Posted on 09/19/2015 11:40:53 AM PDT by Forgotten Amendments
...“The A-10 is the best ‘close attack’ plane ever made, period,” Sprey tells me. “But the Air Force hates that mission. They’ll do anything they can to kill that plane.” He says retiring the iconic A-10, a twin-engine attack jet with 30-mm cannons that hit with 14 times the kinetic energy of the 20-mm guns mounted on America’s current fleet of supersonic fighters, became an article of faith among high ranking Air Force officers, generations of whom had been raised to believe in the redemptive power of technological innovation.
That mentality drove production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the world’s first $1 trillion weapons system. Development of the F-35 was going on in the background throughout the Afghan War despite mountains of evidence that the stealthy jet would never be able to attack ground targets like the A-10 could. Far away from the fighting, the generals in Washington, DC supported the F-35 because they believed “more technology is always better.”
This same thinking drove the push for armed drones over Afghanistan too. But no matter their technological wizardry, remote-piloted hunter-killer aircraft like the Predator and Reaper were arguably even worse at helping ground troops than even the highest-tech manned jets...
(Excerpt) Read more at motherboard.vice.com ...
>> Far away from the fighting, the generals in Washington, DC supported the F-35 because they believed “more technology is always better.”<<
If they believed that they would not have killed the far superior in every way F-22.
No, this was about a combination of Political Correctness and mission creep. The F35 was supposed to be the UN of MRFs — everyone could have them and they could all be maintained the same way everywhere.
Oh, and they would shoot skittles and their exhaust would be rainbows.
I still want a tubroprop ground attack version of the F5U
If this dude thinks that the A-10 is ‘World War II era’ he’s too ignorant on the subject to waste your time reading.
The Marines could put them to good use too. Close air support for the “grunts” hasn’t been as good as it was with the Corsair and the Skyraider.
IMO, the F-22 is a fantastic aircraft for taking out ground radar and defenses. Once the air campaign is ours, then send in the Wart Hog A-10s.
There’s no need to have one aircraft do it all.
The A-10 is perfect for the utter destruction of opposing ground forces or even structures.
It’s a hardy aircraft. It’s survive-ability is excellent.
We should have an A-10 in our arsenal far into the future.
At the same time, we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t think we need more F-22s as well.
We can’t overcome massive numbers of opposing aircraft with them. We need more numbers. We’re going to find out the hard way if we don’t wise up.
That’s one thing I appreciate about Trump. He recognizes we have to up our game militarily. We have allowed both parties to dismantle our military, hollow it out, bring in gender issues sure to weaken the force.
Everything has been done, to reduce our war capabilities.
That must be turned around.
Great article about the capabilities of the A29 A29turbo prop. I wasn’t aware of F-series jets bomb limitations, poor turn radius and very short loiter time.
The DOD forces infighting (organizational dysfunction) is a clear and present threat to national security.
I wonder if Rome went thru the same thing in its military procurement budget decision making?
“The engine is mounted slightly transversely in the fuselage, with an 8-degree misalignment from the aircraft’s longitudinal axis.
“The engine exhaust is turned back to the longitudinal axis by a curved composite tailpipe. A composite tailpipe was to help get the gun recoil reaction closer to the aircraft lateral center of gravity (CG) location, the gun is sub-merged as deeply as practical into the right side of the fuselage. Also, the fuselage is not centered about the aircraft centerline, but is offset to the left by three inches. This results in the firing barrel of the gun being only about 18 inches from the lateral CG”
Talk about thinking outside of the box!
The A-1 Skyraider was a wonder in Vietnam and could come to the aid of downed jet pilots. It had lots of firepower to ward off enemy on the ground and good loiter time to stay until a rescue helicopter came.
The Army wouldn’t know how to employ it. I say that as a former ALO who has tried to explain airpower to brigade commanders. They are not flying tanks.
And in the day of advanced targeting pods and smart bombs, the A-10 might not be the best choice for CAS anymore. But someone who has never USED a modern targeting pod may not understand why that is true.
If only someone in authority would accept the obvious!!! The Air Force has never been wholeheartedly behind close air support. Now..., the glory seekers are facing a future of increasing "drone drivers" at safe computer terminals eliminating much of their function other than massive ordinance delivery!
Maybe the new gay command structure will have a revelation???
"Armament
Guns: 4 × 20 mm (0.79 in) M2 cannon
Other: Up to 8,000 lb (3,600 kg) of ordnance on 15 external hardpoints including bombs, torpedoes, mine dispensers, unguided rockets, and gun pods."
Powerplant: 1 × Wright R-3350-26WA radial engine, 2,700 hp (2,000 kW)
This would need to be replaced by something like the PW100TS, big brother of the venerable PT-6.
“...they’d rather have a pilot down low walk those shots in by eye than risk getting killed by an errant bomb dropped from a high-tech jet from 30,000 feet up, where a pilot can’t even see the target.”
The guy writing this is an idiot, although he probably doesn’t know enough to realize how stupid he is.
The Oxford Dictionary says the abbreviation for “Thinking Outside the Box” is
RUTAN!
When I came across the name Pierre Sprey, I knew the article was a bunch of crap. This creep was PBS’ go-to guy to bash the military. He claimed we would lose the first Gulf War because M-1 tanks couldn’t run in sand because the engines would clog up.
Here’s the short story.
They asked pilots who did close air support what the best features and ideas they had to make the ultimate CAS plane. They took all of them and made a non-compromised CAS aircraft.
It’s like building a car for running the quarter mile with the beat time. It’s the peak evolution for CAS. Minor tweaks as tech progresses but you will never ever make a better CAS aircraft. The F-35 could never hope to survive missions the A-10 could jog through without breaking a sweat.
The man who knows how to use the tools he has rules
If the Air Force hates the A-10 so much why don’t they just give it to the Army?
True....A-10 wasn’t in WW II...
Sprey required that the biography of World War II Luftwaffe attack pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel be read by people on the A-X program.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II#Background
Hans-Ulrich Rudel (2 July 1916 – 18 December 1982) was a Stuka dive-bomber pilot during World War II. The most highly decorated German serviceman of the war,...
,,,Rudel’s input was used during the development of the A-10 ground attack aircraft.[28]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel
How bout a STEALTH ... A-10?...... call it the A-100..
Updated avionics.. different sizes.. for different close contact missions..
A-10’s, A-20’s, A-50’s and A-100’s..
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