And has numerous incidents of being blown to bits and still returning to base. The pilot themselves is literally inside a “titanium bathtub”.
Keep in mind finally that the nature of this aircraft is not to engage from a stand-off distance but rather be up close. Ultimately I’m really curious what brought this bird down.
… The V-22 Osprey on the other hand… Look at it wrong and she falls out of the sky.
F-16s flew a little over 13,000 sorties during Desert Storm with fewer losses and (importantly) a higher mission success rate. Also Chuck Horner was on record as saying that he kept A-10s away from anywhere the Iraqi Republican Guard was operating as they had access to actually functional air defenses that would have shredded the A-10s.
Basically A-10 pilots bragging about Desert Storm is like someone being sent to go wrestle some toddlers and coming back with a bloodied nose and broken bones and bragging about how tough and resilient they were not to have bled out.
Not to mention it is no longer 1991 and the A-10 is even less useful on a modern battlefield.
I mostly agree, which is why I knew the air frame was largely being antiquated given modern warfare; that being said it does not change that the warthog itself is designed and proven to take a pummeling relative to these other planes who fly significantly higher and stand off further away, or that Warthog losses are rare. They’ve taken plenty of hits from MANPADS, have .50 and 20mm rounds blow off parts of the tail and punch through the hull, and kept flying, so I’m curious what air-defense system took this one down.
There’s another point to this that is probably more important to highlight: Leadership matters. A rook is a strong chess piece, but if you launch it out of the gate in your opening moves and don’t protect it you’re in for a bad time. Any war sim or RTS should convey this idea. It is rare for these to come down relative to the sorties because good commanders know when the strengths and weaknesses of their pieces.
Might have something to do with at least 10 highly experienced Generals being fired by Kegsbreath recently… Leaving aside all the others he’s done. Seems intentional.
Are you factoring in as a percent of combat sorties and proportionality? Because when taking this into account, I’m not sure that’s right.
And has numerous incidents of being blown to bits and still returning to base. The pilot themselves is literally inside a “titanium bathtub”.
Keep in mind finally that the nature of this aircraft is not to engage from a stand-off distance but rather be up close. Ultimately I’m really curious what brought this bird down.
… The V-22 Osprey on the other hand… Look at it wrong and she falls out of the sky.
F-16s flew a little over 13,000 sorties during Desert Storm with fewer losses and (importantly) a higher mission success rate. Also Chuck Horner was on record as saying that he kept A-10s away from anywhere the Iraqi Republican Guard was operating as they had access to actually functional air defenses that would have shredded the A-10s.
Basically A-10 pilots bragging about Desert Storm is like someone being sent to go wrestle some toddlers and coming back with a bloodied nose and broken bones and bragging about how tough and resilient they were not to have bled out.
Not to mention it is no longer 1991 and the A-10 is even less useful on a modern battlefield.
I mostly agree, which is why I knew the air frame was largely being antiquated given modern warfare; that being said it does not change that the warthog itself is designed and proven to take a pummeling relative to these other planes who fly significantly higher and stand off further away, or that Warthog losses are rare. They’ve taken plenty of hits from MANPADS, have .50 and 20mm rounds blow off parts of the tail and punch through the hull, and kept flying, so I’m curious what air-defense system took this one down.
There’s another point to this that is probably more important to highlight: Leadership matters. A rook is a strong chess piece, but if you launch it out of the gate in your opening moves and don’t protect it you’re in for a bad time. Any war sim or RTS should convey this idea. It is rare for these to come down relative to the sorties because good commanders know when the strengths and weaknesses of their pieces.
Might have something to do with at least 10 highly experienced Generals being fired by Kegsbreath recently… Leaving aside all the others he’s done. Seems intentional.