I know what scares China! This guy:
Posted on 04/28/2023 8:56:48 AM PDT by Red Badger
The US Air Force has been trying for years to retire its aging fleet of A-10 Warthog planes. During a Thursday hearing, the service secretary said the aircraft "doesn't scare China." "It still has some limited utility, but we have to get on with things," Frank Kendall told Congress.
The US Air Force has long butted heads with Congress over plans for the retirement of its aging A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft — flying cannons also known as Warthogs, and on Thursday, service leadership stressed to legislators that it's time to move on because the warplane is less useful than it was 40 years ago and simply "doesn't scare" China.
The Department of the Air Force Posture Statement about the 2024 fiscal year budget outlines specific divestments that the service branch wants to undertake so it can continue to modernize and adapt to relevant threats. The document requests that Congress allow for the retirement of 42 A-10 Warthogs because the aircraft "does not deter or survive against our pacing challenge, and we need to move forward."
Frank Kendall, the secretary of the Air Force, reiterated this Thursday afternoon during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the service's budget request when ranking member Rep. Adam Smith asked Kendall if he could outline some of the programs that the Air Force plans to divest and why it is important that Congress avoids getting in the way.
"I'll start with the A-10," Kendall said in his response. "It's over 40 years old. It was, in its time, a great aircraft — it served us well. I was an advocate for that program for a long time, but it doesn't scare China."
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Which means that we must keep the Warthog flying.
Hog drivers have been making fools out of the A-10 critics since day one.
It’s plane that is just too darn useful to die so it get it's mission updated to meet current needs.
It is not going to be a safe place to be in contested airspace on day one of any major conflict but it's ability to carry a stupid amount of precision stand off weapons and drones gives it new life even on day one.
Once all the high tech stuff air defense weapons have been burned through, the A-10 can go back to what it does best.
Perhaps not on day one.
How about six months in after everyone's best has been attrited and production of replacement aircraft are years away?
And can't A-10s drop glide bombs from many miles away from air defenses?
The A-10 bomb trucks are paid for and ready to do. What the Air Force generals want is to spend billions for just a few new shiny airplanes.
We really need both.
F-35s.
The problem is that the A-10s are great for counterinsurgency and the like, or where the enemy hasnt got world class air defense. Thats the sort of war the US has been fighting since after Vietnam. But thats not the sort of war thats likely coming.
I don’t doubt that there are better options. My comment is based on the idiotic reasoning by the SECAF.
Any plane can drop glide bombs, like the SDB.
But they can do it at higher speeds than the A10, giving the bombs more range.
And its unknown if any plane can drop glide bombs out of SAM system range. Its a matter of details.
Fun factoid. Taiwan is not the only possibility lurking. Whatever one thinks, there are numerous likely wars we might need it in. In the event we were sucked into Ukraine, it would be in it’s element it was designed for. **When** Mexico boils over into a narco civil war, the A-10 would be splendid. It would be a natural for half a dozen places in austere African environments where like it or not, we are headed straight in.
Maybe it’s not a good Taiwan plane so much, but the world is more than Taiwan.
Besides, China isn’t invading Taiwan. The are watching us implode, building a large BRICs universe, and in 10 years, they will land in Taiwan at the main airport.... and walk down a red carpet towards a welcoming committee.
But thats not the sort of war thats likely coming.
You might wanna check out Africa and Mexico.
They were real good in the ME since they were up against rag heads who did not have, for the most part, surface to air weapons.
As a kid, I got to know an AmerIndian from near Green Bay Wi who flew the P47 in WW2 in the European theater. He told stories of how many would go out and not come back from a mission. Your to low to bail out and your only hope is that the Jugs engine would hold on till you could belly land it or limp back to base. The Jugs had small wing spans for the size and you needed to keep the speed up. They were extremely fast for the size.
They didnt have ejection seats back then.
The ones who were absolutely sent on a suicide missions were the P51s. One in the radiator and that was all it took for them. They'd get hot and seize the engine up.
P38s had two engines at least.
They took his pilots license away after he was caught planing to fly under a overpass on one of the highways up there.
No money for the military-industrial criminal complex in them.
Got to get a quadrillion dollar contract for their inferior replacement.
Uh, white suprema-cyst threat.
Yeah the AF has always had a hatred against things that fly low and slow. “But it doesn’t go into the wild blue yonder, we wanna climb high into the sun.” CAS is part of the job boys, stop complaining.
I know what scares China! This guy:
How much does the Chinese Communist Party pay the US Air Force secretary ? Another Obama stooge
“They took his pilots license away after he was caught planing to fly under a overpass on one of the highways up there.”
LOL. But I wouldn’t rule out the A-10s even in places where air defense is strong, as the Russians showed how to neutralize that with drones and missiles (basically run them out of ammo)...so then the enemy battlefield becomes closer to Third World. Plus, obviously, who knows where they’ll be needed in the future (South America, Africa maybe)...where they’d still be effective.
One of the things that’s killing the West in the Ukraine War was the concept of throwing away good hardware, on the theory that it’s no longer worth keeping because of new and shinier things coming (eventually). Winds up Ukraine could have used much of that hardware, regardless of whether the Pencil-Necks could show some marginal cost savings by not having to warehouse that hardware.
We just spent an entire generation fighting wars against adversaries without modern air defense, we are still sticking troops in Syria, East Africa and all sorts of other places that don't have modern air defense, the Russians are finally mobilizing the tanks the A10s were designed to kill, and our biggest territorial threat (mexican cartels) also don't have a modern air defense.
“Transfer it to the Army”
Hear, hear.
First flight...1972. The F-16 had it's first flight in 1974 and it is still flying. The age of the platform makes no difference. Is it effective in its primary role? That's all that matters.
The only name I knew him as is Chief Oshkosh..or Chief.
Short stubby guy and had a little weight on him when I knew him and everybody liked him. But, like all Indians when he got into the booze look out!
This conflict, like you have said, has changed war tactics.
Its a stand off type war now and general artillery has taken control again.
This isnt a full blown war yet. In a full blown nasty beat down drag out wars we will see the use of larger fuel air explosives.
The Russians have used the smaller ones.
After that, it will be tactical nukes.
Yeah there’s probably a few agencies that still fly the P-3 just not the Navy.......long live the P-8A Poseidon......even though by all accounts it can’t do the job its supposed to do as well as the P-3 did it. 😏
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