I love the A-10. The Ukraine conflict shows the landscape has changed. UAV's, small drones, and loitering munitions are replacing a lot of the missions the A-10 would normally do. Especially when you consider environments with modern SAM systems. When you have a $25k loitering munition destroying $1M plus assets you have to evaluate countering options and or entire paradigm shifts in weapon systems and mission profiles.
I had just come back from Pakistan, 1987 time-frame, an the USAF was then talking about A-10 replacement. We at General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) proposed a ground attack version of the F-16 called the A-16. It had a larger wing (not the cranked arrow used in the F-16XL's but the F-16 wing on steroids) with two additional weapons station and a 30mm gun. We made models and wind tunnel tested but was not accepted. Alas none built or flown, but was proposed.
I remember that well. The 30mm GEPOD didn't work out either. They had some existing unit that painted all theirs in the Euro 1 or 2 paint scheme. The wing design was also proposed for Agile Falcon with the additional weapons stations. That design actually got built by Mitsubishi as the F2, with a primary anti-ship role for Japan.
@@LRRPFco52 I was stationed at Carswell when they test fired the 30mm gunpod. They fired it into a concrete block in a special house off to the side of the factory. At first it was like "What's that sound?" Then "Oh." The recognition set in.
The A-10 will see the day when it's time has come, and it has done it's bid for it's country. They do depend on air superiority, but it is not helpless as I recall reading about A-10's doing Air to Air training vs fast movers and holding their own. It is a niche machine with no peer for it's role and I will be sad when it retires. I will always love this bird as has anyone who has had their ass saved by it. LONG LIVE THE HAWG!
I've heard from fighter pilots that it's way too easy to shoot one down. All it's got for defense is older Sidewinders and the gun is pretty useless against fighters that will stay out of range. It's simply not a fair fight. What it takes for an A-10 to shoot down a fast jet is incompetence by the fighter pilot.
You forget that a lot of exercises have restricted RoE to purposefully force scenarios and then analyze them. The A-10s won because pilots were to try and do BFM in the A-10s domain. In "real life rules" they'd fire a Slammer and wipe the sky out of A-10s like fish in a barrel. Similar to the tales of F-5s beating F-14s. Reformers love to cite those exercises, as if the rules weren't constantly changing to keep F-14 pilots out of their element, and once they figured out how to outsmart the rule set, the rules would be changed again.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD I think a lot of people think Top Gun was a realistic depiction of air combat, like it's getting on an enemy's six from 200 feet. And the line that the jets (A-4s and F-5s) were "faster and more maneuverable" than their F-14s was silly. An A-4 can't even go past the speed of sound and isn't really made for air to air combat, but could be used for air to air combat training. Heck - the T-38 is used for adversary duty. I get that they have a lot of these exercises just to learn techniques and not to prove anything about the performance of these platforms for specific missions. If an A-10 is in a position to take out a fast jet, something went horribly wrong for the fast jet pilot.
@@411bvRGiskard Nope. These pristine hangar queens went in to face the music and came out dancing, while A-10s had to be grounded because the Iraqi Republican Guard was too hot to handle. A-10s would be stationed in the same place fighters are. The USAF isn't going to send mechanics, pilots and piles of ordnance into the middle of the brush. Bringing A-10s across water is the worst case scenario for it.
@@pistonburner6448did you actually watch the video? The A-10 is survivable in contested air space. There’s no guarantees with anything but it’s not that easy to shoot down as some would like you to think. It has jamming and countermeasures and other platforms which can perform SEED
@@7gmeister I highly doubt your jamming can do anything meaningful...are you seriously suggesting A-10s have some extra-high-tech jamming that stops it being hit by missiles? You mean it's better than what russians have on their top fighters?
@@7gmeisterpretty sure two a10s survived over a downed f117 pilot in Bosnia. Yea they downed the stealth and not the a10. Also they take a manpad hit and still get the pilot home
A-10 saved my hide in Afghanistan I will always have a special place in my heart for the hog. The air guard base near me flies the hog and I make it a point to go and see them as much as I can. A ground pounders guardian angel. Viva a-10
Thank you for your outstanding service through extremely difficult circumstances. I'm proud of my 'Hog brethren for helping you make it home! (and THATs exactly what the A-10 driver exists to do! What it can or cannot shoot down is NOT!) #ATTACK! Shanghai
I tell the guys at the air guard base how their platform and the mission was on and how they came in and saved our hide and how they flew low enough slow enough saluted us and as he landed and we got back to base he met us and to this day I thank god for all who maintain fly and keep the hog going. Raptor convoy kept going and got our injured home. Viva a-10 and thanks for comment Shanghai
Perfect story was from pilot KC Campbell. Went down through a gap in the cloud to support troops in contact in Baghdad, on second pass, got hit bad, yet still managed to get home. Showed the real benefits of such (imo!😉(ex soldier)) a beautiful aircraft!!
What always gets to me is that I always remember KC Campbell's name but not the pilot who died trying to bring in a damaged A-10. Her story always gets told because she made it. So the name is always on my memory bank. But to remember the guy who died trying to land that A-10 I have to look it up.
Funny about the AK47 comment. My unit was deployed to Bagram in 2012 and one of our A-10s came back with a hole in the elevator and the speed brake after being hit by AK rounds supporting troops that were pinned down. A couple pieces of speed tape and she was ready for another sortie. Flew like that for a few days until she was put in the hanger to patch the holes.
Like the De Havilland Mosquito in WWII: because they were made from wood, if a wingtip got shot off they literally had a carpenter just scarfe on a new tip with a hand saw and some glue. Ready to go as soon as the glue dried.
Shanghai makes an excellent point; the mindset of an A-10 pilot is vastly different that that of an F-16/F-35 pilot. I'm a medic. I was treating a patient one day and a doctor was there. I yielded to him, but he told me to keep going. I asked him why after the event and he told me, "I deal with diseases, chronic ailments, surgical procedures, etc. All you do is trauma." He was absolutely right. My whole job is to quickly asses a situation, stabilize and get a patient to more complex care. A doctor isn't trained to do that and isn't exposed to that in the same way a medic is. A medic can't replace a doctor, but a doctor can't replace a medic either. An F-35 cannot replace an A-10 (or its pilot) on a CAS mission. Like Shanghai said, you take whatever support you can get.
@@Xenomorphine Sure for half the time with half the fire power and god knows how much more per flight min. The current prepared air rate for the f-35 is said to be 50% you need a hundred f-35 to just be able to keep 50 in the air at anyone time. Can a snipe rifle work as a close range door to door weapon sure, but I'm gonna be standing next to the grunt with the the shotgun. 😮💨😮💨
@@michaeljackson692 you might want to take a look at USAF (and Navy and Marine) readiness rates in general... Sandboxx did some videos on precisely that. You're basically advocating to come with a knife to a gunfight. The A-10's job can basically be done by cheap prop-driven attackers with APKWS 2. It's at a weird limbo where it's too expensive to operate in the sort of airspace which would be permissive enough, while being hopelessly obsolete for everywhere else.
@@Xenomorphine 1- Respectfully, you're ignoring the whole point of what I said about the mindset of the pilot. 2- (Using Afghanistan as an example), nobody will hear the F-35 loitering at 50,000 feet. But there are countless accounts from both coalition and Taliban forces of the enemy disengaging at even the mere sound of a nearby A-10 or AH-64. When friendly troops heard that sound, they knew they were making it back to base. You can't replace that. The A-10 is made to take a beating and give the beating back hundredfold. I will never argue with an airframe that makes the persons shooting at me and my mates shit their pants and run. It's similar to the Luftwaffe in WW2 mounting sirens to their dive bomber; they didn't even have to drop ordinance to make their targets run, just the sound created havoc.
As a pilot, I'm not qualified to make budget comments, but I struggle to understand how the bean counters say that keeping the A-10 is too expensive, yet they seem fine investing billions (and lost decades) in replacement weapons systems. What's worse is the "give it to the Army" argument, as if those tax dollars don't start in the same big pot. There is no denying that the A-10 is a useful and versatile platform. Numbers-wise, an A-10 can carry almost twice the load of a Skyraider, but needs a tanker to do so. The new OA-1K for AFSOC can carry about 70% of one Skyraider in weight and is obviously very different in capability/survivability and is meant for a different threat environment; I think it will succeed in its niche. Although the A-10 already has community pipelines, bases, supply chains, etc, no one seems to talk about the costs of shutting down the A-10 and restarting something different. I'd actually swing against the tide and make a case for rejuvenating a select number of A-10A's from AMARG and creating a subset of day/fair weather birds embedded within A-10C squadrons. We seem doomed to repeat historical mistakes; sending the F-51 to Korea vs the P-47, not putting a gun on the F-4, and allowing a zest for technology overpower a sensible compromise of strength in numbers. There has to be a "right size" for the A-10 fleet; zero airframes is not a viable answer in 2023.
That's the problem. It's got that expensive training, parts, and maintenance pipeline yet serves a limited purpose. The Air Force would like to free up those resources. The A-10 has been justified in recent years as a weapon against insurgents, but that only worked when there were no credible anti-aircraft threats. Many consider the A-10 to be a jobs program.
As a former USAF bean counter, I’ll lay out a political reason the HQ Air Staff HATES the A-10. For a U.S. combat aircraft its relatively affordable & effective. That’s a problem, because when 3 star General Schmuckatelli takes the floor in a Senate meeting to sell the Hammer Industries MegaFighter guess what a Senator does? “General Schmuckatelli, I have a document here that says an A-10 squadron can kill terrorists just as well as the MegaFighter…but for 10% of the cost. Can you explain why we need the MegaFighter?” Cue a pissed off General suddenly determined to purge the A-10 with the zeal of Xerxes at the Gates of Thermopylae. The A-10 not only kills terrorists, it also guns down ambitious officers selling snake oil to the taxpayer.
@@172ndairwing4 The USAF brass has been trying to eliminate the A-10 for decades and the only thing keeping it around have been members of Congress fighting to keep military bases relevant. There hasn't been one made in about 40 years. The manufacturer no longer exists to support it. Parts are hard to come by and they had to go to Boeing to build new wings. And it's getting harder and harder to keep it flying. It's time to retire it.
Numbers wise, the A-10 has puny engines so flying around with the full load described on the technical specs is not happening. The F-4 didn't need a gun. It had like 90 missile kills in USAF service and a handful of E variant nose cannon kills. The Navy Phantoms had no guns and scored 40.
Im not expert but i have certainly read enough history to know its not the first time we have retired a weapons system without a direct replacement only to go "oh...maybe we DO need ___".
we dont need a slow aircraft that is no more survivable than an F-16. manpads are just as damaging to an A-10 and they get throttled by them. if any were in ukraine they would be sitting in debris fields right next to the frogfoots. we need ground attack, the A-10 just doesnt fit that role anymore. it needs to join the likes of the p-51, F-4, and battleships
@@AndyDrake-FOOKYT yes but like the A-10 would only be fielded when air dominance is a given. In which case I would prefer the aircraft with better visibility and target acquisition (which isn’t the A-10)
The main reason why people are complaining about the retirement of the A-10 is that people absolutely love them. Well, them and their GAU-8A Avengers. Its the Ugly Beast that Could. Its Brrrt without Ernie. Its the Armor Ripper. Its the Guardian Angel to the Boots on the Ground. Its the Sidekick to its Own Gun. Its the Remote Chainsaw. Its the "Count My Pylons and the Ordinance Underneath Them, Loser!" Champ.
