Why the Air Force is Screaming to Retire the A-10 Warthog
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- čas přidán 24. 08. 2023
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The US Air Force is charging ahead with plans to retire the A-10 Warthog attack jet within the next five years, but with no dedicated close air support platform to replace it with, pilots are worried that troops on the ground won’t get the air support they need in the next conflict. In the 2023 version of the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress approved the Air Force’s request to begin divestment of the current A-10 fleet, citing the aircraft as too old, too slow, and too expensive to maintain.
Written by: Chris Cappy & Diego Aceituno
Video Edited by: Maksym
This isn’t the first time the USAF has tried to retire the platform, but previous attempts have been delayed after pilots and troops protested the idea. But according to a June 26th Air Force memo, the service seems to be getting its way this time with a set timetable to replace the 54 A-10s from Moody Air Force Base with F-35As by 2028, and plans to retire the rest of the fleet soon to come. The A-10 is a much beloved airplane and pilots say that, while old, no other US aircraft can match its close air support capabilities or survivability.
So why is the Air Force so keen to replace such a unique platform? Can other aircraft truly replace it or will US troops be left high and dry when the shooting starts? And is the famous 30mm cannon on the nose of the A-10 truly effective or just a lot of smoke and thunder? Get ready to strap in and fly low as we make a strafing run on all the facts of the A-10 Warthog and how the US will be fundamentally changing how it approaches close air support missions.
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Hey Cappy it's usually pronounced as 'GOW-Eight'.
f*ck I hate using the MK.I eyeball
10:30 „air action by aircraft against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly targets”
I’m switching to Air Force from army. You’re missing something big out of this video. Air Force just procured a large order of close range support propeller aircraft with modern avionics and munitions.
Modified AT-802U Sky Warden Air Tractor; Fixed-Wing, Armored, Single-Engine aircraft used for Light Attack/ Armed Overwatch Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; built by L3Harris and Air Tractor
It’s a lot more cost effective and still plays the role as a10 in light combat engagements
As a former A-10 crew chief, I am sad to see this platform retired. However, command is correct on this one. Without 100% air dominance ahead of it, its survivability on the modern battlefield is risky on a good day. I am quite grateful to have supported the A-10 and its pilots to cover our troops on the ground.
But there's nothing to replace it with. The F-35 Boondoggle is nowhere NEAR a replacement for an aircraft that can almost take a direct missile hit, and STILL fly home. If this were an Air Superiority thing, I could understand that. I could understand retiring like the F-16. Between the F-15, the F/A-18 and the plans for the F-35, it's probably been squeezed out of whatever specialization it might've fit into.
But the A-10 isn't just a workhorse, it's a warhorse. I don't think there's any problem with the A-10 that wouldn't be solved by building NEW ones, rather than trying to fix the old ones. Okay, yes, the old ones are getting broken more and more...but the technology and fabrication techniques of the OLD A-10s have come down in cost. Moreover, they're proven techniques. There's no R&D needed on the armor of the A-10, or wondering if there needs to be VTOL or VSTOL capabilities or if it needs to be Stealth. We can work on lowering the cost and improving the durability of NEW A-10's, without having to roll out a whole new aircraft that as far as I can tell, is unproven in combat, and incapable of stepping in for a Warthog.
@@Khasym Your reasoning is precisely why we DO need the A-10, as well as air superiority. Let the invisible, tech-laden fast-movers clear the path and let the A-10 do what is is superlatively good at.....close ground support.
@@Khasym Once again, it needs total air dominance ahead of it or it dies like a mosquito. Despite its armor, it cannot withstand the newest generation of a2a and sams put against it. Furthermore, the wing rebuilds currently underway are a huge drain on an already tight budget for the AF. I appreciate your passion and love for the A-10, but having crewed them and spent time during the gulf war in 9th AF HQ (Shaw AFB) in maintenance OPS, the end is nigh for the A-10. I like this fact less than most, but it is the reality. She will be missed. It will be up to the AC-130s to cover this role protecting ground troops until something it figured out.
@@k2_tech745 ...we don't need another Spirit 03. Consider what you're saying: a larger, slower, less maneuverable aircraft, with more crew, more costs, and more presence in field, has to fulfill the duty of the A-10 till someone decides that Stealth isn't the end-all be-all.
Even worse, the F-35 Budget-eater, is precisely the reason FOR that lean wallet. Despite being proven wrong every time, we cannot make a one-size-fits-all ANYTHING combat related. Even more-so when it comes to combat aircraft. Right now, it would cost about $18.8 million to build one A-10 as modern as we allow at this point. It's expected that with the new engine upgrades, the F-35 will cost about $80 to $90 million, and the AC-130s cost s $130-$190 million a pop. Four A-10s for one thin-skinned F-35, and damn near 10 of em for a single kitted out Ghostrider.
@@k2_tech745 The digest version is that the A-10 is a very expensive piece of kit that works well for insurgencies, but is not fully up to scratch in case of an all out conflict with a near peer. To put another way, sending an A-10 to bomb some angry villagers on a mountaintop is a waste of resources, sending an A-10 into the AA umbrella China would deploy when trying to take Taiwan is also a waste of resources.
The discussion around the A-10 often comes with emotional investment and the belief that the "BRRRRT" can fix everything when in fact people were frowning when the concept was being proposed in the first place. But we're almost half a century later and things have changed a lot. AA is a very different game from the airspace the designers had in mind back then.
When I lived in Indiana A10’s flew up my valley to be hidden until they popped up and nailed targets. They were from Camp Atterbury. I was out raking leaves while an A10 flew over me at a ninety degree angle. I waved at Him ( I always did because the A10 is awesome) As they have a great view, this pilot waved back! It made my day! Hell, it made my month! Any pilots from Camp Atterbury, know that I was watching and appreciated You!
I lived and worked near Janesville Wisconsin. A-10s then based at Truax in Madison, would often come to Rock County Airport to practice touch & goes, and, I guess, attack profiles. So maneuverable and so quiet! Also saw them on the gun range at Fort McCoy. Really glad they were on our side!
Glad you experienced the 122nd Fighter Wing A-10s of Fort Wayne, IN, Indiana Air National Guard before they get decommissioned. They train aerial gunnery in Camp Atterbury, along with my Army UH-60 Blackhawk unit sharing the same gunnery ranges. We blow shit up there, but not stationed at Himsel Field (Camp Atterbury). They steal most of the range time from us, but worth the "BURRRRH" sounds and sparks on the ground targets.
Hey Jeff, I lived in East Enterprise in the late 70's. I recall watching them as well. It was awesome. Later I was experience their close air support first hand. With no proven replacement, this is beyond ludicrous.
@@rherman9085 I raised my Kids in Hope, Columbus and then finally right next to Brown County. They graduated in 1999. So it would have been right along Your timeline.
My Son got my love of aircraft and being outside of Dallas, TX. now, We are on the phone every time We hear the four engines of the Confederate Air Forces B-17’s come over when they have an Airshow near Us. I love those “old” flying museums. Everyone of them!
@@jeffstevens156as a teen, I was in the CAP and did security CAF in RG valley. those planes are really awesome and seeing them up close will always be a fond memory
My favorite A-10 pilot report was from Desert Storm: “saw suspicious pike of rocks, engaged, one enemy tank destroyed.” (paraphrased, it’s been 32 years . . . .).
Huh...
Were those Royal Canadian Armoured Corps?
I can remember when 2x A-10 pilots were directly ordered by a 4* AND a 3* General to "NOT engage the British Armoured convoy". (several times, over nearly 10 minutes)
They deliberately disobeyed orders and killed 9 British troops. (Everyone in the UK saw it and heard it, as the comms and video feed from the aircraft was made public during the public enquiry)
Those 2x pilots were immediately transferred back to the USA, and 2 months later were training new pilots how to "NOT do friendly fire and kill your allies"
@@SuperAd1980is that for real?
@@tacomas9602 100% real.
@@SuperAd1980 The A-10 turns enemies into a fine red mist and friendlies into Life Insurance claims
As a teenage cadet I saw A10s on a bombing range. The maneuverability was the thing which really stuck with me.
while piloting a Navy H-3 in the pattern along with an A-10 at Tustin MCAS, it was turning circles inside our pattern 😂
Air show in UK 1981 saw an A10 do a tight 180 around a church spire, and was impressed.
A10s smoke dangerous prey on DCS.
If the faster jets try to turn with them, they die.
Nothing gets inside the circle like an A10.
The A-10 is slow, it's not 'maneuverable'. An illusion of maneuverability comes with slow speeds but that's like saying my shitty 1980s Corolla has better maneuverability than a Zonda F, because when the Zonda is going 180 MPH it can't make a right turn as quickly as my Toyota can at 15 MPH.
The A-10's engine are vastly too weak to call it 'maneuverable', its big ass wings mean it bleeds tons of speed with every turn and takes forever to get that speed back.
@@fnhatic6694
We are measuring the A10s maneuverability based on its rate of turn over its total speed range. The A10 crushes all other jets with its RoT.
The A10s main gun will destroy anything the A10 can get its nose on, and that's everything in the air.
At longer ranges, the A10 can fire the same missiles the faster jets are packing. The launch parameters are crap because of the lower initial speed, but it's still effective.
Try gaming it out in DCS; the A10 is a beast.
Someone took a shot at me BVR and I turned into the shot and used my gun as a flying CWIS to shoot down the incoming missile. Boy was he surprised when I kept coming.
IRL, an A10 pilot and an F16 pilot agreed to meet in an engagement zone over the North Sea for a little practice. The F 16 pilot thought it would be easy, the A10 pilot tore him up over and over again. This happened because the A10 pilot negotiated for a small combat space so he could maximize his advantages. If the F16 pilot had used his speed and range to attack from further away, he would have won from miles away.
