My rant/fantasy regarding the A-10(A&B) Warthog.

Thucydides wrote:And lastly for people who think that Close Air Support is the only way to go, consider once again that even third and fourth tier opponents like ISIS, Boko Harum or the Taliban are considered protected by MANPADS to the extent that no one is going after them with CAS missions.

Other than this is not correct as is in evidence of the A-10 flying the majority of the missions. (EDIT: US manned missions I believe as I believe they surpassed the F-18 recently.) Of course ISIS etc are using outdated easily fooled obsolescent MANPADS. The A-10 does not have the new laser systems for defeating more modern MANPADS either that the AH-64 has on itself. Of course even this laser system is aging. Of course I have to wonder, why we are even flying such missions in the first place? Only reason: So, Iran does not completely swallow IRAQ. Of course they basically already did when we left a couple years ago.

This is nothing more than offensive/defense capabilities going back and forth. In the end it always comes down to: Who has the mostest decent stuff wins by and large.

US Navy Hornet drivers might be a bit surprised to discover that, as well as the American F-16 pilots operating out of bases in friendly ME nations. Yes, some A-10s have been sent over, but are not flying the "majority" of missions.

Of course the allied nations who are flying missions against ISIS are also using high altitude attack from fighter bombers like F-18's, F-16's and so on. You might consider that there is a reason that America and her allies using air power this way.

Oddly, the only other nation that is flying traditional CAS against ISIS is Iran, which uses SU-25's. This is probably because they don't have the target identification and discrimination which allows for precision high altitude attack, and to preserve their airpower against what they consider to be the greater long term threats (including the US, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia). Syrian aircraft also have these limitations as well.

Thucydides wrote:US Navy Hornet drivers might be a bit surprised to discover that, as well as the American F-16 pilots operating out of bases in friendly ME nations. Yes, some A-10s have been sent over, but are not flying the "majority" of missions.

Of course the allied nations who are flying missions against ISIS are also using high altitude attack from fighter bombers like F-18's, F-16's and so on. You might consider that there is a reason that America and her allies using air power this way.

Oddly, the only other nation that is flying traditional CAS against ISIS is Iran, which uses SU-25's. This is probably because they don't have the target identification and discrimination which allows for precision high altitude attack, and to preserve their airpower against what they consider to be the greater long term threats (including the US, Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia). Syrian aircraft also have these limitations as well.

Uh, cuz IRAN does not have PGM's...
Uh, cuz the "allies" who have flown a 1/3 percentage of flights only compared to USA sortie #'s have F-16's.

Lets see, for first 3 months there was not a single A-10. First A-10 sortie was in November of last year Was carried out by F-16/F15. Now A-10 in a mere couple months(January) has totaled over 10% and nudging 15% of all manned missions since the beginning of operations. So, in reality, it is now flying the majority of the current manned missions once it was finally put on station. Why? $$$ and it can actually perform CAS when called to do so. Next cheapest aircraft flying is the F16.

Follow the $$$. Has little to nothing to do with tactics, let alone so called "air defenses".

CAS is mission specific. Not platform specific. The question is, can an A-10 be upgraded to perform this mission or is a new platform required? If so, what tech would invalidate the design? So, far I doubt it as currently there is no tech that I know of that can actually be considered defensive for low and slow. All helo's are sitting ducks who can't carry the load for redundancy or armor outside of very minor ground fire. Certainly not 50 cal or larger. A-10 on the other hand, or a new platform that is near identical, does not care if you drop bulges or blobs on its airframe for new defensive systems. That is its beauty. KISS.

US airforce has 1200 F16 yet only -300 A-10. 4:1 ratio and yet A-10 still has either parity or majority over F16 far more numerous platform.

If you want to deride a CAS system, and save money, get rid of the AH-64. Talk about useless. Miniscule range/firepower and cannot take damage.

Everywhere it has gone in war it has been repeatedly proven as useless. Iraq 1991, was grounded to being unsurvivable in said conflict. A-10 on the other hand took damage and kept flying racking up more kills and Radar installations protected by ground AA/SAM etc than any other aircraft out there. Kosovo, same thing, AH-64 bit it big time. It wasn't until Afghanistan they proved slightly useful against sheep herders with AK-47's as they were able to hover, take small arms fire, and use night vision in narrow valley's. Of course following this so called "success" they were used again in IRAQ and once again were chewed up and spit out by obsolete weapons systems. It was effectively relegated to scout helicopter duties while the A-10 went in and did the lions share of the work.

On the other hand the AH-64 has been proven very combat capable at ambush and spec ops missions. But front line CAS mission capable? Not even close. But, since the Airforce will not give the Army the CAS aircraft it truly wants and needs, the Army feels compelled to keep flying and funding this abomination.