Totally agree, we need an aircraft to replace the A-10 and its not the F-35. One role that is overlooked is the Forward Air Controller. The A-10 is well suited for this mission especially if it could interoperate with systems carried by the F-35, F/A-18 super hornet, F-16, and F-15Es. by providing targeting information directly to them from a targeting pod.
Excellent point; the airborne forward air control role is always an afterthought... As the first-ever UPT (ENJJPT) graduate to be assigned to the then newly cast in the FAC-A role OA-10A, I can attest to the level of challenge that mission presents to a pilot of a single-seat jet, but it was highly effective in that role and is even moreso today with, as you mentioned, helmet cuing, targeting pods & data link. #ATTACK! Shanghai
There have already been MANY planes which replace it and have been doing so for years. Even teh B-1 startegic bomber wound up getting trasked with more CAs missions than the A-10, if only because the A-10's sluggish speed meant it was n't as capable of getting to where it was needed in time. The F-35 is easily capable of replacing it, just as the whole F-series have done. The F-35 has huge advantage, like detecting man-sized targets at range and geo-locating anti-air threats faster than three dedicated f-16s are able to. If airspace is permissive enough for an A-10, then it's permissive enough for the AC-130 - which is infinitely better. Teh AC-130 can bring down far more sustained firepower and has much greater accuracy while doing it, compared to the A-10 having the dubious record for most blue-on-blue incidents.
The Air Force is in the process of getting rid of most of their Forward Air Controlers. I think they truly believe the next war is going to be on a scale that won't allow for CAS missions because there will be literally thousands of missiles in the sky and unless you are stealth you're dead
I believe a lot of that is more or less a myth. The 2000 lbs of armor around the pilot is real, but the rest of the plane is no better at surviving than other aircraft. The A-10 obviously had redundant hydraulics, but modern fly by wire aircraft have redundant electronic paths to control surfaces. I've seen photos of F-16s that took smalls arms fire and made it back easily. But normally they wouldn't fly that low while the A-10 is more likely to fly where it gets shot down.
The reason why F-16s had to be retasked and take over from them, during Desert Storm, was because the A-10s were getting trashed through attrition. The F-16s were more survivable, largely due to thrust.
@@Xenomorphine The F-16 has been known as a capable ground attack platform for years. I recall they were used by Israel to bomb that Iraqi nuclear facility back in 1981.
the day the tunguska was fielded was the day A-10s were relegated to seal clubbing conflicts only. flying low didnt work anymore and the was THE advantage A-10s had. definitely wasnt target acquisition just ask the brits
Over and over again, “ buh… but I heard this about that aircraft and it’s faster…” Nobody listened! You had 3 different experts, two of whom were fast jet guys, one was even a Viper pilot, who said explicitly that the super speedy bois can’t do the job in the same manner. The A-10 is dead, we all know it. But the F35 will not successfully replace it. We need a dedicated CAS aircraft and even the above experts said Amy ain’t it.
The AT-6 made Too Much Sense. A multi-service platform, forgiving, good payload, versatile weapons loads, sensors and two seats and has support infrastructure in place thanks to the T-6 force.
More A-10's are on their way to the Middle East. Most likely to Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). “The 354th Fighter Squadron and their A-10 Thunderbolt IIs arrived in the region to support the U.S.’s increased posture,” U.S. Central Command stated on Twitter. “These aircraft are in addition to the A-10s from the 75th Fighter Squadron already in the region.”
Their deployment is likely just an automated process, although Gaza is one of the VERY few areas in the world where they might have a chance of surviving - and even that's 50/50, due to HAMAS having plenty of MANPADS in there.
Thank you gentlemen, great video. The difference between a F-35 driver and an A-10 driver is the 35 guy has to learn about every role that he has to do in his/her multi role fighter. The A-10 driver specialises in one role, ground attack. I am an ex-Grunt and I know which "Angel" i would prefer watching over myself and my men (Sorry cupcakes}
I think what pains me the most about putting all our eggs in the F-35 basket is that community barely trains to CAS at all. One of my former squadron mates is now an infantry company FAC and he repeatedly says F-35 pilots are the absolute worst at the most basic aspects of CAS, to the extent they’re almost more a liability. Yes, it’s true that CAS with an on-the-deck JTAC will be a luxury in a high-end China type of conflict, but to let the entire FAC(A) body of knowledge die because SEAD is the closest alligator to the boat is just outright irresponsible.
F-16, Strike Eagle, F-15EX, B-1B, B-52, AC-130. It’s pretty big and versatile basket. But some don’t like the idea of versatility because it can mean the asset might be doing something else.
I really hate to admit it but the A-10 deserves to be retired. As we've seen on current events, where individual soldiers pose a threat to aircraft with MANPADS more than ever, speed is going to become safety again when providing CAS. I'll admit I'm not from the US but I've trained with Marines and Soldiers whose asses have been saved by A-10s, but lately in the Afghanistan most of the CAS was provided by vipers and F-15E models. She'll go to the hall of fame like the P51, F86, F4 and F14 before her.
@@pistonburner6448 everyone i called in was never shot down and was able to bail my squad out of trouble so i dont even know what you're talking about😐
@@marcustiggs5361 Where, in Kuwait? Or in Iraq? That's ancient history and doesn't represent any kind of modern battlefield situation. Easy to fly around right above the enemy when you have absolutely no threats. You can't fly anything like that in any real modern combat situations. Even Hamas could shoot A-10s down before they got even close. Forget them doing _anything_ in Ukraine. Totally useless, high-flying targets, clumsy, blind, can't carry proper weapons! Apaches do everything better while staying out of danger, and they can carry out many more roles.
@@pistonburner6448 I was all of iraq and afghanistan from 06-19 and spent most of it as a JTAC and yes it was still a modern battlefield because they also had surface to air capabilities in many arms cashes i have seen plus it can defeat surface to air threats pretty good through coutermeasures and ECM anything radar guided have a hard time tracking it because the altitude it can loiter and loaded with mavs have a pretty good standoff distance. Most CAS missions have air cover for the CAS aircrafts. So dont say its ancient history when you dont know what you're talking about at all and kuwait isnt a combat deployment...
Mover, another of my hot button issues, the F-20 Tigershark. Un UPDATED Tigershark could solve so many battlefield problems in world conflicts right now. The 3 most important things about a new fighter. Price (cost), Price (maintenance) and Price (pilot training).
Many of those guys often think they were saved by A-10s, when it turns out the records show it was somehthng like an F/A-18, instead. One could just as easily ask the many guys who died or were critically wounded because fo the A-10's horrid inaccuracy if tehy would ahve preferred something more capable.
No. It was designed for wing mounted stores. Firefighting needs something designed for cargo where the tanks can be placed. The Navy's S-2 Tracker anti-submarine warfare plane was well suited because it had an internal bomb bay designed to carry torpedos or depth charges. That could carry a load of retardant.
"In a perfect world, with unlimited military budgets..." The A-10 was designed during The Cold War Era, when US military budgets were virtually unlimited. Why don't any of our allies operate the A-10? It's not like there was a technology transfer problem, and we were worried that like the F-22, our allies might let the A-10's secret sauce recipe leak to our adversaries. The reason Israel and our NATO allies don't fly A-10s is it wasn't within their budgets to operate such a niche aircraft, and NATO could count on the US to foot the bill. The Su-25 Frogfoot is operated by other countries that former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations, but it was designed to be simple and cheap to operate and maintain. It also doesn't work with precision guided munitions. The A-10s I saw in the 1980's were mostly loaded with AGM-65 Mavericks. The Frogfoot is usually loaded out with dumb bombs and rockets. One A-10 sortie could easily expend $1 million dollars of ordinance. "More than 5,000 AGM-65 A/B/D/E/F/G’s were employed during Operation Desert Storm, mainly attacking armored targets. Mavericks played a large part in the destruction of Iraq’s significant military force. In the Gulf War, A-10s launched 90% of the AGM-65 Maverick missiles." That was conservatively, $500 million worth of Maverick missiles. While the A-10 may have fairly cheap operating costs to fly, it uses some pretty expensive ordinance. The GAU-8 30mm cannon also uses rounds not common to any other gun in service, and requires specialized equipment to load and maintain, specific to the A-10.
The Frogfoot can use PGMs. They're mostly loaded with dumb munitions because the Ruskies either load them on higher performance aircraft or they flat out couldn't afford a large stockpile of them pre-war.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD The A-10C has a laser designator pod, and all A-10s have had the capability to launch TV-guided Mavericks from their inception. TV-guided munitions were only added to the Su-25T and later versions. The A-10C's avionics are decades more advanced than the Frogfoot, and it can carry a range of weapons that is unmatched by the Su-25.
@@PlugInRides The Su-25 employed laser-guided weapons in Afghanistan in the 80s and laser-guided/optically tracked bombs in the Chechen wars. I don't care how "advanced" the A-10C is. You claimed the Su-25 doesn't employ guided munitions. Without any distinction between base model or upgrades.
Guys the 75th Expeditionary Squardon with A-10s is on the ground and protecting the border in Gaza. This to discourage escalation by neighboring countries. Oh yeah, Eqypt moved a lot of armor towards Gaza. Our troops and aircraft are a huge signal to keep hands off. The tactical need for the A-10 will never go away. Nothing else can carry that payload and loiter for as long at any price.
Role specific platforms are still needed. The the F-15C was replaced by the F-22. Role specific Air to Air. But the 35 doesn't fully replace the A-10s CAS ability.
The A-10 is probably an ideal weapon for Isreal vs Hamas. Its absolutely not the right weapon for Ukrain vs Russian SU-27/35s and SAs incl. S-400s. A-10 would be shot down on gear up over Keiv well away from the conflict before it even arrived. It doesn't have survivability in contested airspace against a near-peer (in air defense tech). A-10a will be around another 20-30 years, they just purchased new wings for the A-10 to keep several hundred of them flying. Presumably for insurgent type warfare.
Yeah but we've seen exactly how effective russian air defense really is (not at all). The A10 could operate just fine over Ukrainian territory, as evidenced by their Frogfoots. You're not gonna convince me that somehow the Frogfoots are more survivable than Warthogs
@@FLMKane You're delusional. They would absolutely shoot down every single A-10 before they've gotten anywhere near seeing the enemy. Frogfoots, are far from the enemy lobbing weapons like Kh-29 from standoff range. A-10 can't do that, A-10 has to go right above the enemy to do anything..
You're right, except the A-10 can't even handle Hamas. For sure they'd take them all out with MANPADS. Apache does everything the A-10 can do better, and so many other mission types more on top of that.
@@tysoncott7402the Ukrainians didn't want the A-10, because they already have the SU-25. They want the F-16 for its modern avionics and radar. Ever see the cockpit of a Ukrainian mig-29, its straight out of the 80's.
Spot on? This video claims that bullets aren't affected by wind or bullet drop, and that somehow A-10s are EMP proof? This is chock full of mistakes and misconceptions.
Not really. The best description I've heard of it in a near peer conflict (or even a not so near peer conflict) is "sitting duck". It is very vulnerable to surface to air missiles and fighters.
