A-10C Thunderbolt II makes a comeback

[Smitty-48]

It's not about which planes are beloved, you can't say on the one hand that you want the Pentagon audited and the defense budget brought under control, and then turn around and say oh but I belove this and I belove that, dedicated platforms are obsolete, the Air Force has a shortage of planes and pilots, they have to make choices, there's a bazillion taskings on their plate, in order to carry out all the missions assigned to them, everything has to be multirole.

Fast jets can do 90% of the what the A-10 does, the A-10 can't do any fast jet missions at all, it's all about logistics, not what you belove.

My issue with the assertion that the A-10 was the most feared aircraft in the Gulf War. It definitely was not. Interrogations showed that it was, in fact, the B-52 that scared the Mohamed out of the Iraqis.

Definitely not, obviously the B-52 is what broke the non Republican Guard Iraqi army into surrender upon contact, but even in terms of the A-10 engaging the Republican Guard, it was not in any way decisive, and in terms of kills, the Apache is what incited the Highway of Death, not the A-10.

None the less, forces to make choices on a $134 billion budget, dedicated platforms have to go, everything has to be multirole.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's not about which planes are beloved, you can't say on the one hand that you want the Pentagon audited and the defense budget brought under control, and then turn around and say oh but I belove this and I belove that, dedicated platforms are obsolete, the Air Force has a shortage of planes and pilots, they have to make choices, there's a bazillion taskings on their plate, in order to carry out all the missions assigned to them, everything has to be multirole.

Fast jets can do 90% of the what the A-10 does, the A-10 can't do any fast jet missions at all, it's all about logistics, not what you belove.

My issue with the assertion that the A-10 was the most feared aircraft in the Gulf War. It definitely was not. Interrogations showed that it was, in fact, the B-52 that scared the Mohamed out of the Iraqis.

Definitely not, obviously the B-52 is what broke the non Republican Guard Iraqi army into surrender upon contact, but even in terms of the A-10 engaging the Republican Guard, it was not in any way decisive, and in terms of kills, the Apache is what incited the Highway of Death, not the A-10.

I wasn't talking about decisiveness. I was talking about the assertion of what is the most feared aircraft in that conflict. It was, without a doubt, the B-52.

http://www.psywarrior.com/HerbDStorm3.html

[The Conservative]

It's not about which planes are beloved, you can't say on the one hand that you want the Pentagon audited and the defense budget brought under control, and then turn around and say oh but I belove this and I belove that, dedicated platforms are obsolete, the Air Force has a shortage of planes and pilots, they have to make choices, there's a bazillion taskings on their plate, in order to carry out all the missions assigned to them, everything has to be multirole.

Fast jets can do 90% of the what the A-10 does, the A-10 can't do any fast jet missions at all, it's all about logistics, not what you belove.

If the Air Force had a trillion dollar budget, they could fly unicorns, but on a budget of a $134 billion, they can afford one fighter plane and one fighter plane only, and it has to do everything.

Making a jet do everything is the wrong way to go... the same with over-specialization. You make a plan do everything, you'll have a plane that is too expensive to lose and won't do anything.

[Smitty-48]

It's not about which planes are beloved, you can't say on the one hand that you want the Pentagon audited and the defense budget brought under control, and then turn around and say oh but I belove this and I belove that, dedicated platforms are obsolete, the Air Force has a shortage of planes and pilots, they have to make choices, there's a bazillion taskings on their plate, in order to carry out all the missions assigned to them, everything has to be multirole.

Fast jets can do 90% of the what the A-10 does, the A-10 can't do any fast jet missions at all, it's all about logistics, not what you belove.

If the Air Force had a trillion dollar budget, they could fly unicorns, but on a budget of a $134 billion, they can afford one fighter plane and one fighter plane only, and it has to do everything.

Making a jet do everything is the wrong way to go... the same with over-specialization. You make a plan do everything, you'll have a plane that is too expensive to lose and won't do anything.

The A-10 is an expensive plane, the assertion that the A-10 was cheap is not true, in current dollars, the A-10 would cost $105 million, same price as a fast jet.

$18 million in 1972, is $105 million now.

[Speaker to Animals]

USAF Major Jon Huss mentions the psychological damage of the B-52 bombing:

The decision to continue the B-52 attacks at night was made for psychological reasons. The intent was to keep the target units awake and add fatigue to their cumulative list of stressors. To this end, the B-52 proved a very effective weapon. One senior Iraqi officer complained that he could hardly sleep more than two hours at a time and that the constant pounding shattered his men’s nerves to a point that they nearly went mad.

Surprisingly, this effect was due more to the experience of living through an attack, not the probability of being killed during one. That same Iraqi officer admitted that the B-52 raids actually produced relatively light casualties in his unit. The strikes could be felt and heard by units as far away as 40 kilometers. The B-52 was so universally feared that in one instance a troop commander identified it as the sole reason he surrendered his troops to advancing coalition forces. Reminded by an interrogator that his position was never attacked by B-52s, he stated, “That is true, but I had seen one that had been attacked.”

[The Conservative]

It's not about which planes are beloved, you can't say on the one hand that you want the Pentagon audited and the defense budget brought under control, and then turn around and say oh but I belove this and I belove that, dedicated platforms are obsolete, the Air Force has a shortage of planes and pilots, they have to make choices, there's a bazillion taskings on their plate, in order to carry out all the missions assigned to them, everything has to be multirole.

Fast jets can do 90% of the what the A-10 does, the A-10 can't do any fast jet missions at all, it's all about logistics, not what you belove.

If the Air Force had a trillion dollar budget, they could fly unicorns, but on a budget of a $134 billion, they can afford one fighter plane and one fighter plane only, and it has to do everything.

Making a jet do everything is the wrong way to go... the same with over-specialization. You make a plan do everything, you'll have a plane that is too expensive to lose and won't do anything.

The A-10 is an expensive plane, the assertion that the A-10 was cheap is not true, in current dollars, the A-10 would cost $105 million, same price as a fast jet.

$18 million in 1972, is $105 million now.

Yes, but if you look at the A-10's original purpose vs a Jet... it's two entirely different platforms which are meant to do to entirely different things, but because of how the military is, that is no longer happening.

[Smitty-48]

They only built 700 A-10's, and it's a dedicated platform which requires specific training, maintenance and parts, the net result is that the A-10 was more expensive than the F-16, the A-10 was not cheap and is not cheap, it's an expensive plane with an expensive logistics tail, to do one job, which is obsolete in the contemporary paradigm.

The Air Force is right, the fanbois are wrong, the A-10 has to go, they can have one fighter jet, and that jet has to do it all.

[Speaker to Animals]

It doesn't carry over into anything else either. on top of that, it has very little capabilities to defend itself against another aircraft. Nor can it it run SEAD missions.

I bet you could use F-16 to do most of that CAS role, and anything else could be picked up by some combination of Apache Longbows and Kiowa Scouts.

I would just give the Army a few F-16 wings and offer to transfer maintenance and aircrew personnel over to the Army to bootstrap their CAS squadrons.

[Smitty-48]

They can have one fighter jet, even the F-22 was cancelled, the F-15, F-16, A-10, and even F-22, are all obsolete.

It's going to be all F-35's, plus an orphaned fleet of 186 Raptors until the Raptors age out.

[Speaker to Animals]

I think we actually need two new airframes. One that is pure air superiority and another for multi-role.

Keep the mission creep contained and don't allow it to become a boondoggle like the JSF program.

Give the Army some F-16 or even the A-10 so they can run their own CAS.