That role is outdated: the US realistically does not expect a full-on war with Russia (though a hybrid war is a possibility, such as the Ukrainian conflict). Also, sending tanks in a single file column down roads is stupid. Russia knows this.
What else can it do? Someone mentioned Close Air Support. The AC-130 and MQ-9 do it WAY better. The gun on the A-10 can't hit anything accurately (remember - to aim the gun you have to physically aim the aircraft - the A-10 is not a nimble plane, and human targets are TINY at altitude). The A-10 can also carry bombs for Close Air Support. The thing is... so can the MQ-9 and AC-130. the MQ-9 can loiter on target longer and is WAY cheaper, and the AC-130 has missiles AND guns that actually hit things AS WELL AS quickly engage targets.
Can it kill tanks? Yes! But if you're taking out tanks onesy-twosy (again, not in convoys), then again, so can the AC-130 and MQ-9. The Hellfire was LITERALLY designed to kill tanks. Great thing about MQ-9s too is that they're remotely piloted; in a neer-peer conflict, the tanks would be protected by AA - but there'd be no pilot deaths if an MQ-9 goes down, so you can send them to risker places.
It's an outdated plane for an outdated mission set that's expensive and ineffective for what it does. People just REALLY like it because "it's a flying tank!", and "brrrrrt! haha! Big gun!". In the end, it stays around solely because of it's "cultural value".
I don't think you'll find anything more precise in terms of air support. You'd be surprised how low they go, and how close the pilot can get.
An MQ-9 is not going give much support, it's great for blowing up an innocent family like recently or proper assassinations, one off hits.
The support an AC-130 gives is immense, but it can't see everywhere and most of it's weapons are too close for some skirmishes.
Sometimes you do need a flying machine gun for those hard to reach areas.
The A-10 is the attachment suction tube on your vacuum. AC-130 would be the main vacuum itself. MQ-9 is the spot cleaner for before or after.
MQ-9s are a tool. They're a very useful/versatile tool for the military, which is why they're used a lot, even though they are easy to misuse and use unethically. We don't hear about A-10s killing people because they're not used for it because they're trash at it.
An A-10 pilot might even be close enough to see there are children in the car and abort. An MQ-9 you are much higher up and you are relying on intel mostly.
- Massive Payload capacity; it's a missile truck, 5x what a reaper can bring.
- Cannon can hit infantry in closer quarters than any explosive missile/bomb.
- Armoured and extremely tough, designed to survive small arms fire, loss of wing, loss of engine.
AC-130 might be the king of CAS but it's also crewed by 13 people and has a top speed half that of a hog... which is important when people need support _now_.
The US airforce don't like the A-10 because it's a platform that primarily does grunt work for the army and they'd rather spend that money on their own missions.
It's also not suited for very low flying, it wants to perform large circles around the target to get the side-guns pointed at it. And the AF made it even less suited for very low flying as the J revision reduces the armor dramatically compared to previous variants: where H had enough armor for 37mm J is only armored against 7.62, and not even all posts (gunner is unarmored).
The M2 Browning .50 machine gun ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Browning ) is more than a century old, and still very widely used. Originally, it was an anti-tank weapon...then tank armor got thicker. It became primary armament on fighter airplanes...then enemy fighters got faster and better-armored. Then it was...
Being very flexible and useful in current-day military operations is why the M2's still around. (Though being mostly below the radar of the US's stupid rival-service-branches politics, and always-gotta-have-new-shiny-stuff mentality sure helps.)
If you need a bunch of munitions, bring a B-1 or B-52. Those things are GREAT at annihilating a whole training camp.
> Cannon can hit infantry in closer quarters than any explosive missile/bomb.
A small (18lb warhead) hyper-accurate missile is better than a cannon than can easily shoot way off. If there's a bad guy hiding behind a building, you want to frag the guy, not shred the building.
> AC-130 has a top speed half that of a hog
What's better than something that can take off and get into position quickly is something that's already there and watching the situation - MQ-9s are GREAT at that, and AC-130s are almost always providing overwatch when they're up.
> Armoured and extremely tough, designed to survive small arms fire,
Important if you're constantly flying very low. Why are you constantly flying low though? MQ-9s and AC-130s don't need to do that.