When drones start dogfighting, the drones based on the A10 will have longer loiter times and greater capacities to destroy enemy aircraft. The country that builds their weapons based on performance instead of emotion will dominate the skys.
Modern jets: it's about stealth, precision, and lethality
A10 : It's about sending a message.
When the S**t hits the fan stealth is the last thing You need
Like killing your own troops? That is certainly a message.
A message that doesn't cost the taxpayer a bizzion dollars like all those missiles do on other aircraft
A10: It's about shooting friendlies.
It's the only aircraft that enemy troops surrendered to just by flying overhead.
The A-10 was one of the most memorable airshow planes. Low, slow and high maneuverability make for a great display.
Technically great maneuver aircraft at low speed standards. Doesn't necessarily means it's awesome at maneuverability
I would never say highly maneuverable when talking about A-10. It’s durable and effective but highly maneuverable no.
It's like a vulture waiting to strike with hell fire when you least expected.
One of the problems is it's low, slow, and can be easily taken out by a drone or a MANPADS.
highly maneuverable? I dunno. That whistle tho!
Been a weapons troop for over 20 years, 8 of those on the A-10. Best, most maintenance friendly aircraft I have had the pleasure to work on. And the most fun gun load imho.
30 years ago when I lived in Norfolk (England) I would be driving down one of the long country roads and I would be repeatedly buzzed by A.10s in pairs. First one, then the other. They would fly over me quite low, circle round and do it again. I think they were using me as a practice target. Their base was nearby.
I've spent my life in the military, moving from Infantry to Air Force Controller, and I'd like to praise this video. It's is not overly technical, and doesn't get into the weeds of modern 5th Gen Air Power Theory, but rather hits all the big points really well. It's very hard to convince those who aren't employed in the Air component to the current flaws of an aircraft like the A-10, but this video does it very well. Bravo.
💯%
IMO, the problem isn't the long-overdue retirement of the A-10 but the utter lack of an adequate replacement. The F-35's abysmal loitering time, severely limited payload capacity, and hefty price tag make it ill-suited for supplying timely CAS, and drones can only partially compensate for its failings, thanks to their lack of Mk.1 Eyeball and extreme vulnerability to EW and the like.
Additionally, the "low-and-slow doesn't work against near-peer adversaries" excuse is so outrageously stupid that it boggles the mind that anyone buys into it. The last seventy years have proved that politicians are nearly as adept at avoiding near-peer wars as they are at creating not-at-all-peer "conflicts," and military technology has changed enough that even near-peers are likely to end up engaging asymmetrically a lot of the time. A properly designed, dedicated CAS airframe would not only be incredibly valuable in the all-too-likely event of another Vietnam or Afghanistan, but also in open war against an opponent like China, doing things like defending against guerilla-style attacks on logistics and C3 and mopping up ground forces after the air defenses had been cleared.
Edit: In case it wasn't clear, said dedicated CAS airframe should _not_ be the A-10. While the design goals still hold true, for the most part, some of the approaches taken no longer do. For example, it might make sense to have something gun-like to avoid expending $200k rockets on $20k pickup-with-bolted-on-MG, but there are far better options than 30mm auto-cannons for that task.
@@irrelevantfish1978Even guerilla forces can threaten very low flying aircraft with MANPADS. The thing about drones being vulnerable to EW, is any type of CAS relies on communication to be informed of the mission to begin with. Most modern CAS has automated target tracking already. Whatever means you used to call the airbase, you could call an unmanned mini-cruise missile launcher a few miles away that was dropped off by a truck or a helicopter previously.
@@JWQweqOPDH MANPADS will have minimal success against reasonably stealthy aircraft (which any A-10 successor absolutely could and should be), even if it's flying low and slow, and there is a _massive_ difference between the durability of voice comms compared to remote drone operation, which is far higher bandwidth and far less tolerant of signal corruption and latency.
And insofar as automating CAS, that's problematic for all kinds of reasons: it's bad PR, it's expensive (if not impossible for such an electronically incompetent outfit as the US military), and turning complete control of bombing runs/cruise missile strikes over to people with infinitely more stress than aerial observation capability (ie, ground troops being shot at) is not a great way to avoid friendly fire and collateral damage.
@@irrelevantfish1978Also, didn’t the A-10 also do CAS for Combat Search and Rescue?
A good, down-to-earth explanation why it's necessary. All weapons become obsolete at some point. I hear the B-52 may even become so a few decades from now.
Stealth is the key to the future considering all nations will be bristling with modern anti air defenses. Even the venerated B52 won't be able to survive in such an environment.
The b52 is literally older than the A 10
They are upgrading the B-52 soon will be B-52J
At the peak of the Cold War several Countries like Denmark and Canada gave the US some very generous overflight rights , but they didn't want those rights to be permanent so they were tied specifically to the operation of the B-52.
And that's why the Air Force is still operating a 70 year old bomber.
Edit:
Because the Air Force needs to keep the B-52 in service in order to avoid renegotiating agreements with other countries , they find some combat role it can still carry out and retrofit the plane to do it.
A plane with long range , large payload and a simple frame can always be modified to do something...currently it's hauling cruise missiles closer to the target before launching them, even though military cargo planes can do the same mission.
@@glennchartrand5411 That, and because simply strategic bombers as a whole are somewhat of a relic, so the need to replace them outright is small, because the benefit we would get is minimal to nil. Simply outright impossible to protect them in modern air combat with it's focus on BVR missiles, though in actual combat, there's zero chance we'd fly B-52s alone, it just is a significant downside to them as a concept.
The pilots who flew and fly the platform notwithstanding, my experience as an Army Fire Support Coordinator was that the Air Force, just didn’t like the CAS role. It put their aircraft and pilots at too great a risk (Desert Storm notwithstanding).
The apocryphal story is told of two Soviet tank division commanders meeting in Paris, following the defeat of NATO. As they enter a restaurant for dinner, one turns to the other and asks, “Do you know who won the air war?”
The point being that victory ultimately goes to him who occupies the ground.
Air superiority is certainly a critical effort, but only facilitates the ground effort. CAS is PART of the ground control effort.
I have the greatest respect for A-10 pilots, because they understand the importance of the direct support they provide to ground troops, and that they accept the same level of risk those kids down on the ground do. It ain’t sexy, but it’s such a critical mission, and has saved a lot more lives than it has cost.
There are valid reasons for retiring the A-10 fleet. But having a dedicated platform in that role, pretty much assured that the CAS mission maintained a pretty high priority on the battlefield.
My concern is that without a dedicated platform, CAS will be relegated to an “we’ll get to it if we have time” mission.
Thats exactly what is happening, and the US Military is doing what it dos best.
Getting rid of good shit for subpar shit.
Your going to me look up apocryphal, aren't you?
I got to see 2 of these do a mock low altitude tail chase over Tybee Island beach in Georgia a few months ago. It was glorious. Personally I think it’s foolish to retire something without it being proven in real life that is is not needed. I also think that the idea of retiring it due to high maintenance cost issues is ridiculous when it’s being replaced by a F35… the irony…
Unfortunately it's all about the money. The amount of funding for A10 squadrons can easily fit in the back pocket of the f-35s so the Air Force wants to siphon off all that money to promote their high-speed high flying aircraft which will have nothing whatsoever to do with supporting Army and Marine ground troops. A lightning, if everything worked on it correctly still wouldn't be an equal to a warthog.
Back in high school I designed a close air support replacement for the A-10 for my CAD class project. Sort of conceptually similar to a hybrid of an A-10 and an Osprey. It had 4 General Electric TF34-GE-100 turbofans for propulsion. A wingspan of 70ft with 2 rotatable engines on the outer tips of the wings and the other two in the usual A10 location. It could carry 3,000 rounds of 30mm for its double GAU-8/A Avenger rotary cannons. One cannon faced forwards and the other one faced rearward at a downward angle. The idea was that using computer assistance the pilot could fire forward during his downward run and the computer would map the target during this firing phase and then calculate the path to take upwards so it could fire a second burst at the same target if the pilot decided to press the rearward fire trigger. Not only would a rearward firing cannon allow for double taps on hostile targets, but a rearward firing cannon combined with 4 GE turbofans would allow my creation to get the hell out of the danger zone very quickly.
I mailed my designs to the pentagon and DoD in 2007. Still no word yet on when I will be under contract to build it. Aaaaaany day now.
Make a mini gun but each barrel is itself a GAU-8
So you're the kid responsible for designing the Mk-19.
Your plane was too awesome for them to comprehend.
I wish i socialized more in highschool so i could know people with cool interests like that
You had me at "...double GAU 8/A..."
Desert Storm vet here. All I know is that the EPWs we had at our MASH unit were scared to death of the A-10. We had to request the AF NOT do practice runs on our giant Red Cross on our main ward tent. The EPWs told us A10s were the most effective weapon against their emplacements. We saw first hand A10 work on the Road of Death.
A10s aren't the only planes that plastered the Road of Death.
Yes, against militaries without any type of effective AA countermeasures, or other aircraft to at all challenge air superiority, they work fine. Against a near peer adversary, however.......not going to happen.
Yes theres been countless incidents with A10s and friendly fire on british army personnel, some really tragic ones. They dont like them anywhere near them.
Really should not have to "request" the air force doesn't do practise runs on medical facilities, its bordering on a war crime as well as being absolutely pointless after all as a target you *cant* fire on it all you can do is impede medical procedures and deafen people.
So whilst I'm of the view that many service personnel are immature and might do something like this to show off, I'm doubtful that it was sanctioned and if it really happened is just another example of how unprofessional manchilds are a risk behind the controls. Bit of an argument for drones really where everything is recorded.
