"It's ironic that the very 'pretty kewlness' of the picture should highlight so many weakness' of the A-10 as a warfighter platform.
Yes, it's so low value (though FAR from low maintenance, a problem that is getting worse) that you can bring it into a forward basing, 'bare ramp' situation and run sorties.
But the ghost camouflage is compromised by the sharks mouth and the localizer radome.
Not that it probably matters because, between the density height, terrain elevations and the limitations of hte engine and weapons system, I imagine the A-10 looks like an albino-skyhole to any donkey-warrior that happens to look up as the plane wends it's way among the rocks and crags.
While there is only ONE 'precision' Maverick onboard and that is likely reserved for use purely as a targeting air.
The aircraft is carrying archaic 70mm FFAR pods with Mk.66 (slow) motors and no LCPK/HPKWS guidance heads, despite the fact that the U.S. _pioneered_ this technology.
The bombs are Mk.82's with electronic influence fuzes while the aircraft itself lacks ANY kind of 3D 'complete the triangle' range computation to offset what remains a relatively simplistic 'IFFC' HUDWAC+LASTE delivery system.
NOWHERE on this aircraft is even the most _basic_ of targeting aids (Pave Spike would be a major level of targeting improvement but of course these were all 'handed out to our friends' with surplus Phantom sales).
The engine provides under a .5 T/WR at average takeoff weights and this is ONLY when you do the TF34-101a 'flat rate' mod.
I personally question the likelihood that the A-10 will get any kind of significant 'cheap JDAM' /access/ (SDB) let alone whether the requisite 1760 mods are being done far enough outboard to justify all those pylons.
Not that it would be easy because, even with a Sniper pod (or more likely the cheapo-LITENING), you are looking at a single seat cockpit with relatively small DSMS MFD and NO quick-helmt type cue (or NavFLIR lookthru) to make the weapons system WORK for just one man.
Speaking of stores and systems, there is NO SIGN of an advanced DIRCM or even MAWS suite onboard an aircraft which will _never leave the HEART of the MANPADS envelope_. No ALQ-212 pod, no Comet pod, no podded CMWS NOTHING which would indicate the USAF is /serious/ about the manner in which it employs this platform.
If you add it altogether, it becomes VERY CLEAR that, instead of wasting HUGE amounts of money on JSF and AH-1Z and RAH-66 (and and and), in the 'post polar, terrorist' world what we could REALLY use is a high thrustloaded (=high sustained speed at medium altitudes in the 15-18K density-if-not-AGL band), dual seat, advanced weapons platform able to FIND small targets with sophisticated area search and SMALL smart munitions that are not 'eyeball on arrow' dependent for costs or continued targeting.
It would probably help if the vehicle were STOVL but that is not critical while what IS obvious is that the THREE THINGS-
1. Rapid Patrol Area Coverage.
2. Look Down Signature Enhancement.
3. Superior Payload.
Which a fixed wing platform brings to the 'CAS' scenario must be matched to a specification that /deliberately/ excludes helicopters without making it about 'policy of CAS' _fighter_ definitions that have ZERO to do with modern warfare and which CANNOT even be sold abroad at the exhorbitant 58-77 million dollar tags that the 'affordable' JSF is being advertised for.
Frankly, the A-10's day has passed. I can whatever lies beneath an equal number of aimpoints as it's _4,000lb_ GAU can, using LAB-frag small diameter bombs that also offer THREE TIMES the max-effective 'mil dispersal'
slant range on a 20cm EDGE CEP.
It is not worth 'fixing up' a platform which is not (and will never be) available to the Navy or the Marines in SWAPR contingencies while equally dated concepts like the 'Z-Cobra' or RAH-66 struggle for funding and the JSF is (erroneously) touted as the 'solution for all' replacement.
We should dump the A-10, accelerate the CAS/CSAR-mod F-16 program, DUMP the utterly worthless JSF, together with the hysterically obsolescent rotary wings (try escorting a tiltrotor with a 165-185 knot limitered airframe) and CONCENTRATE on a network of highly capable sensor (robot) and munitions (manned trigger) platforms that make it practical to have an eyeball over every bushbeater S&D platoon and fast-ass CAS '5 minutes out' WHEREEVER IN THE WORLD our grunts 'need to be'.
Unfortunately, such a system is not 'sexy', it is in fact more like an Owl than an Eagle
But it would at least be affordable for a real-force employment scenario.
Kurt Plummer
LINK-
Word Draw AAH/A-10 Replacement (based on the MP-18 Dragon airframe)
http://home.earthlink.net/~ch1466/AAHReplacement.doc"
" Hello Lt. Dice,
First, I understand that everyone makes mistakes and me no less than any other but if you want to hang with the 'guns and bullets guy', please learn to spell ORDNANCE correctly. I'm just stuck up that way...
>>
I feel the only time the A-10 is longer valid as a weapons system is when it doesn’t meet one of the three criteria below.
1. The requirements which lead to it’s design are no longer valid.
>>
Fine, they no longer are. AX began in the 1960's as a Super-COIN followon to the OV-10 LARA design spec in providing support of troops in close without the threat of MANPADS or radar directed SPAAGs to drive it above or back from the main point of contact.
That 'requirement' ended in 1972 when SA-7's came south. I have at least one drawing of an A-10 in SEA camo hauling a truckload of Mk.82s if you'd like to see what the USAF was selling back then.
>>
2. The aircraft can no longer meet these requirements
>>
Given the A-10's /abysmal/ avionics design and the fact that it was _designed without_ such basic 'nice to haves as an autopilot and INS because nobody really figured it's pilots would need one for their second mission, while, even in Super-COIN SEA, the weather EASILY could decrease past minimums at which even a 'slow jet' could visually fly, you are again back to the assumption that the AX failed it's INITIAL spec which was to support the troops better than the AH-56 could have (a platform which had computed lead gunnery, FLIR -and- a weather penetration/formation keep radar 'on an army plane').
>>
3. There is another weapons system with can meet the requments better/cheaper.
>>
This is one of those chicken and egg kinds of a deal. If you don't BUILD BETTER you won't ever HAVE BETTER as an available alternative in such a 'specialist' mission category.
The reality is that the only real driver is the cost of ownership and the price of replacement when the threat starts bagging your SEA-legacy design concept left and right. Something which can happen _all to readily_ with vehicle mounted mobile SAM and the more sophisticated MANPADS, /any one of which totally defeats the protection scheme/ in terms of repair-and-fly-again.
>>
The requirement which led to the Hog, as stated in William L. Smallwoods book “Warthog” flying the A-10 in the Gulf war, are...
1. The plane has to be able to operate out of short, primitive airfields
>>
Compared to what pray tell? 2,500ft is half a mile. STOVL gives you 400ft, less if there is a ramp available.
>>
2. It must be reliable and easy to maintain in the field under wartime conditions
>>
Again, the standoff attack vs. 'shturmovik' factor comes in. If you get hit, you die or are crippled beyond usefulness. If you bring what amounts to an overpressure sealed tent with dust filters so you can MAINTAIN that targeting pod you live, not just to keep yourself alive but to make sure that the guys on the ground can get a heads up and 'rolling in!' alert on the gomers setting up a mortar two hillsides (3,000-5,000m) over.
Going the other way, AH-1G operated out of reinforced dykes between rice paddies serving as 15 minute FOL radius shorteners in getting _back into the fight_.
SURELY you don't think an A-10 is 'more primitive capable' than this?
>>
3. It must be able to carry large amounts of ordinances and specifically be able to kill tanks and other armor
>>
Sigh. With total airsuperiority, 'as a given', if I want to kill a tank or BMP wending it's way down some AfG gorge, I'm NOT going to go below the hillcrests on either side to gun it! I'm going to drop a laser guided GBU-12 or a CBU-97 and that will be that. Either of which are easily available options to ANY of the fastjet crowd but NOT the A-10.
We are NOT fighting the Warsaw Pact here so 20-25 gun kills on 1-5 AFV's doesn't do much.
Going back to the Snake analogy, the G-un Cobra forces took a helluva pounding on occasion and there were times when we just about bled by the inch getting to a crash site to pull out a body, warm or cold, in 'gratitude'.
But the weapons they brought ot the game (light high-saturation rifle caliber boxfires and a 'shotgun suppression' FFAR) were more appropriate (than A-1 or AC-xx let alone Fast Mover air) and _effective_ against the man-and-machine-gun targets they were killing often less than 200m off their nose and _less than 10m_ from our position.
'By the belt buckle'.
That they had the /balls/ to get in close to use those weapons with grease-pencil aiming system STILL, to this day, amazes me.
Lacking 'such a need' in the contemporary environment, the munition must go where the man (and his multitensofmillion dollar machine) cannot.
Which automatically reduces the Hawg to 'both Mavericks today!' equivalence with the AV-8B, F-16 and 18C/D.
>>
4. It must have sufficient range to loiter “on call” near the battlefield, and when needed for CAS it should have enough remaining endurance to find the targets, identify and confirm that it is, indeed,
an enemy rather than friendly, and then destroy it.
>>
Snort. Well par-done my ignorance but my recollections 'from spec' and the later CAS-competition trials was as follows:
a. 250nm outbound at 25K with X18 Mk.82 (something which never would happen without the original Allison T-55 mod engines), 1.88hrs 'on station' at 10-15K, _10 minutes_ 'combat power', 300 knots at MSL. This is the SEA mission with modifications for density and temp.
b. 150nm outbound, all at 2,000ft, same X18 bombload and 1hr hold at radius (I think they actually 'achieved' 45 minutes). This is the A-7 whoopass 'competition' scored mission but of course makes NO REPRESENTATION on how the mighty thunderpig is supposed to _accurately deliver_ all those bombs without a CDIP anywhere in sight.
c. 250nm outbound, half at 2K ft, half at 200ft, X6 Maverick and FIG (which was admittedly 1,350rds back then not the 750-1,174 today) plus expendables and an ALQ-119, for le grande totale of _30 minutes_ at combat power '40nm in and out' at 300 knots. This is the 'Berlin CAS' (from Alhorn FOL) type mission.
Now let me tell you how infantry measure 'time on station' during a patrol. Not in minutes. Not in hours. But in DAYS. Days In and Days Out.
From the point at which someone dumps you in the high weeds
To the point where you have belly crawled your butt the last 5 klicks to an observation point so as to 'better see thee' on a bunch of gunbunny pajama clad peasants walking by on their way to oblivion.
To the point where you THINK you are back far enough out to make a sudden dash to the recovery location for the bus ride home.
In that period, you never sleep. You don't eat and you train yourself to drink as little as possible because urine stinks and even with piss pouches (usually two canteens 'never empty'), one man's bladder will 'call out' to the rest of the teams' as well as the olfactory capabilities of any irritated natives walking by within about 300m.
If you can't be my guardian angel in THAT kind of a time frame, you are NOT 'supporting' me, I am generating free targeting FOR YOU.
In turn for which valuable duty you are (at best) avenging my sooner-or-later corpse.
Gee, Thanks.
>>
5. It must fly at least 350 knots, but be maneuverable enough to turn tightly over the battle-field so the pilot will not lose sight of the target when visibility is low.
>>
Giggle. All of 3.25G worth of turn at 270 knots (which was the common, part-brake, reality figure for finding targets on a 250-500ft AGL visual search while maintaining a snap-shut Ps recovery margin at full throttle).
A-10's carry about 480 expendables _for a reason_.
And increasingly even that is not enough to 'inject' bearing lead error in a short-period (often multiple aspect launch) SAM seduction window. While it only attracts the pirranhas in terms of a decent sized bullet and a hundred muzzles shooting them in the same direction.
>>
6. It must be survivable; it should be able to take damage from the ground fire and still return to base with a healthy pilot.
>>
Blah Blah Blah. You look at the infantry casualty figures from any 'ground war' commited action and then you look at the aircrew equivalents and you try that one on 'for size' again.
Master Pat said it best: you no wanna be hit, you NO BE DARE.
Dropping SDB from 10K up gets you that.
Putting a minigun on a cheap ass-fast (small) UAV that has intelligent-FLIR+Acoustic counterfire engagement tiltrotor gets you that.
Flying down a canyon in a 60ft long howling beast because you're within 20-30 knots of density stall speed trying to clear the rim is NOT 'that' solution.
Because you will take fires from all sides before you even no you've been detected and because _even if_ you drag your sorry ass home (and /no one/ is going to be able to 'rescue the cavalry' these days) your machine is a _wreck_ and it AND YOU are halfway-around-globe-from-depot useless for the rest of the war.
