The Army wants to keep them. F-35s can’t do the A-10’s job properly, and the A-10 has a reputation. However, they are old with no replacement even in the works because the Air Force only wants bombers or fighters.
Which job is that? Killing hiluxes and insurgents with no air defense capabilities? Because against everybody else the A-10 throws stand-off munitions from medium altitude, when it’s not banned from entering hostile airspace.
It’s no coincidence nobody wants to operate it. Not any foreign air force, not USAF that is stuck with it and not the US army that was offered it(they are fine with USAF paying for it).
F-16s can do anything useful the A-10 can and much more.
Well it all depends on what you’re doing. The A-10s can carry more ordinance, longer loiter times, more heavily armored than something like the f35.once you establish air superiority you need trucks to dump munitions as fast and cheaply as possible.
That’s not the F-35’s role, that’s the F-16’s role for the USAF (and most western air forces) and carries as much ordinance, has better range since it’s not hampered by armor.
It also actually has performed low-level attacks against AAA, something the A-10 was banned from doing in Desert Storm, despite having armor for that specific task.
Which is the issue, the A-10’s core concept is flawed. Armor does not provide suitability to aircraft, not even against AAA, never mind SAMs. Compromising performance (speed, range), forgoing capabilities (A2A radar) makes the plane practically useless.
You seem to forget that the A-10 is only about 50 years old. The armor, redundant controls, and flight capabilities (such as being designed to fly while missing half a wing, half the entire tail, and an engine) are there to keep the pilot safe. They have landed after being hit more than once, and entirely due to it’s design.
The A-10 isn’t an air superiority fighter; it’s an attack craft and does that job well enough than any grunt on the ground is disappointed when a request for air support is answered by anything BUT an A-10.
It needs an update, sure, but it is far from useless.
You seem to forget that the A-10 is only about 50 years old. The armor, redundant controls, and flight capabilities (such as being designed to fly while missing half a wing, half the entire tail, and an engine) are there to keep the pilot safe. They have landed after being hit more than once, and entirely due to it’s design.
Yeah, it was also designed to kill tanks with the gun which it doesn’t do. As for flying with missing half a wing, it hasn’t happened with an A-10. An F-15, an unarmored plane, has landed missing a whole wing in real life. Many planes, all unarmored, have taken hits and survived.
The A-10 isn’t an air superiority fighter; it’s an attack craft and does that job well enough than any grunt on the ground is disappointed when a request for air support is answered by anything BUT an A-10.
Grunts have no clue. Literally, they listed the A-10 having a copilot as a reason why they prefer it.As in they misidentify aircraft as the A-10.
The A-10 also only did that during low-intensity, counterinsurgency operations. Against infantry with technical. The M-61 is perfectly capable of destroying technicals. Go lookup a video of it in action and tell me it’s not capable and you need the GAU-8.
Yes it can do the job, it doesn’t do it better than multirole fighters that you are going to have anyways. It actually does it worse. It was restricted to 20nmi from the border in Desert Storm during day time. It was assigned to destroy enemy vehicles with standoff munitions from medium altitude, to keep it safe from AAA. Meanwhile F-16 did low level attacks with unguided bombs on SAM units that had organic AAA defenses.
In any case the US has a huge military budget so wasting money on the A-10 is not an issue.
Which job is that? Killing hiluxes and insurgents with no air defense capabilities? Because against everybody else the A-10 throws stand-off munitions from medium altitude, when it’s not banned from entering hostile airspace.
It’s no coincidence nobody wants to operate it. Not any foreign air force, not USAF that is stuck with it and not the US army that was offered it(they are fine with USAF paying for it).
F-16s can do anything useful the A-10 can and much more.
Well it all depends on what you’re doing. The A-10s can carry more ordinance, longer loiter times, more heavily armored than something like the f35.once you establish air superiority you need trucks to dump munitions as fast and cheaply as possible.
That’s not the F-35’s role, that’s the F-16’s role for the USAF (and most western air forces) and carries as much ordinance, has better range since it’s not hampered by armor.
It also actually has performed low-level attacks against AAA, something the A-10 was banned from doing in Desert Storm, despite having armor for that specific task.
Which is the issue, the A-10’s core concept is flawed. Armor does not provide suitability to aircraft, not even against AAA, never mind SAMs. Compromising performance (speed, range), forgoing capabilities (A2A radar) makes the plane practically useless.
You seem to forget that the A-10 is only about 50 years old. The armor, redundant controls, and flight capabilities (such as being designed to fly while missing half a wing, half the entire tail, and an engine) are there to keep the pilot safe. They have landed after being hit more than once, and entirely due to it’s design.
The A-10 isn’t an air superiority fighter; it’s an attack craft and does that job well enough than any grunt on the ground is disappointed when a request for air support is answered by anything BUT an A-10.
It needs an update, sure, but it is far from useless.
Yeah, it was also designed to kill tanks with the gun which it doesn’t do. As for flying with missing half a wing, it hasn’t happened with an A-10. An F-15, an unarmored plane, has landed missing a whole wing in real life. Many planes, all unarmored, have taken hits and survived.
Grunts have no clue. Literally, they listed the A-10 having a copilot as a reason why they prefer it.As in they misidentify aircraft as the A-10.
The A-10 also only did that during low-intensity, counterinsurgency operations. Against infantry with technical. The M-61 is perfectly capable of destroying technicals. Go lookup a video of it in action and tell me it’s not capable and you need the GAU-8.
Yes it can do the job, it doesn’t do it better than multirole fighters that you are going to have anyways. It actually does it worse. It was restricted to 20nmi from the border in Desert Storm during day time. It was assigned to destroy enemy vehicles with standoff munitions from medium altitude, to keep it safe from AAA. Meanwhile F-16 did low level attacks with unguided bombs on SAM units that had organic AAA defenses.
In any case the US has a huge military budget so wasting money on the A-10 is not an issue.