-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
A-10 'Warthog' might be forced to retire from service.
- Thread starter Slayven
- Start date
- Status
Unknown Soldier
Member
Yes, let's get rid of this old but incredibly useful close ground support aircraft so we can piss away more money on new fighter jets.
Harry Dresden
Member
They've threatened this before, but every time they realize that for what it does, the A-10 is a BEAST.
The sound of Freedom
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
Shouta
Member
/dead
I haven't laughed out loud in awhile.
But yeah, I agree. Even from a civilian standpoint, it makes no sense to retire the A-10 at this point, even if we haven't had any prolonged ground fighting in a long time. It does its job perfectly, is built to take the punishment and come back home, and it's already there.
onadesertedisland
Member
So, we've killed the F-14 and replaced it with the F-18.
Now we're going to get rid of one of the best ground support airframes ever made and replace it with ???? The F-35? Good luck with that fragile, too fast, toy.
Now we're going to get rid of one of the best ground support airframes ever made and replace it with ???? The F-35? Good luck with that fragile, too fast, toy.
Harry Dresden
Member
Gotta keep that Industrial Complex smoking.
Aww, one of my favorites. Such a beast.
They're probably going to have to make a "new" A-10 in the future and it'll be just as terrible as the F-35. And the worst thing is they shuold've just modified an F-16 to make the 35 in the first place.
They're probably going to have to make a "new" A-10 in the future and it'll be just as terrible as the F-35. And the worst thing is they shuold've just modified an F-16 to make the 35 in the first place.
Yup. Top Gun, Sega's After Burner and even Robotech made that jet so iconic.
TacticalFox88
Banned
Okay, for those of you saying we should just keep the teen series of fighter jets and just upgrade them because theyre "good enough" you aren't just wrong, you're dead fucking wrong and you should be ashamed for even thinking of such an asinine proposistion. Don'tet my criticism fool you, the f-35 and F-22, would kick the living dogshit out of every plane in the US inventory (whether or not Russia's T-50 or China's J-20 will ultimately stack up remains to be seen as they are still in the experimenting stage and are avoiding the pitfalls that troubled the -35's development). The teens quite fankly need to be replaced en masse. They are pretty much flying death traps for any future air war seeing as how they have no stealth or low observable techniques for reducing radar signatures. They'd be targeted by SAAM missiles which they can't ever outrun even going supersonic. The costs of keeping up their outdated airframes is going to far outweigh any potential benefits. They're good planes, no doubt, but this is the 21st century and they aren't going to cut it anymore. The only reason they've been effective in the middle eastern ears is because the Taliban doesn't have access to SAAM tech. If they did there would be a ridiculous amount of fighter pilots in coffins right now.
There's only 47 of them, and they make a giant target. As for the A-10, I saw a few do gunnery practice once at Shaw AFB in SC. God damn was it amazing.We have the AC-130 gunship anyway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBPigVpPy0
Motherfucking thing has 3 cannons on it.
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
I don't have a problem replacing the A-10. I have a problem with replacing the A-10 with a plane that doesn't fit its mission profile.
Ok, But would the F-35 replace a Low Altitude Ground Support Plane? There is no replacement for the A-10.
Yep. Also the case with the P-39 and the Yak-7T.
Except pretty much everything the F-35 has got, you could've just taken the F-16 design and changed some things to get there. And it'd be way cheaper. They don't need to be making entirely new platforms when you have one that's been working great for decades.
It is not necessarily cheaper to do refits than to start from scratch
The F-16 at its core is a 1970s design, though. Your F-16+ would be a Mega Drive with Sega CD; the F-35 is a Saturn.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
That is the word that he was an advisor on the project and when you see his record as a pilot it makes perfect sense. Guy was a monster in the sky.
Prinz Eugn
Member
Yeah, nope. You can't tack on LO (stealth) features. The only way to make a truly competitive fighter-bomber that will last you for more than a few years is to start from scratch, which is why the Russians and Chinese are doing the same even when they're still building 4th generation aircraft.
TacticalFox88
Banned
I never argued for the A-10 to be among these that have to go I argued the opposite, see my first post on this page.
As for taking the f-16 shape? That's not how plane design works. At all. Certain shapes and certain airframes have better yielding to hiding from stealth when co erred in anti radar coating. The shape and design of the teen series doesn't suit stealth which is why it has to be built for it from the ground up. You could argue you could use the dassault Rafale technique for low observation tech, but at the end of the day, the Rafale has stealth exponentially inferior to dedicated stealth fighters such as F-22. The teens weren't built for it. No amount of cost saving measures will change the basic science of how stealth works without changing so many systems that you'd be better off just creating a new plane all together.
