Air Force seeks more A-10 cuts, wants them all retired in 5-6 years

The Air Force wants to stop flying its remaining fleet of A-10 Warthogs by 2028, according to the service’s top uniformed official.

For over a decade, service leaders have been seeking to move away from the A-10, an aircraft beloved by forces on the ground but which Air Force planners say would be easy pickings against a future fight with Russia and China. Such requests have largely been blocked by Congress, at least until fiscal 2023, when Congress cleared the way for 21 Warthog retirements. The move dropped the total inventory of the aircraft to 260, a number Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown said he’d like to see reduced to zero in the near future.

The A-10 will “probably” be out of the service’s inventory “over the next five or six years,” Brown said during a media roundtable at the Air and Space Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium on Tuesday, days before the Pentagon is set to unveil its FY24 budget request.

A key reason Brown said the service is seeking the divestment is to move in the direction of multi-role capability. Fighters need to be able to fulfill multiple mission sets, Brown said, which the Warthog cannot achieve.

“The A-10 is a great airplane. It’s a great airplane in an uncontested environment,” he said. “The challenge is we’re going to be in more contested environments in the future.”

According to Brown, combatant commands are reluctant to even ask for the aircraft due to its limited role in close air support.

“A-10s are not the things they’re asking for,” he said, adding that “matter of fact, I’m having difficulty having them use A-10s because it’s kind of a single-mission airplane.”
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/03/air-force-seeks-more-a-10-cuts-wants-them-all-retired-in-5-6-years/

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Hehe BrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRtt

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The fact these airframes have thousands of hours on them, with nobody producing the parts probably factors into it too.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Boeing has an active re-wing program and has been making new airframe parts for years.

      https://www.boeing.com/defense/support/a-10-wing-replacement-program/index.page

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Boeing
        Yeah, it's Boeing. One slab of scrap metal? That will be $10,000 plus shipping and handling costs.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Can Trump save the A-10???

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    They were original built to hose down illegal aliens jumping over the border
    >Now that its legal there is no need for them any more

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    A10 is good for counterinsurgency. But even that is questionable because an f16 can do the same job. It has poor visibility and its slow, not suited for an environment that is remotely contested.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >f16 can do the same job
      An F16 does not boost morale as effectively as a well placed BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        a former jtac once told me a story of sending in a gun run in afghanistan and all the guys were whooping and hollering about how much they loved the a-10. it was a super hornet.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          in that case, why not just retire the a-10 and not tell anyone? win-win

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Be the A-10 you want to be and don't let anyone stop you.
          t. Cessna T-37 with a minigun pod

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Just get a Skyraider.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        say that to my face Black person

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      in what way does the A-10C have poor visibility?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        In the way that causes it to have 4 friendly fire incidents due to low visibility. Also meme brrrt misses about 60% of shots.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Also the gun has a spread the size of a football field. It's also worth noting that it's a daytime aircraft without the cameras from its Maverick missiles.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Its also worth noting that your mother is a prostitute who should have swallowed you.
            The Maverick thing hasn't been true for almost two decades.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >4 friendly fire incidents due to low visibility
          Part and parcel of joining his majesty's army really

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Is it though? The dispersion on the gun is really, really fricking bad. People talk about it being good at close air support but it's a straight up liability to fire that in close proximity to friendlies.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >a10 is good in CAS
        gun running is vatnik tier. You endanger yourself, the gun does nothing against anything that isn't a direct hit on soft target, most of the plane is the gun leading to decreased range, payload, inferior aerodynamics.

        A10's biggest moments of glory would've been easily surpassed by almost any multirole. A10 is just a paint target on screen, watch it dissapear like the rest of them. Doing a gun run is a dangerous coin flip against the enemies it was designed to gun run against as it becomes the only plane that could easily be shot down by a commanders hmg

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >the gun does nothing against anything that isn't a direct hit on soft target
          30mm HE has decently larger area of effect.

          You're not wrong about flexibility and safety of the other weapons.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            dude shut the frick up, the HE filler on a PGU-13B is HALF that of a frag grenade

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              how does the amount of fragments and HE filler of a frag grenade compare to a couple hundred of those landing on top of some poor sobs?

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              I'll be honest, I don't think that matters. Assuming they shoot at me with one brrrrt, I wont notice a huge difference between having 500 or 250 grenades exploding all around me at once.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >area of effect
            Meme. Area of effect is a byproduct, not the goal. If you can increase the precision you do so, this is where all modern weaponry has been evolving to.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              actually, GAU-8 has a built-in spread designed into it so it doesn't become too accurate, which increases hit probability

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >The dispersion on the gun is really, really fricking bad. People talk about it being good at close air support but it's a straight up liability to fire that in close proximity to friendlies.
        I fricking hate the A-10 but this is a meme. The GAU-8 dispersion is actually lower than with the M61 Vulcan. Here's an accurate burst on a remote-driven Humvee:

        If you've ever heard of "danger close", that's when troops call in for support and they're inside the radius that's considered "splash radius" for the weapon. For a conventional bomb, the value can be hundreds of meters. For the GAU-8 within correct firing parameters, the danger close radius is listed at 30 meters.
        You can't use it as a scalpel to pick off individual fighters in a crowd, but "close proximity" doesn't mean bad breath range, it means rifle range.
        I've never heard the "GAU-8 dispersion is LE BAD!" argument until LazerPig's video and I'm sure he misinterpreted what his sources said.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          good post

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It really isn't. The statistics for Iraq & Afghanistan disprove this.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Can you post those?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Of course not!
          and when they are posted OP (homosexual) will keep quiet about the fact A-10 have more ground kills simply because they were sent on missions against ground vehicles more often than f-16
          and if any other statistic were to be posted they will fail to mention that a-10 got mot of its kill with missiles and not the gun

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      A Cessna 208 can do the same job.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Don't forget the OV-10, Brazil's Taco, and that one crop duster from Texas.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        https://i.imgur.com/m4A9lSu.jpg

        Don't forget the OV-10, Brazil's Taco, and that one crop duster from Texas.

