“...guys on the ground would take a Warthog (10) providing CAS over an 18 just about every time...
On what do you base this? And in what IADS environment do you think your solution is better? If I can drop a 500lb GPS guided munition within 2 meters from 10-20 thousand feet, what is a warthog going to do any better? The answer is the only thing the A-10 can excel at is its use of canon against moving armored targets. Its very efficient at that. But there are many other platforms that can do this mission, too.”
What can a Warthog do? First off, it doesn’t drop ordinance on my position instead of the guy I’m trying to kill. Secondly, the Warthog driver can visually identify his target so that he doesn’t waste expensive guided weapons on Yugos with a phone pole through the front window that the Serbs put out as decoys and our Air Force misidentified as tanks, engaging them with guided weapons.
Hanging around at 20,000ft might make Air Force mission planners happy because they don’t have to take ground fire, but it wastes ordinance and it causes accidents like some guy in a fast mover who’d rather be pretending he’s the Red Baron, dropping ordinance on me.
Bottom line here is that I trust a pilot in an airplane using the M-1 Eyeball and some judgement a whole lot more than I trust a bunch of transistor twidget stuff at 20,000 where the pilot can’t identify anything and which because of time compression because he’s moving too fast, he can’t set up the shot for accurate weapons delivery anyway, let
alone discriminate between ground decoys, the enemy and me.
That guided crap looks good on paper, but it ain’t always so out on the sharp end.
An attack helo can do this as well.
My point with the earlier comment was that the A-10 mission is unique, but it does not all encompass CAS. F-35 will be a fine replacement for the Hornet and Harrier in the CAS role. It will be more versatile and survivable than both.
Hanging around at 20,000ft might make Air Force mission planners happy because they don’t have to take ground fire, but it wastes ordinance and it causes accidents like some guy in a fast mover who’d rather be pretending he’s the Red Baron, dropping ordinance on me.
Bottom line here is that I trust a pilot in an airplane using the M-1 Eyeball and some judgement a whole lot more than I trust a bunch of transistor twidget stuff at 20,000 where the pilot can’t identify anything and which because of time compression because he’s moving too fast, he can’t set up the shot for accurate weapons delivery anyway, let alone discriminate between ground decoys, the enemy and me.
That guided crap looks good on paper, but it ain’t always so out on the sharp end.
Thanks. No need for me to address this as well. You got it.