Posted on 01/26/2015 10:13:33 AM PST by raptor22
Defense Spending: The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block.
We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union.
We've also mentioned the phasing out of the A-10 Thunderbolt, a close-support aircraft that entered service in 1972 and was designed to combat Soviet tank formations on a European battlefield.
Dubbed the "Warthog" because of its decidedly un-sleek profile, the A-10 has been found to be useful in another capacity in Iraq — attacking IS forces that don't want to be on the business end of the Warthog's 30 mm
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
“Heads will spin on that!”
And the Armys. . .support and logistic supply-train and basing requirements would not be feasable.
And not really effective when there’s........NAIL GUNS!!!!!!
Yep, spread the Warthogs around to the VMA squadrons for "evaluation purposes".
S327...
I saw a blurb on Yahoo today of 5 programs we should axe. Oh it made by blood boil, included in that was the UCAS aka the X-47B. When you look back on what the Navy Did, they canned the A6, cancelled the A-12 ( dumb mistake ) and now we have nothing to go down-town with, and no I am not fond of the F-18E/F.
However, a robust, folding wing follow on that could take the place of the A-10 and the A-6 might get the 2 birds with one stone. And yes I get that trying to do multiple branches common platform usually doesn't work. This time I think it might. I have some ideas as to the config, but that is not for here....
WAR ON TERROR PING
- Revoke the law that prohibits the Army from operating fixed-wing aircraft. Then give the ‘Hog to them.
- Update the electronics. One of the big problems (yes; it does have a couple) is the counter-measures systems are all 70s-80s technology. Harder for them to survive with all of the advances being made in even the smallest surface-to-air missile systems. Sure, the ‘Hog can take hits, but why invite trouble? Not that this will be a problem; just look at the B-52!!
One heck of a fine weapon system, though! :O
WAR ON TERROR PING
Congress needs to bring back manufacturing to America, to bring back American jobs, to decrease our national spending, and decrease our debt.
Everything we are doing now, is bad for America.
We now are 18 trillion (actually now 18.1 trillion) in debt.
Yet this year, we will set YET ANOTHER TRADE DEFICIT RECORD with a closed, communist nation.
And nobody is doing one darned thing, to bring back any American jobs.
Nobody.
There is no continued production. One of the first things cut under Clinton was the A-10 production line - and the Congress added in that the tooling had to be destroyed.
We haven’t had a new A-10 built since 1993.
What is the future of the AC-130 gunship?
Was that deployed at all in Iraq or Afghanistan?
Many upgrades since to it electronics, avionics and re-wing.
Correct, but the line and tooling had been mothballed after that and maintained at small government expense, so the plane could be put back in production in case of a war, as it was relatively simple to make and it was expected to take heavy casualties in an all out war with the Soviets. The Congress had it destroyed as part of the so-called ‘peace dividend’ and after 1993 there was not even a possibility of new ones.
Well, some tooling does exist, since the A-10 fleet has been getting new wings (effectively zero-timing the airframe). Apart from that, there are plenty in storage out at AMARG/Davis-Monthan to act as a reserve for far more attrition than can be expected over the next 20-30 years.
The 1990s tooling destruction that was really painful was the F-14. That was Dick Cheney using the Tomcat as a political weapon in a spat he had with the NY Congressional delegation, which kept getting more and more Bs and Ds added back into the budget.
Actually, Boeing had to start from scratch to build those new wings. Yes, there is now tooling for the wing, but nothing else.
Boeing is pretty good at reverse-engineering and recreating old airplane parts.
A couple years back they produced a brand new main wing spar for one of the restored and flying B-17s. CAF’s “Texas Raiders” I think. I think 15-20 years ago that would have been prohibitively expensive, but Boeing took laser measurements of an existing, borrowed spar (or maybe it was just the old engineering diagrams) rendered the new one using CAD and set one of their big milling machines to the task. Still expensive, but also within the levels of acceptable cost to keep an old warbird in the air.
The USG ‘owned’ the tooling but not the building, and as per usual with other aircraft buys, post-production means no production of the jet. . .but a stock of replacement parts are produced at a low rate of production for a limited run. Can't just shut down production of pieces parts once the last jet rolls off the line because you will need spare parts. . .until some of those jets end up at AMARC.
In 1992 the first A-10s arrived at D-M AMRAC for storage so no need to manufacture spare parts. . .A-10’s in the ‘boneyard’ would now provide parts.
So, the final assembly line was dismantled and Fairchild owned the building so there was no ‘plan’ to re-tool in case of a war. . .not enough time to re-open the line, bring back the guys on the line, locate second the third-tier suppliers. Heck some parts can take years to procure. . .like titanium . .it can take up to 2-yrs to acquire.
If the commie hoards came across the line we would not have enough time nor people nor hardware to crank it back up.
Ping
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