That's like saying the same for the Sopwith Camel. It had its day, but even for the Fulda Gap mission, their piltos' life estimates were measured in minutes.
you mean manpad food? A-10s were screwed the second low flying wasnt safe anymore. which was in the 80s with systems like the tunguska. i know russian tech is showing its ass but they are tailor made to chew through low slow aircraft. and that tub wont save a pilot from those kinds of rounds.
@@viaticchart3139 I remember a discussion with a former fighter pilot that A-10s are extremely vulnerable from above. Easy to spot on radar and easy to shoot down with air to air missiles. Even an ancient asset like an F-5 could probably do it.
If we’re replacing/ retiring the a-10 and not replacing with a dedicated CAS platform we need to get serious about using drones or developing stand off tactics for contested environments were the f-35 is the coordinator for stand off munitions and attributable platforms. Using the f-35 for directly dropping bombs on one target is a dumb idea and a waste of airframe hours.
That ain't happening. The company is gone and the assembly line is long, long gone. There isn't a single defense contractor that would bid on a replacement. The closes thing would be maybe a light-duty replacement like the Super Tucano, but that already exists. The Air Force simply doesn't want to pay for the infrastructure to keep it flying. It's got fairly limited utility in a serious fight. There are plenty of A-10s in the Davis-Monthan boneyard.
We need our leaders to grab weapons and fight alongside soldiers. Then they can make decisions about the soldier's welfare and what weapons they can choose for these soldiers to use. I'm sure they would be far more careful in their selections.
The role the A-10 filled is a big stick. down, dirty, and close slugging it out in a phone booth. Need a follow on aircraft that has all the Hogs attributes.
No. The Air Force is not going to replace it with more of the same. They would prefer a fast mover that lobs laser-guided bombs from higher altitudes and doesn't get put in a position to be shot at.
3:55 I think Gonky hit it on the head without realizing it. "Either the A-10 or a viable A-10 replacement". He's right, and the F-35 is NOT that replacement. If anything, the F-35 is a return to the days of the old TFX program of the 1960s that ultimately gave us the F-111. History has repeated the mistakes of the TFX/F-111 program---the idea that somehow, one can build just one airplane to make all the services happy. They tried that with the F-111, and failed because that unicorn aircraft simply doesn't exist. With the F-111, the USAF wanted a tactical light bomber that could fight its way in and/or out of the target area. The Navy wanted something they could launch off a carrier. In the process of trying to make everybody happy, they ended up making NOBODY happy. Now, eventually the F-111 turned into a great aircraft. The Aussies, in particular, made fantastic use of it. But it took decades to evolve it to that point and as soon as they did, the USAF decommissioned the entire fleet. The F-35 took us right back into that scenario, with the same predictable results. Want a Harrier replacement for the Marines? F-35. Want a light strike aircraft for a carrier? F-35. Want a light strike fighter with super-duper uplink capability and a s--t-ton of Buck Rogers-level high tech? F-35. The end result is that the Navy lost, but the Marines got their VTOL, but without the load-hauling abilities of the Harrier. The F-35 that came to the USAF got beat in all the early competitions against F-16s, and only won when the engagement rules were so completely and awkwardly drawn in favor of the F-35. Meanwhile over in A-10 land---the A-10 keeps proving itself and its relevance to the modern battlefield over and over again. I swear, if I was a conspiracy theorist I'd think that the A-10 is being pushed out simply because its making everybody else look bad. We are eventually going to get back into a superpower war again---and the A-10 was built to counter the Fulda Gap scenario. Need close air support that is both fast and REALLY devastating? A-10. Ask for it by name. The A-10 is the Wolverine of modern air power---it's the very best at what it does.
Now---there's been plenty of discussion about replacing the A-10, but nobody's ever been able to do it. Same for the B-52; shoot, that airplane is so unreplaceable they're not building new ones---they're embarking on a multi-billion dollar project to resto-mod the entire fleet. New engines. New electronics suites. Probably new wing spars, although I haven't actually heard anything about that part. By the time those aircraft come out of the program, they'll be almost zero-timed. We have such a dearth of aeronautical engineering capability in this country that we cannot, to save our collective lives, figure out how to improve on the kind of solid-state engineering that our aeronautical engineer predecessors came up with. Dunno how one improves on the A-10 or the B-52, but somebody really needs to figure out that part.
Against any near peer foe or insurgents with manpads the A10 is toast. In Afghan against guys in flip flops with AKs it rocked. It should probably be replaced by something smaller and cheaper for the niche it's very good at, that isn't the F35.
There's been talk about using something with actual manufacturer's support, like the Super Tucano. Fairchild-Republic made its last plane almost 40 years ago. Those would be much cheaper to fly and don't cost as much. Obviously they're for use in a low-intensity conflict (like an opponent whose main transport is pickup trucks), which is why they don't want to spend that much.
@@ypw510 Having been on the ground in Afghan myself 🇬🇧 and supported by RAF Harriers, Apache and sometimes NATO assets like A10 etc They were bad ass, and ruined people's days for sure. But against a proper military they'd have had a hard time. Something that's cheap, has good survivability, good loiter time and multiple mission sets is what's needed. But as we see in Ukraine both sides basically don't have CAS because their air defence is so dominant.
@@beefsuprem0241 Yeah - that's the thing. The A-10 has this mythical reputation that comes from unfair fights where they were picking off insurgents in pickup trucks. There also this undeserved reputation for coming back with battle damage, but lots of aircraft can come back after being shot up with small arms fire or even small missiles. I've seen images of F-16s that were hit by MANPADS and F/A-18s where the jet nozzle was blown up. There's nothing really all that special about the A-10 and battle damage other than it seems to stay low where enemies might be close enough to hit it with an AK.
More significant than "Is it still needed?" Is: is it survivable? And the answer is it's not. The skies over Ukraine are what future conflicts will look like; we are not guaranteed to have air superiority and will face not only an advanced air threat but also very capable air defense systems that will place a premium on avoiding detection. And unless we maintain two Air Forces, one for the existential fight we'll face if confronting a peer or near-peer adversary, and the second with planes like the A-10 that can't be used in the peer/near-peer fight but are useful fighting a lower tech adversary. Unless we do that, we're going to be in the position of having a fleet of 300 generally unusable aircraft that still cost a significant amount of money to support, crew, repair, etc. In fact, the B-1B over Iraq provided more CAS in the form of JDAMs directed by someone on the ground than the A-10 did. This just points to the changing nature of CAS and the increasing accuracy and capability of stand off weapons.
@@mmmmburgerz9442More like a Sky Warden since an A10 supposedly cannot fight in something like Ukraine. Though it would use guided missile and may not miss.
What gets me is there really is no replacement announced for the A-10. Part of me wonders if the Air Force simply plans to drop the CAS Duty along with the A-10.
There's never been a replacement other than maybe the OA-X program. But that was for a light duty attack plane. The Air Force has made it clear that they don't want a slow jet that would be a sitting duck for They've talked about CAS using laser guided bombs, which is what they've actually been doing (even with the A-10) for 30 years. F-16s have been doing that for all that time even though the troops don't have that supposed morale booster of seeing a plane circling overhead (in a position where it's vulnerable to MANPADS).
Every single USAF combat aircraft that carries weapons has to be able to do CAS, including the B-1B, B-52H, and F-22A. USAF has been providing unprecedented CAS sorties over the past 32 years.
@@ypw510 They rarely practice strafing, but are always tasked with occupying the higher altitude bands for DCA/OCA in the F-15C+. F-15A/B are long gone, and F-15C/D are on their way out the door. Between MQ-9, F-15E+, F-35A, B-1B, B-52H, and F-16CM+, there are a lot of options for CAS across all different types of theaters and contingencies.
A-10 was described as a (c.a.s.) tank w/ wings! I still think we need it for specific tasks. You don't throw away a proven weapons delivery platform like the 'hog' MAKE NEW ONES, DAMMIT!
Why not Apaches? They can hide far better, they can carry a whole host of stuff. Can they work as a replacement for A-10s AND as a HIMARS-type system...only far safer as they can stay low & scoot away. They are even replacement for tanks (and once again HIMARS), only far better as they're not susceptible to mines which is especially useful in long advances in current UKR situations!
They already have F-16s, Strike Eagles, and bombers. With precision guided munitions, those have done much of the work that the A-10 might be suited for but with far lower chances of being taken out by anti-aircraft weapons. I've heard fighter pilots describe the A-10 as being a sitting duck against an enemy that has more than just machine guns mounted on pickup trucks.
A B-52 at altitude, in Afghanistan dropped on friendly's, when they mistakenly mis-read thier own Co-ordiance, off their GPS. Its war, shit happens, you need eyes not just on the ground.
Strafing runs with an A-10 is great CAS when the enemy's Air Defense consist of spraying into the air with an old AK-47.. Against a peer adversary you would take unacceptable attrition from short range systems, No amount of SEAD/DEAD can get rid of every manpad or other systems lurking with their radars of until they know a plane is near. Drone assisted artillery is the future of CAS with aircraft being forced to stay above 15 000 feet.
Have you seen Clarksons farm? Buying a 100k Lamborghini tractor might be less utilitarian than an old ass heap of steel that you can fix with a wrench and big biceps
The problem is that your car can sit on the garage/driveway as long as you give it a spin once in a while. The A-10 needs hundreds of pilots and mechanics to keep in service. You can't just forget it like an old car. You have to baby it even if you're not using it. Imagine you had to pay for a chauffeur and a resident mechanic to keep your shitbox. You'd get rid of it, pronto.
As an ARMY vet, nothing comes close to the A-10 in CAS. I bet most Marines would agree. All the fast jets are too vulnerable at slow speeds, and just can't do what the A-10 can or take the same level of punishment. Attack Helicopters can do [some] of the A-10 CAS mission, but they are too slow and vulnerable. We learned that in the early years of Iraq; that's why the AH-66 Comanche program was cancelled. A-10's pair perfectly with rotor wing units, and tanks/infantry units. The F-15/F-16/F-18/F-22/F-35 just have different missions. Every problem can't be solved with stealth/speed.
All that talk about the A-10 taking damage is a myth. The entire fuselage and wing aren't armored - just the titanium armor around the pilot. It can certainly come back with holes from small arms fire, but an F-16 can do that too.
Yes we do still need it, but in dramatically smaller numbers. The wars on terror had lots of stats taken. And they all indicate that the A-10 didn't even perform half of the CAS/ground attack missions, which is pretty much the A-10s sole mission. And yet in that time, the A-10 took higher losses than all of the other jets that engaged in that mission combined. Multi role fighters have proven they are better suited for the modern CAS/Ground Attack Mission. But the A-10 does still have a place, it's place is more like that of the OV-10 during Vietnam as an observational aircraft marking targets for the fast movers once air superiority has been achieved
@@brandony8691 There are stats on the Gulf War that show the F-111 was responsible for more damage to tanks than the A-10. It had a sophisticated, all-weather targeting pod and could drop laser-guided bombs zipping faster than the speed of sound at lower altitudes.
