Posted on 10/25/2018 9:05:55 AM PDT by C19fan
The US Army wants the F-35 to support its ground troops.
It’s that simple. We hear volumes of information about the Marine Corps vertical-take-off-and-landing F-35B, Navy carrier-launched F-35C and Air Force F-35A - but what does the Army think of the emerging Joint Strike Fighter?
Does the Army think the 5th-Gen stealth fighter would bring substantial value to targeting and attacking enemy ground forces in close proximity to advancing infantry? What kind of Close Air Support could it bring to high-risk, high-casualty ground war?
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
There are always brass on the political Pentagon insider track of the military who want that crap.
Boots on the ground want something slow and durable enough to hang over the battlefield and do a thorough job.
This must be BS. Ground troops love the A-10.
Bullsh!t
25mm gun with 182 rds for the F-35A or a pod that they say is stealth-ish kinda on the wing for the F-35B.
There are always brass on the political Pentagon insider track of the military who want that crap.
...
They know they’ll get lucrative jobs later on if they shovel billions of dollars towards the defense contractors.
The A-10 gets the job done for a lot less money.
True but the perfumed princes might actually be thinking tactically here. The 35’s VSTOL ability may see it deployed closer to the action than the A10. Quicker ToT and quicker rearm and return. Just a thought.
Giving up the A-10 is like giving up the rifle, imo. You’ve got a great weapon that does a great job, that no other weapon can do. The enemy is scared to death of it. And it’s relatively cheap and durable. It’s crazy to give it up.
It seems to me for most of the low-intensity conflicts the US is involved in, in places like Afghanistan, Somalia, Niger, etc...a heavily armored and updated WWII P-51 at $750K a copy would work really well.
And at that price, you could have dozens over them over a battlefield.
Of course, Lockheed Martin wouldn’t like it....
This is the army leadership talking. No one bothered to ask the grunts with boots on the ground.
I call BS!
Speaking with no knowledge whatsoever (not that this ever stops me)… Could some of the advantage of the F35 be obtained by simply updating the electronics aboard the A10 and its weapons?
Right off the bat, the F-35 cannot even begin to withstand the ground-fire that A-10s have to soak up. If this is put into practice, I predict a lot of F-35s will be shot out of the sky.
Accuracy of air-to-ground fire is another thing. The A-10 can go low and slow for hours -- the F-35, not so much. Precision of fire will also be less. So time over the AO will be limited and friendly fire causalities will be greater.
My two cents...
Stupid.
"While [the Army] did not specifically compare the A-10 to the F-35 or say the Army prefers one aircraft over another..."
Definition of click-bait headline.
Nothing better for ground attack than the A-10.
A radial would be better.
What’s the unit cost of an F-35 vs. an A-10?
Yeah, put a $100M stealth aircraft in a CAS role. Doesn’t make a lick of sense.
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