The air force should just give the A-10s to the army and let them run CAS. The zoomies have never wanted the mission anyway, and keep trying to kill the A-10 any way they can, including outright lying about its effectiveness vs. their proposed “replacements.”
He “hopes” they don’t find themselves in an environment that doesn’t need what A10 can do, but the F35 cannot.
Hope is not a real good plan. And if they are openly talking about this gap, don’t think the Russians and Chinese are not going to exploit that.
Who trained these people?
The NASA management who killed the shuttle program without a replacement in sight?
There was a time they would have developed the replacement BEFORE doing away with the one now have in service.
I still don’t know what’s so terrible about reviving and modernizing the E/F-111 + A-10 + B-1 package for CAS. The F-111’s may be in the boneyard but I think they could do some good in “regional stability situations”, especially with upgrades to avionics and weaponry. However, I’d heard there were some undesirable attributes and characteristics of the F-111 but I don’t remember what they were.
What are they working on to suppress a Civil War???
Update the A10....there that was easy
So the Air Force whines that the A-10 can only perform in a clean environment, and the F-35 can do the same role and also fend off any air threats that happen to show up. Yet, the F-35’s capabilities in air to air has become questionable, and I think we know the answer to the question of how well does the F-35 deal with a hit from a MANPADS or a ZSU-23-4: not to well.
If the Air Force is concerned if an air threat arrives during a CAS mission, then let the A-10’s do exactly what they are designed for, and have the zoomies higher up flying CAP.
Given the current crop of military incompetent but politically correct social experimenters masquerading as military leaders, we can expect that one outcome of this ‘search’ will be a plane that will satisfy all possible requirements, be super high tech, and be so expensive that only a few can be purchased in any given year.
Or that the above ‘leaders’ will ‘study’ the problem until the A-10 is gone and give up on the whole idea, moving on to something even more unworkable, more expensive, and unflyable.
A harsh reality post.
The AF is dominated by “tribes” who have come up in a single weapon system. Until Vietnam it was the “bomber tribe” since Vietnam it has been “the Fighter Mafia.” In both cases the legitimate national defense issues through out “the spectrum of conflict” were subordinate to what the ruling clique of general officers wanted. This dysfunctional leadership style starts at the Chief of Staff and goes all they down to the base/wing. “Its great to be King” sums it up.
This would be okay if you can win a war through air power alone. Unfortunately harsh history says you still need to occupy the enemy’s home territory to win. Check Korea (1953), Vietnam (1975), various minor conflicts in the 1980s, and today’s current conflicts.
Until the current AF Leadership takes to heart the 1964 study done by AF Systems Command about why contemporary USAF Tactical Aircraft were failing in Vietnam and understands that the same deficiencies exist today, 50 plus years later, and will continue to exist with their current designs we, the Republic, will continue to lose.
BTW in 2009 and again in 2014, the Department of Defense issue a directive on “Irregular War’ that stated that the Republic needed to be equipped and proficient in both Irregular War (the predominate form of conflict since the 1960s) and Conventional War (the exception since the 1960s). This debate over the next generation USAF CAS platform indicates to be that the “Fighter Mafia” leaders at Air Staff think (know?) they can ignore DOD Directives with impunity.
Can’t keep the A-10s flying forever. Sooner or later they will need to be replaced.
But the USAF is to dependent on stealth. They need aircraft that can perform missions in which stealth is not a factor too.