Rotor systems are simply too much of a handicap concerning CAS missions. Tinkle on either of its rotors and down it comes.

What is truly sad is for every single Apache purchased, we could have had 2 to 4 A-10's. Yup, Boeing knows how to bilk the tax payer. Maybe that is why Fairchild Republic is no longer around while Boeing/Hughes is.

EDIT: Ask the Ruskies how well their "attack choppers" have fared over the years. Not well. Against coup de at's in backside of nowheresville who only have AK-47s, just fine. Since the platform is cheap, that is why a lot have been sold. To keep insurrections in check.

Modern CAS mission:

ZERO: CAS does not operate alone. It does not provide air superiority. Never has, never will. Though a massive game changer in aircraft based missile defense breakthrough could change this statement. Possible? Sure. Everything is possible. Human nature throughout history says that even if it was technically possible, such a system would most likely never obtain funding or only in a neutered sense, as it is defensive in nature and not offensive.

First lets start with the obvious. CAS is usually for offensive operations. It can be defensive, but not generally so. Usually it is in defense of your offensive operations

Second lets start with the other obvious, offensive systems always have higher "tech" integration than defensive systems. Historically, defensive systems have only been added after the fact.

Thirdly, way back in WWII they had RADAR guided AAA. It has only gotten better since then. Its range is short which also means there must be massive numbers of such systems to create a shield. Breaking this shield is also quite simple. Blow up the RADAR dishes. It has to be on to create a lock to begin with. Passive does not cut it. A-10, AH-64(since it was brought up) always(nearly so) carry anti radiation PGM's on their craft. Without RADAR dishes GBADS(Ground Based Area Denial Systems) are neutered.

Fourthly, a large reason for CAS is to demoralize the enemy making them easier to kill.

Fifthly, CAS will always include fratricide. Nature of the beast. Thinking this will ever be corrected is absurd or as an excuse to get rid of loitering CAS aircraft. Look no further than the idiots who called down a JDAM on their own heads a couple years ago. Or those who effectively did by placing them too close. Excalibur, has the same problem. Many times 13lbs of explosive, or more is NOT a solution. Neither is a hellfire/brimstone/griffin missile. Of course in this instance, usually 30mm half pound slugs are not either. Why I have always argued the A-10 should carry 50cal as well. Besides for every 30mm bullet an A-10 could carry, it could carry probably 5-10 50 cal.

Sixth, MANPADS do not have a large enough explosive head to take down an A-10, outside of an especially lucky shot. But can take down helo's on the regular with their many single point failure deficiencies. Because simple physics demand that MANPADS be light enough to carry by infantry. Going after mechanized divisions are different beasts entirely. Of course they with the mostest wins.

Seventh, anyone who is saying or insinuating CAS aircraft are not going to take loses are idiots. In fact, I would argue they are going to take massive loses on a modern battlefield, but their usefulness nor their mission has ever changed. They require your opponent to be strong everywhere. This is simply not possible.

Eight, CAS aircraft must be easily repaired. This pretty much puts the cabosh on any carbon fiber or other fiber based aircraft. So, a modern "stealth" CAS aircraft is impossible. Yes, such fiber structured aircraft can absorb more damage for less weight, but repairing them is much harder in the field requiring more complicated machinery to do so. Aluminum on the other hand can be hammered into the desired shape and riveted back together with nothing more than a hammer and a drill. Fiber based, be it polyester, fiberglass, boron, carbon, kevlar, UDHPE, etc cannot. Require more specialized tools along with knowledge on how to use them. Any 18 year old wet behind kid can work with aluminum by and large.

CAS aircraft allow you to blow holes in your enemies defensive lines as it allows regular infantry or small mechanized units who look just like every other part of an enemies opposing front line, to punch holes through, surround, etc whom regularly would not have had a snowballs chance in Hell of succeeding. It is all about point pressure. Moving an aircraft platform around that can take and dish out a ton of hurt allows you to do this. Cruise missiles cannot as they require a long time to arrive. Excalibur cannot either as the enemy most likely will be able to look behind your lines and see movement of artillery and will move in accordance.

Sure, bombs, missiles can be blown out of the air by Area Denial systems. Of course they can also be made to have very small RADAR cross sections as well. Doing so is quite simple and has only not been not as there has been no need to do so. Though, I would argue that all semi "stealth" aircraft will be forced to carry such weapons on their external hard points otherwise the expense of the aircraft in question for its "stealthyness" at extended range is a useless feature.

So, now we have stealth JDAM, HELLFIRE, stealthed via use of fiber based housings and structure. Defensive systems will now get bigger RADAR dishes and more powerful RADAR dishes. All this does is make them even bigger easier targets to identify, lock up and destroy.

Lets assume defensive system designers are not stupid(they aren't) and rather instead of going to bigger more powerful RADAR stations, make every vehicle a RADAR equipped station or with a remote station that are tied together in a net(duh, already there effectively). So what does this mean for CAS? Easy, even more cheap easily repaired CAS planes come in loaded with homing RADAR PGM's or dare I say, fast firing RADAR homing artillery(lets just say it effectively already exists) and blow them all away or majority away destroying the nets fidelity and resolution. Once again the vehicles left are now easy targets for CAS aircraft. Same way it is done today. Tech integration is different, same mission.

Nudging 15% is not the majority of missions. The strict definition for majority would be 51% of all missions, but you would need to fly more than 100% more missions with A-10's to even get to 30% of all missions.

So by your own numbers, A-10's only fly a small percentage of missions against ISIS.

Once again, perhaps it would be more useful to consider why the US and Allied airforces are only flying 10-15% of all missions with the A-10 and the remaining 85-90% of missions via high altitude precision bombing. The conditions that created the A-10 at the end of the 1970's no longer exist, and there are many different ways to achieve the same effect on the ground.

Thucydides wrote:Nudging 15% is not the majority of missions. The strict definition for majority would be 51% of all missions, but you would need to fly more than 100% more missions with A-10's to even get to 30% of all missions.

So by your own numbers, A-10's only fly a small percentage of missions against ISIS.

Once again, perhaps it would be more useful to consider why the US and Allied airforces are only flying 10-15% of all missions with the A-10 and the remaining 85-90% of missions via high altitude precision bombing. The conditions that created the A-10 at the end of the 1970's no longer exist, and there are many different ways to achieve the same effect on the ground.

Not to put to fine a point here, but how you can claim anything from attacking ISIS, extrapolated to the real world or modern war is beyond belief.

I thought the situation was summed up quite nicely: 4:1 ratio of aircraft in inventory F-16 vrs A-10. F-16s already on station in the area. A-10's are not. Moving aircraft is expensive. Logistics train bites big time. The few A-10's that are on station have not only arrived, set up their bases but also racked up 11% of manned missions by January in only 2 months. I will bet you that the number of F16's present far outnumber the A10's on station.

As Relax said, it is because of $$$. Has no bearing on modern tactics as ISIS has no air defense. $$$ per flight hour.

Math time:
0) Majority by definition: when more than 2 of something are present will fall to the singular with more percentage than the others.
1) Assume same number of manned missions over 6 months. Bad assumption, but hey, beggars cannot be choosers.
2) 11% in 6 months when on station ~2 = 33% manned missions over 2 months.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2015/01/19/a10-strikes-isis-11-percent/21875911/
USA airforce sorties
41% F16
37% F15
11% A-10
11% etc.
Navy has its own(F18)
Foreign has its own

So, by definition, if in last 2 months the A-10s have 33% of sorties, then F16,F15, etc assuming number of sorties remains constant will have fewer than A10.

All about the $$$. Same reason drones are loved so much. Are they less capable? Sure, but they are a fraction of the price per hour.

Now why we are attacking ISIS is rather a head scratcher to me. Would be cheaper to just dump weapons to the Pershmerga(Kurds) and wash our hands.

Wastedfly:

Thank you for siting a source.
I will check it out later...
I'll be working late tonight (yeaaaa!)


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Thucydides wrote:Nudging 15% is not the majority of missions. The strict definition for majority would be 51% of all missions, but you would need to fly more than 100% more missions with A-10's to even get to 30% of all missions.

So by your own numbers, A-10's only fly a small percentage of missions against ISIS.

Once again, perhaps it would be more useful to consider why the US and Allied airforces are only flying 10-15% of all missions with the A-10 and the remaining 85-90% of missions via high altitude precision bombing. The conditions that created the A-10 at the end of the 1970's no longer exist, and there are many different ways to achieve the same effect on the ground.

Um, to start with there are no JTAC's on the ground, so the bombing they are doing is highly problematical. There is no infrastructure to destroy. It is moving trucks for the most part. Information is 2nd hand at best. Heck, even the news 2 nights ago showed them bombing a damned TENT. Yes, a camel tent! So, I assume they are doing most of their bombing via the sniper pod. Without JTAC's, an A-10 is not nearly as effective. It is currently not equipped with the sniper pod though there is no reason it could not be. F15E does and so does the F16.

So, ta da, there ya go. 33% of sorties ~A-10 even with its deficiencies. Just goes to show that most of these sorties are nothing more than fluff and puff good will tours throwing $$$ down the crapper. Hmm, maybe that was what was beneath the tent. A really old smelly crapper that needed buried...