The A10 Warthog Love/Hate Thread

Everything you’ve stated could be said about helicopters as well, but that doesn’t get the clicks.

8 tons of ordnance on top of the gun.

Can we discuss some of the issues with the F-35 being a CAS plane?

Namely:

  1. Short loiter time. You can’t talk handwave it away with easy air-to-air refueling since those tanker planes are going to be big fat juicy targets to whatever you are worried about shooting down your A-10, meaning that refueling is going to need to take place pretty far back from where you need CAS support. Sure the F-35 is fast, but that distance matters.
  2. Small magazine size. Especially if it’s being stealthy and can only carry internal weapons. Better hope you don’t need to come around for another run and you’ve got another F-35 nearby.

My understanding of US doctrine is that it would never put ground forces in harms way before air supremacy was achieved. Meaning, the big threat you’re looking at for your CAS provider is MANPADs. And I’ve no doubt the A-10 is mighty vulnerable to them(although I don’t know if the position of the engines on the A-10 has any benefits when dealing with infrared seekers?). Maybe the real answer is a new dedicated CAS platform that focuses on avoiding that threat? That’s probably most achievable with swarms of small and cheap drones.

The F-35 has turned into a solid aircraft, but stealth aircraft still have too many tradeoffs/drawbacks to be the best tool for every job.

But, they are helicopters, not planes.

You are saying the A10 is as useful as a helicopter?

Which we already have.

A-10’s killed a whole lot of Iraqis during the tank battles of Desert Storm.

Well.

For long loiter time missions, the solution is to use very capable unmanned platforms with hysterically long loiter times. Not put a human in danger.

The F35 won’t be using its gun for ground targets, much like how the A10 doesn’t really use its gun anymore either, as it was upgraded to use ground designated laser munitions. Like the F35.

The problem with the A10 is that we have better solutions now, The F35 isn’t a fix-it-all, but like the video I linked above, having a stealth CAS is a game-changer.

So did literally everyone, the tanks, helicopters, long range missiles. It was a turkey shoot.

This… cheapish drones are the future of CAS

Yeah, the A10 may have been built for a war that never happened, but it sure as hell worked out well for the wars that did happen.

The big advantages the a10 had was very long litter time, and the ability to carry a ton of weaponry that let it hit a bunch of targets before needing to rearm.

It also is very low maintenance and doesn’t require a ton of expensive support infrastructure.

Regarding upgrading it to a new fight, I had posted this article before. It’s a pretty fluff piece, but gives some high level info that you can further research if interested.

Exactly!

And when we need something a bit more flexible, the F35 will fill that role.

Well, A-10 as a model is pretty cool, I never did mind it until I kept coming back to how slow and cumbersome it was, and exactly HOW was this plane supposed to survive in a pier battle.

Then I noticed that there is an actual debate about the F-35 vs A-10, and thats actually scary nuts, and then I notice on this very forum that the sentiment is real, people do have feelings for this plane, to the point that some are willing to put and train real people in it…

That is a horrifying thought, they are literally flying coffins…

I could go on, but the point is, that when one does want stuff to defend your country with, well you need the stuff that works, and this matters, more now than ever, a good example is the Norwegian military at this very moment.

For years now its been basically an expeditionary force, with rapid deployment units that are very small and lightly equipped. This is because of the foreign wars we’ve been in, but the sad fact is that they are useless in a peer fight, and too light to defend themselves even against an outdated opponent like Russia…
If so, then I have questioned, what are we paying for, and found that even worse, our generals are actually clueless on what combat systems they need, they just use the recent doctrine and press go.

As such, we’re fucking light on anti-tank weapons, we got shitty artillery, but we do have the f-35, if we can defend our landing strips…

So please feel free to buy weapons systems that give you a boner, but I’d rather feel safe.

It is especially crazy, when we are laughing at Russia for using 50 year old munitions and equipment.

I watched the video and was confused. Are we discussing in video games or the real world?

You think an MQ9 is going to be able to do CAS to the same extent as the A10? Or are you thinking about some other kind of drone?

Yes, the MQ9.

It has a loiter time of dozens of hours when loaded and fires the same guided munitions.

Yeah, but it can’t hit nearly as many targets.

The MQ9 is not currently leveraged in the same way as the A10 for CAS.

For those interested, this is probably the most favorable write-up about using Reapers for CAS that you will ever find.

Some background here, I actually do work involved with training MQ9 crews. While they technically can do CAS (they can do precision guided munitions and blow stuff up), it’s actually more likely that they would be used to coordinate strikes by other aircraft.

And my ultimate conclusion was that drones are probably the future for CAS.

I wasn’t referring to actual magazine size so much as how many missiles/bombs it can carry internally. I’m not even sure what ground attack weapons it can carry internally, but it can’t carry many of them.

As mentioned a little bit earlier, so are helicopters! Most ground vehicles are just metal coffins too! As the Russians have learned, so are tanks! The whole point of modern warfare is to use combined arms to make up for the vulnerabilities of each platform so that you aren’t just letting your forces get massacred. You’d never send an A-10 up in a contested airspace. You wouldn’t fly a bunch of helicopters or B-52s or transport planes into that situation either.

When I talk about Blue/Blue incidents, this is one involving the A10 that comes up a lot.

Two A10 warthogs fired on a british column of vehicles mistakenly. This is the biggest problem with the A10 / Old school thinking when it comes to CAS. Precision guided munitions are the future, using dumb fire rockets and cannons are dangerous. Leading to a lot of dislike in the army about the A10’s ability to put shots on target. (This has gotten better since then, with the addition of upgraded targeting systems) but the sad incident above happened before that was installed. Though, it wouldn’t have helped, if they were using their cannons.

Reaper drones are not immune to friendly fire/civilian fire accidents, but one of the contributing factors was the human pilot workload being exceeded, something that doesn’t happen at the same level with drone piloting.

Like I said, I love the thing like I love the Tomcat, but the current discussion over using it instead of the F35 along with the other parts of our connected warfare network as a close air support vehicle in the future is whimsical thinking.

It can carry all of the same weapons an a10 can internally, but not the same number. If you count external pylons on the F35, it can carry more actually.

So you have the option of steal/no stealth unlike with the A10.

The key thing to keep on mind though, is that the GAU-8 carries 1150 rounds… That gives it the ability to hit between 9 and 18 targets before it needs to go home to reload… And that’s all AFTER it drops its bombs.

The F35, by comparison, carries something like 180 rounds?

It’s a different kind of beast.

I actually saw someone say, elsewhere, that the A10 could out dogfight many modern jets.

“It can out turn many modern jets”

Try and out-turn a BVR missile strike from an F22 while it thrust-vectors around your flaming corpse.

Lol, yeah, I don’t think that the A10 is going to be sent in as an air superiority fighter against F22’s.