Posted on 11/15/2013 5:31:04 AM PST by C19fan
A bipartisan group of senators and congressmen is fighting back against the U.S. Air Force’s move to prematurely retire all 350 of its A-10 Warthog attack planes between 2015 and 2018.
But the flying branch is already strangling the A-10 force with budget cuts, upgrade cancellations and a reduced contingent of new pilots.
The battle is intensifying in Washington, D.C. over the legendary warplane, which was originally meant to destroy Soviet tanks and has flown thousands of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, saving scores of American lives with its overwhelming firepower.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
Truthfully, the A-10 has always been needed by the Army, for *their* mission, instead of the Air Force, for *their* mission. So the easiest way, which will be like pulling teeth, is for the A-10 to be given to the Army.
It cannot be a direct, 1 to 1 transfer, however, because the Army needs airfields and ground maintenance. And doing these alone, just for one aircraft, is not cost effective. So the way around this problem is to create a squadron of a single manned A-10, *accompanied* by a group of four drone aircraft with a similar CAS purpose.
Thus, instead of “point” CAS, the squadron would provide “area” CAS, with five times the firepower. The tactics of such a squadron would be very different. For example, instead of a “V” formation, they would use an inverted “V” formation.
Because drone aircraft can have a much higher speed and greater mach maneuverability, they are far more capable of evading surface to air attacks. Thus, when the squadron entered a high AAA zone, the drones would be first engaged, and evade the incoming, as the manned A-10 took out the AAA positions. And once an area was cleared of its AAA, all the aircraft would be able to smite ground targets at will.
The plane is far, far too cheap, too effective, and has been upgraded about as far as it can go. Thus nobody can get a multi-million dollar contract to renew the valve stems in the tires.
When you hear that God awful growl from it’s guns in the distance, you know someone just entered the gates of hell.
I’ve seen the enemy actually sh*t themselves when they hear the roar of the gun.
Give the plane to the Marines or the Army. A bad ass plane for a bad ass soldier.
Look for them to show up in the Marine Corps!!
It's old, not new and glamorous.
It's slow - by design and intent to fulfill it's mission. But no self respecting zoomie wants to fly a slow aircraft.
Even worse, it is simple. It makes all their other maintenance intensive (ie. costly) aircraft look bad by comparison.
Perhaps most damaging... It is a ground support aircraft. Meaning that when it flies missions the AF isn't the lead service, they are supporting another service in their mission. So when it succeeds, it is seen as "The Army took ..." or "The Marines successfully held..." and then in the third paragraph there is a mention of the AF support missions.
So yes, as others have suggested, maybe these units should be transitioned en-mass to the Army and/or Marines.
/johnny
That sure appears to be true.
I was stationed at Myrtle Beach when they came in to the inventory and replaced the A-7s that were basically jet powered rocks - lose power and they "glided" like a rock.
The A-7s were loud and would shake the barracks and keep you awake at night. The A-10s sounded more like supercharged vacuum cleaners with the turbo fans and made sleeping through night sorties a lot easier.
They made for some awesome air shows (when the pilots didn't press the takeoff envelope too far and bang a wingtip into the ground). I can still see one going down the runway and not looking like it had enough speed to take off when the wheels would retract almost without first leaving the ground and the plane would seem to just be hovering above the runway only without the landing gear. Then, it would move sharply up while making a hard turn and you just knew it couldn't do that. They also had a quick turn capability so by the time someone would duck to evade cannon fire, it was already coming back from the opposite direction. It was able to maneuver some turns and rolls where you would swear it was now going away from you and next thing be screaming hard at you.
I never tired of watching them fly and they were known for coming back with so many holes and missing parts that it seemed impossible that they were still flying - awesome tank killers with a lot of other close air support capabilities and survivability. hate to see them go.
The Army-Air Force split gave all fixed wing airplanes to the USAF. The A-10 really should be an exception.
Get the A-10 out of the AirForce and give it to the Army.
Yep. Give the A-10 to the Army and Marines. They know how to use it.
/johnny
I’ve been to air shows where the A10 did a fly over. Talk about awe inspiring. It’s a nearly unbreakable, well armored, flying gun platform. What’s not to love?
Yeah, or they could just be turned over to the Marine Corps.
Maybe the hate comes from liberals trying to transsexualize the services. The A-10 evokes pure flying testosterone.
Yeah, but it does kind of have that badonkadonk butt look to it.......
And wear flight suits and demand combat pay.
They’ve been trying to kill the A-10 for a long time, and yet it never seems to go away. When I stop seeing them in the skies above Tucson for a year I’ll believe they actually finally killed it.
My fantasy ground-attack/CAS weapon system from hell would be an A-10 with two drones, one under each wing: Kind of the Dr. Evil and mini-me look. And the smaller drone planes would be equipped with remote-aim/fire Dillon Aero miniguns!
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