        Unnnfff
        I want more commercial plane-derived light attack aircraft bros

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous
          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            [...]
            Unnnfff
            I want more commercial plane-derived light attack aircraft bros

            Weaponize it

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      every aircraft is good for counterinsurgency.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >F-16 can do the same job
      What a moronic opinion. By that logic, we should ditch F-35's as well. F-16's can do the same job. :^)

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      A10 is perfect for friendly fire

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    So are they getting scrapped or sold off to US Allies?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I hope ukraine gets them

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    send them to the Army, USMC, and USSOCOM

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >A-10s are going to go their whole lifespan without killing a single communist
    god damn it just give them to the Ukrainians and hope they figure out how to fly it

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      No. We must remove the GAU-8 and place it on the Blackbird.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >just give them to the Ukrainians
      They were offered them and they refused.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Air Force officials said last week that a variety of American planes could be given to Ukrainian pilots in their fight against Russia, including the A-10 Warthog. But in a message to Military.com on Tuesday, Yuriy Sak -- an adviser to Ukraine's minister of defense -- made it clear: The country doesn't need A-10s, it needs the more modern F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet.
        >The A-10s "will not close our sky, they will not stop bombers and missiles," Sak said in a message. "They will be a target for Russian jet fighters and anti-aircraft defense, because we don't have the means neither to effectively cover them, nor to break through the enemy anti-aircraft defence."
        https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/07/26/ukraine-official-says-country-doesnt-want-old-american-10s.html
        This is after the US military rejecting the idea originally last March:
        >Throughout March, Zelensky continued to call for Western aircraft and a no-fly zone over Ukrainian airspace, something the Americans and NATO found unthinkable for an alliance determined to keep the war at arm’s length. Late that month, Reznikov flew to meet Austin in Warsaw with a new request.
        >“We had done our homework,” Reznikov said. After studying publicly available information on the U.S. arsenal, the Ukrainians concluded that the Pentagon had a surplus of A-10s, the aging, subsonic attack aircraft known as Thunderbolts. “They can deliver heavier bombs, and we could use them against [Russian] tank columns,” he said.
        >He asked for 100. Austin, he said, again replied it was “impossible” and “made no sense.” The planes, Reznikov said he was told, were old-fashioned and slow, a “squeaky target” for Russia’s formidable air defenses. “This was understandable to me. It was reasonable. I said okay,” Reznikov recalled, throwing up his hands in mock surrender.
        https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/12/23/ukraine-weapons-biden/

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It makes sense. A-10s would be easy targets for the Russians and Ukraine doesn't have pilots to spare.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yup, just because Russia doesn't have air dominance doesn't mean that Ukraine does. The A-10 really is only effective if you know for damn sure the chance of you encountering more than at best 1 MANPAD is negligible.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If the AF was serious about the A-10 replacement they would pull out the GAU8 and put a ballast up front to balance the wings.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Are GAU-8's classified as machine guns? When they're scrapped, how hard would it be to buy a GAU-8 assuming they're made before 1986 (or you just kill every ATF agent you see) and you can somehow afford it? Will the government auction them off?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >how hard would it be to buy a GAU-8 assuming they're made before 1986
      They have to be registered before 1986. Otherwise it's only good as a dealer sample.

      >and you can somehow afford it
      If you have to ask, you will never be able to afford it. The practice ammo would set the government back about $10/round in 2001 and is likely more expensive now, it's also supposedly the cheapest practice ammo for any gun in that caliber. The US also wouldn't be surplussing any of it since they have other guns that fire it. Really, good luck getting any significant amount, as anyone who makes it isn't getting out of be for small scale orders. Assuming you did somehow manage to get some at what the government was paying in 2001, you'd be paying $650 to fire the gun for 1 second.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >you'd be paying $650 to fire the gun for 1 second.
        worth it

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Well duh they're being pulled out of service, at the current rate there won't be any Russian tanks or APCs left to Brrrt by 2028

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >take A-10chan out for her last gun run prior to her peaceful retirement in an aviation museum
      >"pilotsan these T-72s look different"
      Do you tell her they're actually Chinese MBTs or do you let her just enjoy the moment?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Depends, does it affect the quality of the retirement sex? She's got that GAU-8, I want her to have the confidence to be able to use it

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What about stripping the gun off and just giving them to Taiwan. Hear me out on this, they can take off from any highway so in effect they can be kept in sheds and be used to counter landings by spamming old shitty missiles that can also be sold at surplus. And by handing them away many can be kept as reservoirs for spare parts while a few are active. There have been worse bribes offered in history. If you war worried about chinks bombarding your proper airfields with missiles why not make very mountain switchback into an airstrip? Take off and peak over a hill and then let loose with everything you have before turning back. It's like a light tank but it flies and without the incumbrance of brrrrt it should have an even lower takeoff speed.

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What main weapon would you like to see on the next gen A-10?
    15 inch naval gun?
    A railgun perhaps?
    Huge DEW?
    Titanium katana?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I want it to launch switchblade-600s

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous
  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    As much as I love these little monsters, my guess for this new pressure to retire them is that the glowie & MIC community has collected an absurd amount of data from the current Ukraine conflict. They've probably identified new, critical vulnerabilities that make using them an unacceptable risk for the types of missions they could still run just a few years ago. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, they were already getting too vulnerable and need too much other support on a modern battlefield, but with an announcement like this there's almost certainly new analysis that shows they are even more vulnerable than previously thought, maybe even as recently as the beginning of the Ukraine war.

