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.
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".