@@brandony8691 "CAS is a mission, not a platform... that the Air Force was flying 20,000 close air support sorties a year, and that about 80 percent of those flown in Afghanistan since 2001 were by aircraft other than the A-10. The F-16 alone had flown more CAS missions than the A-10." it's a direct quote from former A-10 pilot, former chief of staff of USAF, General Mark Welsh regarding Afghanistan but if you look up close air support stats in Iraq or Afghanistan, there's more than a few government and privately funded articles that echo the same thing or even have actual numbers on it. Careful not to confuse Desert Storm and GWOT articles though, some of them try to lump desert storm in or are vague on which Iraq war they're referring to. Hope this helps!
True for the most! We had a 16 pilot that did gun run below 5k in 2003, he got his hand slapped. That's part of why we called him Cletus. The predecessor to Leroyyyyy Jenkinssss😂 #cwlemoine
it doesnt unless there's constant need for it with enough preperation time. Its not something you can order in at short notice.. if there even where any big airport base in the region that it could operate from.
Army is not allowed to have fixed wing aircraft per The Key West Agreement....to a point. the Army does fly the C-12. However, the Marines could take them.
@@yodaisgod2the army is not allowed to fly fixed wing aircraft so long as the air force provides CAS. If the air force falls short of its CAS duties then the key west agreement is no longer being followed.
@@yodaisgod2 They're certainly not allowed to have fixed wing armed aircraft. There were supposedly weight limits only other fixed wing aircraft, but that was changed later. I've seen photos of a US Army Gulfstream (a C-37B) that is in the same VIP fleet colors as US Air Force planes like Air Force One. It says "US Army" on the bottom of the left wing. One example is registration number 04-1778.
Safety precaution - there is a system that pumps inert gas into the fuel tanks to prevent fires. There's a fear that the one in a million lighting strike will cause an explosion. The piping has cracks so until further notice there's restrictions.
You know ...... if were are going to be trucking around with 100 year old B-52's ..... what's the problem with spreading some of that love with a little brother?
ahh the A-10, putting the blue in blue-on-blue. Also very funny how this guy talks about the F-35's systems being vulnerable to EMPs when the A-10 had to be upgraded with electronic equipment to mitigate its distinct lack of precision.
I remember being told that the F-22 wasn't needed for a modern battlefield and that's why the government ended procurement prematurely. Now with an actual air war going on between Ukraine and Russia, the F-22 seems like it would be a nice thing to have more of in case we have to fight one. This has happened multiple times in the past. Dogfighting in Vietnam was a thing of the past, so there's no need to teach air combat techniques. Then they actually got into dogfights with much more maneuverable MiGs and had to learn it real quick. Once the experts say "this is a thing of the past", especially in regards to war, they've always been proven wrong. Better to take what we've learned and apply it just in case we get a new problem. In this case, we need something that can do the A-10s mission, without a doubt. Is it a drone, a prop, or a next-gen with the Avenger? Maybe. Is it an F-35? Doubtful.
A-10's escorted the pavelows for the f117 and f16 shootdown/recovery. F15s and f16s escorted the a-10's. But it was an argument for specialisation but i reckon it was an argument for mass and attritional resilience.
Not really. It's got a mythical reputation for taking battle damage, but any military aircraft can take small arms fire and possibly even MANPADS. The only armor that it has is around the pilot, and that 2000 lbs of titanium and that heavy gun aren't great for the maneuverability.
As humans evolved, we learned that specialization is the way to succeed. No longer did everyone have to know everything - now, we can have people who know 1 or 2 things really well, and the ceiling for success is higher because of that focus. Unifying everything into 1 system is the exact opposite lesson evolution taught humanity and removing specializations is only going to deliver subpar performance.
If they want to retire the A-10 I say that’s fine as long as you build more AC-130s cause that’s the only other CAS aircraft that can match the Hogs time on station currently in the AF.
What's the point of that? The future of CAS will likely be swarms of drones with considerably longer loiter times (plus the ability to switch operators) and fast jets that can get there in less time. I get that the grunts like the idea of a platform that just supports them, but keeping the A-10 around is costing a lot of money that could be spent to prepare for future threats.
@@ChucksSEADnDEADthat was over 30 years ago. No AC-130 has been shot down since then, despite being deployed nonstop to combat zones until the Afghanistan withdrawal. They’ve gotten a lot better since the 90s.
@@TheLimeIsALie No AC-130 was shot down since because any MANPADS left in Afghanistan ran out of battery and coolant gas before 2001. A "combat zone" where you're firing at guys with AKs is as much of a combat zone as helicopter hog hunting in Texas. The hogs won't be able to fight back, dude.
A different tool for a different situation, that’s the nature of the diversity and ubiquity of technology. We have a lot of options, and we have to create different things to meet many objectives. The decision making about acquisitions and retirements comes from the adage about fighting the next war. But we know that reading the future isn’t perfect. I think the lessons learned from permissive air environment wars has shown that a replacement platform will always be required. It’s simply unconscionable to demolish buildings and use large ordinance for precision strikes. Even the SDBs are too big. APKWS may also be insufficient. The arsenals just aren’t equipped with the right tools to accomplish what’s needed for the various wars.
A-10 should have been retired in the 1980s. It was really built for Vietnam to escort rotary wing formations, but never served there of course. It was a suicide mission profile for the Fulda Gap.
And then immediately retire it after billions spent because they're 30 years past the expiration date. They're old. Aircraft can't fly forever unless you Ship of Theseus them.
Reminds of the F 4 Phantoms during the initial phase of the Vietnam co flict...no guns only missles that failed most of the time...I think a close air support aircraft should not be underrated . Great show guys..
Tucanos and Sky Wardns can do that for a lot cheaper. The analogy is very different: the cannon supposedly can only be used at closer ranges. Also, the importance of the cannon in air to air combat was a part truth overblown by the fighter mafia. Topgun proved that it was proper usage of the missile that counts.
@@ypw510 It was a really weird time. The Navy had foreseen the issues with Sidewinders and had their upgraded variants perform better than USAF ones. However, their Sparrows had the maintenance neglected so carrier landings and exposure to sea spray on the deck caused a lot of duds while the USAF had better luck. If the Navy had taken better care of Sparrows and the USAF had used Navy Sidewinders, the Phantom would have never earned the infamy it did.
I laughed when someone asked me if Fat Amy could replace the A-10. The only thing that could replace an A-10 is a better A-10. And by that I mean a better plane strapped to the back of a better Gatling gun than the GAU-8 Avengers.
The gun is barely used unless it's against insurgents in pickup trucks. Even when an A-10 is minimally effective, it's going to be dropping laser guided bombs.
There are a lot of revolutionary technologies that could be integrated into an A-10 replacement: -Composite Metal Foam -Rotary Detonation Engines -Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene -Active Protection Systems
Nobody is going to do it. No defense contractor wants to do it. The US Air Force doesn't want it. Is it that hard to understand that they don't really want a low and slow aircraft that still needs a runway and and dead meat against surface to air missiles and fighter jets?
![โอ้เธอช่าง... - บี้เดอะสกา ft. ต๋อง เทวัญ (Prod. by ป๋าเพชร) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/zbWhiLFmVL0/mqdefault.jpg)
I love the A-10. The Ukraine conflict shows the landscape has changed. UAV's, small drones, and loitering munitions are replacing a lot of the missions the A-10 would normally do. Especially when you consider environments with modern SAM systems. When you have a $25k loitering munition destroying $1M plus assets you have to evaluate countering options and or entire paradigm shifts in weapon systems and mission profiles.
I had just come back from Pakistan, 1987 time-frame, an the USAF was then talking about A-10 replacement. We at General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) proposed a ground attack version of the F-16 called the A-16. It had a larger wing (not the cranked arrow used in the F-16XL's but the F-16 wing on steroids) with two additional weapons station and a 30mm gun. We made models and wind tunnel tested but was not accepted. Alas none built or flown, but was proposed.
I remember that well. The 30mm GEPOD didn't work out either. They had some existing unit that painted all theirs in the Euro 1 or 2 paint scheme.
The wing design was also proposed for Agile Falcon with the additional weapons stations.
That design actually got built by Mitsubishi as the F2, with a primary anti-ship role for Japan.
@@LRRPFco52 I was stationed at Carswell when they test fired the 30mm gunpod. They fired it into a concrete block in a special house off to the side of the factory. At first it was like "What's that sound?" Then "Oh." The recognition set in.
The A-10 will see the day when it's time has come, and it has done it's bid for it's country. They do depend on air superiority, but it is not helpless as I recall reading about A-10's doing Air to Air training vs fast movers and holding their own. It is a niche machine with no peer for it's role and I will be sad when it retires. I will always love this bird as has anyone who has had their ass saved by it.
LONG LIVE THE HAWG!
I've heard from fighter pilots that it's way too easy to shoot one down. All it's got for defense is older Sidewinders and the gun is pretty useless against fighters that will stay out of range. It's simply not a fair fight. What it takes for an A-10 to shoot down a fast jet is incompetence by the fighter pilot.
You forget that a lot of exercises have restricted RoE to purposefully force scenarios and then analyze them. The A-10s won because pilots were to try and do BFM in the A-10s domain. In "real life rules" they'd fire a Slammer and wipe the sky out of A-10s like fish in a barrel.
Similar to the tales of F-5s beating F-14s. Reformers love to cite those exercises, as if the rules weren't constantly changing to keep F-14 pilots out of their element, and once they figured out how to outsmart the rule set, the rules would be changed again.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD true, I was just referencing what I read in the book USAFE by Michael Skinner. However, I do agree with both your points as well.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD
I think a lot of people think Top Gun was a realistic depiction of air combat, like it's getting on an enemy's six from 200 feet. And the line that the jets (A-4s and F-5s) were "faster and more maneuverable" than their F-14s was silly. An A-4 can't even go past the speed of sound and isn't really made for air to air combat, but could be used for air to air combat training. Heck - the T-38 is used for adversary duty.
I get that they have a lot of these exercises just to learn techniques and not to prove anything about the performance of these platforms for specific missions. If an A-10 is in a position to take out a fast jet, something went horribly wrong for the fast jet pilot.
@@411bvRGiskard Nope. These pristine hangar queens went in to face the music and came out dancing, while A-10s had to be grounded because the Iraqi Republican Guard was too hot to handle.
A-10s would be stationed in the same place fighters are. The USAF isn't going to send mechanics, pilots and piles of ordnance into the middle of the brush.
Bringing A-10s across water is the worst case scenario for it.
The A-10’s time on station will be missed. They had bailed us out more than once while we were at altitude, pushing to high up for Apaches.
@BlackFlag714 ...and stay alive. A10s need a completely cleared out opposition, which happens basically nowhere.
@BlackFlag714 At high altitudes? Helo’s can only get so high up.
Another factor was time to station especially in the mountains.
@@pistonburner6448did you actually watch the video?
The A-10 is survivable in contested air space.
There’s no guarantees with anything but it’s not that easy to shoot down as some would like you to think.
It has jamming and countermeasures and other platforms which can perform SEED
@@7gmeister I highly doubt your jamming can do anything meaningful...are you seriously suggesting A-10s have some extra-high-tech jamming that stops it being hit by missiles? You mean it's better than what russians have on their top fighters?
@@7gmeisterpretty sure two a10s survived over a downed f117 pilot in Bosnia. Yea they downed the stealth and not the a10. Also they take a manpad hit and still get the pilot home
A-10 saved my hide in Afghanistan I will always have a special place in my heart for the hog. The air guard base near me flies the hog and I make it a point to go and see them as much as I can. A ground pounders guardian angel. Viva a-10
Thank you for your outstanding service through extremely difficult circumstances. I'm proud of my 'Hog brethren for helping you make it home!