    I'm incredibly sad. Wanted to see a couple of Highway of Death events involving vatnik armor and other mech. People Who Know Things have probably assessed the risk far outweighs other available options.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >Wanted to see a couple of Highway of Death events involving vatnik armor and other mech
      Funnily enough, Highway of Death was caused by a couple of A-6 Intruders flown by Marine pilots dropping Mk 20 Rockeyes on the column. So A-10s and everyone else just showed up to sealclub the survivors.
      I happened to look on Wikipedia to confirm details and noticed Seymour Hersh claimed Bradleys fired on surrendering Iraqi soldiers who fled the Highway of Death. No proof, of course.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The USAF already figured this out in the Gulf War when they started losing A-10s to SAMs in the early air campaign and switched them out with F-16s until they were sure Iraq's air defenses were completely neutralized.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous
  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    what tactical advantage is there of not retiring the A-10 when it can't even get close to use it's meme cannon?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Shhhhh Anon don't ruin the "le big gun haha" reddit meme
      Don't tell them about the A10 becoming a defacto bomb truck anyways due to all the issues with actually employing the moron canon

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The A10 should have been removed from service in the 00s or 10s at the very latest.
    The only reason it has later this long is because of Army frickery and Boomer congressmen that think their time mowing grass on a state side air field during Vietnam makes them experts on all military matters.

    I salute John McCain's tumor every morning, it deserved a medal of honor for finally putting down such a threat to the people of America and Amazon in particular.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The gun is off-center?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The barrel that fires is in the 9 o'clock position so the recoil is still on the centerline.

      This is like saying we are retiring freight rail because Amazon can deliver door to door.
      A10 isn't anti insurgents, isn't niche contested airspace. It's for the bulk delivery of iron into trenches and columns in 24hrs what would take your light sleek stealthily fleet months of sorties to put on target

      explain how an F-15E, F/A-18E, F-35 with external pylons, or even a fricking B-1 is worse at "delivery if iron"

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The gun itself is off center but the barrrel lines with the center of the plane for recoil purposes.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    We must save the A-10 Braphog

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      There must ALWAYS be a braphog.

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I can't wait to visit them in the Tuscon boneyard. Don't worry guys I'll send pics

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous
  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Didn't they get em new wings just a couple of years ago?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      There was 900 billion dollar program for ~100 wings plus spares in the early 2010s.
      Then in 2019 a 1.1 billion program for ~100 wings plus spares (there's like 240 A-10s in active duty).
      Boeing made bank.

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    This is like saying we are retiring freight rail because Amazon can deliver door to door.
    A10 isn't anti insurgents, isn't niche contested airspace. It's for the bulk delivery of iron into trenches and columns in 24hrs what would take your light sleek stealthily fleet months of sorties to put on target

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      This is your reminder that an F-15 carries 1.5 times more ordinance then an A-10

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        F-35: 18,000lbs
        A-10: 16,000lbs

        And the F-35 also has the option of carrying 5,700lbs internally in a stealthy configuration. The A-10 doesn't. Oh, and all that sensor fusion stuff means that the F-35 should be able to identify the target faster and from a greater distance.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Any trenches and columns will get bombed by multi role air craft. Plus the a-10 only works in uncontentest airspace. In which case youre unironically better off using one of those souped up modern p-51 mustangs theyre selling to africa and loading it with a few jdams.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous
    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      the f111 was quite shit albeit

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        I forgot but which aircraft destroyed more tanks during the Gulf War?

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    put GAU-8 on drones

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Why yes of course, let's burden another generation of aircraft with the A-10's white elephant armament.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        haha gun go brrrrrrrrt

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >replaced dedicated tools with ~~*multirole*~~
    swiss-army weapons always end up compromised masters-of-none. It’s a moronic money-saving attempt that ends up costing more money in the long run because they inevitably realise they have to build precision specialist weapons to counter other precision specialist weapons.
    The reason the P47 worked well as both a strike aircraft and a fighter is because the USAAF had achieved total aerial dominance and so they could afford to just strap potatoes to a high-alt escort fighter and shoot fish in a barrel.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Strapping JDAMs to a fighter has next to no performance cost these days. There's no reason not to have at least some multirole capability. Your example of the P-47 perfectly exhibits why. When the enemy airplanes are all dead and you have a ton of high performance fighters with no job left to do, you strap bombs to them and make them do something else.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      JDAMs are dirt cheap. SDB1 and L-JDAM aren't much worse. For external carriage, you have all of those plus APKWS2 (cheap, small warhead for use close to friendlies) and Griffin (which probably is a worse choice, and hasn't been integrated onto fast-movers yet.

  27. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Threadly reminder that the A-10 remains the most American plane ever built.

    >ugly
    >overweight
    >gun fetish
    >hates brits

  28. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    manpads make this platform pretty risky - for flying high and using missiles to attack - you can use any multirole - and flying low enough to be safe from them makes using the gun risky bussines as you need some altitude for that when you need to point nose at the target to hit it...

