A-10 article

[Swanee]

Full disclosure: my dad wrote this article.

That being said I think it's a good read. While I don't necessarily agree that all we do now is AI under the guise of CAS, he has some valid points about how we've become a jack of all trades and a master of none. Its also interesting to see how much the AF doesn't want to do the CAS mission sets (outside of a couple communities) anymore.

http://www.flightjournal.com/blog/2015/02/05/the-a-10-warthog-vs-politics-aviation-insider/

 

[Hotdogs]

"The ugly truth is you can do half-baked CAS (really BAI) with just about any delivery platform, not really well, not in all threat environments, and not accurate enough with troops in contact, but it can be done after a fashion."

Did he keep a straight face when he wrote that?

 

[Randy Daytona]

Fascinating article.

 

[Swanee]

Did he keep a straight face when he wrote that?

I'm sure he did. If you can deliver a weapon in support of the ground guys and integrate with their SOM you can do some type of CAS.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

What the other weapons systems can do is more appropriately what we used to call Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI).

Ridiculous.

Ironically, one of the arguments against the A-10, its reliance on a gun, is actually its biggest strength in the CAS/TIC arena. Point and shoot with forward-firing ordnance is the key. The most successful attack aircraft (Spad, IL-2, A-36, P-47, A-1, A-10) were not, and are not, bombers. All successful attack aircraft, from the Soviet IL-2 onward, were primarily strafers, heavily armored and with powerful guns.

True, but I'm not sure aircraft technology from 70 years ago makes a very compelling argument. Despite his claim in the first paragraph that there are no new arguments since Vietnam, a lot has changed since then and a gun isn't always the answer or even the best answer.

The Warthog’s GAU-8 30mm Gatling is still the only gun we don’t sell overseas because it’s the most effective and lethal air-to-ground CAS weapon ever built

It was hard to keep reading after that doozy.


However, I do think they should keep the A-10. Not because it is some magical wonder weapon, and not because nothing else can do CAS instead of "half baked CAS", but because it doesn't make sense to have an AF fleet consisting entirely of F-35's and F-22's. They want the capability to fight a capable adversary, but it's an obvious fact that we are currently, and will likely continue to fight insurgents/terrorists/other low threat enemies.

I would suggest the AF move to a high/low capability mix of aircraft. Make the T-38 replacement something that can be both an advanced trainer and a cheaper alternative for attack missions. It doesn't make sense to have $100MM aircraft drilling holes in the sky for hours to drop a $100K weapon on two shitheads on a moped. Having said that, I know that won't happen for the same reason that the A-10 is going away. It would eat away at F-35 procurement funds.

 

[armada1651]

I don't understand why no one addresses the issue of aircrew proficiency in these discussions. I really don't think the reason the A-10 is good at CAS is because of any inherent magical capability of the airframe. The GAU-8 is cool, and they have good loiter capability due to their efficient (i.e., weak, non-afterburning) engines. But their biggest benefit is that the pilots train almost exclusively to CAS or other A/S mission sets with significant similarities. It's probably true that the F-35 won't provide CAS as effectively, but I think the reason for that is that F-35 pilots will be required to train to most if not all missions that armed fixed-wing assets perform.

There are issues when you ask an airplane to be a jack of all trades, but there also problems when you ask it of aircrew.

 

[Hotdogs]

I'm sure he did. If you can deliver a weapon in support of the ground guys and integrate with their SOM you can do some type of CAS.

Not the argument here, but the comment is a back-handed attempt to assume the A-10 is the only platform who can do "full baked" CAS, and all other platforms are inferior. No offense, but that was a very Air Force-ish thing to say.

 

[SynixMan]

@Treetop Flyer , the Air Force already has it's high/low mix. UAVs provide the overhead in low-threat areas for a fraction of the price a manned fighter costs.

The A-10 is an amazing plane, but I'm impressed it's stayed alive as long as it has. Congress loves the damn thing. Oh, and the article forgets we have Cobras/Apaches who love to blow shit up with guns, along with 15 years worth of community experience.

 

[busdriver]

I think armada makes a great point. A friend of mine in the F-35 program told me he thinks we need to have the F-35 squadrons specialize in different roles or at least have differing priority lists for each squadron. Similar to how the block 40 and block 50 F-16 squadrons have different DOC statements.

I do think the A-10 going away might require some beefed up joint training for the Army AH-64 guys. They're getting Link-16 so I could see benefit to them picking up some FAC(A)? What say you AH-1 guys, do you think there would be benefit there? I know getting the Army to start thinking CAS vs CCA might be too large a jump but it's a thought.

I don't know if I've said it on this board before, but F-35 procurement pace is what this is all about in my opinion. If the buying process slows, the unit cost goes up and the death spiral commences.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

@Treetop Flyer , the Air Force already has it's high/low mix. UAVs provide the overhead in low-threat areas for a fraction of the price a manned fighter costs.

The A-10 is an amazing plane, but I'm impressed it's stayed alive as long as it has. Congress loves the damn thing. Oh, and the article forgets we have Cobras/Apaches who love to blow shit up with guns, along with 15 years worth of community experience.

Yes, that is probably the argument the AF would make and it makes some sense. However, UAV's won't ever have the kind of SA a manned platform has. Also, a jet's response time and firepower are their biggest selling points over UAV's and helo's. I know that's changing somewhat with stuff like reapers, but the point still stands.

Also, there's a good reason helo's aren't mentioned in that article. It's written from the Air Force perspective, so helicopters don't exist. Also no one does CAS but A-10's. Everyone else is doing half baked CAS. Also helo's demolish the A-10's biggest arguments: we fly low and loiter.

 

[xj220]

What are your thoughts on something like an AT-6? I know that was tossed around for a bit.

 

[Hotdogs]

I do think the A-10 going away might require some beefed up joint training for the Army AH-64 guys. They're getting Link-16 so I could see benefit to them picking up some FAC(A)? What say you AH-1 guys, do you think there would be benefit there? I know getting the Army to start thinking CAS vs CCA might be too large a jump but it's a thought.

You won't be a good FAC(A) unless your JCAS procedures are down cold. From what I heard/seen/discussed/read with regards to Army RW, while some units maybe familiar and execute JCAS TTPs, their proficiency levels will vary, and unit standardization is hard to achieve. The Army as a whole hasn't adopted a weapons school that almost every Navy/Marine TMS has used to standardize and train their respective communities. In addition to that, there are more Apaches in some states/units of the National Guard than there are H-1s in the Marine Corps. It's a pretty big challenge to get everyone on the same page. Maintaining a unit's readiness level means you'll have to ascribe to the current JFAC(A) MOA and ensure currency of annual controls for those FAC(A) quals.That is already difficult enough to do with most HMLAs and VFA/VMA/VMFAs. There's lots of love that has to be spread around. Especially since the Army will have to source all of those frags externally, and it's entirely possible the USAF won't be cooperative. That's just scratching the surface of the challenges presented. I'm taking a wild guess that the USAF will probably just absorb the FAC(A) mission with the F-35, rather than dedicate assets to qualifying Apaches for the mission, unless some one in the Army makes a stink about it. (Speaking way above my pay grade).

None of this is to take away anything from the AH-64 or it's pilots, they've done some amazing things over the last decade, and it seems to be working for them. Again this is all predicated based upon some thought in the Air Force that only the A-10 is capable of doing CAS and we're FUBAR'd if it goes away because..... uhhh....low, slow, and GAU-8. So we're probably arguing based off of hypotheticals and conjecture anyways. In short, lots of hurdles to jump and lack of institutional inertia to probably make it feasible on a large scale.

Decent Article on Army FAC(A)
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a539620.pdf

 

[busdriver]

Hotdogs, that all falls into my blurb "CAS vs CCA" you don't have to tell me how not joint the Army is or how problematic bridging that gap would be. The fact that joint is spelled A R M Y to them is telling.

I guess what I meant was that I'm tossing a "good idea fairy" into the mix, without concern for how realistic it is, what do you think about the idea of Apache FACs? Is there anything fucked up with the concept that I'm not getting?

 

[Hotdogs]

I guess what I meant was that I'm tossing a "good idea fairy" into the mix, without concern for how realistic it is, what do you think about the idea of Apache FACs? Is there anything fucked up with the concept that I'm not getting?

Nope. I'm not a 64D/E driver either, but from a systems and aircraft stand point, there isn't a reason that they themselves can't pick up the mission. I think it would be a good idea, because I bet the average Apache pilot has better SA of maneuver units than the average A-10 section hanging out in the stack. Culturally it'll be pretty different from just being on station and not having to execute terminal control prior to weapons release.

 

[Flash]

Aircraft did CAS long before the A-10 and will do it long after there are no more, it is not the be all to end all. I find it mildly amusing that in this debate is seems to be ignored that the one service that puts the most focus on CAS is also one that has never had the A-10 in its inventory, relying on training and a culture of supporting their folks on the ground coupled with capable aircraft that have proven they can do the job in war. The AC-130 mentioned as the only other real CAS aircraft shows just how USAF myopic the article is.

The article also brings up a few things that A-10 supporters always point out as advantages but might not be as big as they suppose. First off resistance to battle damage, it is great that you can bring a severely damaged A-10 home but a mission kill removes an aircraft from our inventory just as surely as a 'hard kill'. You might have 12 A-10's sitting on deck but only 2 flyable because they the other 10 got seriously damaged needing to get low and slow to make their tank kills. It also ignores the fact that getting low and slow in contested airspace nowadays is a recipe to get blown out of the sky, armored cockpit or not. The A-10 has flown the overwhelming majority of its combat missions in uncontested airspace where it has not had to face modern SAMs, something the F-35 would likely do much better against.

Then there is the gun, while great for killing tanks how much better is it really against some dudes on the ground with AKs? Wouldn't a 20mm would do just as good a job in that scenario? Against tanks? Sure, but then the next place we may find those on the battlefield as a real threat I am guessing the airspace won't be as permissive an operating environment as we have fought in the past 14 years.

Finally there comes the simple fact of age, the A-10 is getting old and that isn't always a good thing for an aircraft. While we have flown some aircraft for much longer, like the B-52 and KC-135, they often have more unique roles that cannot be duplicated in other current aircraft and have not been flown in such demanding roles their entire careers. I would hazard a guess that the amount of stress put on even B-52's their entire career is orders of magnitude less than the average A-1o that are probably 2 decades younger. The modifications, upgrades and monitoring to ensure just the airframes themselves are safe will almost certainly increase over time. Then there is the need to ensure the mission systems keep up to a level where the aircraft can just simply operate along with its more modern brethren in the same airspace and against more modern anti-aircraft threats.

I get the affection and attachment that many folks have to the A-10 but some of its more fervent supporters seem to letting emotion get in the way of facts and simple reality. Sooner or later the A-10 will have to retire, if not now then when and with what? And do we even really need one?