Seems to me the biggest problem is that the Air Force is trying to plan for a major war with a large adversary (i.e. Russia, China) when almost all conflicts we have seen since WWII have been regional conflicts with adversaries that have limited air defenses. Those conflicts, even including Korea and Viet Nam, relied heavily on close air support of ground troops. But, by favoring the F-35 as the “Swiss army knife of the air” over the A-10 is not serving the best needs of the ground pounders. It’s true that the A-10 is more vulnerable now from sophisticated shoulder-launch missiles than it was in the past, but that is going to be true of any other close support craft, including the F-16 and F-35. And, the Army and Marine attack helicopters are even more exposed to that threat. Just ask the Ukranians about that. As far as armament is concerned, the A-10’s 35mm gun beats any other such weapon, and the A-10 can carry far more armament (rockets, bombs, etc.) than either the F-16 or the F-35. Besides, it was designed from the beginning to function in a “contested environment” and survive (close air attack of Soviet troops attacking Western Europe). Perhaps it is time to ditch the old agreement about no fixed-wing aircraft being flown by the Army, and give the Warthogs to the Army and Marines who recognize how to best use them.
Russia, Ukraine mainland China are all contested environments
Maybe not, they believe we are now at parity with the future air superiority in doubt
Long time fighter pilot here, CAS qualified.
Everyone constantly complains that the military is always fighting the “last war”. Keep that in mind.
The US has been engaged in the past two decades in a conflict where there the surface to air threat has been rocks and poorly aimed 7.62x39 small arms. Performance wise, an AD1 Skyraider with updated sensors and weapons could have performed the typical CAS mission.
“But it’s tough, it has a titanium bathtub!” Yeah right, an aircraft that takes hits becomes unable to perform the mission. It goes home and his out of the fight. Hitting it with a current SAM or AA missile isn’t survivable. Hitting with large caliber AAA isn’t survivable either. Sorry, make up your own reality if you like, pretend the Hog is a flying tank, but radar guided SA or AA missile warheads are very effective.
Troops naturally love anything that scares the enemy away, however, when fighting the next war, the mean old A10 likely won’t survive to answer the call of the FAC. Analyze the employment of the Su25 on both sides of the Ukraine Conflict. The A10 is marginally better than the Frogfoot in terms of resistance to threat systems. It lacks speed, energy sustainment, and the ability to kinetically deliver many systems from combat survivable ranges. Neither side has been able to effectively employ slow ground support aircraft due to the presences of SAMS and Mig/Su’s.
If you have studied even the employment of the A10 against Soviet Bloc systems during the Iraq wars, you’ll realize that it is time to look ahead, and employ systems that are effective in fighting the next war, which won’t take place against tribal warriors.
The ground troops certainly appreciate the up close & personal support the A-10 provides and among both pilots & the general public there is a visceral delight in dishing it out in A-10 fashion, but the higher-ups, IMHO with justification, clearly have accepted that the days of using manned aircraft in that fashion are over. In fact, it has already been bandied about that there will likely be only one more generation before the end of the air combat fighter itself.
As we are seeing, the participants in every significant armed conflict are now going to come equipped with defensive hardware that is deadly at close range to every manned aircraft that flies, so it isn’t simply a matter of substituting a different fighter in the role but a need to come up with hardware/systems that can perform the function without unacceptable losses in either manpower or material. This is not a simple problem by any means.
Says a few overeducated fools. They don’t have any idea. The greater evidence is now on display with Russia. Turns out to be a paper tiger. Communist/socialist societies strangle the people who build the weapons and use them. Such people are never allowed to reach their potential.
Have you ever been on a golf course on a military base? There may be some fools but they get to play on some of the nicest courses in the world.
Any entity that wants to end the A 10 program should simply put together a collage of Russian/Ukraine videos of aerial shoot-downs now occurring in that conflict. Both sides have withdrawn the SU 25 Frog Foots after the initial slaughter from both effective AA/missiles and simple stinger-like platforms. The only appropriate approach to replace CAS A 10s is to develop relatively cheap, expendable, unmanned attack platforms that can do the same things, and do not sacrifice a pilot in the process.
yes, I served for almost 8 yrs.
I agree, more likely drunken, half starved, mentally ill - criminal mongoloids…
Iraqis had no radar to deal with them. That will not be the case in any serious European or Asian war.
It is not about whether one platform is actually better in battle; it’s about which generates more kickbacks because it has a bigger line in the budget.
War is a business and the more things cost the better off for the brass.
What would you want to do if it were your budget? Get a new toy along with all the accessories and increase your budget 10, 20, 100x as well as your organization size, or just keep ordering spare parts and maintain a product you already have?
Hell, I’ll take a never served moron over the morons in “Senior USAF Leadership” any day. I’ll bet the never served morons if asked should you evacuate the military or civilians first from a combat zone would have given a better answer than the fools in charge now. But the overeducated “senior USAF leadership” would surely be better able to address equity, diversity and inclusion.
First, you don’t make war plans based on the assumption that the adversary can’t fight back. Second, A-10 is not a cheap program. For the number of aircraft it operates and given it has a history of getting shot down, it’s very expensive. Third, since the gun can’t actually penetrate the armor of any tank built after the 1960s, the A-10 doesn’t really provide much that other jets can’t.
The A-10 has a pretty bad track record. It’s just a lot more visible when it does well.
There’s a lot to unpack here.
First, in Desert Storm, the A-10 had to be reassigned due to losses and F-16s ended up flying more ground attack sorties with fewer losses and more confirmed kills than A-10. To this day, more A-10s have been lost in combat than F-16s.
Second, F-16 can carry pretty much exactly the same munitions as A-10 with pretty much exactly the same max payload capacity. The only real difference is the number of pylons, but that doesn’t honestly matter that much.
Third, the 30mm GAU-8 can’t penetrate armor that was made after the 1960s. The best it can do is knock tracks off and damage optics and a 20mm can do that just as well.
Finally, the survivability of the F-16 has layers to it. A-10 only brings the gun to the table over the F-16. Using that gun requires you to fly very low, very slow, and very straight. It was therefore designed to take hits from Russian 14.5mm machine guns. Unfortunately, Russia started using 23mm cannons for SHORAD, and there isn’t a plane in the world that can survive that hit. If it’s too dangerous to fly low and use the gun, the A-10 has to fly above AAA range, which puts it squarely in the sights of SAM batteries and enemy air assets against which it has zero defense. It’s too slow to defeat missiles and carries basically zero anti-air capability. F-16 has excellent speed and anti-air capability while also being able to carry similar ground attack loadouts as the A-10, making it a more survivable platform in contested environments.
Incorrect on almost all counts.
Underestimating the adversary is a great plan to lose a war, so planning around uncontested airspace is a terrible idea.
A-10 cannot fly high enough or fast enough for HARM to be effective and so it was never made able to carry them. A-10 also has no air-to-air capability aside from shooting down helicopters in a pinch.
Saying A-10 can fly lower is silly. F-16 still has to be able to land. Operating in close proximity to the ground is not an issue. As for maneuverability, A-10 loses the dogfight 10/10 times. As I said above, it can only carry limited air-to-air weapons, but more than that it’s painfully slow. It might have the edge in extreme low speed nose authority, but a competent F-16 pilot would never allow the A-10 to use that.
A-10 carries a 30mm gun, not 35mm. F-16 and F-35 actually have pretty much the same max payload as A-10. A-10 does very badly in a contested environment because it’s too slow to defeat missiles kinematically and can’t defend itself from air threats.
I’ve been seeing this a lot in these comments and I’m getting real tired of it. Planning for war against a peer or near-peer threat is not a problem, it is vastly preferable to just assuming that we will never face anyone that can fight back. If you want to know the reason Russia is doing so poorly, it’s exactly this. They got complacent after never fighting against anyone that could shoot back and now it’s getting them slaughtered. Their tactics and capabilities were not designed against people that can shoot back.
Finally someone sane. Using A-10 below 10,000 feet where the gun might come into play is suicide against anyone that has more than an AK and using it above 0 feet is suicide against anyone that has more than a Strela or Stinger.
I struggle to understand why people think the F-16 is a terrible close support platform. It can carry almost every single munition that the A-10 can carry and in pretty much the same quantities. It can also carry extremely good targeting pods. Employing precision munitions like GPS and laser guided bombs is generally done from high altitude, away from ground fire. Even Maverick missiles can be employed from medium altitude with a decent standoff range.
The only thing the F-16 doesn’t have is the gun, and the GAU-8 on the A-10 can’t penetrate armor made after the 1960s. Best it can do is break tracks and optics and you don’t need a 30mm gun to do that. The 20mm on the F-16 can load armor piercing and high explosive rounds just fine.