(and THATs exactly what the A-10 driver exists to do! What it can or cannot shoot down is NOT!)
#ATTACK!
Shanghai
@@TwoBagsFullShanghai It seems to me the voice always left outta the A-10 debate is that of the grunt it protects.
@@hoilst265 word.
I tell the guys at the air guard base how their platform and the mission was on and how they came in and saved our hide and how they flew low enough slow enough saluted us and as he landed and we got back to base he met us and to this day I thank god for all who maintain fly and keep the hog going. Raptor convoy kept going and got our injured home. Viva a-10 and thanks for comment Shanghai
Love this format! I hope it's very successful for you guys! I love your attitude in general Gonky!
Perfect story was from pilot KC Campbell. Went down through a gap in the cloud to support troops in contact in Baghdad, on second pass, got hit bad, yet still managed to get home. Showed the real benefits of such (imo!😉(ex soldier)) a beautiful aircraft!!
What always gets to me is that I always remember KC Campbell's name but not the pilot who died trying to bring in a damaged A-10.
Her story always gets told because she made it. So the name is always on my memory bank. But to remember the guy who died trying to land that A-10 I have to look it up.
Funny about the AK47 comment. My unit was deployed to Bagram in 2012 and one of our A-10s came back with a hole in the elevator and the speed brake after being hit by AK rounds supporting troops that were pinned down. A couple pieces of speed tape and she was ready for another sortie. Flew like that for a few days until she was put in the hanger to patch the holes.
Like the De Havilland Mosquito in WWII: because they were made from wood, if a wingtip got shot off they literally had a carpenter just scarfe on a new tip with a hand saw and some glue. Ready to go as soon as the glue dried.
Shanghai makes an excellent point; the mindset of an A-10 pilot is vastly different that that of an F-16/F-35 pilot. I'm a medic. I was treating a patient one day and a doctor was there. I yielded to him, but he told me to keep going. I asked him why after the event and he told me, "I deal with diseases, chronic ailments, surgical procedures, etc. All you do is trauma." He was absolutely right. My whole job is to quickly asses a situation, stabilize and get a patient to more complex care. A doctor isn't trained to do that and isn't exposed to that in the same way a medic is. A medic can't replace a doctor, but a doctor can't replace a medic either. An F-35 cannot replace an A-10 (or its pilot) on a CAS mission. Like Shanghai said, you take whatever support you can get.
An F-35 can easily replace an A-10 in CAS, jsut like the whole F-series - and B-1 strategic bombers - regularly have been doing.
@@Xenomorphine Sure for half the time with half the fire power and god knows how much more per flight min. The current prepared air rate for the f-35 is said to be 50% you need a hundred f-35 to just be able to keep 50 in the air at anyone time. Can a snipe rifle work as a close range door to door weapon sure, but I'm gonna be standing next to the grunt with the the shotgun. 😮💨😮💨
@@michaeljackson692 you might want to take a look at USAF (and Navy and Marine) readiness rates in general... Sandboxx did some videos on precisely that.
You're basically advocating to come with a knife to a gunfight.
The A-10's job can basically be done by cheap prop-driven attackers with APKWS 2. It's at a weird limbo where it's too expensive to operate in the sort of airspace which would be permissive enough, while being hopelessly obsolete for everywhere else.
You nailed it! This is exactly the piece that’s missing!!!
@@Xenomorphine 1- Respectfully, you're ignoring the whole point of what I said about the mindset of the pilot. 2- (Using Afghanistan as an example), nobody will hear the F-35 loitering at 50,000 feet. But there are countless accounts from both coalition and Taliban forces of the enemy disengaging at even the mere sound of a nearby A-10 or AH-64. When friendly troops heard that sound, they knew they were making it back to base. You can't replace that. The A-10 is made to take a beating and give the beating back hundredfold. I will never argue with an airframe that makes the persons shooting at me and my mates shit their pants and run. It's similar to the Luftwaffe in WW2 mounting sirens to their dive bomber; they didn't even have to drop ordinance to make their targets run, just the sound created havoc.
Getting in one was really cool.
Seeing that gun up close was amazing!
As a pilot, I'm not qualified to make budget comments, but I struggle to understand how the bean counters say that keeping the A-10 is too expensive, yet they seem fine investing billions (and lost decades) in replacement weapons systems. What's worse is the "give it to the Army" argument, as if those tax dollars don't start in the same big pot. There is no denying that the A-10 is a useful and versatile platform. Numbers-wise, an A-10 can carry almost twice the load of a Skyraider, but needs a tanker to do so. The new OA-1K for AFSOC can carry about 70% of one Skyraider in weight and is obviously very different in capability/survivability and is meant for a different threat environment; I think it will succeed in its niche. Although the A-10 already has community pipelines, bases, supply chains, etc, no one seems to talk about the costs of shutting down the A-10 and restarting something different. I'd actually swing against the tide and make a case for rejuvenating a select number of A-10A's from AMARG and creating a subset of day/fair weather birds embedded within A-10C squadrons. We seem doomed to repeat historical mistakes; sending the F-51 to Korea vs the P-47, not putting a gun on the F-4, and allowing a zest for technology overpower a sensible compromise of strength in numbers. There has to be a "right size" for the A-10 fleet; zero airframes is not a viable answer in 2023.
As a complete outsider, the budget excuse seems like utter bullshit. Why are they bullshiting? That I can't fathom
That's the problem. It's got that expensive training, parts, and maintenance pipeline yet serves a limited purpose. The Air Force would like to free up those resources. The A-10 has been justified in recent years as a weapon against insurgents, but that only worked when there were no credible anti-aircraft threats.
Many consider the A-10 to be a jobs program.
As a former USAF bean counter, I’ll lay out a political reason the HQ Air Staff HATES the A-10. For a U.S. combat aircraft its relatively affordable & effective. That’s a problem, because when 3 star General Schmuckatelli takes the floor in a Senate meeting to sell the Hammer Industries MegaFighter guess what a Senator does? “General Schmuckatelli, I have a document here that says an A-10 squadron can kill terrorists just as well as the MegaFighter…but for 10% of the cost. Can you explain why we need the MegaFighter?” Cue a pissed off General suddenly determined to purge the A-10 with the zeal of Xerxes at the Gates of Thermopylae. The A-10 not only kills terrorists, it also guns down ambitious officers selling snake oil to the taxpayer.
@@172ndairwing4
The USAF brass has been trying to eliminate the A-10 for decades and the only thing keeping it around have been members of Congress fighting to keep military bases relevant.
There hasn't been one made in about 40 years. The manufacturer no longer exists to support it. Parts are hard to come by and they had to go to Boeing to build new wings. And it's getting harder and harder to keep it flying. It's time to retire it.
Numbers wise, the A-10 has puny engines so flying around with the full load described on the technical specs is not happening.
The F-4 didn't need a gun. It had like 90 missile kills in USAF service and a handful of E variant nose cannon kills. The Navy Phantoms had no guns and scored 40.
Im not expert but i have certainly read enough history to know its not the first time we have retired a weapons system without a direct replacement only to go "oh...maybe we DO need ___".
we dont need a slow aircraft that is no more survivable than an F-16. manpads are just as damaging to an A-10 and they get throttled by them. if any were in ukraine they would be sitting in debris fields right next to the frogfoots. we need ground attack, the A-10 just doesnt fit that role anymore. it needs to join the likes of the p-51, F-4, and battleships
Don't they have a super strapped Cessna they're going to use now? Super tocano or something like that?
I'm not a fan compared to the a-10.
@@AndyDrake-FOOKYT yes but like the A-10 would only be fielded when air dominance is a given. In which case I would prefer the aircraft with better visibility and target acquisition (which isn’t the A-10)
@@AndyDrake-FOOKYTyou mean the roided up crop duster?
The main reason why people are complaining about the retirement of the A-10 is that people absolutely love them. Well, them and their GAU-8A Avengers.
Its the Ugly Beast that Could.
Its Brrrt without Ernie.
Its the Armor Ripper.
Its the Guardian Angel to the Boots on the Ground.
Its the Sidekick to its Own Gun.
Its the Remote Chainsaw.
Its the "Count My Pylons and the Ordinance Underneath Them, Loser!" Champ.
It's a sitting duck against SAMs and fighters.
Totally agree, we need an aircraft to replace the A-10 and its not the F-35. One role that is overlooked is the Forward Air Controller. The A-10 is well suited for this mission especially if it could interoperate with systems carried by the F-35, F/A-18 super hornet, F-16, and F-15Es. by providing targeting information directly to them from a targeting pod.
Excellent point; the airborne forward air control role is always an afterthought... As the first-ever UPT (ENJJPT) graduate to be assigned to the then newly cast in the FAC-A role OA-10A, I can attest to the level of challenge that mission presents to a pilot of a single-seat jet, but it was highly effective in that role and is even moreso today with, as you mentioned, helmet cuing, targeting pods & data link.
#ATTACK!
Shanghai
There have already been MANY planes which replace it and have been doing so for years. Even teh B-1 startegic bomber wound up getting trasked with more CAs missions than the A-10, if only because the A-10's sluggish speed meant it was n't as capable of getting to where it was needed in time.
The F-35 is easily capable of replacing it, just as the whole F-series have done. The F-35 has huge advantage, like detecting man-sized targets at range and geo-locating anti-air threats faster than three dedicated f-16s are able to.
If airspace is permissive enough for an A-10, then it's permissive enough for the AC-130 - which is infinitely better. Teh AC-130 can bring down far more sustained firepower and has much greater accuracy while doing it, compared to the A-10 having the dubious record for most blue-on-blue incidents.
@@Xenomorphine I would love to see the AC-130 in use in Ukraine in areas where there is no AA missile threat
@@JSRJS Unfortunately, nowhere like that exists there.
The Air Force is in the process of getting rid of most of their Forward Air Controlers. I think they truly believe the next war is going to be on a scale that won't allow for CAS missions because there will be literally thousands of missiles in the sky and unless you are stealth you're dead
Atleast let the Air Guard units hold onto their A-10s.
"The weather's good below 3,000" is perfect statement when you're talking about CLOSE Air Support.
Close only refers to munitions landing near troops in close contact with the enemy. Not where the aircraft is.
@@ChucksSEADnDEADwell AcTuALly 🤓
@@capella95 uhhhh correcting a mistake? I don't think so nerd B)
Anyone see the article in The War Zone about using F/A-18E&Fs to replace the A-10s?
As a former ground pounder, yes we need it
Brrrrt 🇺🇸
A-10C is a baby BUFF. Its awesome.
Love the A-10. They’re built like a truck, take a beating and can take off and land on anything. Runway is not required but thanks anyway 😊
I believe a lot of that is more or less a myth. The 2000 lbs of armor around the pilot is real, but the rest of the plane is no better at surviving than other aircraft. The A-10 obviously had redundant hydraulics, but modern fly by wire aircraft have redundant electronic paths to control surfaces.
I've seen photos of F-16s that took smalls arms fire and made it back easily. But normally they wouldn't fly that low while the A-10 is more likely to fly where it gets shot down.
The reason why F-16s had to be retasked and take over from them, during Desert Storm, was because the A-10s were getting trashed through attrition. The F-16s were more survivable, largely due to thrust.