  29. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >According to Brown, combatant commands are reluctant to even ask for the aircraft due to its limited role in close air support.
    >“A-10s are not the things they’re asking for,” he said, adding that “matter of fact, I’m having difficulty having them use A-10s
    This part is provably bullshit, they arent in demand because we're nowhere that needs them right now. When we were still in Afghanistan they were flying daily because it was the perfect choice.
    Now they've sent them to fricking Guam, where they aren't a good choice for anything right now it's more budget parasailing from the Chair Force again, problem is A10 is too cheap to operate and upgrade, can't justify shiny new toys when your old perfectly fine toys are still in plain sight

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >they were flying daily because it was the perfect choice
      They were flying daily because there weren't that many airframes on deployment.
      >problem is A10 is too cheap to operate and upgrade, can't justify shiny new toys
      That's beyond moronic. The USAF gets the shiny new toys anyway, just a slightly smaller amount of them, and the A-10's running cost is abstracted away from the true costs of maintaining a legacy airframe. As exemplified by Boeing getting massive contracts to remake A-10 wings.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Right, they needed them

        >As exemplified by Boeing getting massive contracts to remake A-10 wings.
        Even if Boeing managed to hit the $1b cap on that contract it is still pennies on the dollar next to the F-35.
        For the same price you can upgrade the entire A-10fleet, or you can buy three(3) F-35s

        Nah, the problem with the A-10 is that the Army and Congress insist they keep them because the soldiers like gun runs better than bomb strikes even though one of these is way more accurate and causes way less collateral damage.

        The politics is annoying but it is a plain fact that the Air Force has habitually wanted to do moronic shit based on silly doctrine pulled out of their ass since Vietnam and needs to be slapped down before we find ourselves operating 6 flying gazelles, 19 hand operated helicopters and an experimental air/sea/land/space megawing because the Air Force threw the working airframes away to make room

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Right, they needed them
          Do you understand how availability and utilization works? If they truly needed them, they'd send a hundred of those damned things. But they sent like 12 on deployment.
          After 2000, A-10s did 20% of the CAS missions. After 2014, it dropped to 11%.
          >Even if Boeing managed to hit the $1b cap on that contract it is still pennies on the dollar next to the F-35.
          What the actual frick? If you're spending 10 million per airplane for an entire fleet, you might as well just buy the Super Tucano for 11 million. How is it "pennies on the dollar" to keep a glorified museum piece flying well past its retirement date for the price of a new aircraft?
          >Air Force has habitually wanted to do moronic shit based on silly doctrine pulled out of their ass since Vietnam
          Most of it was Army doctrine they inherited from the USAAF days.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Nah, the problem with the A-10 is that the Army and Congress insist they keep them because the soldiers like gun runs better than bomb strikes even though one of these is way more accurate and causes way less collateral damage.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Soldiers like the brrrrt because it usually scares them the frick away and that allows the soldiers to do what they need to do. But it's still a meme against anybody who don't have shovel AKs and Martini-Henry's

  30. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    yeah

  31. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It is time to make the A-10-2.

  32. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Imagine the Glorious day when the gAy-10 is finally retired, all those tax dollars freed up for the F-15sEX!
    THE MIDDLE EAST WILL FEAR AND TREMBLE!
    COMMUNIST CHINA WILL FEAR AND TREMBLE!
    THE MARTIANS WILL FEAR AND TREMBLE!
    AMERICA EILL CONQUER THE GALAXY!
    XENO SCUM WILL PRAY AND BEG THAT THEY NEVER FACE THE F-15EX STRIKE EAGLE II ON THE BATTLEFIELD!
    GOD BLESS AMERICA!

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      f-15ex is being bought mostly for continental defense

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Implying they won't call up the Air Guard in a big war.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          but then who interdicts the BRICS bombers anon, WHO??

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The Air Guard or reserve units that are still stateside.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Realistically speaking if you got surprise-invaded by a third party, especially a non-nuclear one, you'd just nuke them.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            BRICS isn't a military partnership

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      The USAF already figured this out in the Gulf War when they started losing A-10s to SAMs in the early air campaign and switched them out with F-16s until they were sure Iraq's air defenses were completely neutralized.

      The F (homosexual class) losses in the Gulf War was

      5 F-16c
      3 F-15E
      2 F-111
      2 F-18
      1 F-14

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yes, and 4 A-10s were shot down and another 13 damaged by ground fire, with two of those being completely written off. It was so bad that A-10s were restricted to only flying within 20 miles of the Iraqi border for most of the war.

  33. 1 year ago
    RC-135 Rivet Joint

    I love how the A-10 was designed to interdict Soviet armored thrusts who totally had SPAAGs,MANPADS and IADS defending them. but somehow can't work in contested environments.

    It's called escort jamming (something the USAF can't do?)

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      and they were expected to have an attrition rate only justified by the fact that it's world war three

      if an a-10 needs escort jamming to fly a mission, why don't we add that onto its costs? $20k/hr for the a-10, $25-30k/hr for the escort, damn the f-35's looking pretty cheap suddenly.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >-10 needs escort jamming to fly a mission
        it doesn't, it's not a penetrator

        This is your reminder that an F-15 carries 1.5 times more ordinance then an A-10

        this is your reminder an A-10 can take off and land on gravel and doesn't need a supply line to stay flying

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          this is your reminder that you don't need rough field performance against non-peer enemies and the a-10 can't fly against peers so who gives a shit

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >it doesn't, it's not a penetrator
          So you''re betting your CAS ability on the enemy air defence bubble never reaching the front lines? Because if we're gonna have a bunch of F-16 or some such HARM and AMRAAM away the air defences while the A-10 hide in a bunker, well, then those F-16 can do the JDAMing afterwards as well.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            No, I'm betting the A-10 is the best option for CAS and also missile trucking in a lightly contested airspace. Which is what it is used for, quite successfully and at a lower cost BY FAR than any other piloted jet craft we have
            Why do you insist on this strawman assumption that the A-10 has to be able to fill in for other completely different aircraft?
            do you look at a dirtbike and say
            >yo its trash cuh
            >muh DAWDGE Challenger go fast hurhurhur

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >at a lower cost BY FAR than any other piloted jet craft we have

              oh nononono time to wake up boomie it isn't 1995 anymore, a-10s cost 2/3 as much as an f-16 and 2.5x more than a reaper

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                jet craft we have
                this was me

                >more than a reaper
                that was you. lrn2read good

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >haisam hussein

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                nice sourceless infograph, gaywad. then-air force chief of staff mark welsh put the a-10 at $20,000 per flight hour in 2016. "bu bu bu it has a pilot" who gives a shit for ground attack, hannah in nebraska can misidentify and kill brits just as well as any a-10 pilot so what's the difference.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                BOOM homie
                https://fighterjetsworld.com/air/maintenance-operating-costs-per-flight-hour-of-militarys-fighter-jets/11995/
                >oh he sleepin

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >it's fricking david axe
                >follow it back through three links
                >Fixed Wing and Helicopter Reimbursement Rates (Tabs F and H)

                oh, you're new at this. the reimbursable rate isn't what the air force pays to actually fly the jet. reimbursable is brown, light blue is what the air force actually pays, which for the a-10 is $20,000 per flight hour as of 2016 according to the air force chief of staff.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I bet you don't count R&D costs in the price of a plane and think the LOL-35 actually cost $78m instead of $400m

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                It wouldn't be GAAP if the cost did include R&D

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >I love how the A-10 was designed to interdict Soviet armored thrusts who totally had SPAAGs,MANPADS and IADS defending them. but somehow can't work in contested environments.
      First of all, the inception of the A-10 (A-X program) was initially meant to be a turboprop aircraft meant for essentially early Vietnam and redo the success of the A-1 Skyraider. Mostly 14.5mm AAA and some 23mm was the original threat, not fast firing or radar guided.
      Then the requirements started piling in, such as having a gun that could do work against armor and bunkers, so the whole thing was scrapped and they started from scratch with turbofan engines and a huge rotary cannon.
      The concept of the IADS made the big shock in 1973 and by then it was too late. The A-10 was not originally designed to interdict armored thrusts. It was repurposed for that job after the original requirements were obsolete. By the time the SPAAGs and MANPADS were considered, the A-10 was essentially a sacrificial plane made to last two weeks (lol) to buy time for the US to send reinforcements to Europe. They weren't expected to survive if they were to be flying sorties into that mess.
      >It's called escort jamming (something the USAF can't do?)
      If you're going to have to baby the A-10, you can just have the escorting aircraft drop the fricking bombs. Leave the A-10 home.
      Long loiter time? Low fuel consumption? Frick you, you're gonna have a jet fly around to burn cash and when it goes bingo fuel the A-10 has to abandon the scene.

      • 1 year ago
        RC-135 Rivet Joint

        "in mid-1966, the USAF began to put together an "Attack Experimental (AX)" program to develop a CAS aircraft that could do the job far better than the Skyraider. An initial request for proposals (RFP) was issued in March 1967. The AX, as defined in the RFP, was to match the Skyraider in warload and endurance, but was to be substantially faster while being extremely maneuverable, with a tight turning radius to keep in on target, and was to have short take-off and rough field capability. The AX was to be highly survivable through the use of armor and redundant systems, including twin engines, while being cheap to buy, plus easy to operate and maintain from forward bases. One of the more interesting features of the AX was that it was to be armed with a fast-firing cannon, most likely a variant of the General Electric (GE) M61 "Vulcan" 20-millimeter six-barreled Gatling-type gun."

        "While the industry worked on proposals, the AX definition shifted slightly. The North Vietnamese began to introduce armor in combat in 1967 and 1968, and during the Six-Day War of 1967 the Israelis had shown that their French-built Mirage IIIC fighters could kill Arab heavy tanks using the aircraft's twin 30-millimeter DEFA automatic cannon, punching through the thin armor on the top."

        "The inflexibility of the nuclear option meant the US needed to look to more capable conventional weapons as equalizers to Soviet armor. The Air Force began to see the AX less as a counterinsurgency weapon than as an anti-armor weapon, and accordingly adjusted the requirement to feature a more powerful cannon. That was not a minor change, since the cannon was almost certainly going to be very big and the aircraft would have to be effectively designed around it."

        "The use of propellers also imposed restrictions on engine placement. Although turboprops worked fine on cargolifters, the more the designers looked at turboprops for the AX, the more troublesome they seemed."

        Shall we continue?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Shall we continue?
          NTA but please do, always good to dive into military history.

          • 1 year ago
            RC-135 Rivet Joint

            "The contest duly took place at Fort Riley, Kansas, in April and May 1974, and proved what the Air Force basically already knew: the SLUF might be much better for strikes into the enemy's rear, but the YA-10A was much better for getting down in the dirt with the grunts. In one particularly devastating test, the YA-10A flew to a remote field location and loitered on station for two hours; the A-7D was only able to hang around for seven minutes. In July 1974, the green light was given for construction of 52 more A-10s, including the four pre-production aircraft that had been dropped the year before and the 48 options specified in the original contract."

            SLUF=Corsair

            I don't see anything that disagrees with his assessment and instead that is literally what he stated, whereas you're positing that it was designed with the knowledge and acceptance of the prevalence of ADS, ranging from longer range missiles to shorter range gun based systems down to MANPADS. It was always expected to eat atrocious losses which were only acceptable because nuclear warfare, or the brink of it, make atrocious losses the starting point. You're welcome to provide some documentation that suggests the USAF thought the A-10 was anything other then a suicidal way to buy time, but that ain't it, chief.

            No he stated incorrect things he basically ignored that the AX program which predated the YA-9/10 evolved to go from A-1 style CAS to tank hunting as REAL WARS showed that 30mm cannons could blow up soviet tanks and tanks where the primary threat to NATO on the ground.

            >You're welcome to provide some documentation

            "13 For example, nonstealthy aircraft, such as the F-111F and F-16,
            also suffered no losses when operating at night, and the A-10s
            experienced neither damage nor losses at night. Each of these three
            aircraft types flew at least as many night strikes as the F-117."

            "The high-cost F-117 stealth fighter and the low-cost A-10 both experienced
            100-percent survivability when operating at night."

            "Advocates of the A-10 can, for example, argue that
            it, unlike the F-117, operated both day and night; attacked both
            fixed and mobile targets employing both guided and unguided bombs;
            and like the F-117, suffered no casualties when operating at night
            and at medium altitude. Similarly, other aircraft also performed
            missions the F-117 was unable to and were used successfully--and
            without losses--against similar types of strategic targets. Each
            aircraft of the various types has both strengths and limitations;
            each aircraft can do things the other cannot. "

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >he basically ignored that the AX program which predated the YA-9/10
              Can you read? I specifically mentioned the A-X program and how it started off from a turboprop design.
              >REAL WARS showed that 30mm cannons could blow up soviet tanks
              See

              [...]
              >The sea level maximum thrust for this engine was 3,880 lbs resulting in an aircraft gross weight of 28,800 lbs. Only limited data was provided for the turbofan design due to the poor performance predicted for that configuration. Specifically, poor fuel flow characteristics and inadequate thrust available from the turbofan engines resulted in aircraft performance not meeting requirements for loiter time, take-off distance, and low speed maneuverability.
              >The contributions from the Air Force Armament Laboratory included two options for an internal gun on the A-X. Option I was a modification of the proven M-61 20 mm gun rebarreled to fire the Army WECOM 30 mm round. It had a lower muzzle velocity (2200 ft/sec), but accommodated a larger round with lower recoil. A six barrel configuration provided a rate-of-fire up to 6000 rounds/minute. Importantly, the modified M-61 gun was considered achievable within the schedule of the A-X. Option II consisted of a 25 mm gun with higher muzzle velocity (4000 ft/sec) providing longer stand-off and a secondary air-to-air capability. However, it had a higher recoil and the delivery date for a fully qualified gun system was estimated to be 1972 (outside the schedule of the A-X, which had a target IOC of 1970). On 5 January 1968 the Air Staff issued a Requirements Action Directive for Air-to-Ground Gun Systems for Close Support Aircraft. This RAD instructed AFSC to plan the development and acquisition of an air-to-ground gun system including associated rounds as an integral component of the A-X. The directive specified three target types for the new gun: troops in foliage in foxholes; tanks and armored personnel carriers; and hard targets such as bunkers and revetted guns. The RAD specified required probability of kill (Pk ) for each of these target types.
              Source same as above.

              the requirement was foxholes, AFVs, tanks, bunkers and emplacements with revetments. Not just "hurr durr blow up tanks in REAL WAR", but an anti-everything gun.
              >The final version of DCP-23A, dated 16 March 1970, contained three management sub-issues, but they were essentially the same as those from the original DCP-23, differing only in wording and number. The issue of tactical force mix had become even more troubling to OSD since, in FY70, the A-7, F-4, and F-111 were all in production, and the F-111 was consuming close to half of the Air Force’s tactical fighter aircraft funding. Further, the Air Force had just awarded a development contract to McDonnell Douglas for the F-15. The A-X fared well in a force mix analysis for conflicts where air superiority was not necessary, but for a high intensity conventional war (e.g., the envisioned war in Europe) the demand for air superiority/interdiction was considered critical, making it difficult to justify reducing the numbers of multi-role aircraft in favor of A-X acquisition.
              "The A-X fared well in a force mix analysis for conflicts where air superiority was not necessary"
              MUH REAL WARS lol
              lmao even

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >First of all, the inception of the A-10 (A-X program) was initially meant to be a turboprop aircraft meant for essentially early Vietnam and redo the success of the A-1 Skyraider. Mostly 14.5mm AAA and some 23mm was the original threat, not fast firing or radar guided.
              >USAF began to put together an "Attack Experimental (AX)" program to develop a CAS aircraft that could do the job far better than the Skyraider

              >Then the requirements started piling in, such as having a gun that could do work against armor and bunkers
              >The Air Force began to see the AX less as a counterinsurgency weapon than as an anti-armor weapon, and accordingly adjusted the requirement to feature a more powerful cannon

              >By the time the SPAAGs and MANPADS were considered, the A-10 was essentially a sacrificial plane made to last two weeks
              Yes, the A-10 took no casualties when operating at night because it was pulled away from all high danger zones after the initial casualties were unacceptably high for the seal clubbing that was the Gulf War, and still managed to have a massively higher casualty rate despite this then the strike fighters who took over for it's shortcomings.

              • 1 year ago
                RC-135 Rivet Joint

                >Yes, the A-10 took no casualties when operating at night because it was pulled away from all high danger zones after the initial casualties were unacceptably high for the seal clubbing that was the Gulf War, and still managed to have a massively higher casualty rate despite this then the strike fighters who took over for it's shortcomings.

                Starting to sound like a hater lol

                148 total aircraft deployed to Saudi Arabia
                8,077 sorties flown by the A-10
                16.6% Sortie Rate
                987 tanks destroyed
                72 Bunkers
                1,306 trucks
                96 Radar installations

                "We plotted target grids on plastic-covered maps with grease pencils and used binoculars to spot targets from high altitudes. We didn’t even have night-vision goggles."

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                See

                Yes, and 4 A-10s were shot down and another 13 damaged by ground fire, with two of those being completely written off. It was so bad that A-10s were restricted to only flying within 20 miles of the Iraqi border for most of the war.

                if you're incapable of reading a chart that lists how many actual sorties were flown by what and the loss ratios. The F-15C flew 3/4s the number of sorties as the A-10 and managed to lose only 1 singular plane as damaged, while the A-10 was taking casualties at almost the same rate as the fricking B-52 and higher then the A-4.

              • 1 year ago
                RC-135 Rivet Joint

                wow the ground attack plane...the one designed to attack ground targets who have weapons that can shoot at airplanes got shot down!

                4 A-10s got shot down! OMG

                anyway:

                "Of the 23 tanks we knocked out that day, I scored 12. We think we heavily damaged 10 more with 30mm hits, but we couldn’t claim them as kills since we didn’t see them burning. How many Iraqis did we kill? We’ll never know. It was tough to see individual soldiers. Sometimes, we’d see small black shapes moving away from a truck we had just strafed. If a tank was running, we assumed it was manned. I felt a little sorry for the conscripted troops. I felt no such pity for the Republican Guard, deeply committed to Saddam Hussein’s regime.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Meanwhile the strike fighters who did the actual heavy lifting during Desert Storm managed to not die while killing ground targets, including aging F-111 which was introduced a decade before the A-10. You're welcome to cope and seethe with your anecdotes about the meme cannon, but it doesn't make the A-10 less of a shit plane.

                https://theaviationgeekclub.com/did-you-know-the-f-111-killed-more-tanks-than-the-a-10-during-operation-desert-storm/

              • 1 year ago
                RC-135 Rivet Joint

                F-111s got shot down over Libya doing bombing runs just before Iraq when we attacked Libya so in the same era both the A-10 and F-111 suffered loses to Soviet AA tech.

                >actual heavy lifting

                Only 148 A-10s got sent that conflict so DUH the larger strike craft inventory did more stuff

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >dying at half the rate per sortie doesn't matter, you have to be immune to damage
                >no, wait, the F-15 and F-16 who's attrition rates were an order of magnitude lower then the A-10's doesn't count because they're more expensive 🙁

                Meanwhile, there was only 66 F-111 and variants deployed to the Gulf War to the 148 A-10s and they still bagged more tanks.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I don't see anything that disagrees with his assessment and instead that is literally what he stated, whereas you're positing that it was designed with the knowledge and acceptance of the prevalence of ADS, ranging from longer range missiles to shorter range gun based systems down to MANPADS. It was always expected to eat atrocious losses which were only acceptable because nuclear warfare, or the brink of it, make atrocious losses the starting point. You're welcome to provide some documentation that suggests the USAF thought the A-10 was anything other then a suicidal way to buy time, but that ain't it, chief.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >The A-X RAD called for fixed, internally mounted guns with a “capability equal to or better than four M-39 20mm guns” 20 . It also added consideration for a large caliber semiautomatic recoilless rifle. A minimum of six ordnance stations were required capable of delivering all types of conventional ordnance projected for use through 1970-1985. Although the intended operating scenarios stressed a permissive environment, the CFP was to consider the feasibility of incorporating a limited air-to-air missile capability as a defensive measure.
          >Survivability from ground fire was an essential characteristic for the A-X. Structural and system design would need to provide inherent survivability, to include self sealing fuel tanks and, if power flight controls were used, a manual backup system would be provided. The pilot and critical flight systems would be protected from 14.5mm projectiles (common Soviet Anti-Aircraft shells). The aircraft was to “incorporate maintainability characteristics which will make it possible for this system to meet its combat operational objectives with a minimum of maintenance effort and expenditure
          A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) SYSTEMS ENGINEERING CASE STUDY
          David R. Jacques, PhD, LtCol USAF (Ret)
          Dennis D. Strouble, PhD

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          https://i.imgur.com/JSGZQZj.jpg

          >The A-X RAD called for fixed, internally mounted guns with a “capability equal to or better than four M-39 20mm guns” 20 . It also added consideration for a large caliber semiautomatic recoilless rifle. A minimum of six ordnance stations were required capable of delivering all types of conventional ordnance projected for use through 1970-1985. Although the intended operating scenarios stressed a permissive environment, the CFP was to consider the feasibility of incorporating a limited air-to-air missile capability as a defensive measure.
          >Survivability from ground fire was an essential characteristic for the A-X. Structural and system design would need to provide inherent survivability, to include self sealing fuel tanks and, if power flight controls were used, a manual backup system would be provided. The pilot and critical flight systems would be protected from 14.5mm projectiles (common Soviet Anti-Aircraft shells). The aircraft was to “incorporate maintainability characteristics which will make it possible for this system to meet its combat operational objectives with a minimum of maintenance effort and expenditure
          A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) SYSTEMS ENGINEERING CASE STUDY
          David R. Jacques, PhD, LtCol USAF (Ret)
          Dennis D. Strouble, PhD

