The Army isn't allowed to operate fixed-wing aircraft. Also, it's entirely possible the Army is more than satisfied with their Apache attack helicopters and no longer needs an anti-tank machine gun with an airplane attached.

Don’t get me wrong, the GAU8 “Avenger” 30mm cannon the A10 was built around is an utter beast, but it has simply met its match with modern tank armor. It wouldn’t be effective against the most recent few generations of tanks do to increasingly effective armor. It was designed for old Soviet gear, which it obliterates, but it hasn’t been updated and Soviet weaponry has. A modern T14 Armata would be damaged (optics, sensors, etc) but ultimately would most likely survive an A10 gun run. Now for simple infantry ground support, there really is no match for a flying tank! As you’ve alluded to, the AH64 is a very capable flying tank and is very good at the same mission. Bonus points that the hellfire missiles the Apache carries are still quite effective against all currently known armor.

Disclaimer: I flew the Shadow 200 TUAV in OIF II and did targeting for several A10 missions. Nothing quite like a BRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT cutting the thing you’ve put a laser on in half! I still don’t think it would do well against a modern Russian armor division.

The GAU8 tears up Toyota pickups slightly faster than road salt (and time is of the essence in a CAS situation) and more cheaply than bombs/missiles.

The A10 is a lot less vulnerable to ground-fire and MANPADS than helicopters, can carry more and loiter longer. It's like a AC130 but cheaper to operate and with more missiles.

While the gun isn't going to be effective against a modern armored division having a high capacity missile truck is worthwhile as evidenced in desert storm.

That said, time to get on scene is very important and the A10 is very poor at that compared to other fixed wing aircraft.

"It's like an AC130 without a howitzer and a totally different machine gun" making it entirely unlike an AC130. The AC130's GAU23 and the GAU8 on the A10 are very different. I also did targeting missions in Ramadi for AC130s, and it was a lot of fun.

Have you ever been in combat with an A10? I have. I was literally the guy putting a laser (from my Shadow 200 TUAV) onto a weapons cache building in Tal'Afar, Iraq and watched an A10 BRRRRRTTTTTT cut the building in 1/2 before it ignited from all of the ordinance inside.

As to showing the A10's effectiveness in Desert Storm, that was what, 1991? The Soviet T90-A was designed to specifically be fine against 30mm GAU8 rounds, and it was released in 1993. Soviet armor divisions also have serious business anti-aircraft like the Pantsir system, which would obliterate an A10 no question. All recent Soviet weaponry, up to and including the most recent T14 Armata would survive strafing from an A10 just fine, and in the meantime provide targetting data to anti-air platforms to take it out.

TL;DNR: Using the weapons from the early 1990s to fight a war now is a great way to lose. The A10 is an amazing machine, but so was the P51 Mustang in its heyday.

"Been in combat"? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-7_Shadow)

:-)

It isn’t flown from Nevada like the bigger UAVs. It’s flown from in country, often only 1km from the mission site (although the total effective range is up to around 160km depending on wind direction, wind speed, and altitude). We’re doing convoys, we’re getting shot at, we’re risking our life. We woke up to mortar and missile fire every day. This is what the military refers to as combat, even cooks see combat. Did you? :)

If you get a combat patch and combat pay, it is combat. If your operational flight record says you have 482 combat flight hours, what would you call it (that is the number of hours I got in OIF II 2003-2004). You don’t have to kick down doors and drop bodies with your hands to be in combat. It was the RQ-7A in specific I flew as the RQ-7B is a bigger airframe with better endurance.

That's not the threat, though. If you're attacking a modern Russian armor division, you don't shoot bullets at it directly. You attack the weak stream of rubles linking it to Moscow, and maneuver around it until it runs out of fuel.

The A-10 is still effective against light cavalry and mounted cavalry using low-armored ground vehicles, which are the units of choice for highly mobile hit-and-run guerilla combatants. Shooting pennies to destroy dollars is a viable strategy, and the A-10 spews nickels instead of launching quarters.

The "keep the A10" camp is specifically arguing that the A10 is crucial for providing air support to ground troops against insurgent-style opponents, and that there's no equivalent available if the A10s are mothballed.

There's some interesting counter-arguments to that view in this thread; I'm not knowledgeable enough in the domain to have a strong opinion.

I love the A-10 and it is better than the fast-movers for anti-insurgency work (Especially if you take cost into consideration). However it is not the best as it is still colossal overkill.

There were plans for light attack propeller aircraft. The US actually bought a bunch of them for the Iraqi airforce and were falling over themselves saying how good they were for the job. The US airforce then trialled their own light attack aircraft (apparently grudgingly) but...

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/01/18/the-air-forces-pl...

and to be honest, ths reasons given are pretty suspect to me anyway.

This is also why the Marines kept the Corsair as far into the jet age as they could.

Ain't AC-130 Spectre is exactly for that?

They're too vulnerable to fly during the day because they're so big and fly so low.

Unfortunately, it might not. Take a look at this: https://baloogancampaign.com/2015/02/02/10-future-us-close-a...

In my adult life I’ve only ever seen the BRRRRRRRRTTTTT used on troops in the open/defilade. Those rounds work fine, even on the high tech armor favored by the enemy in Afghanistan, trees.

Just how many 30mm shells do you think modern tank armor can withstand? The A10 carries a lot of ammo, all to be fired at the same spot.

Also, a tank without optics and sensors is pretty damn useless.

A lot more than you might realize it seems. Here is a good overview of basically how the A10 is simply ineffective as a modern tank-killer.

https://www.quora.com/Can-an-A-10-Warthog-airplane-take-down...

Again, a hellfire missile from an Apache is a much better way to kill a modern tank.

I reach the opposite conclusion from your article.