@@Xenomorphine
The F-16 has been known as a capable ground attack platform for years. I recall they were used by Israel to bomb that Iraqi nuclear facility back in 1981.
the day the tunguska was fielded was the day A-10s were relegated to seal clubbing conflicts only. flying low didnt work anymore and the was THE advantage A-10s had. definitely wasnt target acquisition just ask the brits
Over and over again, “ buh… but I heard this about that aircraft and it’s faster…”
Nobody listened! You had 3 different experts, two of whom were fast jet guys, one was even a Viper pilot, who said explicitly that the super speedy bois can’t do the job in the same manner.
The A-10 is dead, we all know it. But the F35 will not successfully replace it. We need a dedicated CAS aircraft and even the above experts said Amy ain’t it.
Any thoughts on the At-6 Wolverine as a replacement? Seems cheaper and capable.
I think the Sky Warden is even cheaper: it's a crop duster that was the main inspiration for the hero in the cartoon, Planes.
The AT-6 made Too Much Sense. A multi-service platform, forgiving, good payload, versatile weapons loads, sensors and two seats and has support infrastructure in place thanks to the T-6 force.
Yes! It is needed.
Also it would break my heart to see A-10 fighting for other countries. And even more if they where ever used against us or our allies.
There hasn't been another country that has ever asked for it.
The A-10 is a capable aircraft and should be kept in service; perhaps with some modern electronics.
It already has modern electronics. The thing is three decades past its expiration date. It's like putting a young man's brain on a 70 year old.
I miss the A-10's that were at BelleChase back in the day.... Good Times..!!!!
There is nothing else like an a-10.
There have been plenty of aircraft like it for decades, except not as obsolete.
Which kind of hints at the fact that it's an evolutionary dead end.
Of course it is needed. Without the Hog what will all the bro vets on YT rub one out to?
More A-10's are on their way to the Middle East. Most likely to Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“The 354th Fighter Squadron and their A-10 Thunderbolt IIs arrived in the region to support the U.S.’s increased posture,” U.S. Central Command stated on Twitter. “These aircraft are in addition to the A-10s from the 75th Fighter Squadron already in the region.”
Their deployment is likely just an automated process, although Gaza is one of the VERY few areas in the world where they might have a chance of surviving - and even that's 50/50, due to HAMAS having plenty of MANPADS in there.
Thank you gentlemen, great video. The difference between a F-35 driver and an A-10 driver is the 35 guy has to learn about every role that he has to do in his/her multi role fighter. The A-10 driver specialises in one role, ground attack. I am an ex-Grunt and I know which "Angel" i would prefer watching over myself and my men (Sorry cupcakes}
As a former USAF Weapons guy the A-10 is needed! Go Ugly Early
I think what pains me the most about putting all our eggs in the F-35 basket is that community barely trains to CAS at all. One of my former squadron mates is now an infantry company FAC and he repeatedly says F-35 pilots are the absolute worst at the most basic aspects of CAS, to the extent they’re almost more a liability.
Yes, it’s true that CAS with an on-the-deck JTAC will be a luxury in a high-end China type of conflict, but to let the entire FAC(A) body of knowledge die because SEAD is the closest alligator to the boat is just outright irresponsible.
But the USAF is not putting all eggs on the F-35 basket. They have repeatedly stated that the F-16 and Strike Eagle will continue to serve.
F-16, Strike Eagle, F-15EX, B-1B, B-52, AC-130. It’s pretty big and versatile basket. But some don’t like the idea of versatility because it can mean the asset might be doing something else.
I really hate to admit it but the A-10 deserves to be retired. As we've seen on current events, where individual soldiers pose a threat to aircraft with MANPADS more than ever, speed is going to become safety again when providing CAS. I'll admit I'm not from the US but I've trained with Marines and Soldiers whose asses have been saved by A-10s, but lately in the Afghanistan most of the CAS was provided by vipers and F-15E models.
She'll go to the hall of fame like the P51, F86, F4 and F14 before her.
As a guy on the ground... yes yes it is
Why do you need to read in the news how all the A-10s were shot down, and why you never saw them reach anywhere near your position?
@@pistonburner6448 everyone i called in was never shot down and was able to bail my squad out of trouble so i dont even know what you're talking about😐
@@marcustiggs5361 Where, in Kuwait? Or in Iraq? That's ancient history and doesn't represent any kind of modern battlefield situation. Easy to fly around right above the enemy when you have absolutely no threats. You can't fly anything like that in any real modern combat situations.
Even Hamas could shoot A-10s down before they got even close. Forget them doing _anything_ in Ukraine. Totally useless, high-flying targets, clumsy, blind, can't carry proper weapons!
Apaches do everything better while staying out of danger, and they can carry out many more roles.
@@pistonburner6448 I was all of iraq and afghanistan from 06-19 and spent most of it as a JTAC and yes it was still a modern battlefield because they also had surface to air capabilities in many arms cashes i have seen plus it can defeat surface to air threats pretty good through coutermeasures and ECM anything radar guided have a hard time tracking it because the altitude it can loiter and loaded with mavs have a pretty good standoff distance. Most CAS missions have air cover for the CAS aircrafts. So dont say its ancient history when you dont know what you're talking about at all and kuwait isnt a combat deployment...
@@pistonburner6448 plus do you know the distance of a maverick vs hellfire? Do your research homie apache aint got that kinda reach
Mover, another of my hot button issues, the F-20 Tigershark. Un UPDATED Tigershark could solve so many battlefield problems in world conflicts right now. The 3 most important things about a new fighter. Price (cost), Price (maintenance) and Price (pilot training).
Ask the guys that the A-10s support if they want it to go away.. The answer is "NO" 100% of the time.
Many of those guys often think they were saved by A-10s, when it turns out the records show it was somehthng like an F/A-18, instead.
One could just as easily ask the many guys who died or were critically wounded because fo the A-10's horrid inaccuracy if tehy would ahve preferred something more capable.
There was a Wild Fire Fighting pitch for A-10 Water Bombers.... Put them to use there also....
No. It was designed for wing mounted stores. Firefighting needs something designed for cargo where the tanks can be placed. The Navy's S-2 Tracker anti-submarine warfare plane was well suited because it had an internal bomb bay designed to carry torpedos or depth charges. That could carry a load of retardant.
They're worn beyond belief. All their use now should be sunbathing in the dry desert. No human should risk his life inside museum pieces.
"In a perfect world, with unlimited military budgets..." The A-10 was designed during The Cold War Era, when US military budgets were virtually unlimited. Why don't any of our allies operate the A-10? It's not like there was a technology transfer problem, and we were worried that like the F-22, our allies might let the A-10's secret sauce recipe leak to our adversaries. The reason Israel and our NATO allies don't fly A-10s is it wasn't within their budgets to operate such a niche aircraft, and NATO could count on the US to foot the bill.
The Su-25 Frogfoot is operated by other countries that former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations, but it was designed to be simple and cheap to operate and maintain. It also doesn't work with precision guided munitions. The A-10s I saw in the 1980's were mostly loaded with AGM-65 Mavericks. The Frogfoot is usually loaded out with dumb bombs and rockets. One A-10 sortie could easily expend $1 million dollars of ordinance.
"More than 5,000 AGM-65 A/B/D/E/F/G’s were employed during Operation Desert Storm, mainly attacking armored targets. Mavericks played a large part in the destruction of Iraq’s significant military force. In the Gulf War, A-10s launched 90% of the AGM-65 Maverick missiles." That was conservatively, $500 million worth of Maverick missiles. While the A-10 may have fairly cheap operating costs to fly, it uses some pretty expensive ordinance. The GAU-8 30mm cannon also uses rounds not common to any other gun in service, and requires specialized equipment to load and maintain, specific to the A-10.
The Frogfoot can use PGMs. They're mostly loaded with dumb munitions because the Ruskies either load them on higher performance aircraft or they flat out couldn't afford a large stockpile of them pre-war.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD The A-10C has a laser designator pod, and all A-10s have had the capability to launch TV-guided Mavericks from their inception. TV-guided munitions were only added to the Su-25T and later versions.
The A-10C's avionics are decades more advanced than the Frogfoot, and it can carry a range of weapons that is unmatched by the Su-25.
@@PlugInRides The Su-25 employed laser-guided weapons in Afghanistan in the 80s and laser-guided/optically tracked bombs in the Chechen wars.
I don't care how "advanced" the A-10C is. You claimed the Su-25 doesn't employ guided munitions. Without any distinction between base model or upgrades.
Guys the 75th Expeditionary Squardon with A-10s is on the ground and protecting the border in Gaza. This to discourage escalation by neighboring countries. Oh yeah, Eqypt moved a lot of armor towards Gaza. Our troops and aircraft are a huge signal to keep hands off. The tactical need for the A-10 will never go away. Nothing else can carry that payload and loiter for as long at any price.
A10 all day long. ❤❤
Role specific platforms are still needed. The the F-15C was replaced by the F-22. Role specific Air to Air. But the 35 doesn't fully replace the A-10s CAS ability.
The Lightning II can't fly near lightening? Might be time for a name change.
Panther is supposedly is its nickname.
The A-10 is probably an ideal weapon for Isreal vs Hamas. Its absolutely not the right weapon for Ukrain vs Russian SU-27/35s and SAs incl. S-400s.
A-10 would be shot down on gear up over Keiv well away from the conflict before it even arrived. It doesn't have survivability in contested airspace against a near-peer (in air defense tech).
A-10a will be around another 20-30 years, they just purchased new wings for the A-10 to keep several hundred of them flying. Presumably for insurgent type warfare.
Yeah but we've seen exactly how effective russian air defense really is (not at all).
The A10 could operate just fine over Ukrainian territory, as evidenced by their Frogfoots. You're not gonna convince me that somehow the Frogfoots are more survivable than Warthogs
@@FLMKane You're delusional. They would absolutely shoot down every single A-10 before they've gotten anywhere near seeing the enemy.
Frogfoots, are far from the enemy lobbing weapons like Kh-29 from standoff range. A-10 can't do that, A-10 has to go right above the enemy to do anything..
You're right, except the A-10 can't even handle Hamas. For sure they'd take them all out with MANPADS.
Apache does everything the A-10 can do better, and so many other mission types more on top of that.
Even the ukraines did not want the A-10 beings they are easy targets.
@@tysoncott7402the Ukrainians didn't want the A-10, because they already have the SU-25. They want the F-16 for its modern avionics and radar. Ever see the cockpit of a Ukrainian mig-29, its straight out of the 80's.
All 100% spot on points. So why isn't the leadership listening?
Spot on? This video claims that bullets aren't affected by wind or bullet drop, and that somehow A-10s are EMP proof? This is chock full of mistakes and misconceptions.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD Meaniing, as the three of them said- the right tool, for the right job.
@@WxWaterFire And nobody called out outright falsehoods. I'm not taking advice from people who say the sky is purple.
As long there is war, the A-10 will always be needed.
Not really. The best description I've heard of it in a near peer conflict (or even a not so near peer conflict) is "sitting duck". It is very vulnerable to surface to air missiles and fighters.
That's like saying the same for the Sopwith Camel.