35s problem is the same as the F4 phantom back in the 60s during Vietnam. The top dogs wanted a fighter that the Air Force, navy , and marine corps used as a single airframe doing multiple roles. It was a disaster. Why they're trying the same thing today thinking they'd get different results is anyone's guess, but the plane (at least it's Air Force variant) is coming along nicely. The marines and navy may have to wait a bit longer to see how the STVOL and carrier versions of the F35 pan out.
While not attack planes, the army has a good little fleet of cargo and recon aircraft, so they could find a way to take them if needed. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_States_military_aircraft
I wonder what kind of critical eye is being given to the strategic bomber fleet. The B1 finally proved somewhat useful as 'speedy' ground support, but what's the point if a B52 can just stay on station when needed? The threats that would endanger a B52 would also endanger a B1.
The prudent course of action would be trim fat on the strategic side of things.
The prudent course of action would be trim fat on the strategic side of things.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
So it exists to make Lockheed-Martin money?
Prinz Eugn
Member
The F-4 wasn't designed with the Air Force in mind at all, McNamara forced it on them later. You might be thinking of the F-111, which was designed to have both Naval and Air Force versions but got dropped by the Navy and took a very long time to get working for the Air Force.
GungHo
Single-handedly caused Exxon-Mobil to sue FOX, start World War 3
I'm not sure I'd say it's coming along all that nicely. The avionics and radar issues can always go back for more revisions, but things like the visibility issues aren't an easy fix nor is requiring 52 hours for engine replacement vs the 2 hours that were in the specs. Burning up the plane when using the afterburners or dumping fuel are also fairly odd issues to still be encountering, as is exhaustion of almost all on-board fuel to reach Mach 1.6 on an unencumbered aircraft. I posted the unclassified laundry list earlier.
Don't forget the F117
RIP
That thing was never very useful anyway. It had limited payload, was slow, and was not as stealthy as they wanted you to think it was.
No.
The Army having a highly circumscribed fixed-wing force was entirely a gentleman's agreement which was systematized in the Key West Agreement of 1948. But, the USAF doesn't really have the leverage it used to, and the Army could tear up that agreement and reform a CAS force and just point to the USAF wanting to get out of that role anyways.
Funny thing is, in the late 1990s everyone was sure that CAS was on the way out. Even the Army was thinking about scaling back its forward observation capability and just going straight with USAF combat controllers for small strike packages. Oh how times have changed. The mission that the USAF WANTS to fight looks like a pipe dream, and the day-to-day warfighting mission they HATE is the primary emphasis.
And sequester doesn't matter. It's a drop in the bucket, but this was a good excuse for the USAF and they are under massive pressure to scale back costs on their prestige projects that the Generals love - more fighters.
While it is prudent to prune the military's budget it's shortsighted to put an end to a machine as super effective in close air support combat as the Warthog. This thing was a god send for the Army. If the Airforce finds this beast unglamorous just hand it over to the Army who still has a very large need for it. Or make a multipurpose aircraft that doesn't suck so hard it gets shown up by a specialist you look down on.
Harry Dresden
Member
Explain your reasoning?
V
Vilix
Unconfirmed Member
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1BecNTYPYbU&desktop_uri=/watch?v=1BecNTYPYbU
The A-10 has survivability unparalleled. I have a feeling it will be around for a little while longer serving in one branch of the military or another.
The A-10 has survivability unparalleled. I have a feeling it will be around for a little while longer serving in one branch of the military or another.
Im_So_Pringles
Member
But that's my favorite plane! You can't retire my FAVORITE FUCKING PLANE!
I hate how the Air Force is always trying to kill the A-10. We still have boots on the ground around the world that would depend on the A-10 for the role it fits if they were to need it. As of now there is no aircraft that fits that role and trying to replace it with the F-35 is like trying to replace your heavy duty Pick-up truck with a Mustang for pulling that tractor up a hill. It's just not fit for the job.
The barrel also has to be aligned with the CG to stop it from spinning
Generally that would be my response, but troops need a good CAS aircraft.
Former Air Force here. It's slightly true, but urban legend has blown it up to ridiculous proportions; i.e. "It slows it down so much the plane will stall, etc". I looked into it a whole back and in reality you're talking about just a few knots, and in the quick bursts it's typically fired in, it's completely negligible. You're talking about a huge mass with thousands of pounds of thrust behind it, the cannon can't overcome that.
Also, my favorite aircraft. She's a bad bitch.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
Sounds like political maneuvering. They're still deploying these things, and the worst thing I've personally heard people say about them is that they're ugly. I would not want to be on the business end of that cannon.
- Status