As the Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack aircraft (better known as the “Warthog”) is being phased out of U.S. Air Force service, increasing numbers of airframes are finding their way into storage at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. The USAF relegated 39 of the popular A-10s to Davis-Monthan in 2024 – more than double the number re-assigned to the base's 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) the previous year.
There are only two kinds of airplanes: P-51s, for when you want to feel like a hero in a dogfight, and A-10s, for when you prefer to make the other guy regret waking up that day.
I’d love for a few Warthog pilots to chime in and explain why the A-10s would or wouldn’t be a good platform to give Ukraine in their fight against Russia. The front lines are troops and armor, where the Warthog excels. Could it survive and thrive in that environment or not? Seems like a better place to send them than the boneyards.
Update the A10 to drone status with A.I. control and see what the gunslinger can do. That is a cheap double dog dare exercise that will give developers and management something to chew on. My 2 cents.
I worked the night shift at Henson Aviation in Hagerstown during the late 70s maintaining Beech 99s. Fairchild had a hangar across the ramp where one of the first copies of the A10 was manufactured. Testing was done at night with the ramp lights down low until it was rolled out one bright morning for its maiden flight. Stubby wings, narrow cockpit, and two huge engine nacelles, it looked more like a praying mantis than fighter plane. Sorry to see it go…
Paulbrev; The A10 doesn’t look like a fighter plane because it’s not. It’s specifically designed to loiter over battlefields in close air support of ground troops and to attack ground targets. It was never intended to fight another aircraft in the air. Google “Iraq highway of death” to see what the A10 can do.
The A-10s being retired need to be retired. This close air support mission demands high-g maneuvering with heavy loads on wing hard points and when that giant cannon is fired, the whole plane shakes. In short, they are worn out. The Warthog has fulfilled it’s mission admirably many times in combat, but generally in low-threat environments. Fighter/attack operations in the future will depend heavily on stealth and air supremacy. Without it, anything that flies near the FEBA will be fired on by AAA, SAMs, small arms fire, and defensive air assets (fighters). The survivability of manned systems on a battlefield against a near-peer adversary is extremely low. It was designed to take hits for a reason.
Personally, I think the A-10 should have been assigned to the Army and/or the Marine Corps years ago, and integrated into their respective arms employment strategies.
For certain: this airplane will go down in history as one of the finest and most effective weapons systems ever designed.
(One more thing: FEBA= Forward edge of the battle area, AAA= Anti-aircraft artillery, SAM= Surface to air missle. Sorry)
This decision by AF brass to retire the A-10 is one of the reasons that our military is not prepared as it should be to be mission ready. The A-10 is one of the best attack and support platforms ever created and if the Pentagon politicians are allowed to shelve it, it will be one of the biggest mistakes ever made.
anything that flies near the FEBA will be fired on by AAA, SAMs, small arms fire, and defensive air assets (fighters)
Could not the AF working in coordination with the Army use F(x) (x= 18, 22, 35) to take out SAM/AAA installations on the FEBA using distance weapons leaving the A10 left to deal with small arms? My understanding is the A10 could take a fair amount of hits and still get the work done. The amount of damage they can unless have not been really duplicated.
Drones are not that effective in striking fear in infantry like an A10 coming in with it’s nose on fire.
I’m in line with the thought that the A10 would have been a help to Ukraine, but for the pesky politicians that have no back bone against Putin.
Simply put the gun made the A-10 as effective as it is. The problem with the gun is the A-10 has to be relatively close to the target to be effective. With all that said the A-10 is just too vulnerable to all the things that can be used to take it out now.
Yes, anti-radiation missiles, like the HARM, can be used to take out SAM and AAA radars, and they can be carried by almost any platform. However, as soon as an offensive/defensive weapon/tactic is developed, a worthy adversary comes up with counter to it. Various SAMS and AAA can be mounted on mobile launchers that can shoot and move before being destroyed. Also, the A-10 was developed as a tank killer, not to strike fear in infantry (although it does). If you don’t think drones strike such fear, go on a patrol with a North Korean platoon in Ukraine and watch them scatter when one is spotted. Tactics and weapons are changing daily! There are drones being developed on the fly (pun intended) to kill tanks, kill infantry, take out mines, take down other drones, act as decoys, and a dozen other missions only recently conceived.
One thing that the war in Ukraine has shown is that conventional wisdom on war fighting is now obsolete. In my view, one thing that is becoming obvious is that the current tank design is already obsolete. Ask the Russians how many of their tanks have been destroyed by drones, long range artillery, antitank missiles and mines? I hear our Abrams tanks are not doing so well either. Drones are relatively cheap, flexible and easily deployed in the field. They are also expendable and can be used on one-way suicide missions. As much as I love the ugly little Warthog, I fear it’s time is coming to an end, just like the tanks it was designed to kill.
During my many years serving at Edwards AFB starting in the early 70’s, the A-10A program stood out as THE most purposeful and cost effective for the mission it was designed for. It was a follow on to the A-1 used in Viet Nam. I bet you could say something about that, Raf? To this day, there is no other airplane that can carry the number of rounds and none in 30mm OR a mix of weapons. I served on the original A-10 Test Team when we fired 30 rounds out of the GAU-8A INSIDE a hangar so I can attest to the power of that thing. Just think of what would have happened had we had the A-10 during Viet Nam.
The F-15A/B was followed by the F-15C/D and E. Now, the F-15EX is using the basic airframe with modern avionics and other systems because the design has proven itself admirably over as many decades of use. The F-22 is a follow-on to the F-15 air superiority mission, as well. The F-16A/B gave way to the F-16C/D of that same era and now the F-35A/B/C is a follow-on design, also. The A-10 had a wing replacement program SLEP (Service Length Extension Program) and yet they’re still wanting to divest of the platform at a time when there is no replacement platform. BIG MISTAKE. We need to keep these things going OR build a new follow-on design, as described above.
I like to say that the military needs a big warehouse of ‘toys’ from which to pick from so that in any conflict, they can both overwhelm and keep our adversaries on their toes. That’s why our Special Forces entities have large budgets to buy things they want for their special missions. I see no reason why – if for no other reason – some couldn’t be given to Ukraine vs sending them to Arizona to die. Alternately, give some to the Army, as someone opined. I don’t know who is running MY USAF, but they need to be replaced with someone who comprehends what I just said.
BTW: There was ONE A-10B produced … a 2-seat version. An airframe like that plus today’s modern avionics would be a formidable stand-off platform. And, of the 714 airframes produced, only five were lost in combat … think of that when it was in Iraq which had a world class air-defense network at the start of that war. These airplanes were built at a cost of $1.4M 1970 dollars (>$10M today). Compare that cost to some of the other machines. To ME, it’s laughable to say that either an F-35 or any other airplane firing a low volume of 20mm ammo could ever replace the A-10.
And another thing … In the 70’s, we tested a system called IFFCS – Integrated Fire and Flight Control System – on an F-15. This was a highly advanced system that seamlessly combined the aircraft’s flight controls with its weapon targeting (APG-63) and fire control (gun) delivery capabilities. Essentially, you could put the cross-hairs on a target and the system would provide flight control system inputs after calculating an aimpoint to the target based upon what it was doing. As I remember it, we shot down a QF-102 drone with five rounds or less vs. spraying the target hoping to get a hit. The reason for this was that – unlike the A-10 – the F-15 doesn’t carry that much ammo. So each round has to count. Now imagine an IFFCS system on an A-10B. It’s be like shooting fish in a barrel with minimal rounds. Sadly, we tested it, it worked and the USAF promptly didn’t buy any. The Generals trying to kill the A-10 musta been on that project, too?