It had its day, but even for the Fulda Gap mission, their piltos' life estimates were measured in minutes.
you mean manpad food? A-10s were screwed the second low flying wasnt safe anymore. which was in the 80s with systems like the tunguska. i know russian tech is showing its ass but they are tailor made to chew through low slow aircraft. and that tub wont save a pilot from those kinds of rounds.
@@viaticchart3139
I remember a discussion with a former fighter pilot that A-10s are extremely vulnerable from above. Easy to spot on radar and easy to shoot down with air to air missiles. Even an ancient asset like an F-5 could probably do it.
Excellent.
They wanna replace the A-10s but they have no replacement plane that can provide immediate CAS for troops on the ground.
"ALL our eggs in ONE Basket" No Kidding ! And still unproven in an actual near peer protracted fight.
If we’re replacing/ retiring the a-10 and not replacing with a dedicated CAS platform we need to get serious about using drones or developing stand off tactics for contested environments were the f-35 is the coordinator for stand off munitions and attributable platforms. Using the f-35 for directly dropping bombs on one target is a dumb idea and a waste of airframe hours.
I wonder how the F-35s derivative plastics will hold up against said AR-47 fire ?
Need to build new A-10's, keep a squadron or two handy.
That ain't happening. The company is gone and the assembly line is long, long gone. There isn't a single defense contractor that would bid on a replacement. The closes thing would be maybe a light-duty replacement like the Super Tucano, but that already exists.
The Air Force simply doesn't want to pay for the infrastructure to keep it flying. It's got fairly limited utility in a serious fight.
There are plenty of A-10s in the Davis-Monthan boneyard.
We need our leaders to grab weapons and fight alongside soldiers. Then they can make decisions about the soldier's welfare and what weapons they can choose for these soldiers to use. I'm sure they would be far more careful in their selections.
Is Gonky sporty a 104th coffee mug? 🤙🏽
The role the A-10 filled is a big stick. down, dirty, and close slugging it out in a phone booth. Need a follow on aircraft that has all the Hogs attributes.
No. The Air Force is not going to replace it with more of the same. They would prefer a fast mover that lobs laser-guided bombs from higher altitudes and doesn't get put in a position to be shot at.
Boy, this guy sounded like Seth Brundle on a lot of chocolate.
3:55 I think Gonky hit it on the head without realizing it. "Either the A-10 or a viable A-10 replacement". He's right, and the F-35 is NOT that replacement. If anything, the F-35 is a return to the days of the old TFX program of the 1960s that ultimately gave us the F-111. History has repeated the mistakes of the TFX/F-111 program---the idea that somehow, one can build just one airplane to make all the services happy. They tried that with the F-111, and failed because that unicorn aircraft simply doesn't exist. With the F-111, the USAF wanted a tactical light bomber that could fight its way in and/or out of the target area. The Navy wanted something they could launch off a carrier. In the process of trying to make everybody happy, they ended up making NOBODY happy. Now, eventually the F-111 turned into a great aircraft. The Aussies, in particular, made fantastic use of it. But it took decades to evolve it to that point and as soon as they did, the USAF decommissioned the entire fleet.
The F-35 took us right back into that scenario, with the same predictable results. Want a Harrier replacement for the Marines? F-35. Want a light strike aircraft for a carrier? F-35. Want a light strike fighter with super-duper uplink capability and a s--t-ton of Buck Rogers-level high tech? F-35. The end result is that the Navy lost, but the Marines got their VTOL, but without the load-hauling abilities of the Harrier. The F-35 that came to the USAF got beat in all the early competitions against F-16s, and only won when the engagement rules were so completely and awkwardly drawn in favor of the F-35.
Meanwhile over in A-10 land---the A-10 keeps proving itself and its relevance to the modern battlefield over and over again. I swear, if I was a conspiracy theorist I'd think that the A-10 is being pushed out simply because its making everybody else look bad. We are eventually going to get back into a superpower war again---and the A-10 was built to counter the Fulda Gap scenario. Need close air support that is both fast and REALLY devastating? A-10. Ask for it by name. The A-10 is the Wolverine of modern air power---it's the very best at what it does.
Now---there's been plenty of discussion about replacing the A-10, but nobody's ever been able to do it. Same for the B-52; shoot, that airplane is so unreplaceable they're not building new ones---they're embarking on a multi-billion dollar project to resto-mod the entire fleet. New engines. New electronics suites. Probably new wing spars, although I haven't actually heard anything about that part. By the time those aircraft come out of the program, they'll be almost zero-timed.
We have such a dearth of aeronautical engineering capability in this country that we cannot, to save our collective lives, figure out how to improve on the kind of solid-state engineering that our aeronautical engineer predecessors came up with. Dunno how one improves on the A-10 or the B-52, but somebody really needs to figure out that part.
Against any near peer foe or insurgents with manpads the A10 is toast.
In Afghan against guys in flip flops with AKs it rocked.
It should probably be replaced by something smaller and cheaper for the niche it's very good at, that isn't the F35.
There's been talk about using something with actual manufacturer's support, like the Super Tucano. Fairchild-Republic made its last plane almost 40 years ago.
Those would be much cheaper to fly and don't cost as much. Obviously they're for use in a low-intensity conflict (like an opponent whose main transport is pickup trucks), which is why they don't want to spend that much.
@@ypw510
Having been on the ground in Afghan myself 🇬🇧 and supported by RAF Harriers, Apache and sometimes NATO assets like A10 etc
They were bad ass, and ruined people's days for sure. But against a proper military they'd have had a hard time.
Something that's cheap, has good survivability, good loiter time and multiple mission sets is what's needed.
But as we see in Ukraine both sides basically don't have CAS because their air defence is so dominant.
@@beefsuprem0241
Yeah - that's the thing. The A-10 has this mythical reputation that comes from unfair fights where they were picking off insurgents in pickup trucks.
There also this undeserved reputation for coming back with battle damage, but lots of aircraft can come back after being shot up with small arms fire or even small missiles. I've seen images of F-16s that were hit by MANPADS and F/A-18s where the jet nozzle was blown up. There's nothing really all that special about the A-10 and battle damage other than it seems to stay low where enemies might be close enough to hit it with an AK.
More significant than "Is it still needed?" Is: is it survivable? And the answer is it's not. The skies over Ukraine are what future conflicts will look like; we are not guaranteed to have air superiority and will face not only an advanced air threat but also very capable air defense systems that will place a premium on avoiding detection.
And unless we maintain two Air Forces, one for the existential fight we'll face if confronting a peer or near-peer adversary, and the second with planes like the A-10 that can't be used in the peer/near-peer fight but are useful fighting a lower tech adversary. Unless we do that, we're going to be in the position of having a fleet of 300 generally unusable aircraft that still cost a significant amount of money to support, crew, repair, etc.
In fact, the B-1B over Iraq provided more CAS in the form of JDAMs directed by someone on the ground than the A-10 did. This just points to the changing nature of CAS and the increasing accuracy and capability of stand off weapons.
British armored vehicle crews can breath a sigh of relief with the A10 being retired.
Until a F-35 missing it’s monthly patch comes in and does the same thing .
@@mmmmburgerz9442More like a Sky Warden since an A10 supposedly cannot fight in something like Ukraine. Though it would use guided missile and may not miss.
What gets me is there really is no replacement announced for the A-10. Part of me wonders if the Air Force simply plans to drop the CAS Duty along with the A-10.
There's never been a replacement other than maybe the OA-X program. But that was for a light duty attack plane. The Air Force has made it clear that they don't want a slow jet that would be a sitting duck for
They've talked about CAS using laser guided bombs, which is what they've actually been doing (even with the A-10) for 30 years. F-16s have been doing that for all that time even though the troops don't have that supposed morale booster of seeing a plane circling overhead (in a position where it's vulnerable to MANPADS).
Every single USAF combat aircraft that carries weapons has to be able to do CAS, including the B-1B, B-52H, and F-22A. USAF has been providing unprecedented CAS sorties over the past 32 years.
@@LRRPFco52
F-15 A-D would suck carrying bombs though. Heard they can carry and drop them ballistically. But that’s a job for a Strike Eagle.
@@ypw510 They rarely practice strafing, but are always tasked with occupying the higher altitude bands for DCA/OCA in the F-15C+. F-15A/B are long gone, and F-15C/D are on their way out the door.
Between MQ-9, F-15E+, F-35A, B-1B, B-52H, and F-16CM+, there are a lot of options for CAS across all different types of theaters and contingencies.
A-10 was described as a (c.a.s.) tank w/ wings! I still think we need it for specific tasks. You don't throw away a proven weapons delivery platform like the 'hog' MAKE NEW ONES, DAMMIT!
Why not Apaches? They can hide far better, they can carry a whole host of stuff.
Can they work as a replacement for A-10s AND as a HIMARS-type system...only far safer as they can stay low & scoot away. They are even replacement for tanks (and once again HIMARS), only far better as they're not susceptible to mines which is especially useful in long advances in current UKR situations!
Altitude... apaches don't handle the high mountains of the Caucasus or Afghanistan loaded with munitions very well.
They already have F-16s, Strike Eagles, and bombers. With precision guided munitions, those have done much of the work that the A-10 might be suited for but with far lower chances of being taken out by anti-aircraft weapons. I've heard fighter pilots describe the A-10 as being a sitting duck against an enemy that has more than just machine guns mounted on pickup trucks.
@@dampsok Interesting point, thanks!
More than twice as slow and 4 times the risk.
HOw long would it take for them to arrive on station compared to A-10?
A B-52 at altitude, in Afghanistan dropped on friendly's, when they mistakenly mis-read thier own Co-ordiance, off their GPS. Its war, shit happens, you need eyes not just on the ground.
Just like getting rid of the S-3, that could do so many tasks. I don't understand. Heck, give them to the Army.
Strafing runs with an A-10 is great CAS when the enemy's Air Defense consist of spraying into the air with an old AK-47..
Against a peer adversary you would take unacceptable attrition from short range systems, No amount of SEAD/DEAD can get rid of every manpad or other systems lurking with their radars of until they know a plane is near.
Drone assisted artillery is the future of CAS with aircraft being forced to stay above 15 000 feet.
You could get rid of your old car after you buy a new one, but sometimes having a shitbox around can help.
Have you seen Clarksons farm? Buying a 100k Lamborghini tractor might be less utilitarian than an old ass heap of steel that you can fix with a wrench and big biceps
The problem is that your car can sit on the garage/driveway as long as you give it a spin once in a while.
The A-10 needs hundreds of pilots and mechanics to keep in service. You can't just forget it like an old car. You have to baby it even if you're not using it.
Imagine you had to pay for a chauffeur and a resident mechanic to keep your shitbox. You'd get rid of it, pronto.
As an ARMY vet, nothing comes close to the A-10 in CAS. I bet most Marines would agree. All the fast jets are too vulnerable at slow speeds, and just can't do what the A-10 can or take the same level of punishment. Attack Helicopters can do [some] of the A-10 CAS mission, but they are too slow and vulnerable. We learned that in the early years of Iraq; that's why the AH-66 Comanche program was cancelled. A-10's pair perfectly with rotor wing units, and tanks/infantry units. The F-15/F-16/F-18/F-22/F-35 just have different missions. Every problem can't be solved with stealth/speed.
All that talk about the A-10 taking damage is a myth. The entire fuselage and wing aren't armored - just the titanium armor around the pilot.
It can certainly come back with holes from small arms fire, but an F-16 can do that too.