It is clear that a single GAU-8 shell to undamaged frontal armor will not cause serious damage. Everything else points to the A-10 being highly effective.

Since we don't get to fire at the T-90 for testing purposes, note that smaller and slower shells from the Bradley have taken out the M1A2 Abrams.

Nothing says you can't hit the same location 100 times. For increased accuracy, improving the ammunition is possible. A few years back, DARPA got 50 caliber (12.7 mm) bullets to have active steering. If we can do that in 50 caliber, 30 mm should be easy.

As for the Hellfire, the A-10 has that beat too, with the Maverick. It goes 3 times as far, carrying 7 to 15 times as much explosive. The A-10 can also carry Paveway, JSOW, and various other precision bombs.

I don't think the psychological effect should be ignored either. Having an A-10 visibly loitering over the battlefield will have an effect on the morale and behavior of both sites of the conflict.

Fair enough, but hitting the same spot twice (even that quora article points that out) is never going to happen. In some real world situations 22 rounds will hit a vehicle the size of a T90 if the pilot has 100% perfect aim, something that is totally possible, but unlikely. You're right on the maverick as well, but the A10 is aging. It won't be too much longer before the maximum wear of the titanium frame has happened and the entire thing will have to be rebuilt, something that likely won't happen. What they need, is a modern re-make of the A10, but it won't come from the air force. They love their fast stealth jets too much.

The Army does have some fixed wing aircraft, so it's not without precedent. And in any event I figured if the Army loved the A-10 so much they could call the Air Force's bluff and ask Congress to give them a mandate.

What all the evidence suggests to me is that there's overwhelming consensus at the Pentagon to scrap the A-10. Congress, the defense media, and anecdotally every ground trooper from Iraq and Afghanistan disagree, but there you have it.

>What all the evidence suggests to me is that there's overwhelming consensus at the Pentagon to scrap the A-10. Congress, the defense media, and anecdotally every ground trooper from Iraq and Afghanistan disagree, but there you have it.

Grunts love firepower. Back when the M16 was new everyone got full auto. Then the powers that be decided it was overkill and gave them three round burst. Now the marines are fielding the M27....

Just because they eat crayons doesn't mean they don't know what works and what doesn't.

That said, having your CAS system be capable of showing up at mach 1.8 is worth something.

That's the problem. The branches of the US military are based on theater of operation, rather than mission.

Close aerial ground support is 100% a different mission profile than for air superiority fighters and air defense batteries.

If I were commander in chief, I would move most of the military to a new Logistics Corps, and put it in charge of all unit and cargo transport, aerial refueling, airdrops, at-sea resupply, construction and fortifications, vehicles maintenance, and permanent base buildings and facilities. Next, the nuclear triangle of long-range bombers, ballistic missile silos, and missile submarines would go into the Strategic Deterrents Corps, along with ballistic missile defenses, launch detection satellites, strategic-threat tracking radars, and hypersonic cruise missiles. The rest can go into Offense, Defense, and Special Teams, or any other arrangement they please. Once logistics, diplomacy, and strategic advantage are already taken care of, the tactics should be adaptable to the conditions of the conflict at hand.

This is why the Marine Corps operates their own air support and the Navy also controls their own aviation.

> The Army isn't allowed to operate fixed-wing aircraft.

That is 100% false. The 160th SOAR flies some CASA-212s, the MC-12 and the regular army flies a variety of SEMA and transport fixed wing aircraft. The Army doesn’t fly fighters, but air superiority isn’t their mission, that’s the Air Force’s job. Naval Aviation is really just a weapons system for ships; it’s for force projection rather than air superiority; Marine Aviation is strictly close air support for Marine operations: not force projection or air superiority.

The Army isn’t more than satisfied with Apaches: they’re not going to be buying any more as the FVL program comes online. That program is taking over from the Blackhawks and Apaches. The Apache was designed to fight tanks in Western European Cold War scenarios.

However, the Army actually wants F-35s rather than the Warthog for CAS. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said as much at a symposium last year. However, he wants the Air Force flying those planes as that has been the traditional division of labor for the Army: the Air Force generally provides CAS. But it doesn’t really matter what anyone says, there is a contingent of people that hate the military and everything the F-35 represents, regardless of the actual quality of the airplane. The critics have never flown the plane and many of those critics have never spent any time in combat situations where an F-35 would be relevant. There are plenty of ridiculous weapons systems that we don’t need (the Crusader artillery system for example,) but the F-35 isn’t one of them. It’s an incredible plane that allows missions that just wouldn’t be possible in a Super Hornet or a Raptor — at least not without unacceptable losses.

> However, the Army actually wants F-35s rather than the Warthog for CAS. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said as much at a symposium last year.

Is this desire based on technical merits or political/practical realities? What criteria could be used to evaluate which aircraft is "better" for CAS?

Seems that the F-35 has higher operating costs, is less maneuverable, is more fragile, etc. Does stealth have an advantage when one is strafing at less that 10K feet in a (generally) low-threat and low-intensity environment?

Given all the combat engagements the A-10 has had over the decades, wouldn't it be prudent to at least have the F-35 run some "live" CAS missions to see how it does first? IIRC, the F-35 can't even fire its gun yet (until there's a future software update).

My understanding, from knowing some Air Force officers and what I read:

Air Force officers manage people. They don't do things. Specifically, they don't risk their own lives. The Air Force is built around NORAD and SAC and ICBMs. Being the organization owning nuclear missiles is their dream state. They recently added space and cyber to that, both of which also don't involve getting shot at. The A-10 is the ultimate in "not our job" to the USAF. UAVs could not get here fast enough.

Unfortunately, they also don't want anyone else to have the whole aircraft thing. So the Army doesn't get to fly fixed wings and the Navy only has that "aircraft carrier" excuse.