@@davidspencer7254the request to not do training on red cross facilities was a joke or in other words “we would of course nevrr fucking do this as its our OWN medical facilities…”(their MASH UNITS) but told the EWRs this to calm them down and make sure they can peform their duties without fear!
One of the best and concise videos about A-10 capabilities and limitations that i have ever seen (and i have seen many...). thanks very, very much for this.
Back when the A-10 was being developed there was a serious argument that the role would be best covered by helicopters. Now we have drones as well, which would mean not risking pilots in an inherently high risk mission profile.
The maintenance hours per hour of flight and survivability of a helicopter vs. an A-10 showed the A-10 to be far superior. I don't recall what the actual uptime vs. real uptime for helicopters was any longer while in the middle east. But helicopters did not do well in that environment at all.
@@thegrimreefer3185 That is one of the advantages of a fixed-wing aircraft, but a fixed-wing drone would be better. I am really curious on how a tilt-rotor compares, especially something like the Army's new V-280 Valor. I know the V-22 Osprey has a few issues that the new 2nd generation tilt-rotor designs have significantly improved.
@@andrewreynolds4949 I really did the V-280 design, but the silhouette is considerably bigger compared to the UH-60 (what's supposed to replace). On the other than, you can cut heads of *insert enemy name* if you fly really low, like a modern gladiator chariot of dead, that's a big bonus for me.
@@canobenitez The V-280's silhouette may be a lot larger than the UH-60, but because of the rotor radii and the V-280 being shorter and wider they actually take up about the same landing footprint
@@andrewreynolds4949 it's easier to rpg'd it.
I know everything eventually goes, but the A-10 exiting the scene makes me sad.
Yep
It’s needed to for years
I mean it’s so dog shit compared to everything in its time. The a-10 in an actual war would get stomped, even the Russians unguided AA can take it down considering how slow the plane is
@@masterchief2402 A-10 is like that one kid in your sports team that can't play for shit, but always tries to do some epic moves that he has absolutely no chance of ever actually pulling off.
He's kinda useless, but still fun to have around.
@@masterchief2402but it's so cooool!!
One compelling observation (as early as WW2) that greatly supported the “bathtub” concept was the fact that when you looked at all of the severely war damaged aircraft that managed to limp home in spite of huge holes in their wings and/or fuselage … not one of them had a hole in the cockpit area thus truly putting the fate of that bird entirely in the pilots hands.
P-47 Thunderbolt ONE is the inspiration. Lots of engine, plenty of machine guns, and armor, armor, armor.
Duh?
@@kimweaver1252yeah… and air superiority and already having won basically (thanks to your allies mostly)
That's not very relevent nowadays as you'll get shot down my a missile more than bullets so it's better to be steathy than armored.
@@MaticTheProto The US was the deal clincher. The Europeans went down like stuffed animals, it took the manpower and particularly the materiel of the US to push onto the continent and push the Nazis out. Like in North Africa, Italy, Asia, and the entire Pacific.
I feel like the A10s are as much a morale boost to ground troops as it is effective CAS. It's simultaneously a morale hit to the asymmetrical enemies it had, hearing that low, slow BRRRRRRRRRTTTTTT, and seeing a A10 cruise by after evaporating the area around you is a hell of a deterrent to keep doing what you're doing.
While it is becoming less and less effective, the morale effect is just as effective as it's armaments. It's retirement is inevitable for very good reasons, but I fear that unless the USAF can field something that will have the same morale boosting effect, it may hurt ground ops needing CAS for at least the near future.
Morale cuts both ways once you consider the CEP putting friendlies and/or non combatants in danger. I'm not aware of a (public) study on this, but most missions don't use the gau8 as the result of this. Realistically as cool as it is, the gau8 is a bad weapon that is not and was never fit for purpose; bad for troops down range (based on CEP and weapon range as relative to the pgm), bad at taking out tanks (based on best case assessment against t-62 taking ~2missions to get a gun kill on static target in the open as compared to atgm or pgm). If the gau8 is bad, then the a10 is bad given it's the differentiator (f15e/x or f35 or shit even the b52 can drop the same munitions, higher faster and with a better and cheaper logistic chain).
Would have been good to hear Cappy talk about this in more detail (eg: in desert storm a10 fired 4800+ Maverick AGM, seems unlikely that many of the quoted vehicle kills were gun kills, likely the exception not the rule)
It is good to mention this, people who experienced it as CAS vs ground attack have very different memories of the plane
Thanks for an excellent analysis T&P, this was hugely informative. Most of the videos i have watched regarding the proposed retirement of the A-10 have focused on how effective it is in the current theatres of combat in which it operates. However it was interesting to hear a well balanced & unpartisan analysis of the negatives of the A-10 too. I just hope that the final decision is made with the survivability of both aircrew & troops on the ground in mind rather than because of financial & political reasoning from america's military industrial complex. Great vid dude.
They complain about the bullet dispersion of the a-10, it's not a sniper weapon! It's there to take out people on the ground, and it does that extremely well. It is a nightmare for the enemies, even give some of our people some Sleepless nights.
I’m from the late 70’s era Army. I was part of the 3ID (Mech) in Germany. I remember the first time I saw an A10 being demonstrated for us. Oooooooh, ahhhhhh! Everyone was thrilled. You see there were a few suppositions we had 1) the Air Force doesn’t want to do CAS at all and are always looking for an excuse not to do it (“we’re busy dogfighting the Russkies”); 2) The Army does not have enough artillery and at the time our ranges were no better than what the Soviets had. We didn’t even have an MRLS at that time. So the love of the A10 was largely a result of our mistrust of the AF.
The Ukraine war has demonstrated to me that the Army needs more of its excellent artillery (with more ammo than current planning calls for) and we need lots of drones as spotters. Drones plus artillery can perform a lot of CAS missions more cheaply and more safely. We need aircraft to keep enemy aircraft - including copters - away and to hit rear areas and logistics. We also need cheap defenses against drones. The Gepards are very effective but were prematurely considered obsolete. Don’t make me fire a $50k missile at a $5000 drone.
Lasers are coming for drone defense.
@@granatmofand have been since the 60s
I appreciate the well put comment. The AF is definitely adverse to less sexy missions. All systems will be replaced by drones over time. The cost of personnel is to high to be otherwise.
I’m from the 80’s era Army Mech Inf. and I now live in the desert in southern Arizona and I personally have heard and seen the beloved A-1O fly training missions almost daily for over 20yrs and met some of the pilot's. I've also seen my community vote for candidates over the yrs solely to save the A-1O. If it's the end of the A-1O I hope we send them to Ukraine and and let them finally get to do CAS mission to destroy Russian tanks in a last blaze of glory, The job they were built for originally. It would be so sad just to see them rotting away in the Boneyard when I drive by.
@@horatio1962 I kinda doubt they'll go to a boneyard. More likely they'll be sold to someone(assuming Ukraine hasn't beaten back Russia by the time they're retired and they're gifted to Ukraine). It doesn't really matter who they could get sold to, without air superiority they're not a threat, and no one is getting air superiority over the USA or its allies.
The 987 tanks claimed destroyed by A10 during the Gulf War is actually highly disputed. According to later post-war assessments, the actual number may have been 3 times lower. The issue was that it was hard to confirm kills and/or vehicle type during the war due to lack of good optics. (They were literally using binoculars like Cappy said.) It also didn't help that a lot of A-10 pilots routinely made false claims about kill counts that were forwarded to command who then exaggerated them even further. Although to be fair, a lot of Air Force pilots in different platforms were also doing it during the war.
Source?
@@strikerdelit2649 Look into it. I dont remember the exact source but I know this is true. Pilots are infamous for faking kills.
There were tons of after-action reports and studies and breakdowns into it, honestly the Apache is a much better use and choice for close air support because the role really kind of changed with more modern AA platforms.
People just like the brrrt.... People also forget we grounded it during Iraq and Afghanistan do to friendly fire and civilian casualties more then combatant casualties.
@ryankral3175 You can't even blame the pilots either. Once their loitering time is done, it's hard to make out if the targets they hit are catastrophic or just a mission kill.
@@strikerdelit2649 Both Military Aviation History and Lazerpig did dive covering how overrated the A-10 is and how poorly it performed in the Gulf War.
They used to fly over my farm in Massachusetts (out of westover AFB) one summer me and my cousin were helping bale hay and we spelt "HI" in square bales. They waggled their wings as the flew over, so cool!
❤ the A-10! Been my favorite since the 80's when I'd play with the Revell model kit of my older brothers, which I still owe him for lol.
Why not create a drone version of it? It is slow and flies low and can dump a lot of munitions to protect troops. I also imagine since it wouldn’t need life support it could be made slightly smaller too.
Like from CoD Ghosts?
@@nursestoylandhonestly yes
And how will they have real time footage in these areas that don't have coverage?
People will pile on with criticisms, but it's worth a study, and I bet that would be a great topic for a Master's Thesis at the USAFA.
It’d cost less to just make a more efficient drone aircraft.
I love the A-10 and as a former FO (Forward Observer) it was SO MUCH fun doing CAS missions with it. When I went Air Force and had to do mission planning with the A-10 in the Pacific theatre. It became a nightmare to get it across the Pacific to area's like Korea, Japan, ect. This is because, for air to air refueling, the A-10 can't get to the best altitudes that the KC series acft operate at (FL220B240 or FL240B280). We had to use FL180B220) so that the tankers could descend to 18,000 ft to refuel the A-10's. This caused huge headaches due to having to coordinate with foreign nations so that their civilian airliners would not be affected. (they were flying in the same heavily trafficked airspace. Also... the A-10's had a HIGH tendency to break down during these missions and end up in Guam or Diego Garcia for EXTENDED stays till parts became available. Like my earlier comment, as a previous ground pounder, I LOVE this jet, but from a strategic view, there are... issues.
