A-10 Warthog retirement debated after replacement’s role in ‘friendly fire’ deaths

Washington Times ^ | November 30, 2014 | Rowan Scarborough

[Bucky14]

I used to watch them operating at edwards. Awesome to watch. I worked on the B1-B project. I have no clue why they would consider it a replacement to the A-10. It can go really fast right on the deck...

[Mr Rogers]

The A-10 doesn’t do near vertical dives. No one does.

[Lurker]

Let me know when you figure out how to put the Gatling gun on a drone.

L

[wrench]

Not any more. But some of the most fearsome CAS aircraft did, back in the day.

[Uncle Miltie]

This is not a replacement for that:

[nascarnation]

put the Gatling gun on a drone

I'm not sure you need a 30mm depleted uranium shell to shred Toyota pickups. As my Dad used to say, use the right tool for the job. I'm sure a Predator could be fitted with 50 cal?

[Lurker]

ISIS has tanks and APCs, too.

[Iron Munro]

It’s elementary:

Politicians don’t get big contributions and kickbacks for sticking with weapons systems already designed and built.

They do get big contributions and kickbacks for handing out new multi-million dollar contracts for R & D and multi-billion dollar contracts to build new systems.

[Jabba the Nutt]

The Air Force never wanted the ground support role. The planes and mission should be turned over to the Army ASAP.

[pfflier]

The B-1 does need twice the engines to take off.

[Charles Martel]

There are high explosive incendiary (non-depleted uranium) rounds for the 30mm cannon. Should work on those Toyotas just fine. Like a fire hose of rifle grenades.

[Chainmail]

Sort of a mixed blessing: I still remember the multiple times Warthogs attacked friendly targets in Iraq, most notably the Marine amphibious vehicles (LVTP-7s) killing 17 Marines near Nasiriyah and the notorious attack against the British armored vehicles around the same time, killing 6. No excuse whatsoever for a ground attack pilot not knowing what our stuff looks like - particularly since our vehicles had large American flags on them.

It is an excellent ground support aircraft but as noted earlier, the Air Force hates ground support missions. I remember only too well how dangerous it was to ask for USAF close air in Vietnam. We were lucky if they hit within a kilometer of where we asked and didn't hit us in the process.

For competent and effect close air support, there is no substitute for Marine aviation.

[Carriage Hill]

So-’s the B-52, but it gets the job done, admirably.

[nascarnation]

To some extent it’s sending a man to do a boy’s job.
And of course using a B-1 is even dumber.

[Vermont Lt]

I would think our vehicles would have some sort of transponder on them now—something that would shout out” Dont shoot me.

But, I am sure there are a million reasons why they wouldn’t.

[Vermont Lt]

They fly too high for a machine gun to be effective.

And if they flew low, they would be too slow.

[RedMDer]

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We're going to need a big push to
wrap this up. Let's git 'er done.

[pfflier]

Well both of the weapons systems in this discussion are long ago "designed and built". In both cases, the tooling is even retired.

The kickback stories were used for these systems and every new system I can remember since the 1970's.

[freedumb2003]

The A-10 and F-14 (Yes, I know the latter was Navy), are the best damn milcraft for their respective roles.

The F-35 (flying anvil) OTOH is useless for anything — the F-16 can do the same at a fraction of the cost.

[nascarnation]

Maybe the answer is to turn the A-10 into an unmanned platform. That way the Pentagon folks would have their “high tech” stuff.