The A-10 will always be needed and will never be properly be replaced . No pointy nose will ever be able to do it's job.
Who’s going to drop LUU-1/2 flares?
Yes we do still need it, but in dramatically smaller numbers. The wars on terror had lots of stats taken. And they all indicate that the A-10 didn't even perform half of the CAS/ground attack missions, which is pretty much the A-10s sole mission. And yet in that time, the A-10 took higher losses than all of the other jets that engaged in that mission combined. Multi role fighters have proven they are better suited for the modern CAS/Ground Attack Mission. But the A-10 does still have a place, it's place is more like that of the OV-10 during Vietnam as an observational aircraft marking targets for the fast movers once air superiority has been achieved
Sources on those stats? Not doubting you, just would like to look at them myself.
@@brandony8691
There are stats on the Gulf War that show the F-111 was responsible for more damage to tanks than the A-10. It had a sophisticated, all-weather targeting pod and could drop laser-guided bombs zipping faster than the speed of sound at lower altitudes.
@@ypw510 Again- Links, so those of us Google-challenged can find those studies
@@brandony8691 "CAS is a mission, not a platform... that the Air Force was flying 20,000 close air support sorties a year, and that about 80 percent of those flown in Afghanistan since 2001 were by aircraft other than the A-10. The F-16 alone had flown more CAS missions than the A-10." it's a direct quote from former A-10 pilot, former chief of staff of USAF, General Mark Welsh regarding Afghanistan but if you look up close air support stats in Iraq or Afghanistan, there's more than a few government and privately funded articles that echo the same thing or even have actual numbers on it. Careful not to confuse Desert Storm and GWOT articles though, some of them try to lump desert storm in or are vague on which Iraq war they're referring to. Hope this helps!
@@treyaldridge1757 Yep, appreciate it!
True for the most! We had a 16 pilot that did gun run below 5k in 2003, he got his hand slapped. That's part of why we called him Cletus. The predecessor to Leroyyyyy Jenkinssss😂 #cwlemoine
Where does the AC-130 gunship fit in?
it doesnt unless there's constant need for it with enough preperation time. Its not something you can order in at short notice.. if there even where any big airport base in the region that it could operate from.
What bout an AV8b half way between an a-10 and a viper or hornet 🐝 best of both worlds
If the Air Force retires the A-10 I'd be willing to be the Army will take them for the CAS role.
Army is not allowed to have fixed wing aircraft per The Key West Agreement....to a point. the Army does fly the C-12. However, the Marines could take them.
@@yodaisgod2the army is not allowed to fly fixed wing aircraft so long as the air force provides CAS. If the air force falls short of its CAS duties then the key west agreement is no longer being followed.
@@FLMKaneAh...interesting. Thanks for the clarification.
@@yodaisgod2
They're certainly not allowed to have fixed wing armed aircraft. There were supposedly weight limits only other fixed wing aircraft, but that was changed later. I've seen photos of a US Army Gulfstream (a C-37B) that is in the same VIP fleet colors as US Air Force planes like Air Force One. It says "US Army" on the bottom of the left wing. One example is registration number 04-1778.
Why would the Army spend billions transfering an aircraft to their branch when the aircraft are old and lacking parts?
Wait, the lightning ii doesn’t handle lightning?
Safety precaution - there is a system that pumps inert gas into the fuel tanks to prevent fires. There's a fear that the one in a million lighting strike will cause an explosion. The piping has cracks so until further notice there's restrictions.
I always thought that the US Marines should have used the A 10
Just can't land em on a boat. And they're too slow, and don't have the vertical lift thing the marines love.
I think the Marine Corp needs multirole aircraft though. It might be because they dont have the budget for such specialized fixed wing aircraft.
The US Marines have the F/A-18 and f-35, which are both much better.
Can't land on a USMC helicopter carrier deck, can't be catapult launched off a Navy boat.
You know ...... if were are going to be trucking around with 100 year old B-52's ..... what's the problem with spreading some of that love with a little brother?
The B-52s up to the G variant were all retired.
It wasn't needed, until it was needed.
ahh the A-10, putting the blue in blue-on-blue.
Also very funny how this guy talks about the F-35's systems being vulnerable to EMPs when the A-10 had to be upgraded with electronic equipment to mitigate its distinct lack of precision.
a-10 only capable versus arab countries without air defence, in modern battlefield like ukraine it would be ez target
I remember being told that the F-22 wasn't needed for a modern battlefield and that's why the government ended procurement prematurely. Now with an actual air war going on between Ukraine and Russia, the F-22 seems like it would be a nice thing to have more of in case we have to fight one. This has happened multiple times in the past. Dogfighting in Vietnam was a thing of the past, so there's no need to teach air combat techniques. Then they actually got into dogfights with much more maneuverable MiGs and had to learn it real quick.
Once the experts say "this is a thing of the past", especially in regards to war, they've always been proven wrong. Better to take what we've learned and apply it just in case we get a new problem. In this case, we need something that can do the A-10s mission, without a doubt. Is it a drone, a prop, or a next-gen with the Avenger? Maybe. Is it an F-35? Doubtful.
A-10's escorted the pavelows for the f117 and f16 shootdown/recovery. F15s and f16s escorted the a-10's. But it was an argument for specialisation but i reckon it was an argument for mass and attritional resilience.
Yes
The A-10 is basically just a very fast tank
Not really. It's got a mythical reputation for taking battle damage, but any military aircraft can take small arms fire and possibly even MANPADS. The only armor that it has is around the pilot, and that 2000 lbs of titanium and that heavy gun aren't great for the maneuverability.
i was more referring to its weapons, and it does take more damage than any other plane we have @@ypw510
@@spr1ngcactu5
It's got a largish machine gun, but otherwise everything else it has are missiles and bombs that other aircraft can employ.
As humans evolved, we learned that specialization is the way to succeed. No longer did everyone have to know everything - now, we can have people who know 1 or 2 things really well, and the ceiling for success is higher because of that focus. Unifying everything into 1 system is the exact opposite lesson evolution taught humanity and removing specializations is only going to deliver subpar performance.
If they want to retire the A-10 I say that’s fine as long as you build more AC-130s cause that’s the only other CAS aircraft that can match the Hogs time on station currently in the AF.
What's the point of that? The future of CAS will likely be swarms of drones with considerably longer loiter times (plus the ability to switch operators) and fast jets that can get there in less time. I get that the grunts like the idea of a platform that just supports them, but keeping the A-10 around is costing a lot of money that could be spent to prepare for future threats.
The AC-130 is even more handicapped than the A-10. The Spirit 03 crew was killed in its entirety by a single Iraqi MANPADS.
@@ChucksSEADnDEADthat was over 30 years ago. No AC-130 has been shot down since then, despite being deployed nonstop to combat zones until the Afghanistan withdrawal. They’ve gotten a lot better since the 90s.
@@TheLimeIsALie No AC-130 was shot down since because any MANPADS left in Afghanistan ran out of battery and coolant gas before 2001. A "combat zone" where you're firing at guys with AKs is as much of a combat zone as helicopter hog hunting in Texas. The hogs won't be able to fight back, dude.
A different tool for a different situation, that’s the nature of the diversity and ubiquity of technology. We have a lot of options, and we have to create different things to meet many objectives. The decision making about acquisitions and retirements comes from the adage about fighting the next war. But we know that reading the future isn’t perfect. I think the lessons learned from permissive air environment wars has shown that a replacement platform will always be required. It’s simply unconscionable to demolish buildings and use large ordinance for precision strikes. Even the SDBs are too big. APKWS may also be insufficient. The arsenals just aren’t equipped with the right tools to accomplish what’s needed for the various wars.
But those very weapons are the ones that the A-10 overwhelmingly utilize.
SDBs too big, APKWS insufficient. There is such a thing as too picky.
And what does the A-10 have in between?
Aren't they now buying the military version of a crop duster for CAS in in surgence scenarios under the name of AT Skywarden?
There's that and the Super Tucano.
I mean, if they’re gonna surplus them, I’ll take one, I’ll make room in the garage.
They're going to Davis-Monthan's boneyard.
The only acceptable answer is yes to this question. That’s it.
A-10 should have been retired in the 1980s. It was really built for Vietnam to escort rotary wing formations, but never served there of course. It was a suicide mission profile for the Fulda Gap.
They should give the A-10's to the US Army. I know the logistics would be hell, but the Army would make it work one way or another.
And then immediately retire it after billions spent because they're 30 years past the expiration date. They're old. Aircraft can't fly forever unless you Ship of Theseus them.
It’s wild we pay taxes to make these things and then the government sells them to line their own pockets.
Reminds of the F 4 Phantoms during the initial phase of the Vietnam co flict...no guns only missles that failed most of the time...I think a close air support aircraft should not be underrated .
Great show guys..
Tucanos and Sky Wardns can do that for a lot cheaper. The analogy is very different: the cannon supposedly can only be used at closer ranges.
Also, the importance of the cannon in air to air combat was a part truth overblown by the fighter mafia. Topgun proved that it was proper usage of the missile that counts.
The Phantom didn't need guns.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD
The Phantom needed better missiles. If an AIM-9X could have been put in a time machine, it would have been incredible.
@@ypw510 It was a really weird time. The Navy had foreseen the issues with Sidewinders and had their upgraded variants perform better than USAF ones. However, their Sparrows had the maintenance neglected so carrier landings and exposure to sea spray on the deck caused a lot of duds while the USAF had better luck.
If the Navy had taken better care of Sparrows and the USAF had used Navy Sidewinders, the Phantom would have never earned the infamy it did.
Look up the A-37. Most successful ground attack jet in the VN war
I laughed when someone asked me if Fat Amy could replace the A-10. The only thing that could replace an A-10 is a better A-10. And by that I mean a better plane strapped to the back of a better Gatling gun than the GAU-8 Avengers.
The gun is barely used unless it's against insurgents in pickup trucks. Even when an A-10 is minimally effective, it's going to be dropping laser guided bombs.
Not another aircraft that puts more fear in enemy ground troops.
I want an aircraft that makes the enemy feel nothing. Because he doesn't exist anymore.
If you're feared, it just means you kept failing at your job.
since when has the "needs" of the armed services really had much to do with ANYTHING
The A-10 works well and that is it's major sin when careers are made with the developement of new weapon systems.
Boeing made 2 BILLION off the replacement wings. The entire reason the A-10 was not retired was because of careers in Arizona.
... Sky Warden? ... Can do Most of the CAS mission. Or am I wrong?
There are a lot of revolutionary technologies that could be integrated into an A-10 replacement:
-Composite Metal Foam
-Rotary Detonation Engines
-Ultra-High Molecular Weight Polyethylene
-Active Protection Systems
We could use the A10 to defend the southern border.
Particularly bloodthirsty today? Have your coffee before commenting.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD they’d only have to make a few runs, word would get out and they’d quit the invasion maybe?
If project should be greenlit it would be to design a replacement for the A-10 it's the only airplane capable of a knife fight with the ground.
Nobody is going to do it. No defense contractor wants to do it. The US Air Force doesn't want it. Is it that hard to understand that they don't really want a low and slow aircraft that still needs a runway and and dead meat against surface to air missiles and fighter jets?
Imagine I posted the .gif of Indiana Jones pulling his gun on the guy trying to knife fight.