Yeah, people forget they were designed to fly to Europe using a series of airbases in Canada, Greenland, and Iceland and then stage out of France and the UK to shoot up swarms of tightly packed Warsaw IFVs and tanks in order to blunt the charge while heavy US assets made their way across the Atlantic. They were never intended to operate long distance. Future air operations will by necessity be either long distance or from small makeshift airfields because the only safe airfields will be those outside of missile range. Say what you will about the other aspects of the plane, this alone makes it obsolete.
@@lordsheogorath3377to be fair it can be maintained and flown off off literal dirt roads/highways so it's actually REALLY good for say, the ukrain war, as long as most long range AA is taken out.
@@lordsheogorath3377 If ONLY Americans built air platforms with the same focus as the old Soviet designers did, they'd have a competent CAS platform like the Su-25. I cannot fathom the A-10 surviving beyond a few sorties in the Ukraine under the everlasting watchful eye of the multiplicity of SAMs on both sides----and yet it's only CAS rival in the world Su-25 s flying daily sorties for both opposed forces....
That's actually super interesting. I've never thought of the complications with low level refueling and civilian airliners. Sounds like a massive headache.
We should give them to Ukraine
Awesome video!
Good knowledgeable report
50 years is a longevity that any military aircraft would be proud of. The A-10 might still have one more trick up it's big gun, but even if it doesn't it will long be remembered - at least for another 50 years. This was a great analysis of a complex situation.
Grandpa Buff will still be flying though.
It honestly should have been retired before that but low intensity war kept it around
It would’ve been retired but they are really good at targeting tailbone in the mountains
@@joeswanson5486 tailbone?
So, A--10 was the first aircraft I ever worked on. The last military aircraft I ever worked on is also on the way to the boneyard. When it comes down to it, in a decade when peers have directed energy weapons, the A-10 will be a lot more useless than it is now. Works great when your opponent, at best, has iglas. Not so great when you have to drop your ordinance outside of detection range just to survive. I'm glad it lasted this long.
Love it. Iconic. Has some uses. Has one hell of an effect on moral.
Let's face it. It is obsolete, and a death sentence to the pilots in modern combat.
Take the lightest 155mm turret you can find. Put wings and the most efficient engine you can get. Get a damn good ballistic computer. Then make it into a drone and viola. It will be a cool ass aircraft! Effective compared to other methods? Nope.
Just putting an engine on 155mm with wings would be better. AKA a kamikaze drone.
We just need CAS drones. Cheaper the better.
ya, it's usefulness in a conventional war would be minimal
Do you know the lock=on time required for 50K lasers against hardened targets? > 10 minutes.
That will REALLY work against 400 mph 12 g aircraft..not
The claim that A-10 maintenance is too high and replacing them with F-35s sounds a lot like trying to save money by dumping the midwest farm girl for a supermodel. 😂
@@DonariaRegia I mean, if that midwest girl is at the point where her organs don't work well anymore, while the model has everything working well, then yes?
A plane's maintenence cost goes up over time, and the a10 upgrade packages (the ones that make them only kinda obsolete instead of completely obsolete) has also made it significantly higher maintenance than it was before.
Thanks for this very clear and rational explanation. Facts have to outweigh emotional attachments.
Sad to see it go, it's such an iconic aircraft.
Honestly a helicopter and or drone could do the job better than the A10. I think its worth noting that the A10 had the most Jets shot down during the gulf war and ALSO the most blue on blue incidents
Funny you should mention that, the AX program that rfesulted in the A-10 was started in order to give the USAF an excuse to claim duplication of capabilities and get the US Army's Lockheed AH-56 program cancelled, the most capable attack helicopter of all time and a better platform than the AH-64 that came 15 years later (which was deliberately dumbed down so the USAF wouldn't throw a hissy fit again)
They also bought the AT-802 sky warden , which basically an armored crop duster with advanced sensors and weapons pylons . SOCOM is getting 75.
Sadly it was inevitable that the A-10 would one day be to old
But it will always be my favorite military aircraft
It's design was a work of art and the job that it did was amazing
bro it killed more allies than anything. It had literally no electronics for years too. It was stupid. We could have made a much cheaper aircraft or just used our multirole aircraft for strikes. Especially since it was mostly being used against an enemy that had lost basically all AA capabilities within the first day- and if they HAD AA guns, that bathtub is only a deathtrap.
I read one funny thing about the future a while ago "F-22 and F-35 would be already rotting in the graveyard and A-10s and B-52 would still be flying regularly"
Friendly-fire incidents aside, of course. There's a really good reason the military wanted the F-35 so bad.
Two flew over my apartment building about ten years ago...They are huge really impressive especially at less than 200 feet above you.
I met them close to the town of Bitburg in the Eifel-mountains... I never again was so impressed by the sudden appearance of something, than the A10.
It`s pure psychology...
Of all the jets I’ve ever touched the A-10 was the only one I enjoyed working on. It was actually fun to load them and while maintenance was very physical I didn’t mind it so long as I wasn’t the one disconnecting hydro. Otherwise, I still have dreams about them flying over or going through EOR and wake up wanting to go back to an A-10 base.
West Germany 86-88 82nd Eng Bn "Blue Babe Battalion. While training in Graf the A10s would buzz past us low level then fly straight up and would look like a Cross.
What kind of mx man hr/ flight hr did you guys typically see?
@@LRRPFco52 I've been a 2W1, not a 2A so my MX really revolved around how the weapons systems performed or Phase/inspection intervals. Loaded a lot of bombs, rockets, missiles, C/F and swapped a lot of pylons and ran ops checks. Our yearly flight hour contract was always being exceeded so 2500 flt hrs per airframe this year means upwards of 3000 next year because "we can" on an aging airframe. So working 12+hr shifts was normal at Osan and somewhat normal at Moody. Production also had their work cut out for them with standard MX and servicing. Typical flying day was 8 pit 8 turn 6 pit 6 sometimes turn 4. Then surge weeks or FTX ran things up to 12 pit 12 turn 8 pit 8 turn 6 pit 6. Lots of lines/sorties. That was for each unit with 2 active units plus reserve so double those numbers. So working EOR during those weeks was not fun. But it's still better than trying to load 120s into an F-22 internal bay.
@@ctasitrep In the 1970s, my dad brought home a 30mm GAU-8 dummy cartridge from the A-10 CTF at Edwards AFB, while it was still in development. They were having a lot of problems with the gun, gas ingestion, engine stalls, working out the kinks.
20 years later, I was calling in CAS with them.
We will miss the glorious BRRRRRRRRRRRRRT of freedom, but it's just too vulnerable to surface-to-air weaponry. Smaller, drone-based close air support planes will be needed for our 21st century battle needs.
brt of killing goat herders in 3rd world countries in wars for nothing you mean?
Name an aircraft that isn't vulnerable.
130 Gunships? Attack helicopters? F-16s?
This is a tired argument, and its mostly propaganda from the AF brass that wanted to kill the A-10 and divert personnel and funding to the F-35 program, which lacks the loiter time or payload of the A-10 and with external stores is just as vulnerable as the rest.
Stories from Erney and Brrrt.
according to several articles the F35 is going to replace the A10 for CAS.
And considering that plane have about half the armor capacity of the A10 I think close air support will be downprioritised by manned aircraft in general.
Switchblade drones and other options are more likely replacements I am afraid.
Freedom? Are you for real?
Good video... gained some real perspective on the A-10 and its missions. Still love it though.. She will be missed!
I'm 72. This aircraft was supporting _me_ when I was on active duty in the infantry! I remember experiencing an A10 popping up unexpectedly over my position when my unit was playing OpFor in an exercise. We would have obliterated if we had been the actual enemy. A most impressive aircraft!
Damn! I might have soiled my shorts.
Greetings from Sweden
Am surprised the a-10 didn’t blue on blue you lol
My cousin died from A10 friendly fire. Do people even remember Pat Tillman? The military killed him. And they killed my cousin. Pure evil.
I would take every other aircraft as CAS over the A-10. That aircraft killed to many US and allied forces.
Good for you, tho the brits didnt think so.
The Marine Corps was an early and persistent champion of close air support (think of the legendary Pappy Boyington). I was a forward observer in Vietnam when my unit was crossing a rice paddy. We became pinned down by a large volume of machine gun fire from a tree line. I called in a fire mission. Our batteries were usually quick and efficient, but on this particular mission they were slow. I was just about to call the battery back when regiment interrupted to say my fire mission was on hold. An F4 Phantom with a loaded cannon pod was being diverted to our position. Within a few minutes he came in, as they say, guns blazing. When the roar subsided and the dust and smoke drifted away (literally), not only was the tree line silent, most of the trees themselves were gone.
Hell yeah. Similar shit happened in Iraq. I was a good distance away, but I witnessed an A10 take out about a platoon sized group of insurgents that were pushing on a bunch of marines. I was on overwatch calling out targets for a different mission is the area. I don't recall ATM what the marines were doing, but they were maybe 3 blocks distance from us? We see this group pull up firing everything they had, and then POOF! I swear I could see the red mist rising up into the air even from where I was. Shit got REAL quiet after that. A10s are absolute beasts.
The m61 Vulcan is no joke
I am so happy I found this channel. Finally, I am OK with the retirement of the A10.
I've been around the A-10 for 6 years and my unit just sent out our last ones to start acquiring F-16V blk 70's. In that time, I spend some of it supporting the test center where developing the new avionics upgrades on the current suite. The A-10 is far superior to the A-29 crop duster they developed as an excuse to retire the warthog and have already stopped supporting. Helicopters including the Apache are still very limited in their ability to provide CAS and are just as expensive to operate per flight hour. My knowledge on the drone world is far more limited but I commonly hear that they would prefer to not use them in CAS missions as you are ENTIRELY reliant upon sensors and good information from a TACP (I went to the wake of one of those 10 US infantry men and he was the TACP that called in the bad info).
