a high bypass turbofan and its supply chain is several magnitudes harder than a proj job.
I'm receptive to the argument that the A-10s mission could be accomplished by something like a Super Tucano. But the problem with this is that we both know the Air Force doesn't want to do actual CAS. They don't mind flying by at 800 MPH and 30,000 feet and dropping a smart bomb, but they don't want to get in the weeds. Unless the Air Force already has these aircraft in place before they retire the A-10, it's simply not believable that they'll buy them at all, unless forced. Instead, the money will be spent on some fast moving jet. So, given the two most likely scenarios, which are A-10 or not low, slow CAS aircraft, we have to argue for the A-10.
Spot on. People complain that the F-35 is overkill for brushfire CAS missions, but what they miss is that the A-10 is overkill too.
A weaponized T-6 crew with an observer and modern ISR would have way better situational awareness than a hog driver will ever get. A turboprop would also be able to spend far more time in loiter due to the low speed efficiencies of a large prop versus a small fan.
But the AF wouldn't play ball in that game. Let the Army fly fixed wing aircraft and a practical CAS solution for interminable brushfire conflict would be implemented pretty fast I think.
> They ought to think ahead and refit the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones.
Curious as to whether this is even possible. Even if it was, I doubt the pilot requirement is the only thing keeping the Air Force from wanting to keep it around.
I don't know why you were downvoted but I think it's a fair question. I think the biggest limitations would be keeping a solid comms link (you don't want to lose connection in mid-dive for instance), and air speed (you want more reaction time due to the potential for lag or lost connections).
You would want to build in auto-pilot redundancies to have the drones fly home if they lose communications links.
For speed, the A-10 would be one of the better candidates, due to its slower loitering speed of about 300 Mph which is still significantly faster than an MQ-9 Reaper (200 Mph or so), but in-line with the MQ-9's top speed.
Even if you managed to make it stable enough to sustain fire on a target, where would you put the ammo drum? A-10s have special stands you have to put under them when you take the drum out, otherwise the whole thing tips over.
Artillery (while often sufficient) is not as accurate as someone hovering/diving from directly overhead. This is why artillery often employs aerial spotters.
While I don't have number in front of me, my instinct is that ATACMS is more expensive and less flexible on a per target basis than aerial bombardment using an A-10.
It's not more expensive when you consider the entire system: training, aircraft maintenance, air traffic control, time-on-station, wear and tear on the airframe, top cover in contested airspaces, etc. Plus the occasional loss.
During peace time an ATACMS sits in its sealed container doing nothing and requiring no maintenance, whereas pilots require constant training.
Maybe if we had a WW II style conflict where you were doing three or four productive sorties a day, but I can't imagine we'll see a conflict like that again
Even if so, it might still be cheaper to keep units equipped, trained, and operational with it between actual combat missions, which might make it more cost effective on a long-term analysis. Combat aircraft are expensive even when they aren't fighting.
Apaches are great for CAS, however one of the more common things for CAS is when someone gets pinned down. You need CAS ASAP and don't always know when you'll need reinforcements. An example would be when I was in Iraq and a pair of Kiowas with .50 machine guns and missle pods were doing air support of raids. One of the kiowas took a well aimed RPG to the tail rotor and went down in the middle of a very bad part of Tall'Afar. They made a military channel episode about it which included some of the video I shot as the payload (camera) operator of a surveillance drone in it.
I was a Shadow 200 UAV (aka drone) pilot. We needed some heavy CAS onsite ASAP to prevent a pretty large armed crowd of insurgents doing a repeat of Blackhawk Down in Somalia. So, we radioed to the nearest airbase (in Mosul) roughly 60k away and they launched a Harrier loaded with a GBU50 (Also called an Enhanced Paveway II / 2000lb bomb). The plane was onsite in a few minutes where it would have taken an Apache much much longer to get there.
They dropped that big boy munition on a weapons cache where the insurgents were going back to re-arm. Miraculously, the single infantry platoon near the crash site managed to secure the pilots and hold their ground long enough for the engineers to send a combat wrecker, pull the burning hulk of the Kiowa onto the flatbed, and get everyone out. The only injury was one of the infantryman caught a bullet in the heel. So... to recap, you need something that can go a bit faster than a helicopter sometimes to get CAS somewhere ASAP. A warthog's top speed is 460mph compared to an Apache's top speed of 182mph. The speed will save lives at times like in that video. I know this because I was literally there. It was terrifying.
EDIT (forgot to add): Apaches in fact were almost always doing aerial overwatch of large convoys when we would be driving a batallion of Strykers from Samarrah to Tall'Afar, or to Mosul, etc. The thing is that they do catch a lot of flak by being low, loud, and slow. Helos of any type tend to "hunt in pairs" as we were told as when one starts catching flak and taking fire, the other will pound the originator while the other takes evasive maneuvers. In the above story, the 2nd Kiowa was pounding the hell out of the ground but had to leave station as it was running low on ammo and 2 down helos is a really bad place to be in the middle of a very angry city.
So actually, the A10 is fast enough to reach a CAS mission, but also slow enough for a good gun run. That seems to make sense, since F35 are faster, but I don't think they're good at flying slow for a gun run.
The problem is Apaches are relatively slow, hard to maintain, and easy to shoot down. I question whether they'd exist at all if the army were allowed to operate fixed wing aircraft.
One one hand there's probably a job interest in keeping the A-10 running. Mac Thornberry has taken campaign donations from lots of defense contractors, including some related to the A-10: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/pacs.php?cycle=2016&c...
On the other hand, no other aircraft does what the A-10 does as well, and the Air Force would shut it down if simply given the money in a lump sum with no conditions. The defense contractors associated with the F-35 would love to replace the low-margin A-10 with their newest shiny toy even if it is not as effective.
The fact that this is a debate right now is a sad testament to the power of the defense lobby and poor defense procurement.
They ought to think ahead and refit the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones.