I don't know too much, just that it's a pretty awesome plane and seems to be impossible to get rid of. If you weren't going to build an upgraded version, what would you replace it with?
What extra capabilities could assist the A10 in it's close air support role? What are it's major disadvantages that could be improved on?
I think I would go with better standoff missiles, more armor and more powerful engines if feasible. Not sure if I would change the base design too much.
Obviously it's gotta be built around the gun. Although I think what's most important is repairability and survivability, due to CAS it must include countermeasures to electronic warfare and man portable air defense systems- and needs some way to stand up to enemy fighter aircraft, those being the number one predator after enemy surface to air missile defense systems.
For that though I'd focus on the MANPADS because those are harder to deal with than SAMS. Since it's already CAS it can fly on the deck pretty much no problem.
What do you anons think?
Stand-off range. The best way to not be shot down is to not be in range. Ukraine and Russia are both using Su-25s as flying MLRS, what about turning the A-10 into a flying GMLRS? Shotgun off hundreds of laser guided Hydra. Low CEP and high fragmentation.
>Stand-off range. The best way to not be shot down is to not be in range
You're right of course, but what you're not understanding is the enormous "frick you" factor of getting right up in the enemy's face, so close that they can see you flipping them off.
The one thing the A-10 needs is windows that roll down so the pilot can spit on the target and call them names. Think about an A-10 parked on a ramp next to a beta F-35.
"Yes, these are bullet holes from fighting."
"Yes, I'm okay with that."
"I am enlightened"
make it an UAV
Put it out of service.
make it a drone
Turn them into QA-10, yes.
Make it calliber 120mm.
I’d get rid of it, perhaps take some of the money and invest in low cost drones with even better loiter time and 3-6x guided AGMs.
That’s literally it. I’d then take any money saved and invest in buying more F35s or NGADs
racing stripes
perfection
by retiring it, selling it to turd world countries, and buying more F-15E's.
>buying new 4th Gen at all
This is a huge mistake, all of the big ticket purchases should be buying as many F35s, NGAD, and B21s as possible.
what about the F-15EX?
the USAF is buying hundreds of them.
It’s a mistake. Should be buying more F35As and rushing to get the AIM-260 in service to fill any interception gap. There’s no reason F35s can’t be used in a low threat environment and ran with external pylons if ground pounding is your concern.
This is purely corporate welfare, isn’t even directly comparable to the F16 ADF purchase because the F16 and F15 were roughly comparable in terms of survivability.
you're mom is a mistake, the F-15 is based, homosexual communist USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USA USAU USA USA!
>hundreds
Around a hundred not hundreds. Nothing is certain on the order numbers right now as boeing is very predictably shitting the bed on manufacturing them right now and also recently said "Whoops! looks like that 80 million each price tag was only for lot 1!"
I hate boeing like you wouldnt believe
Planned fleet is 104. It was actually proposed to be reduced to 80 at one point.
It's a way to stop the Boeing St. Louis plant from closing down and a stopgap to retire ageing F-15 airframes. All the bullshit about being a missile truck and whatnot is retroactively trying to come up with a "cool guy" role for it. Think for a second, your missile truck will be visible on modern on-board radar at the edge of the AIM-120D range. That means the enemy will know to go defensive according to a BVR timeline by assuming a missile is being fired through datalink and preemptively trashing it.
2 of those “planes” have never flown
>he actually believes this
In the short term, all funds from cutting the A10s should absolutely go to buying more F35s. Any legacy airframe should be retired legitimately as soon as humanly possible and 21st century airframes should be acquired.
A war with China or Russia or both will be fought with 20th century air frames. This includes the F-35 of which there aren’t enough to completely replace the F-16. These powers will not wait 30 years for us to regain capability dominance. Their window of opportunity is small and a war will happen in the next 10 years or won’t happen at all. If you think raiders or NGAD will be used against China you’re moronic. Russia is bleeding us dry of ammo so China can pounce on Taiwan and there’s nothing we can do about it because our MIC is focused on the icing on the cake without enough bread and butter to even bake the damn thing
>These powers will not wait 30 years for us to regain capability dominance
The frick are you talking about you spaz? 30 years? NGAD and F/A-XX will be in service in the 2030s, so around 10 or so years from now. So will the B-21.
Last year LM delivered 142 F-35s, saying they know full well they can bump these numbers up. Now multiply that by 10 years of production time.
>Russia is bleeding us dry of ammo so China can pounce on Taiwan and there’s nothing we can do about it because our MIC is focused on the icing on the cake without enough bread and butter to even bake the damn thing
Oh. I see now. Youre a fricking moronic vatnik. I guess that explains the concern trolling and insane delusion that Russia will even be a relevant power in 10 years time, let alone 30.
>NGAD and F/A-XX will be in service in the 2030s, so around 10 or so years from now. So will the B-21.
NGAD is going to cost at minimum 300 million dollars a piece.
>A war with Russia
Russia isn't even going to have an existent military after Ukraine.
>A war with China
Last time China had their military tested was when they tried to invade Vietnam and they got bodied within a few miles of the border.
>regain capability dominance
>regain
Black person even if we believed their claims they're still fricked.
>Russia is bleeding us dry of ammo so China can pounce on Taiwan and there’s nothing
>a naval conflict dictated by subs and airpower will be swung by 155mm artillery rounds, bloc 2 stingers that were due to be destroyed, and rusting M1 hulls pulled from surplus to keep the plant in business
U avin' a giggle m8? Ya fancy a giggle do ya?
In 2020 Will Roper said that a full scale NGAD demonstrator had already flown and broke a lot of records.
The B-21 is still on track for its first flight by the end of this year.
You still need econo-planes for Black person stromping. No reason to waste flight hours on your F-35s to blow up Durkallah Danny while he's getting passionate with his favorite goat.
Replace the gun with a radar and turn them into spotting/lasing/datalink goons for the actually capable CAS platforms.
Basically have them fly low, scout out the area and provide the F-15 or F-35 at high altitude with data and maybe lase targets for bombs it drops.
Captcha: T0PG4N
Drones already do this
Yes, that is the point. Might as well use the airframes.
Ship them to Ukraine and replace with F-35s
No memes, does anyone know if these could be outfitted with faster jet engines instead of turbofans without compromising the airframe or position of the motors?
remove the Titanium memetub and the pilot seat, replace it with computer and additional fuel tank,
add APG-81 radar and EOTS from F35 production line for improved precition and integration in network-centric-warfare
boom: AQ10
>ass aerodynamics
>ass engines
>literally no LO features, big fricking engine fans exposed like Mickey ears
The design is cursed from the start.
Adding armor is meaningless and would weight down the whole thing even further. The A-10 can already sustain damage from the smallest autocannons and shrapnel from smaller missiles on a proximity fuse detonation.
But missiles designed with a chase algorithm that slams into the airframe with greater reliability, or stuff like continuous rod-warheads, will just turn a functioning aircraft into a several chunks of non-flying metal or an actual ball of flame. The fact that there's added armor to wings, engines, etc doesn't matter much when each of those components are blown hundreds of feet apart.
>I'd focus on the MANPADS because those are harder to deal with than SAMS
But the MANPADS is what gives an A-10 type of aircraft the bruising that forces it to end the mission but allows it to limp back home with just chunks of skin blown off and maybe a fuel or hydraulic line cut. SAMs are much more likely to deliver an actual killshot.
MANPADS seeker, rocket and warhead are all limited by the "man-portable" aspect. A SAM can just be made to wreck aircraft on a proximity fuze detonation, while also having improved seeker/tracking that increases the chance of direct it.
>Since it's already CAS it can fly on the deck pretty much no problem.
Close Air Support means that you're dropping ordnance on enemy troops in close contact with friendlies. That means there's increased danger of blue on blue. The "close" has to do with the doctrinal limits imposed on pilots to make sure there's deconfliction with ground observers, not the physical location of the aircraft.
>A-10 pilots in charge of not killing friendlies
That's the thing anon. No USAF pilot is in charge of not killing friendlies. The ground controllers are. Pilots do not have weapons release authority during CAS, the FAC/JTAC do.
Many A-10 blue on blue incidents happened after pilots were given the all clear that no friendlies were in the area, but there were.
The first aircraft to fly in reverse. Turns out the Tic-tac was a A-10 all along.
Thunderbolt II Chads... WE WON
>even pilot is brrt
you motherfricker I just noticed
>How would you improve the A10 Warthog?
A10 is an autocannon, so I'd improve it by turning it into an actual flying artillery cannon. I'd make A12 a flying autoloaded 155mm artillery cannon. Its range and precision would be moronic.
remove the reddit from it (30mm)
Remove the GAU-8 it's fricking useless in a modern conflict.
You say this as if Russia isnt currently fielding T-62s in their 3 day operation KEK
Yeah T-62s I'd rather take out with AGM-65s and CBU-99s.
Id rather see the GAU-8 humiliate Russia in 2023
If removing the BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTT is what it would take to make the A-10 modernized, then I'd rather it be in a museum.
Well I have news for you, they're in museums everywhere. Also, it may as well be a museum piece since all it can do in a peer conflict is sling MALDs, and potentially JASSMs.
>peer conflict
so an imaginary conflict with an evil US that emerges from under the Pacific or some shit?
Or the Klingons, perhaps.
>an evil US that emerges from under the Pacific or some shit?
Yeah it's called China
>china
>peer
Their newest carriers are literally already cracking in half.
Drop the 30MM Gatling, replace it with a 40mm auto cannon with smart munitions. Maybe give it a few degrees of mobility and combine it with a good targeting system.
Gatling rocket launcher
i have nothing to contribute to the discussion but i just wann tell a story. about one year ago i saw an A10 warthog flying within what seemed like 20 yards in formation with a commercial airliner. they were both flying very low and very fast over the rust belt in USA. i saw them as i was leaving dollar general. i checked flight aware and there was nothing. thanks
More gatling guns firing bigger bullets faster, duh. You can never, EVER have enough dakka.
Seems to me that everything the A10 does that keeps it in service, the F111 does better. So I guess Id trash the A10 and use the money I get from the scrapdealer to reactivate any surviving aardvarks. Fit them up with modern avionics and ensure compatibility with mavericks, JDAMs and JAGMs, its got twice the payload of an A10 so you could drop bombs all day from 30k ft like a manned predator.
Impossible at this point purely because only one prototype was ever built as a two-seater.
The A-10 should always have had two seats.
remove pilot
add another GAU-08
I’d drop everything in favor of more 30 mm food for the Gatling and deploy it in surprise attacks on cities thousands of kilometers away from the frontline, turning it into a psychological weapon. I’d also rename it “Warcrimer 9000”.
by buying a super tucano instead
Make it even louder