F-16s are certainly out the door on being capable fighters for the near peer conflicts, and the USAF seems to think so as well. They are planned to take over the CAS mission and have the advantage of supersonic flight reducing the time it takes to get to the fight and increases the range of coverage. Aerial refueling is still the big strength of the US armed forces capability to project power and covers most of the 'efficiency' issues that originally favored the A-10.
It was always most telling to me how much the DoD favors an aircraft by how willing or unwilling they were to sell it to allied nations. The fact that the B-1, B-2, A-10, and F-22 will never be sold tells me that they never want to face them in a conflict. I include the bombers because it shows even how with all the air superiority fighters we have, still nobody wants to face those creations.
I think it’s gonna be a situation where brass are being a bunch of good idea fairies to look like they are doing something but when shit hits the fan there’s going to be a niche that will need to be filled and they will end up making something akin to the A-10
I take your point in many of the aspects that you speak of but mine is of a former attack helicopter pilot. The advantage that the Apaches have over the A10 and other fixed Wing assets is that we can hover and monitor the battlefield and hit targets from about 5 MI away. That's a huge asset Builder when you know that you could see the bad guys through thermal imagery better than the guys on the ground who's a thousand meters from them. I think both attack helicopters and the A-10 work well together but each can do a significant job on their own.
As a former combat engineer in the us army, we did some joint live fire exercises with them at fort Indian town gap. Man it was crazy watching the a10 slow down from recoil as it lit up old m113, and jeep vehicles after we called in coordinates.
The recoil from firing is equal to one of the jet engines at maximum output. So they should be used in a dive to maintain airspeed, or throttle up both engines.
Also, the gasses from the firing are enough to snuff out engines behind them, so pulling the trigger on the gun causes the engines to go into "relight" mode.
The A10 can not be replaced by F-35. It needs to be replaced by drones.
Turn the A-10 into a drone by auto-pilot control remotely.
@@williamzk9083there is also the T-6 Texan II and the attack helicopters of the army and marines. Overall there is more than capable firepower to cover the retirement of the A-10
@@almerindaromeira8352 the issue as I see it is not fire power but survivability. Attack helicopters are survivable if used properly. The next generation of helicopters will even have their own drones. Proper use of drones is survivable. Japan isn’t replacing its attack helicopters and is putting its money into drones.
I really have to give you props for the disclaimer at 14:02. Lot of channels would've tried to put a spin on that number(with either condemnation or dismissal) but you pointed out the reality and moved on.
Ah the Mk. 1 Eyeball, classic piece of kit. Highly recommend!
I live under the "Chalfont Approach" to the old Willow Grove Naval Air Station. I loved hearing an A10 flying at low altitude, 2 engines whining at low speed over my house. To me the 8 B52 engines were my Lullaby.
The amount of blue on blue generated by the A10 really is something else.
The A10 is an excellent CAS platform, as long as your opponent lacks the ability to shoot back at aircraft.
Any near peer is going to have MANPADS and a large amount of AA. Low and slow strafing just doesn't work when every enemy platoon has a MANPAD.
Ukraine war / Su25 losses shows this is true.
@@Lucas-st9tgshooting from long ranges is key.
That is why we have artillery and interdiction -- besides, this is war. No one has a guarantee.
Which is why we REALLY need to have more care for veterans!
@@Lucas-st9tg BTW Froogfoot is actually better then A-10
Thanks Cappy I do enjoy your vids and I am educated by them , that from an ex British sailor
i can remember, when i was learning this stuff....close air support is action of aircraft against hostile targets, that are in close proximity to friendly forces, every attack needs a datailed integratiin of that attack.....following by the the 12 steps of cas.......at AGOS......
Hey Cappy…..the A-10 holds a special place in my heart, because my late daddy had a hand in its design/engineering. Thanks for another amazing video, Cappy and the team.
🍻
Modern day Mosquito. I say make it out of stealthy wood like the Brit plane.
Glad you did a video on this! Articles from 2012 suggest that the airforce was thinking of creating a "Super" A-10 (modernized version of A-10), but around 2014, began to drop the idea due to the proliferation of the S-300 SA missiles. By 2016 they were firmly opposed. You can google articles and old documents from these years and watch their opinion slowly change to doubling down on F-35's.
There is just more money in building F35 white elephants than there is in upgrading A10s. That's how the military complex works.
A S-300 is a souped-up 1970s SAM system. The Israeli Air Force has spent nearly 50 years laughing at them from F4s, F15s and F16s. My bet is the S-400 not being as "awesome" as advertised...Just as nearly everything Russian.
@@tellyboy17 a modernised A-10 costs more than a brand new F-35 so you are just wrong.
@@mpondachongo1138 a plane that you buy 120 units off will tend to cost more than one you buy 4,000 of
@@tellyboy17You got a source for that? It seems like the F-35 has been a success and the cost has been dropping due to arms purchases and economies of scale.
In the Gulf War, the B-1 "plinked" hundreds of tanks. It had supersonic speed for rapid response, tremendous loiter time and a huge payload. Most tanks are destroyed by missiles. The B-1 was also an amazing "close air support" aircraft in Afghanistan.
With JDAMs, Hellfires, etc, a Close Air Support aircraft does not have to get down and dirty to destroy tanks and troops.
The Ukrainians are showing that cheap drones, rocket artillery, and cluster munitions are pretty darned effective at giving infantry support. And if you have an environment that is permissive enough for the A10 to operate without getting shot down, why not just use a C-130 gunship. And if it isn't, why not build giant bombers that can carry 10s of thousands of pounds of ordinance on the enemy from a safe distance.
Even Predator drones could be modified to hit the enemy in contested airspace without risking pilots. Cheaper, infantry deployable drones are being used to spot and clear out the enemy BEFORE you go in.
The days of the A-10 are over. Robots will replace them.
I don't think the F35 will work in this role, but a heavily armed drone could possibly be even more effective. The other option where a drone could be helpful is to identify targets while artillery or air support could stand off and delivery ordinance.
It seems to me to be a very tricky aircraft to replace, even in the modern battlefield. I agree I don't think the f35 has the same skillset
The F-35 is already testing small diameter bombs and can use external pylons. It excels in the air to ground role.
@@richardtuxford1812 How is it tricky when it was never needed in the first place? So any of you know the political history of this airframe and are you aware of the crony capitalism that goes on in Washington DC?
The MQ-9 took over CAS missions for the A-10 like a decade ago and has done 99% of them with greater success and precision than the A-10 ever did.
@@fnhatic6694 Pretty soon these A-10 guys will be saying the USAF should break out P-47 Thunderbolts and A-1 Skyraiders for CAS missions 🤣
Infantry vet and in field exercises when an A10 would fly over everything stopped, we loved that plane. The point is we could see it. Fast movers high up we’re never seen except the occasional con trail. My son, an infantry XO could call for artillery, Apaches, KC gun ships, a variety of fast movers, and once was able to task a B52 but never an A10 and had no need. Very sad but true. And there is a lot today he didn’t have, he said in the small town drones would have been huge. They had to just walk in and see who fired at them. Sorry A10s, we love you but it’s time.
FUBAR.
So you going to foot the bill for their next over budget, over priced piece of shit that doesn't do it's job that they attempt to replace it with?
"The point is we could see it"
this is, unfortunately, also the problem. "If you can see it, you can kill it" applies in air defense just as much as it does to ground warfare, assuming you have the equipment needed to perform the "kill it" part. Peer and near-peer adversaries have that equipment.
@@ShuRugal and the air force will not risk an F35 at its cost and its overheating engine to do CAS, they never wanted to do CAS and all the laser guidance isn't worth a crap if you aren't around and they will not be around.
The replacement needs to be many more cheap, unmanned drones piloted from afar. It enables more CAS over larger areas while not risking lives. The most likely adversaries of Russia and China are loaded with AA, so the A10 will be a sitting duck no matter how many systems are taken out.
Tbh, the airforce did find out that over 90% of the missions the A-10 flew in Afghanistan could've been done by a Super Tucano(A-29) more efficiently, cheaper and much more reliable (availability data collected by the airforce).
The video is amazing Cappi, as always!
I'll just add that "flying low and slow isn't possible in a modern battlefield" well... I think Ukraine and Russia have something to say about it, as the war in Ukraine shown that this is pretty much the only way for even Russian relatively modern SU-35SM to fly in a multi-layered AA environment, with pictures of Russian and Ukrainian Jets and Helicopters almost hitting the ground when trying to perform pretty much every mission, a war between China and the US would be pretty much the same as much as the F-35 would have more freedom to operate every other flying hull would be kissing the proverbial shit out the ground.
The A-29 is a very capable plane for counter insurgency, would hate to see it eaten alive in near-peer combat. The Skywarden is a good US equivalent.
@@BakaVHS I don't think that the A-29 is the best option for the US, I agree with you on that. And I would agree before 2022 invasion of Ukraine that it wouldn't survive in a modern battlefield, but now seeing how pretty much every aircraft are just hugging the ground, I do belive that the A29 availability, easy commands and low stall speeds would make it amazing at hugging the ground, and with it's armored cockpit it would better for Ukraine than it's Su-25
The US fights wars different to Russia, the first stage would be to perform SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defence), then DEAD (Destruction of Enemy Air Defence), then follow it up with a combined arms war. So the A10 exists in the space after DEAD with a favourable airspace for United States Air Forces. The Super Tucano could probably fill in the gaps given it has 2 internal .50 cal cannons (250 rounds each), a 20mm cannon pod (650 rounds). I will say the A10 took out the majority of the armor in the Gulf War (more than AH64, M1 Abrams combined) so its very versatile in taking out soft and hard targets. The F35 as a replacement is dumb, $42K USD per flight hour versus the $22K USD per flight hour of the A10, plus it has 17 seconds of gun time, where the F35 has 4 seconds of gun time.
In ukraine, the most shot down jet on both sides is the su 25 because they just get nailed with manpads
@@henryquecabral9357 for all of the reasons you noted... that is why the units sent to Afghanistan... were left in afghanistan... and just like the predocessor to that frame were left in Vietnam...
If I’m not mistaken, there have been tests done recently of the GAU-8’s effectiveness against modern ERA and other sorts of armor, and it was found to still be effective. I’m not sure about the parameters of the testing, but I don’t believe your point of it being ineffective against modern MBT armor to be entirely accurate.
Admittedly, I am biased for the Hawg, as I’m a crew chief at the first unit to fall victim to the divestment-the 122nd Fighter Wing in Fort Wayne, IN-but I think there is a lot that the platform offers that is simply irreplaceable, at least by anything currently in inventory. While survivability against modern A/A weapons systems is questionable, you also have to consider that A-10s would be far from the first thing sent out to the front lines. They’d be used more in support of friendly ground assets AFTER air dominance is obtained. Its payload and its loiter time are also huge, huge benefits. While the GAU-8 isn’t suited for everything, it is certainly accurate enough to conduct incredibly effective and precise CAS. One point that wasn’t made here is the cost associated with these PGMs (precision guided munitions) such as Mavericks, AGR-20 rockets, LGBs, JDAMs, etc. The GAU-8 may have SOME collateral damage potential, but really not substantial. To claim that a 500lb guided bomb has less potential for collateral damage than a burst of 30mm would be a bit crazy. AGR-20s would be effective for smaller targets which still require extreme precision, but again, the cost of such munitions is VASTLY higher than that of 30mm, and the A-10 is capable of carrying them anyway.
One other *hugely* important point I don’t see made often is this: A massive part of the reason the Hawg is such an effective airframe in the CAS and CSAR roles has nothing to do with the airframe itself, but the pilot. With the aircraft having been designed to fill a single role, and being used as it was originally intended for decades, A-10 pilots are just as specialized for such roles as the airframe. Tons and tons of knowledge of the ground fight is required to be an effective Hawg driver, and a pilot trained to be a multi-role pilot will simply not match the capabilities of one who is trained to specialize in a single (or, say 2-CAS/CSAR) mission with regard to that specific mission. This isn’t to say that those pilots would be ineffective at that or those mission/s, but just not AS effective-but I do believe that is a big difference.
Lastly, there are other roles the A-10 can fill, even if not for CAS and CSAR (though still very important missions, don’t get me wrong). Take some time to look at the ideas being tossed around recently-using the A-10 as a bomb truck, for SEAD by way of air-launched decoys, etc-it still has plenty of uses outside of its original design purely because of its reliability, survivability, payload capacity, and loiter capability.
I didn’t intend to write an entire essay here, but I just have too much love for the A-10, and really don’t think it’s a good idea to outright retire it and do away with the idea of a specialized CAS and CSAR platform as we stand right now. I see and understand the reasoning behind doing so, but respectfully-and strongly-disagree.
Cheers to anyone who actually cared to read all this by the way 😅🤙🏻
ERA doesn't work against kinetic armor penetrating rounds, so that's a nonsense argument. ERA is designed to defeat HEAT.
Of course the GAU-8 can be effective against 'armor'. Vehicles come in all sorts of armor. The question is, what *kind* of armor, how thick, what is the priority of the vehicles sporting said armor and most importantly: how close did you have to get to penetrate?
Do you even realize the GAU-8 was designed to penetrate the top armor of a tank the Soviets weren't even using anymore by the time they spooled up full rate production? The T-55 was replaced with the T-62 which had double the top armor, which meant the A-10 had to get in *significantly* closer, which means that ZSU-23-4s can eat that shit for lunch.
Also I don't know why you're pimping up the pilots, dude. The pilot is *wildly* oversaturated with the dogshit antique avionics in that thing (yes, even the C), which is why pilots murder the shit out of their own forces with it at a higher rate than any other airframe. They can't see, they have a thousand things to micromanage, it's way too much for one person with the technology available.
I can't imagine there was much left of those 2 helicopter kills by A-10 guns in Desert Storm.
"Close Air Support" is not about sticking a plane & pilot into harms way. It's about providing support which is "Close" to friendly forces. Same as "close artillery support". You don't run your artillery up to the enemy to use it point blank, and the only reason they did that with the A-10 is that in 1970's tech, it was hard to avoid friendly fire without an eyeball on the target zone.
The A-10 became somewhat obsolete over the course of the 1980's due to shoulder fired air defense systems. But it took a while for those systems to become prevalent among hostiles who "live in tents". It's about 20-30 years overdue for retirement. In terms of combat effectiveness, it's in much the same boat as the F-4. Cool plane... it would be perfect for fighting the vietnam war if it had come out sooner, but uh... things change.
F-35 can watch a soldier pee in the bushes while it's a barely visible spec in the sky, and send a cost effective, compact, precision ordinance (stormbreaker II) into his back pocket from a safe vantage point.
But frankly, even an F-16 could do "most" of that, with the help of a forward observer. So, A-10 has been showing it's age for a long time.
A10 can do it much much cheaper
Dang you changed my mind
A-10 needs to stay
@@myprivatewar Not really. As it ages, it becomes more expensive to keep alive.
@@myprivatewar Cheaper, yes. Even with all the extra duct tape expense for holding the old airframes together ;) SLEP is almost always cheaper than a new plane. But the issue of what you get for your trouble becomes less attractive. Do it cheaper? yeah. But the A-10 can't do it "better". And being in the plane which is a sitting duck for modern air defense systems, certainly not "cheaper" from the pilot's perspective.
Also, you're assuming it will survive long enough to "do it at all". A-10's are about as stealthy as a disco ball. And it has to get to the target area, which by definition is somewhere near the front lines, where there are enemy forces to 'do'. Curvature of the earth & terrain features can offer some protection, until you get close at least. But only if you have total air superiority. If you allow the enemy forces to have any airborne sensors, the A-10 would be lucky to even _see_ a target to 'do'.
And after you've gotten through A2AD, and swept all the enemy fighters away, you get your shot. But if properly equipped, the ground forces are likely to shoot back. You won't get very many kills before you get shot down. A shoulder fired MPADS costs anywhere from $100k to a few hundred $k. So you're not going to win any economic equations by maintaining & operating aircraft which feed kills to those.
The A-10 was lauded with praise in Desert Storm in 1991. And they did fly a lot of sorties. But they suffered getting hit 18 times in the process, 6 of which resulted in lost aircraft (it is a tough plane, i'll give it that). But that was just against the army of a strong-ish 3rd world country from 32 years ago ...who had no shoulder fired MPADS, and whose entire airforce & A2AD were rendered useless on day 1. They took 18 hits and 6 losses mainly to heavy machine guns on the ground. Which is the least effective tool possible for air defense on a modern battlefield. Even in Desert Storm, they had their sorties reduced and handed over to F-16's, because that was a much safer way to blow up tanks. So even in 1991, A-10's were starting to lose the edge on their blade against upper-3rd world armies.
They're going to give A-10's to Ukraine soon. I don't think Ukraine will actually fly them though. Ukraine doesn't have an endless supply of skilled pilots. Even putting ordinance on the A-10's and sending them to an area where there are Russian forces is of questionable value (even if you really hated that pilot, the ordinance has value). The "might" be of limited use, when retreating from a Russian advance, drawing the ground forces away from the protection behind them. Even then, it's debatable. The US isn't going to send any "advanced" aircraft to Ukraine though. Not when they're certain to drop parts into Russian possession.
I expect Ukraine will use them as flower planters or crop dusters. Or maybe they'll _try_ to use them in combat. I dunno. It would be a "balls bigger than brains" move, but that _sometimes_ could apply to Ukraine. And yeah, I feel bad saying that they're crop dusters. It was a pretty cool plane when it was brand new. Already behind the obsolescence curve when new (the hidden cost of "cheap" solutions), but it was cool for a while. I just hate seeing it dragged out to fight from it's wheelchair, because far too many people haven't kept up with advances in military tech after the cold war. When it was new, it could do ground attack cheaper, and more survivably, than an F-4 (as long as you had air superiority). But it wasn't an overtly better aircraft overall than a multirole F-4. Now? ...in the coast guard, the long loiter time would still be useful. Other than that, it's way overdue to go to the desert.
There's a reason why the F-15E and B-52 have "staying power". It's because range and payload never completely go out of style. At minimum, they force opposition air defense to spread over a _much_ larger area, or risk attack aircraft simply going around the air defense. It's difficult to take that particular leverage away from them with more advanced tech. Also they can both use 'very' beyond visual range ordinance, in effect just acting as a UPS truck to get modern ordinance to a point where the ordinance can do the heavy lifting. A-10 doesn't offer any of that.
Also if you want too talk cheaper, compare the A-10 to drones..
I love the A-10 as a concept and as a cool aircraft. It seems that its role is better filled by drones now, but that’s the opinion of an enthusiast civilian.
I think A-10 might still have a space right now, sooner than later we will need a replacement when the gen 4 F-15/ 16/ 18 and gen 5 f-22/ 35 starts "rotting" from doing too much CAS missions in place of the A-10...
they should at least start a project to wayfind for a potential replacement, even if they are not ready or wanting one... at least if they need one, they already have a template or blueprint to go... I mean do you really want to use a overkill weapon of essentially gassing the house" just to kill a cockroach or give it the smack and spray...
@@PrograError I keep seeing proposals to get a license to build Super Tucanos. Turboprop for that fuel efficiency and loitering, way more modern avionics, similar payloads.