I had a cousin who was in Afghanistan that would disagree. It was quite accurate in putting bullets into a trench near them. He said, with the A-10 providing cover, it was the first sleep he got in days. Sustainable CAS and the troops view matter.
Tanks?!? It has missiles too, but we don't face tanks.
Not to mention it’s battle proven.
Other than the AF wanting to retire it, there’s no reason why it couldn’t be modernized to some degree (like the guns).
So you may be right, but if the Army is willing to take it from the Airforce then the question is “why”.
...err, what? It is a very nimble plane.
Haha, straight from the horse's mouth, I did not expect to get such a perfect quote.
The enemy never came out to play when we had helicopters on station. Planes high in the sky didn't stop attacks until they dropped bombs.
The same concept can be seen with infantry and crowd control. The best way to keep a crowd away is to fix bayonets.
I guess that OP's point is that the AC130 not only has two Gatling guns but also a 40mm canon and a 105mm Howitzer.
Also, the AC130 can loiter longer, and doesn't require fly-bys to even be able to target. It just does pylon turns while showering a target with everything it has.
Given the alternatives, people have to ask what does the A-10 bring to the table, and the answer is hard to come by.
Gets on target faster, is much cheaper, doesn't need half a brigade to crew, and can take a lot more punishment (especially compared to the barely armored AC130J).
The Ghostrider / Stinger II variants which are in service today have 1 30mm bushmaster auto cannon, 1 howitzer and a bunch of guided munitions.
The recent variants have been criticized for not being able to provide the same level of air support as the older variants or the A-10 in built up areas or for danger close missions.
They lack the volume of fire needed to effectively suppress enemy infantry as the 30mm bushmaster has a rate of fire of only about 100 rpm and the next thing in line is either a 105mm howitzer or a hellfire missile/SDB which might be too high profile for many engagements.
And most importantly unlike the A-10 the air force isn’t willing to employ the AC-130 in anything that even comes close to a denied air space so if the baddies have anything larger than a Dushka good luck…
I am not an expert at this stuff.
It's a cultural issue - the USAF want to move on to newer platforms - I think because they originally pitched the F-35 could replace it and now they want to show that can be the same. My vague understanding is also that at some point the Army even offered to run the A-10 instead if the USAF didn't want it, and then that got the USAF to dig their heels in half-way between wanting to get rid of it and not wanting anyone else to have it either, because they don't want the Army encroaching on their core skill of aviation.
Hence why they're now stuck in a conflicted limbo and nothing is happening.
That's exactly what's going on. Incidentally that's one of the reasons USAF did their best to bury the promising AH-56 Cheyenne [0] back in the day, it was in direct competition with their own program that would later become the perennial A-10. [1]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-r6RR1nJM
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AH-56_Cheyenne#Progra...
Warthog pilots are aging. It's tough to convince a good, young pilot to train for a frame on life support. It makes sense that the people who have to recruit, train and retain those new pilots would push back against having to do so.
We have a professional Air Force. It's not uncommon to see e.g. F-16 pilots "retire" into senior management roles. These are smart, ambitious people. If you want to keep it that way, you give them a say in the planes they fly.
Then, your ranking in the class drives when it's your turn to pick. Along with some other criteria. For example, some aircraft have min/max pilot height criteria because of the ejection seat. So some pilots do end up flying aircraft they didn't really want to fly.
Similarly, in the British Army, all soldiers go through basic training and then choose a particular military 'trade' (e.g. infantry, armour, artillery, etc). They receive trade-specific training before joining a relevant unit. Some regiments even have 'father and son' social events where an officer joined the same regiment that his father did.
The Royal Navy has similar career personal-choice progression routes for weapons officers, engineers, etc.
The A10 can fly low enough and slow enough to do close air support for ground troop, with that incredibly powerful Gatling gun.
What I’m not sure about is why aren’t they using Apaches, Comanches, Scorpions (all helicopters) etc instead for close air support?
Must be the power of the A10’s Gatling gun.
Against a an adversary with no anti-air capabilities. Like the Taliban. Whom we are no longer fighting. For the nation-state level conflicts we're gearing up for, the A-10 is a waddling duck.
> why aren’t they using Apaches, Comanches, Scorpions (all helicopters) etc instead for close air support?
