A-10 official issues warning over US Air Force’s ‘devastated’ Warthog fleet

[The Heretic]

A-10 official issues warning over US Air Force’s ‘devastated’ Warthog fleet

The A-10 systems manager said the Air Force has “resourced the A-10 to divest yet flew it like an enduring fleet, rapidly accelerating [the] decline toward today’s hollowing fleet."

news.yahoo.com

It sounds to me like the Air Force is stalling on upgrading/fixing the A-10, in hopes that it will degrade so much that they can dump it.

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[SonicBlue03]

They've been rattling the retirement saber for so long it's a shame they're running them to garbage and discarding them. The platform has more than delivered, and it deserves a heckuva lot more respect than it's getting.

Their argument about a permissive environment is horse pucky. Air superiority is a multi-layered approach and has been for ages. The role of the A-10 was designed for armor destruction, not air combat. And in its role, it does its job very very VERY well.

 

[Ruger Rich]

Initially in the Ukrainian War there were many photos of Russian tanks, fuel carriers and other combat

vehicles lined up for miles on their way to Keiv. I thought what a great A-10 target.

 

[Ferryman]

I never understood why the Air Force operated Warthogs in the first place. The Air Force is about shiny zoom zoom stuff.

Nitty gritty close in support stuff should be given to the Army to operate. Let the Army take over the program, and let the grunts on the ground tell us how obsolete the platform is when facing down enemy tanks.

If the Air Force was doing its job properly, Warthogs wouldn't be operating in contested air space anyway. Just sayin'

 

[Provincial]

Every time the Army tried to operate close air support the Air Force jumped in and claimed that "this is our job." They did that in order to stop the projects and steer the money into fighters and bombers. Inter-service rivalry at its worst. Lots of pilots died, were injured or captured because the Air Force used jet fighters close to the ground, where they were too fast to do a good job of delivering the ordinance on target and were too vulnerable to ground fire. Meanwhile, the Generals smoked cigars and drank Whisky in safety in Washington and rear bases.

The A-10 succeeded in spite of, not because of, Air Force participation.

The Air Force needs to be brought to heel by Congress and a real President that make them salute and obey orders. Part of this is seeking out and forcing retirement of officers that play games instead of concentrating on providing the best defense possible for the citizens of the USA.

 

[CamoDeafie]

Key West Agreement 1948. Annndddd the Johnson-McConnell Agreement of 1966.

The US Army wanted to keep the Close air Support for its troops. The Air Force wanted control of all aviation. The Key West Agreement ended with the USAF having most of the air stuff, and the Navy keeping theirs (including the Marines), the Army kept tactical airlift, and tactical reconnaisse aircraft, in the 1948 agreement. By the 1966 agreement the USAF relinquished most rotary wing assets to the Army, while the Army lost most of its fixed wing assets.... the USAF hated the idea of the Army operating armed fixed wing aircraft (OV-1 Mohawks) even though the Mohawk worked excellently as a light CAS craft in addition to its battlefield surveillance role. So yeah... the USAF since Vietnam, particularly the brass... have always been against the CAS mission and prefer fast fighters (Fighter Mafia). They've been talking about replacing the A-10 with the F-16 attack versions, the F-15E Strike Eagle, and now the F-35 attack/Close Air variant
But... Afghanistan and Iraq showed again, the very usefulness of the A-10 in its particular role.. myself; I would just try to get production back online but Fairchild-Republic has long been gone.. production of aircraft having ended in 1984, and aircraft parts only up to 1996, then reorganized into Fairchild Dornier, then bought and incorporated into M7 Aerospace division of Israel's Elbit Systems... not making aircraft but just parts and support. Because of this, replacing the A-10 would require a new aircraft from ground up.. and the proposals have been on using the F-35 as the replacement nevermind that it doesn't have the survivability of the A-10

Officially, the A-10 is set to serve up to 2040 but it sounds like the USAF wants to trash them sooner by running them ragged?



Edit. As for the mission profiles.. @Provincial ; the Congress kept banning the USMC from acquiring the AH-64 Apaches that the Army has been using and jealously keeping.. to the point that the Marines have been upgrading the AH-1 Cobras (originally an interim gunship ).... and the 1966 Agreement was the impetus for the Lockheed YAH-56 Cheyenne program which of course, the USAF disliked because it could go faster than a helicopter normally does and because of that program's cancellation, we have the AH-64 Apache... I believe Boeing-Sikorsky are back into trying to develop a compound helicopter craft?

 

[arakboss]

I suspect the drones are the new A10s.

 

[SonicBlue03]

I'd have liked to have seen the Comanche make production. But yeah, military brass and politicians have Viagra-rections over RPVs as the future. Until they aren't.

 

[Flopsweat]

The A-10 originally cost under $10 million to build. That would be about $17 million in present-day dollars. Double that for the inefficiency of our current bureaucracy, then double it again for new technology, and it's still nothing compared to $3 billion for an F-35, which will never be half as good at ground support.


edit: typo

 

[Provincial]

We have a laboratory where we are testing various methods of close air support, using drones for observation and attack. It is called Ukraine. Manned aircraft are not used much in these experiments. The USAF should be paying attention.

This discussion confirms that inter-service rivalry is destructive and impairs the ability of our armed services to protect the citizens of our country. This rivalry also drags in Congress and the Executive Branch, which are supposed to work for the people, not the bureaucracy and vendors.

 

[CamoDeafie]

A drone/optionally piloted version of the Northrop Grumman Tacit Blue airframe with the 30mm GAU-8 from an A-10, and an internal weapons bay carrying as many Mavericks and bombs/missiles as needed, with A-10's engines or at least similar thrust rated... might be a good option..

Northrop Tacit Blue - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

A lot of similar weight and size with shorter wings. It used to carry the Pave Mover radar system thats now in the E-8 J-stars.

 

[Flopsweat]

A drone/optionally piloted version of the Northrop Grumman Tacit Blue airframe with the 30mm GAU-8 from an A-10, and an internal weapons bay carrying as many Mavericks and bombs/missiles as needed, with A-10's engines or at least similar thrust rated... might be a good option..

View attachment 1189759
View attachment 1189758

Northrop Tacit Blue - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

A lot of similar weight and size with shorter wings. It used to carry the Pave Mover radar system thats now in the E-8 J-stars.

If you can match its survivability and ruggedness. That thing is easily as ugly as the A-10, but not in a badass way.

 

[CamoDeafie]

If you can match its survivability and ruggedness. That thing is easily as ugly as the A-10, but not in a badass way.

Thats why drone its 30+ year old stealth tech, already kinda obsolete but quite useful for the role.. give it more armor and bigger wings, more powerful engines... should be a fair bit survivable.. maybe not at the same level as the A-10... but... they're drones.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

I like the A-10 and it was comforting to know that it was "on call" for me a time or two.
To see it go and be neglected like this , is shameful.
Andy

 

[Flopsweat]

Thats why drone its 30+ year old stealth tech, already kinda obsolete but quite useful for the role.. give it more armor and bigger wings, more powerful engines... should be a fair bit survivable.. maybe not at the same level as the A-10... but... they're drones.

That model has a cockpit. It can be piloted remotely or flown like a regular plane.

 

[CamoDeafie]

That model has a cockpit. It can be piloted remotely or flown like a regular plane.

The original Tacit Blue also didn't have any weaponry, just a big radar system and sensor system. It apparently has a very roomy cockpit, looks to be almost twice the width of the standard A-10? With that much width and space in its fuselage, internal weapons bays and the 30mm.. it most certainly also has the space for a drone setup.. again, could be setup as "optionally piloted" since in CAS, one may want to have human eyes on targets to prevent accidental friendly fire. On the other hand, with an advanced enough sensor suite, a loitering OA-10 or E-8 or similar orbiting command-control aircraft could guide the drones to specific targets and give authorization...?

 

[WAW44]

As nice as the big a$$ gun on the A-10 is, the point the AF staff is making is valid. Time to let them go. The A-10 was designed for 80s style tank war on the flats of Europe. It did well in the Gulf and Afghanistan because it had no opposing force. People need to keep in mind that there were studies done which suggested the entire A-10 fleet would have been lost in 2-3 weeks if it went into a full scale ground war in Europe against Soviet forces. And this was before today's more advanced MANPADs. In fact, in the 80s it was assumed entire NATO units would be sent to the front to be wiped out as a delaying tactic before reinforcements from US could be deployed, assuming the war remained conventional. My friend's German lank unit was one of them, their CO told them as much, and they practiced a quick deployment, then fighting retreat action multiple times.

Stick and rudder guys don't like it, but drone and missile technology has advanced enough to field cheaper platforms for CAS role where the airspace is not contested. This includes tank killing that does not require you to get up close and personal to line up a gun for a few seconds. Also, keep in mind that both Russians and Ukrainians have SU-25s, which are close to the A-10 in capability, and we are not seeing large scale engagements where CAS is employed. We are seeing a large number of small short skirmishes which favor the Ukrainians, cost them, but also bleed out the Russians. Longer loitering drones and portable missiles are much better suited for that these a platform like the A-10 which requires a lot more logistics backing.

 

[CamoDeafie]

As nice as the big a$$ gun on the A-10 is, the point the AF staff is making is valid. Time to let them go. The A-10 was designed for 80s style tank war on the flats of Europe. It did well in the Gulf and Afghanistan because it had no opposing force. People need to keep in mind that there were studies done which suggested the entire A-10 fleet would have been lost in 2-3 weeks if it went into a full scale ground war in Europe against Soviet forces. And this was before today's more advanced MANPADs. In fact, in the 80s it was assumed entire NATO units would be sent to the front to be wiped out as a delaying tactic before reinforcements from US could be deployed, assuming the war remained conventional. My friend's German lank unit was one of them, their CO told them as much, and they practiced a quick deployment, then fighting retreat action multiple times.

Stick and rudder guys don't like it, but drone and missile technology has advanced enough to field cheaper platforms for CAS role where the airspace is not contested. This includes tank killing that does not require you to get up close and personal to line up a gun for a few seconds. Also, keep in mind that both Russians and Ukrainians have SU-25s, which are close to the A-10 in capability, and we are not seeing large scale engagements where CAS is employed. We are seeing a large number of small short skirmishes which favor the Ukrainians, cost them, but also bleed out the Russians. Longer loitering drones and portable missiles are much better suited for that these a platform like the A-10 which requires a lot more logistics backing.

The problem is... they (the brass) are trying to replace the $10 million each (today cost if new build now) A-10s with F-35 variants at a cost of 3 billion+ each This is what we are talking about when it comes to the simple fact that the brass and politicians officially wants to replace a large number of different aircraft types with the single engine F-35 in multiple variants.
AV-8 Harriers
A-10 Warthogs
F-16 Falcons
F/A-18A-Ds
Now; each and every one of these have had specific roles and missions that they do surprisingly well for what they are.
If the politicians/brass had simply said the F-35 replaces F-16s and F/A-18s, and maybe the AV-8Bs, and proposed something specialized/RPVs/attack drones to replace both A-10s and AV-8Bs in CAS.. maybe there wouldn't be as much resistance from the public and from the CAS community.

 

[The Heretic]

It did well in the Gulf and Afghanistan because it had no opposing force.

It had "no opposing force" in the gulf mostly because we had air superiority due to fighters. That doesn't make the A10 invalid, it makes it (or something similar) part of a team. We have bombers, fighters, tankers, AEW aircraft, drones, and CAS aircraft etc., working together. The fact that any part of that team does well in the role it was designed for, doesn't make the rest of the system invalid.

 

[Flopsweat]

The problem is... they (the brass) are trying to replace the $10 million each (today cost if new build now) A-10s with F-35 variants at a cost of 3 billion+ each This is what we are talking about when it comes to the simple fact that the brass and politicians officially wants to replace a large number of different aircraft types with the single engine F-35 in multiple variants.
AV-8 Harriers
A-10 Warthogs
F-16 Falcons
F/A-18A-Ds
Now; each and every one of these have had specific roles and missions that they do surprisingly well for what they are.
If the politicians/brass had simply said the F-35 replaces F-16s and F/A-18s, and maybe the AV-8Bs, and proposed something specialized/RPVs/attack drones to replace both A-10s and AV-8Bs in CAS.. maybe there wouldn't be as much resistance from the public and from the CAS community.

Yep, a Swiss Army Knife is pretty handy, but it won't skin a deer or chop a tree down very well.