Drones are so Unamerican, we should strap c4s to bald eagles instead and omg can you imagine the glorious screech of freedom that will sound every time something gets blown up ? 😍
@@Appletank8 Tucanos IIRC are more COIN ops than CAS
similar issues remains...
The A10 is about hearts and minds.
It is so graceful at air shows 🎉
About time.
This is an important video.
Chris, you've changed my mind.
I started this video with the thinking that the Pentagon gets paid off by Big Aviation, replacing what works whether it's needed or not. But man, the Hog is 50 years old. And your arguments make sense. Solid presentation all round. Well done.
Those were my thoughts as well. I hate to say it, but I think this has changed my mind.
Lazerpig goes into way more detail on the stuff in the second half of the video, if you're interested check him out
As an armchair general, I always loved the A10. But I thought its role is supposedly better served now by Apaches and their successors.
Their role is served by any modern plane with a modern ammunition. The close in close air support does not refer to the distance of the aircraft from the ground, but that it is close to allies on the ground. A WW2 bomber or a drone way, way up high, equipped with a proper targeted precision missile is already way more effective than an A-10 eyeballing it and spraying and praying
I lost it when you mentioned that ancient targeting system, the 'mark 1 eyeball'.
Anonymity not anoMinity. Just trying to help. Impressive work. Also impressed by your expansion of the scope of your subject matter. You increase the value of CZcams.
There's actually a lot of older vehicles that are getting to the point where the costs to keep them in service keep going up. It's also happening to the Navy to some degree, I believe, and I'm sure some Army vehicles are gonna have the same problem down the line if they aren't already. Tends to be exacerbated for the ones that have few numbers and demand use (ships need to sortie, pilots need to practice).
The maintenance death spiral - at some point maintenance of old platforms sucks up so much of the budget that you can't afford to buy new kit. The trick is to figure out when the balance shifts from "maintenance is more cost-efficient than buying new" to "maintenance is too expensive, we need to buy new" and get off the ride before that happens.
How much would it cost to build a brand new A-10 versus an F-35? How much does it cost to maintain an A-10 versus an F-35? Hmmmm
Give them to Ukraine 🇺🇦 it's probably cheaper shipping our old stuff to them 👍 problem solved 😉
@@tomstarcevich1147 That's what we've been doing. Some of the kit is new but most of it is ammo and vehicles that are approaching the end of their shelf life, so it's either donate them or scrap them. Cheaper to send them to Ukraine so that's what we're doing.
Meanwhile Russia deploying T55s and Mosin-Nagants :D
For the first time in my life, this year I saw two Warthogs doing a fly by at Tallinn airport, Estonia. As we are rather close to Mordor, it was indeed an impressive sight and a boost to trust in our international allies. Slava Geroyam!
Väga tore!
Would you support Estonia becoming a Vassal of the US? You get no freedom but all the security. What do you choose?
@@jacksevert3099 What are you getting at with this comment?
@@slowsubs9355 i truly wonder do people desire security more? Or freedom more? A wise man once said those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither but which would you choose? What would Estonia choose?
Ft Irwin CA 1978 will never be forgotten. That GAU 8 that sounded like a Monster to us, it was about 7 miles away but it sounded like it was right next to us. The rounds are meant to hit the TOP (both Turret and Hull), not straight on. Even the M1 A2's Top would be pinned.
Best description of the A-10
I was stationed at Little Rock AFB for 5 years, I remember one time driving down the highway headed towards base. The highway runs in a similar direction to the runway, and I remember watching an A10 on approach fly not more than a couple hundred feet directly overhead. While I work on the C-130, and will defend that aircraft to the end of my days, the flying gun will always hold a special place in my heart, as im sure it will for many others.
"...defend it?"
Then YOU pay for it
Uh.... you may want to talk to the friendlies who have been on the receiving end of A-10 fire. This platform is so antiquated, it is time to let it go. The need for air support like this is essentially non-existent.
@@kid31989 and we should get rid of the B-1B because it had friendly fire incidents too? Shit happens in war, it's tragic and horrible. But the call by infantry and marines for CAS has been made time and time again. Sure in a near peer conflict it will likely be less than useful, but it's been a workhorse for longer than most have been alive.
@@kid31989 Only in cases against enemies without AA would you want a weapon *Like* the A-10, but in that case just use a cheaper plane with more modern guided weapons and actual electronics to identify friendlies.💀
@@kid31989 that's what the air force claimed in viet nam.
It wasn’t until the end that you mentioned drones being a solid choice for CAS missions and I finally breathed a sigh of relief. Imo that’s one of the biggest reasons not to have a dedicated CAS aircraft anymore.
Drone capabilities are incredible these days, with the reaper drone showing a lot of promise as a primary CAS option.
We’re either fighting a near peer and need to consider air defenses - in which case modern multi-role fighters are a better option. Or we’re fighting smaller engagements, in which case small drones could also be a solid option. As we’ve been seeing in Ukraine, even commercial drones are effective at taking down enemy vehicles and dropping grenades.
There's nothing that an A-10 can do that a drone can't do better.
Multi role fighters provide CAS arguably better than the A10, having radars, being quicker (this also means they can drop ordinance from further away) and being able to beat other air targets.
Also the A-10 is so old it’s going so much money to maintain.
@@Secretlyanothernamethe a-10 is far superior going into an electronic warfare environment. It is cheaper than the F-35, can carry more weapons, is better protected and more survivable, can loiter longer, and be used on more airfields. What the A-10 doesn’t do is promote the airforce fighter pilot image and justify a 250 billion weapons program.
The army wanted the a-10 but the airforce refused to give up the funding.
Not one drone. A network of loitering munitions that you can call in with a laser pointer like Lancet
Just found out A-10 had a naval operation. "Operation Odyssey Dawn. An A-10 paired with a Navy P-3C Orion took on a patrol boat and several small attack craft in the port of Misrata" Any chance you could do a video about this?
You’d think they would make an updated version or new version that is cheeper yet still valuable
Many a soldier will shed some tears over the thought, even with all the wrinkles and age spots of 50 years still beautiful. As an Infantryman I felt I could share a drink with an A-10 pilot, with an F35 pilot not feeling it. The A-10 pilot is basically sharing the same moment with the Grunts, not the pilot 200 km away pushing a button like they are playing a video game.
As good as it is to morale, the A-10 does more harm than good. It's built on an outdated concept and has a notorious reputation for blue-on-blue incidents. The F-35 would get the job done much better. However, you really wouldn't be sending in 5th generation aircraft for CAS. An F-15E or F-16C would be a cheaper option that would still get the job done.
90% of A-10 fire missions are launching hellfires from 12 kilometers away and then going home my dude.
The AF wouldn’t use their expensive F35 on missions the A10 did
Used that cannon a lot
You've witnessed grown men crying over a discontinued airplane? War profiteers?
At the end of the day, every A-10 is a possible F-35 sale.
Not to mention, missiles cost more than bullets in sales
@@nephron9924 Though the "New" AC-130 does enjoy better standoff with being a "Missile Boat" yeah... That's more expensive than a 105mm. But yeah, same thing ref A-10. 8 combat deployments, 4 as a "Ground Guy" 4 as an AH64 aviator. Sometimes you have to get in close and shoot people in the face... --Not even a tertiary concern for USAF leadership that never wanted the CAS mission in the first place.
the look the sound
just has something
Maybe they could give the A10's specific areas to patrol, where it would hunt for supply convoys and other high value targets. We could make it a more opportunistic type hitter, working in conjunction with overhead drones to deny an enemy needed support.
My only concern is that Air Force brass has made hugely mistaken calls in the past, such as the infamous "fighters don't need guns anymore, they'll just kill from over the horizon with missiles." That didn't work out so well in Vietnam. I'm sure that once the plane is phased out some new tactical situation will arise and prove some of the platform based close air support specialties will need to be added back into the mix.
Except that's a myth most fighters in Vietnam had four missiles. Each missile had a probability to hit of 60% a hit is a kill whereas your cannon hit and kill rate was pathetic
The A10 has consistently failed to hit its target goals. Everything the A10 has that actually shines in its intended role goes against its chief design. The short of it is "close air support missions are tricky, with a very dense vagueness and incorrectness of information and friendlies are mixed with hostiles more often than not"
for "we don't know what we actually have to go there and shoot" the biggest solution is advanced targetting systems, which the A10 does not have natively
for "friendlies are close to the hostiles" the biggest solution is precise, guided weapons, which the A10 does not have natively.
relying on binoculars and a gun with a bullet spread that you can fit a row of school buses into makes for a horrible close air support weapon.
Unsurprisingly, very early on and to this day the A10s in use in this role have extensible upgrades that go against its core design. Namely advanced avionics, targeting and missiles.
Fighters don't need guns anymore, when they can make upsetting posts on the enemys Facebook page or send a mean tweet.😂 A woke approach to airforce assets.
Thing is, vietnam was 50 years ago, missiles and radar have both advanced so much that the saying is for the most part true... A modern F35 is as invulnerable compared to planes from the vietnam war, as planes from the vietnam war era would have been to ww2 planes
@@alamore5084 Ha Ha Ha, I Like that One ! what I think of top brass is not good on a bad day !! they have always had a Tendency To Get Good Men Killed With their guess Work IN Any given Situation !!
The biggest problem is not that the A-10 can't do CAS anymore on the modern battlefield. It's that the AF doesn't want to do CAS at all. As you say, CAS is a mission not a platform. Here is the thing though, having a dedicated platform means having a dedicated group of pilots and a community that eats, sleeps, and breaths CAS. This might be a hot take, but I can see the Army turning some of it's new tilt-rotor aircraft into modern sky-raiders to fill the gap.
This is blatantly not true. If USAF didn't do CAS, Army would get fixed wing combat aircraft back. There is no gap, either, an A-10 is objectively inferior to an F-35 at CAS in every way except cannon size and ammunition.
You're right about the dedicated CAS community, though. The only reason A-10 has made it this long is the justification "see! We have an ENTIRE AIRCRAFT and community that is completely incapable of anything else because their aircraft suck. It proves we care about CAS!"
* proceeds to conduct CAS better, in larger quantities, with strategic bombers, eating up the airframe life of the entire B-1B fleet *
@@superfamilyallosauridae6505 And the fleet of 64 F-111F's got more tank kills during desert storm than the 144 strong fleet of A-10s. The A-10 has been out classed for decades now, it couldn't even match the now retired F-111 at it's own niche. With the F-15E and AT-802U there's no role left for the A-10 to fill.
@@superfamilyallosauridae6505 Air interdiction is NOT CAS. Fighters don't have loiter time. Fighters, sceam by too fast to put eyes on target. Fighters are not armed to spend time low enough to see what they are doing. But USAF LOooooves it some fighters... Regardless of utility. So keep repeating the line but F35 is not a superior CAS platform. You did hit one thing right. The ONLY reason USAF talks CAS is to hold on to that funding. It will be up to Army to make the case to Congress that F-35 isn't supporting the mission so they can get the money back
@@jeffprice6421the sniper XLR pod does allow it to see what they are targeting. No one need to go low anymore not that it helped the a10 with its very high friendly fire incident rate
CAS is simply not possible against a modern opponent, no amount of SEAD/DEAD will get rid of all close range systems and manpads. The Ukraine war further validates this, attrition rate is to high for such an expensive platform. The GWT gave the A-10 an opportunity to shine against an opponent with zero airdefence but unless round 2 of Afghanistan is in the works that money is desperately needed elsewhere.
The problem with the A 10 is that it just happened to fill out a perfect niche that makes it relevant for so long (destroying insurgents with no dedicated AA all while costing a fraction of other jet powered aircraft). Doesn't help that the jets are so old that maintaining them is more expensive than actually purchasing new aircrafts. Armed turborprop cropduster and UCAV can fill out the A 10's current role while costing even less in terms of service
Plus the only unique thing about the A-10 is the gun. 90%; of the A-10’s kills were with bombs and missiles. The gun is responsible for a truly horrific number of friendly fire incidents.
Burt Rutan's Ares would bee a good successor to the A-10. Less expensive and lighter, with a 20mm cannon but the same basic idea.
The F35 JSF is a very good replacement for the A10 going forward in the future. CAS is evolving. It's getting much easier for infantry to hold their own against armor, as we can see in Ukraine. And the need for stealth in aircraft is becoming more clear as adversaries get more advanced.
The JSF also capable of extreme precision in target identification and can carry a variety of anti ground weapons.
Plus, its a common air frame for a ton of roles. It was designed with that in mind. I love the A10 as much as any American, but I understand that not all things last forever.
I first saw an A10 do a mock attack over the RAF base I was serving on in the late 1970s. I left the RAF in the mid 90s after 20 years. I'm retired now. Every aircraft I ever put a spanner to is in a museum or scrapyard. Aircraft much younger than the A10.
She served us well, sometimes you have to let things go. Legendary aircraft always have an expiration date.
The air force just wants the billion dollar planes that we can't afford with our present admin.
@@mikelee6936i assume you have considered the price of the A-10 before you made this cmment? Operating F-35’s is getting cheaper and cheaper and will soon (if it hasnt already) become cheaper to operate than A10’s
The A-10 is a heavily dated airplane and keeping it flying requires more and more maintainance and spare parts.
Except the Buff. The Buff lives forever.
B-52?
Yup, and everytime the AF puts it in an airshow... it still gets the loudest applause.
Valid points, as much as I hate to admit it. I know we loved having them in the area in Afghanistan.
I think one key here is that CAS is now two separate and distinct missions:
1) Counterinsurgency (COIN)
2) Conventional forces
For a COIN environment, not having air defense, it might be wise to simply develop a turboprop aircraft.
For conventional warfare, maybe start with a 60 mm DU gun and go from there. Design a tough drone around it, also a turboprop, but add in laser guided and/or inertial guided bombs GPS jamming is a thing). As long as we can maintain our commo capabilities to keep them flying, we should be all set. Add in modern sensor and commo networks to prevent friendly fire mishaps. Make them modular and cheap so they're easy to repair and move en masse. The war in Ukraine is certainly proving how valuable drones can be; if we can easily get good target designation and keep humans in the kill loop, we could use anywhere from one drone to a dozen for target designation and then unleash a swarm that would take out every piece of armor an enemy could field within minutes.
Imagine a dozen drones designating targets, each with ten AI piloted escort drones...
The air force is all about fighting the NEXT war, not the last one. Engagements from beyond the horizon, unmanned aerial vehicles, drone swarms, precision weapons, hyper advanced radar and other sensors... all of which means that any near-peer conflict is going to look radically different than the romantic ideal of two pilots dogfighting in the sky above the raging battle on the ground.
I'm not saying this shouldn't be accounted for but take into consideration how such predictions have been wrong in the past.
@@foxale08We are watching what a 21st century war would look like in Ukraine, and it’s quite clear that the A-10 won’t work. It’s not about predictions.
Yeah, close air support against anyone who can fight back is dead. Its suicide. Plus the Armed Crop Duster AT-802U Sky Warden attack aircraft, does it cheaper vs those that cant and drones and HIMARS can fill in the rest.
@@foxale08 I assume you're talking about things like the failure of the F4 back in the 60s? You're right that didn't work out but that was largely a failure of the early guided missiles and a doctrine that required positive ID before engaging which removed the F4's advantages in speed and engagement distances and forced them into dogfights. Compare that to the performance of F-15s in desert storm when the weapons had matured and were paired with an aircraft that dominated in long range engagements and dogfights and the difference is night and day. Missile technology has continued to improve since then so I think his statement is more true now then it has ever been
Against who? Have you seen the "2nd most powerful military in the world" fighting in Ukraine? they are basically fighting WW1 with drones. We are allied with all the near-peer countries. China is not as big of a threat as people think it is.
The youngest A-10 air frame is 40 years old.
Farm them out to the Ukrainians instead of disposing of them to learn lessons and start a development program to replace it.
Considering there is no risk of a great power conflict on the horizon in Europe the A-10 just doesn't have the range to have an impact in a conflict with China. It doesn't make sense maintaining a 40 year old platform when it'll need to be replaced in the near term regardless, but especially in a great power conflict.
Not sure Ukraine wants A10s given they have Su-25s.
F16s would be the better choice given it’s ability to conduct combat air patrol and SEAD.
If the primary SHORAD systems of the Russian VKS weren’t using 30mm rounds, the A-10 could be useful but even flying low won’t save it this time around. (Pretty sure it’s armor is only rated for 23mm rounds)
I believe an ulterior motive for retiring the A-10 is to do just that: giving them to Ukraine as "old" assets. I'm just speculating this, but it could be another 5D chess move by the U.S.
Us Mexicans also need some frames to further repel cartel operations to protect our troops.
The Russian have a lot of SAM, even for a US pilot, with many years of training, with would be a really difficult mission. Giving planes to pilots with no experience with the A10, won't make any good for Ukraine.
Relative to the power of air defenses in Ukraine, giving them this platform is just a plan to get Ukrainian pilots killed while bringing no game changing abilities.
It would be so cool if, like some older warbirds, they allowed private purchase (with the GAU-8 made inoperable of course).
Finding parts would be an issue, but it amuses me to think of someone having to put a crap ton of ballast in the body to keep the center of gravity in the right spot with the gun missing 😅
@@ex4787 I think that crushing up a vw beetle is the acceptable solution. The gun is often described as a similar size and weight. Still, wouldn’t need to remove it…easy enough to make it just not work by welding some rotary parts and plugging the barrels.
Let’s have chocolate ice cream but without chocolate or being ice cream
@@tsarnicholasiiiofthegreatr5578 hahahaha! I think the plane would just be a pleasure to fly Braaaaatttt or not. Maybe we make it shoot confetti?
@@done.6191 you're like Mike Sparks if he was smart
I was in the Army 1986 tell 1990. The Airforce was talking about getting rid of the A-10 then. They change that when the Army and few Maries leaders said they would take it if the Airforce didn't want it. This was told to us by are Sergeant Major. He said it was a close door meeting at pentagon. I would not be surprised if he was at meeting.
A-10.. The king of friendly fire.
Yup. The British army can testify to that 😢
The A-10 gun run was an impressive sound to hear. Luckily for me, I only ever heard it while training.
I remember when the Air Force tried to replace the A-10 with the B-1 Lancer. 😂😂😂😂
Sky warden
AC130
Apache longbow
Can help with close air support but the A10 is just bad ass and just needs upgrades in targeting and load out.
Living in Tucson, next to the training center for A-10 pilots at Davis Monthan AFB, I'm going to miss seeing these literal flying tanks just glide over the valley. Hearing that engine sound will never get old. I hope that I am able to buy one someday, as a company in California just bought F-16s, so I have hope lol. I'm going to miss that plane, seeing it fly overhead is what got me interested in all this in the first place.
I was stationed at Nellis AFB in the early 80's and was in the 433rd AMU Satan's Angles as a weapons troop on F-15's. The AMU right next door had A-10's. I had a buddy in that AMU that I went to tech school at Lowry with. Sometimes during lunch I'd walk over and check out the A-10's. They're awesome machines. It sad to see them being retired.
Nice video... hmm you mixed imperial measurement with metric. I then have to keep converting them. Outside of that great video
Whats the use of SAMs if it was already down by long range surface to surface missiles, himars or kamikazee drones