The AH-64 Apache has a top speed of 184 mph [1]; the A-10 439 mph [2]. The A-10 is also more-heavily armored, and can carry more ordinance.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_AH-64_Apache
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunde...
The US has been gearing up for nation-state level conflicts and only fighting asymmetric guerrilla ones since 1945. And the AF is the one branch which most refuses to fight the wars the US are actually fighting.
I love the A-10, but it's effectiveness as CAS for adversaries with even low-level AA is decreased to a point that its less effective than the F-35.
Bullets are a lot cheaper than missiles. Predator drones get the job done when you just need a one-and-done missile shot. But a loitering gun in the sky is a fundamentally different weapon.
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I think the issue is that the primary role of the A10, which was to destroy tanks, has basically disappeared. Tank armor has increased to the point where an A10's gun may not be reliable enough.
The A10 exists as a cheap CAS role that it wasn't ever really designed for. A10 has a loiter time of 90 minutes, while AC-130 has a loiter time of 4.5 hours. The air-force would rather be sending in AC 130.
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That being said: if the Army wants the A10, they should get the A10. Air Force's main job is air-superiority, ensuring the skys are clear for other operations.
I think one of the reasons it is easy to make this mistake is that most seem to mispronounce ordnance in that they add a superfluous syllable. Ordinance has three syllables, while ordnance only has two. Hope that helps.
It's also the carrying capacity, the speed to get on target, the ability to loiter (and take punishment), and that helos try to kill themselves as part of normal operations. One of the large initial motivations for the V-22 was how helos compromised operation eagle claw (the iran hostage rescue), and that was neither the first nor last high-stake op compromised by helos shitting the bed.
...to get annihilated by Russian or Chinese air defences.
> What I’m not sure about is why aren’t they using Apaches, Comanches, Scorpions (all helicopters) etc instead for close air support?
I don't think the USAF operate these platforms do they?
A-10 can carry 16,000 lbs of ordinance alone, including that brrrt stuff and 2000 lb bombs.
AH-64 can carry 8,000 lbs, including fuel.
Which is a big concern when… not fighting either.
The AF is still running the A-10 because they've not managed to get rid of it yet — not for lack of trying, but because when they try the army suggests taking it off their hands and if there's one thing the AF likes less than CAS, it's the idea of the Army getting fixed-wing units.
Which does not matter because it's not a role anyone actually needs.
> It's no longer a weapon system that's suitable for use against peer/+.
Which has not actually been needed in 75 years, unlike a weapon system suitable for use in asymmetric conflicts.
But nobody serious responsible for managing our defence thinks that. Hence why the capability needs to be upgraded.
What about the Warren: https://www.duffelblog.com/p/army-to-name-new-attack-helicop...
(That's partially because the A-10 was designed to do one task well and the F-35 was designed to do everything somewhat poorly.)
AF jocks plain don't want to do CAS at all, they want to launch missiles from 200 miles away and 20000ft up. But they want the army to have fixed wings and do its own CAS even less.
They hate the A10 because the A10 was created solely to do CAS. It flies low and slow, its only job is to support grunt, and it does that extremely well. None of that gives AF jocks a stiffy.
The F35A is also supposed to be able to do CAS missions, especially with drones that can deliver fuel to the uncontested battlefield.
AC130J is losing the gatlings and the armor.
> The F35A is also supposed to be able to do CAS missions
Operative word: supposed.
And nobody will send that expensive an airframe at the ranges and a10 operates at.
Then why is there a Gatling gun on the F35A?
Using one multi-purpose aircraft has some fantastic advantages if you can pull it off.
A carrier can use all its combat aircraft to fight enemy aircraft (effectively double the number of anti-air aircraft on board), then after the enemy Air Force is the destroyed, switch around to using all the F-18's to attack ground targets.
With specialized aircraft types, some combat losses focused in a particular role can cripple the entire air wing, whereas with multi-role aircraft, you can keep right on operating.
It's great from a maintenance, logistics, and training as well.
The Air Force doesn't, but the Navy does.
The thing that everybody leaves out about the F35 is that you can take a relatively small ship, put a half-dozen F35's on it with some drones, and you have a tiny carrier with a remarkable amount of firepower.
So, now you don't have to sail your gigantic ass Nimitz carrier into the forward theater where a lucky cruise missile hit can cripple your entire fleet capability.