          Yes as a matter of fact, we shall continue.
          >The vehicle design analysis investigated the parameters of wing loading (W/S) and aspect ratio and their relation to the major design requirements. The gross weights to accomplish the design mission were calculated for fixed values of aspect ratio and wing loading. The results indicated that “for a given wing loading, lower aspect ratios, in spite of greater induced drag during the mission, result in smaller vehicles. This is directly the result of lower wing weights based on the design factor.”24 Other performance requirements considered included low speed maneuverability, cruise speed, take-off distance, and ferry range with and without external fuel tanks. >The analysis led to a selected design point which could meet or exceed all requirements. The turboprop design was based on the GE T64-16 turboshaft engine. The engine was being developed for the Army’s AAFSS Cheyenne helicopter, and full qualification tests for the engine were scheduled for March 1968. This engine was capable of approximately 10,000 lbs thrust at sea level, and resulted in an aircraft gross weight of 27,700 lbs. For the turboprop design, the minimum gross weight (27,700 lbs) for the aircraft was determined by the sustained 1.5 g turn requirement and “for an arbitrary upper aspect ratio of 7”25 . A design point with anaspect ratio of 7 and wing loading of 60 met or exceeded all requirements for the turboprop design. The turbofan design was based on the GE CF700-2c engine because “it was the only turbofan type available in the thrust class of interest for a twin engine configuration.
          Source same as above.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          [...]
          Yes as a matter of fact, we shall continue.
          >The vehicle design analysis investigated the parameters of wing loading (W/S) and aspect ratio and their relation to the major design requirements. The gross weights to accomplish the design mission were calculated for fixed values of aspect ratio and wing loading. The results indicated that “for a given wing loading, lower aspect ratios, in spite of greater induced drag during the mission, result in smaller vehicles. This is directly the result of lower wing weights based on the design factor.”24 Other performance requirements considered included low speed maneuverability, cruise speed, take-off distance, and ferry range with and without external fuel tanks. >The analysis led to a selected design point which could meet or exceed all requirements. The turboprop design was based on the GE T64-16 turboshaft engine. The engine was being developed for the Army’s AAFSS Cheyenne helicopter, and full qualification tests for the engine were scheduled for March 1968. This engine was capable of approximately 10,000 lbs thrust at sea level, and resulted in an aircraft gross weight of 27,700 lbs. For the turboprop design, the minimum gross weight (27,700 lbs) for the aircraft was determined by the sustained 1.5 g turn requirement and “for an arbitrary upper aspect ratio of 7”25 . A design point with anaspect ratio of 7 and wing loading of 60 met or exceeded all requirements for the turboprop design. The turbofan design was based on the GE CF700-2c engine because “it was the only turbofan type available in the thrust class of interest for a twin engine configuration.
          Source same as above.

          >The sea level maximum thrust for this engine was 3,880 lbs resulting in an aircraft gross weight of 28,800 lbs. Only limited data was provided for the turbofan design due to the poor performance predicted for that configuration. Specifically, poor fuel flow characteristics and inadequate thrust available from the turbofan engines resulted in aircraft performance not meeting requirements for loiter time, take-off distance, and low speed maneuverability.
          >The contributions from the Air Force Armament Laboratory included two options for an internal gun on the A-X. Option I was a modification of the proven M-61 20 mm gun rebarreled to fire the Army WECOM 30 mm round. It had a lower muzzle velocity (2200 ft/sec), but accommodated a larger round with lower recoil. A six barrel configuration provided a rate-of-fire up to 6000 rounds/minute. Importantly, the modified M-61 gun was considered achievable within the schedule of the A-X. Option II consisted of a 25 mm gun with higher muzzle velocity (4000 ft/sec) providing longer stand-off and a secondary air-to-air capability. However, it had a higher recoil and the delivery date for a fully qualified gun system was estimated to be 1972 (outside the schedule of the A-X, which had a target IOC of 1970). On 5 January 1968 the Air Staff issued a Requirements Action Directive for Air-to-Ground Gun Systems for Close Support Aircraft. This RAD instructed AFSC to plan the development and acquisition of an air-to-ground gun system including associated rounds as an integral component of the A-X. The directive specified three target types for the new gun: troops in foliage in foxholes; tanks and armored personnel carriers; and hard targets such as bunkers and revetted guns. The RAD specified required probability of kill (Pk ) for each of these target types.
          Source same as above.

  34. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The nice thing I can say about the A-10 was, it was sick to see the squadron from the local air base do practice runs down the lake I lived as a kid

  35. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Reminder the A-10 was never good. The gun is a horrendously inaccurate piece of shit that couldn’t pen Soviet tanks from the fricking 1980s onwards. Its slow and has zero survivability in a contested environment and would probably get heemed by a MIG-25.

  36. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    A-10s are cool and it’s my favorite plane in dcs. It served well but it really shows it’s age. I hope they keep some around for air shows but they don’t have a place on the front lines in modern conflicts. In all foreseeable future conflicts they are death traps. There are just way to many threats on the modern battlefield. Low and slow doesn’t work anymore for fixed wing manned aircraft and there are better aircraft for other envelopes. There are many planes that can do ground attack better at a lower risk to the pilot and airframe. It had a good run and it’s 30mm cannon and distinctive looks are legendary.

  37. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Please ship them to Ukraine. I NEED TO SEE THE A-10 DO WHAT IT WAS MEANT TO DO.

  38. 1 year ago
    RC-135 Rivet Joint

    Oh and in Kosovo the A-10 was used for Forward Air Control and Combat Search and Rescue (A-10 was used to find the downed F-117 pilot)
    The A-10 could escort CSAR helo groups and attack pop up threats. The A-10 in FAC role spotted targets VISUALLY and had F-15E drop bombs on them.

    almost like planes like..dude work together in teams.

    woah

    "As Dodge reset for his wingman to drop more CBUs, I began
    to focus on the AAA sites. I put my binos on the position and
    noted four gun pits. They were tiny and impossible to lock up
    with a Maverick, but I still had my 30 mm gun available for
    strafing them. As I considered my next move, I noticed a large
    truck and trailer, not more than 100 meters from the pits. They
    were barely visible in a tree line down in a ravine. There was
    only one reason for that type of vehicle to be there next to AAA
    pits. It had to be the ammo truck, a far more lucrative target"

    The more you read about it the more cool it becomes.

  39. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I think it would be pretty to cool to use the Gau 8 in the C-RAM as some sort of upgrade to to replace the Vulcan 20mm. Would be larger brrrrrrrt with more range at the very least

  40. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    give them to Ukraine, let them go out in one last blue on blue bang

  41. 1 year ago
    Reaperguy

    Low and slow CAS against a near peer or pacing threat country is a dead end concept. It's why the Air Force wants to dump it's MQ-9s and A-10s. The CAS "of the future" is standoff precision munitions being tossed BVR ala SDBs and such. Any fixed wing aircraft can do that and when push comes to shove a supersonic stealth aircraft can chuck a glide/standoff munition further than a subsonic aircraft.

Leave a Reply to RC-135 Rivet Joint Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *