Posted on 01/23/2015 1:19:39 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Four incidents since 1991 last incident in 2006. Considering the A-10 is the USAF main CAS platform I'd call that an pretty good record.
Stats for the 91 gulf war from wiki
"The A-10 had a mission capable rate of 95.7%, flew 8,100 sorties, and launched 90% of the AGM-65 Maverick missiles fired in the conflict."
Maybe you don't like the A-10 but I do. I'd also like to see a modern version of the A1 Sky Raider. Low, slow, effective and affordable.
hands up...you win.
have a good weekend.
You too, sir.
Cheers.
Ah sheesh, now I feel bad. OK, I apologize. There is no reason to impugn the honor or courage of a brother in arms.
I'm just a temperamental old cuss. And I have seen the wrong treelines bombed and sometimes us and it had soured me a bit with the higher-altitude deliveries. The F-100 that bombed us near the DMZ was probably National Guard, not regular Air Force anyway.
I just exalt the really, really obvious heroism that I saw from my pilot brethren who were willing to get so damn low to be absolutely no-kidding sure that they hit where they were needed. We would actually cheer when they came in like a bunch of kids at a football game when they pounded the cruds so close they would actually fly through their own napalm bursts.
Thank you for you service.
Yeah, I know but even a few incidents can really sour things and make those of us on the ground a lot less trusting. I had a truck in my battalion that we kept preserved in its shredded condition to remind us of the corporal we lost when an errant Shrike found our countermortar radar operator instead. It is what it is.
Combat's dangerous stuff. It would just be a lot less dangerous if the air fighters and the ground fighters had tighter relations and more frequent training together. Love the SPAD but I also appreciate the A-10: just need to hit the other guys, please?
Possibly.
Though, to be honest I think I'd much rather have an A-10 for CAS than any other airframe.
(I was 11B, but never got in a situation where I needed CAS; all the 11Bs I talked to who had loved the A-10.)
Lol, one of your more inspired contributions...
Same here.
Cheers.
I understand the attachment you have to low altitude runs and fully appreciate and respect that. Having been on both sides of a CAS mission, I truly mean it.
Cheers, FRiend
Yea, they looked at it, but having an aircraft that out flies your ordinance is a really bad idea. Not to mention that low speed handling isn’t that great, and at speed, a turn takes up the space of Texas.
There’s a reason they didn’t go with it in the long run, and it wasn’t because they canceled the 58.
>>> Need help on the ground? Dial 9-MARINE AIR. <<<
Since the MARINES tend to get the short end of the stick in regards to funding; That should read: “Dial 1-900-MARINEAir”. Operators are standing by.
Great Post and even better Replies.
“Throwing the piglets out with the bath? What about the Hog Drivers? Don’t they deserve some respect? … THEY love the mission and the jet. And most love their Air Force”.
EVERY Driver deserves total respect not just “some”. And the Piglets deserve proper care & feeding.
Long ago and not so far away, my first view of A-10’s happened along a stretch of Myrtle Beach. A flight of A-10’s flew in from the sea with the sound of their turbofans as distinctive as a Flathead V-8. More impressive was the precise turn-on-a-dime agility of the aircraft. Put any sports car to shame.
As it happened, a young man and his family were nearby and shared in the “air show”. Showing great enthusiasm if not animation in talking about the Bird, I assumed the young man to be Air Force of some stripe. Clearly, ‘Hogs had replaced sliced bread as this gents greatest wonder. Whenever I read of A-10’s, my mind’s eye eventually recalls the “love of mission and jet” exhibited by that unknown airman.
Sheltered life perhaps, but due to weather and circumstance calls for CAS were limited. Still, Skyhawks more than took care of us when called. Did come to have a very deep appreciation for the accuracy and “any weather is good weather” operations of Marine artillery though. Long live the King!
Pilots vs. Aviators; during an anticlimatic operation in the Delta, recall watching B-57 Canberra’s make mid-altitude bomb runs. To this untrained eye and those of my shipmates, their runs appeared more between-the-knees mid-court shot than any precision “swoosh”. In contrast, Naval Aviators came in hell-busting for election.
Being simple Grunts, we defined the contrast as Pilots had a big inheritance awaiting their return home while Aviators had nothing more awaiting them than a sheriff with some bogus warrant.
What difference does it make? The big stuff like an F-15 can certainly get down low, but it cannot get down low AND slow enough to always get an accurate visual on very much. Also, they are not good at sneaking low, relatively quiet, and slow up over long distances, taking advantage of natural terrain to hide behind. F-16 drivers tell me they are not too bad at this, but then again they will tell one anything! CAS often demands crop-dusting technique, not 500knt-fly-bys. It amazes me that the fast-movers are as good at it as they are!
OTOH, the olde AD-1 Skyraider could loiter for 8 hours over an area and come in at treetop height or lower at 125 knts to be very precise in the CAS role. It was also very heavily armored against ground fire, as is the A-10, its CAS-dedicated successor.
The new turbo-prop COIN aircraft attempt to recreate some of the Skyraider's advantages, but I have no clue as to how they are doing, except against obstreperous peasants and the occasional drug smuggler, and none are flying in the ME. The Skyraider could also handle 4 tons of ordnance, the same as a WWII B-17, was an excellent torpedo bomber, AND a great dive bomber. ... ... match that!
Meanwhile, keep the A-10. Let the AF use new toys to fly top cover. There ain't enough mustard in the world to cover them hot dogs when they get close to the ground action.
Only differences I would come up with (struggling hard) are that A-1 really aren't armored, they just acted like they were. They had a plate behind the seat in case a fighter bounced them from behind and the had that big wonkin' Wright 3350 in front which would eat gunfire and just keep running. The real armor were pilots with balls the size of regulation competition bowling balls.
There should be a national annual ceremony where medevac pilots and Skyraider pilots are all put on a podium in the center of huge stadium and all of the rest of us attend and kneel in their direction in silence for 15 minutes.
Here's what fast-movers do for CAS in our neck of the woods: the FAC - ground or airborne or both - first talks the stack towards the target and then when they're close enough, marks the target with something nice and visible and unmistakable like white phosphorus. The lead fast-mover rolls inverted and scans the target area, picks up his visual cues, IP and final, and confirms the direction and location of the friendlies. Then he ensures that the rest of his stack watch his first roll in and pass. If the FAC likes what he sees, he calls "wings level, clear and hot" which means that he's lined up right and he can go ahead and drop stuff or start firing if it's a gun run.
Fast movers aren't supposed to find stuff all on their lonesome down low in the weeds. He has other folks, well-trained folks, doing that for him.
Where I diverge from my Air Force comrades is that they are taught from birth, I guess, that they are supposed to not like CAS and aren't supposed to lose their plane or themselves taking too big a chance. I understand those feelings perfectly.
But combat is full of chances. Hell, us groundpounders only have to step on the wrong thing or stand long enough to pee on a tree to get killed. When we need CAS, it isn't for just making AF guys feel miserable or to get them killed - it's to pound some damn target that only their stuff can get: big nasty bunkers, hardened revetments, tanks - you know, M-16 through 155mm HE-proof targets. If we all do it right and we've trained at it a lot, it goes like clockwork and there's huge, satisfying fireball where the enemy used to be and all of us get to go home. A win-win, if you follow my drift.
The issue with that incident at an Nasiriyah was that some A-10 or A-10s took it upon themselves to attack a line of armored vehicles that had crossed a bridge coming out of the north side of that town. Nobody had told the A-10 drivers that we had US forces that had gotten through that damn hellhole successfully, so somebody - either the A-10 drivers themselves or their FAC or both - decided that they must be bad guys.
AAV-7s are the biggest, ugliest armored vehicle in anybody's inventory and it has a very distinctive upturned nose. Nothing else in history looks like them. Worse, these AAVs were loaded with our Marines and they had huge American flags painted on the sides. The A-10s came straight in, no recognition pass and gunned 'em. Our young guys died and the brave leading element was stopped cold by our own young guys.
The Air Force never apologized. maybe they never do, like it's against policy or something. The blame was put on "incomplete coordination between our forces". Well, no Shite.
Meanwhile, many sets of American parents have little shrines in their homes with the best pictures they could find of their sons and that shrine gathers dust in some corner of their homes.
CAS is necessary and it is a superb, vital weapon of war. As such, it need the kind of devotion, training and coordination commensurate with its danger.
Make sense?
Absolutely brilliant writing, I laughed so hard I thought that I'd open up the stitches on an appendectomy I had 20 tears ago!
Nailed it, Buddy!
Um, there was a little more to it than that.. The Sovs had developed a "look down, shoot down" capability and of course, the MiG-25 was just entering service. The other problem was that the B-58 had a horrible accident rate. Killed a lot of some of best young pilots who couldn't get the best of its insanely-difficult CG management issues.
Nice-looking plane and just as fast as it looked but not a great solution to getting bombs to where we needed them and way too much good blood lost flying them.
LOL, JUMPIN JESUS THAT’S THE BEST POST I’VE READ IN YEARS!!!
First Sentence: “Listen Fred, you just DON’T unnnerstan the AF!”
Well Son, You got that right!! Never did, Never will!!
Flew in [NAVY] Willy Victors. EC121s.
LOL, WTF do you know about them? Not a challenge, just an “Old Guy” thing.
Have a happy! We’ll go round this again.
Good Day!
This needs more details. I consider a sortie to be flying a complete mission profile. Live ordnance flown a realistic distance, at a realistic speed, hi-lo-hi as applicable, putting ordnance on target and RTB. Anything else is just stick time for the pilot's log book.
Mandatory airplane porn:
I dunno, treetop level, on full afterburner, I bet the enemy would think they’d been nuked.
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