>>
7. It should be a low-cost airplane in comparison to prices being quoted for other airframes and cost overruns must not be allowed.
>>
This one I actually agree with. It follows my Three Laws Of Firepower in separating ISR and Strike missions by technology and thus 'maneuver' from standoff.
It still doesn't mean there isn't a cheaper way to do things that doesn't risk the pilot, doesn't 'gap' the coverage of ground units and can operate as readily from sea as from land.
>>
I feel the requirements stated above are still valid in an attack aircraft which the A-10 is. Does anyone here feel the
requirements are no longer valid? Can you say in a future war the need for an aircraft like this will not be needed?
These requirements give the aircraft a great flexibility which can be found in no other aircraft flying today.
The A-10 can still meet or exceed every one of the requirements and has proven this is every “war” in the past ten years. No other airframe in the USAF flying today or planed in the future can meet these requirements like the A-10 can! All other airframes have other aircraft (flying today) which can meet or exceed it’s capabilities so if retired does not degrade the USAF’s capabilities in any way. For example If you take away the F-16 the F-15Cs/Es can take it’s place.
The A-10 is unique in the USAF (and in other countries air forces) and is a “one of a kind aircraft” which if taken out of service can not be replaced by any other aircraft on the ramp today or, on the drawing-board. It’s cost is low compared to other airframes and has a flexibility found in no other aircraft.
The A-10 Thunderbolt II is the last of the mission specific aircraft to be built and that mission is just as valid today as it
was when the aircraft was designed. With every thing said about it in this thread the fact is it has served in every conflicts in the passed ten years and meet every one of the requirements listed above so it must have capabilities which the “brass” feels can’t be found in other aircraft be it manned or unmanned.
>>
Mister, there's a lot of ways to skin a snake and some of them hit very sharply inclined 'diminishing return' scalars on any graph of realistic mission utility.
The A-10 is one of the latter.
When it takes something like 10,300lbs of gas to do the 'A-10 version' of the CAS mission and you mention /another/ 4,000lbs in external fuel for the CSAR, you automatically have to wonder why it is that a DRONE, which weighs only _2,500lbs total_ can fly THREE TIMES THE RANGE.
Now far be it from me to say that the Attack mission should be ignored. Indeed, I am arguing the _exact opposite_ in terms of /useful/ STOVL OBAS bird. But the reality is that FIRST you have to /get to the theater/.
_All the theaters_. Including those you are already commited to.
Where this means perhaps 70% of your potential ops zones are in 'blue water or 6 months diplomacy' basein SWAPR regions of the globe, and your mighty A-10 cannot operate from a CVN let alone a 'Marine' helodeck, you're screwed.
Once you are 'thar fustest' THEN you have to do the mission in sufficient density so that any troops you do commit are safe from an increasingly lethal opfor 'rainbow' technology capability in terms of protective radius around the team vs. giveaway signature of it's mission support elements.
24:7.
This can be from an organic capability (which literally _brings it's own airfield as well as aircraft_ to avoid the mined-access problems of delousing a conventional base) that legs it 'up and out' of the threat envelope while simultaneously extending it's own sensor footprint.
Or it can be 'imported' from edge-of-theater basein sufficiently large and well stocked that it IS a 'depot+superwing', floating or otherwise.
But in either the NEED is for /endurance/ coupled with just enough high altitude (turbine not sailplane) -performance- that you don't waste half your gas on a 2-5hr ingress and you don't get weathered out by met that any 'normal' combat aircraft from the 1950's onwards would just climb over, bull thru, or go around.
All so that, when you reach station, you STAY THERE for 7-10hrs and at the same time, are never more than 5 minutes out from a 'casual' contact (where the blue force has the initiative to open or refuse engagement but the target window may be fleeting).
While the weaponization is simple and dirt-cheap concentrated within the 'better bullet' itself and ideally (but not necessarily) is backed up by an alternate mission package (onboard or in another platform) for continuous wide area surveillance _independent_ of the ambush observer teams.
That is MY KIND of 'close support' regardless of the myth-that-is-CAS because I /know/ I can count on it.
Not only when me and mine are hoofing it through the only foottrail for 10 miles around and the robot tells an ABCCC who in turn tells me "Your about to get hit, sit tight" and sends out the SDB huntin' dawgs to 'negatively influence their psychology' from pressing their own little-ambush attack.
But ALSO (and predominantly) when mine or any of a dozen other teams are watching /the other guys/ vehicle or foot convoy streaming past 2 klicks out and all's we have to do is again STAY PUT AND LET THE ROBOT DO THE KILLING.
Without signature, without contact and with minimum risk to $.75 DLOS death.
>>
One last point, the website link above which lists three A-10 lost or damaged in Kosovo is pure BS! Only one A-10 was damaged bad enough it could not return to base and that aircraft was repaired and returned to service in two weeks. The reason it took two weeks was because of getting the needed parts and equipment to the REMOTE location where it landed. If it had been able to get home it would have been back in service in less than a week!
The other two listed was one with a ? mark after it...simply did not happen and the second comes from pictures posted on the web which showed an A-10 part, with a data plate on it, which had a part # and the letters A-10A. The part number was for a 600 gallon fuel tank which was jettisoned from an A-10 before going on a CSAR mission..again a
good piece of propaganda but pure BS!
>>
Fair enough.
Kurt Plummer"
Here's more rambling stupidity...
"Hi ELP,
>>
Kurt I call it the "Hitler Channel" too.
(for some of you that may not know there is a TV channel in the states called the History Channel. They do some good (once in a while not so good) history features on just about everything. They do a lot of various 3rd Reich topics (some exceptional) but once in a while it gets to be too much, (even for a WWII history guy like myself) so it gets the name "The Hitler Channel" also.)
>>
Yeah, the series on Desert Storm had the USAF air component commander at the time (Chuck Horner?) _specifically state_ that they didn't want the A-10 in theater and did everything they could to fight against it. The Old Man admitted- "Only after it finally came over and started doing all these things did I realize my mistake". Or something to that effect.
>>
Also Kurt FYI you might know this they did several successful F-18 carrier landings automatically ( a year ago? ) using some new GPS system. The pilot was in it but it was neat.
>>
JPALS. Joint Precision Approach Landing System. Basically the carrier becomes what is known as a 'pseudolite' that creates differential angular positioning /from itself/ as part of an 'SRGPS' or ship borne relative global positioning system to help orient the aircraft.
It gets tricky depending on the flight path you are flying (curvilenear 'Corsair Finals' were tested to both max-stress the system and define just how tight the spacing and scatter error could be refined to) and the flight management computer has to be able to talk to (and gain control response from) the aircraft inside a given cyclical response period or you blow out the 5X15cm precision guarantee but right now, they are talking about this not only for zero-stack landing but also for deconflicting (ala TCAS) large controlled airspace volumes under 'discrete datalink' control.
A similar but separate project is supposed to finalize around November of this year to finally start getting full shortland-utility out the the C-17 for 'unprepared/roughfield' basein approaches which would otherwise be purely up to pilot experience to determine a go-no-go decisioning on what would otherwise be an irrecoverable commit.
In this case the computer is TELLING YOU that it can do the deed and then flying the glideslope and airspeed right down to noflare and reversal.
_Far better than a human ever could_.
http://www.ion.org/meetings/gps2002/A3.cfm
http://www.afmc.wpafb.af.mil/HQ-AFMC/PA ... _JPALS.htm
>>
I don't see any reason to complain about the A-10 ( for any reason ) until something comes along to make it completely useless. As it is now there are still times when a theater commander will demand it.
>>
Aside from my very unhappy squawks on political nature of manned-tacair cash cows, it has to do with the with the way we continue to view alinear warfare.
The military STILL defines this as a 'cataclysmic schwerpunkt' event where massed local forces exploit ONE apparent hole in the the apparent nature of an enemies strategic position and the 'alinearity' comes from exploiting that hole to a total-victory scenario which is rapidly back at force on force (strength of strength) attritioning.
An artifact of John Warden's 'five rings' bullseye obsession, this refuses to see that when you close your fist around a handful of minnows in a goldfish bowl, crushing one 'capital/border goal' against the side of tbe bowl as part of a campaign centralized objective mindset becomes _pointless_.
Furthermore, when you have a /tub full/ of pirranha AND minnows your ability to herd them on a 'progressive' capture-or-kill campaign basis also goes straight to hell not only on the back-and-forth motions of 'both schools' in mixed collateralship but on transferrable mutation between them.
Because not only will the big tooth fish chew through the net by looking like minnows, they will connive to convince all the minnows to start biting the hand that separates and 'protects' them.
Thus you have to be in a position where a significant initial statistical attrition of the killer fish comes all-at-once parallel equivalent.
And you have to do it in such a manner that exposes your own people _to minimum risk over time of occupation_.
All with a low-obtrusiveness factor so that whereever the goldfish bowl lensing effect of media and international circusry ends up coming to rest, you have already achieved your attrition goal and moved on.
Now an A-10 can be X-here or it can be 300nm over there. But it can't be both in the same halfhour. Nor can a UCAV but you can easily by 2-3 of them for the same cost as a single 'A-10 Upgrade'=JSF.
And an A-10 can fight Taleban or it can fight Serbs but it can't fight Chinese or even Pak (which is almost certainly where this will end up if the borders can't be _locked down_) on a Day 1 basis. A UCAV can do both and so can a JSF but the JSF cannot do both on an stretched-to-max loitering coverage basis that basically isolates the country with continuiing sorties around the clock 24:7:365.
More importantly, an investment in the A-10 is /deliberately choosing yesterday over today/. And the USAF won't (can't, politically, they will be 'overruled' by JSF porkers legisilatively) do that.
Because in the Warthog, you are looking at a system which is-
Not in production.
Is on it's second or third Lockheed Owego=also build JSF 'contractor support' (read: I will ream you good for every non-contracted time you force me to crack open the airframe to insert not-ready-now goodies) company.
And is NOT (and never will be) netcentric as a baseline platform integer in the way we develop the ACN (air communications node) and 'bent pipe' double and triple radio overlay architecture as a function of MAKING SURE that the _necessary_ C4ISR data gets relayed.
JSF is no better because as long as it has the stick wiggler up front it will weigh=cost more and man-ual integrate data which would otherwise be forceably automated.
UCAV is everything we NEED to do, simply because it is a 'blank piece of paper' in which everything /remains to be done/ in devising a system, not just for 2010 but for 10-20-30 years further down the road after that.
Which is the future of the USAF/USN airpower and the reason why we are STILL 'on top' while all the other nations of the planet play continual leapfrog.
It is also the future of the MIB where it is practical to let 3-4 different mission-equipment-package contracts on 2-3 airframes. Something which Congress will /just luv/.
The final obstacle towards that 'grand plan' is AWARENESS of a concept which you see illustrated by the stereotyping shown here.
Everyone and their mother's uncle see's UCAV as 'just another Predator' /when it most certainly is NOT/.
Just as they -assume- that 'loiter=slow and CAS=low+gun'.
That is NOT how we fight, even today, and it sure as hell had better not be the road we try to continue down tomorrow. Economics, manning ratios (and general 'volunteer' low-pay enlistment) plus spiralling commitments placed upon a 'non compatible' continuing _diversity_ of basemode varying 'joint' platforms will _kill U.S._ if we fail to attempt to break the mold that is manned skyknightery.
>>
That one Allied Force A-10 hit. There was a funny photo published after it got repaired. It was a green jet, but had either a desert or unpainted engine cowling put on it. It looked funny.
I think Tom may confirm this. There were some other platforms in Allied Force that when they ditched their drop tanks, it was reported as a kill by the Yugs.
>>
The A-10 tank is the F-111 tank and IIRR, the reason it is dropped is simply that you cannot stress it past 2-3G.
At one time, the A-7 jug (the standard USN 300 gallon unit) was mooted for carriage as a 'combat tank' because it was indeed 5-6G capable when empty but the question you have to ask is: if a low-slow='efficient' jet is hauling some 15,000lbs of fuel around on a _CSAR_ (orbit hold here, we hopefully won't need you) mission, what is it going to be like when you are fast-transiting 'above the threat' in a landscape where you are the ONLY fixed wing support asset in-country and may have some truly serious density-altitude limitations on /at least/ runway length?
Kurt Plummer"
"Nuts"
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