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Titanium Rain
Curious Droid
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Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "Lockheed AH-56 Cheyenne, possibly the best attack helicopter never made" video.

@junaidisutara4577 But many aircraft can fire the AGM-65. The reason the cannon gave the A-10 extra life is because 30mm rounds have a much smaller danger close radius, you can hit enemies closer to your own friendlies than you could with a bomb.
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@DeliciousDeBlair "it is ugly (marring the image many high-and-mighty elitist in the USAF tried to present with their other aircraft)" - This is complete rubbish. Air Force A-10 pilots love the plane. Anyone into aviation loves the looks of the A-10. "the aircraft has NOT ONLY indeed proven its self SUPER effective in combat," - To the point that in 1991 it had to be grounded due to all the losses and battle damaged A-10s. It was outdated by the 1980s and it suffered a bloody nose in the first Gulf War. "the best chances of survival [shown by how much of it can be shot off and it still flies] in low altitude situations" - Most modern aircraft can do what the A-10 does without resorting to low altitude. Low altitude is a Vietnam-era relic of the time the machine outpaced the human. Give the human a machine eye and the machine can be unleashed. "the A-10 has done its exact purpose built role in close air support, if not identical to a helicopter, far better than the F-35 they are trying to replace it with." - What? Multirole aircraft are better at CAS than the A-10. The F-35 is a next gen multirole. Why wouldn't it be better than the A-10?
14
@thedungeondelver "After the Gulf War, the Air Force was going to retire the A10." - After 7 downed and 13 written off as battle losses, it should have been. "The Army lobbied to get the planes, then the Air Force did a 180', because there were clear indications that Congress was going to allow them to do it." - All I could find was that congress decreed that some A-10s and OA-10s should be put under the Army but in November 1990 the USAF was ordered to retain them.
9
@kineticdeath the A-10 only gets 11% of CAS missions as of 2014. F-18s, F-16s, F-15s and B1s have replaced the A-10 in the CAS role.
8
@tegunn lumbering is death on the modern battlefield.
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@tegunn Vietnam was the age where the machine was flying but the human eye had to look for targets when they were not provided. Trying to fight Vietnam in 2020 is a huge mistake. Aircraft performance had to be hindered to allow the human to stay in the loop. With modern pods, the pilot does not need to fly low and slow to see targets.
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@MrDarrylR The A-10 can only operate in uncontested airspace, where the F-35 would have access to air refueling because there's no danger to tankers. The GAU-8 is not by any means cost effective when it should have been replaced by even more cost effective turboprop aircraft with lower caliber gunpods. "The F35 costs $67k per flight hour, the A10 $19k per flight hour" - In the modern battlefield, the F35 comes back home while the A-10 doesn't. In a counter insurgency, there's turboprops with even cheaper flight hours that can operate out of forward bases even closer to the action so they'll get there sooner than the slow A-10. "Each of those A10s can carry more air to ground munitions" - 16,000 pounds for the A-10 versus 18,000 pounds for the F-35. "The A10 perhaps isn't ideal for near peer warfare in a contested air environment." - It's worse than awful. The 1991 losses sealed the deal. "But we haven't fought a near peer in 75 years" - Excuse me? When Desert Storm happened the Iraqi military was one of the largest of the world at the time and it was battle hardened by the Iran-Iraq war. You fail to remember that before the counter insurgency phase normally you'll have to get through either modern Russian/Chinese weapons or at least a couple of decades old equipment. Even if you're not fighting near-pear you may have to face their weapons. And in that war 7 A-10s got shot down and another 13 were written off after landing with too much battle damage.
7
@kineticdeath they don't randomly grab anything, or at least in theory shouldn't. First of all it's a function of speed, range, airbase distance and payload. Second, the F/A-18 is Navy. If low maintenance and cost per flying hour is your deal, then the A-10 should have been replaced by the Super Tucano.
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@markinl.a.4954 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP0f1_f8nuc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqaYI5VWkgE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idVY2KumIcA "Feel free to explain why we should believe a word they say while you're at it." - That's the point. You're not meant to believe them. That's the thing I've been trying to tell you the whole time. You claim America's enemies want to replace the A-10 - actually they want it to stay in service. That's why they say the F-35 is shit, and call Pierre Sprey the designer behind the A-10 when he was a defense analyst.
6
@JoaoSoares-rs6ec "most aircraft at the time were built to either be fast our Cary lots of weapons" - The A-7 was faster than the A-10 and carried 15k pounds versus the A-10s 16k pounds. "but no one was built to take such a pounding" - The A-7 was armored. "if any they were very fragile" - No. "The A10 was built to go against soviet columns" - And it was discovered to have been a suicidal mission. The A-10 was really built for Vietnam. In 1991 it got shredded apart by Iraqis and had to be grounded.
6
@terryboyer1342 "The A-10s used today are vastly superior to the ones used in the Gulf War" - So are air defenses. "Completely upgraded avionics and NVG capable now as well as employing all the PGMs available. Plus they are now outfitted with the Litening II targeting pod." - Oh wow so they can do what other jets do. Funny how that goes. "The Gulf War A-10s had none of this" - It wouldn't have helped. They'd still be getting shredded by AA and popped by missiles. "btw wasn't the F-111 retired about 20 yrs ago while the A-10 may still be flying 20 years from now?" - Precisely. The A-10 should have been retired with dignity but you people insist on dragging it's corpse. Since 2014 it gets what? 11% of CAS missions? What does it matter if it's still flying in 20 years if the fast jets are doing its job? "The A-10 had a lower loss to mission rate than the F-16" - the F-16 had more CAS missions than the A-10 in 1991 and got shot down 3 times, versus the A-10 which got shot down 7 times. "Here's a cool site that should piss you off for weeks to come." - You mean this one? http://rjlee.org/air/ds-aaloss/ first do ctlr+F "F-16" and then "A-10"
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@terryboyer1342 So you agree that CAS is a mission not a platform, and then you ridicule the use of aircraft capable of dropping warheads on foreheads? "In neither of these platforms can the person who designates targets and pushes the button to employ weapons even see outside the aircraft" - Are you seriously implying that that the Mark I Mod 0 Eyeball is better than a gimbaled, stabilized image that can see people scratching their nuts from ten thousand feet in the air and also IR strobes and laser designators? Having to see the fight from up in the air is an absolute clusterfuck and caused blue on blue because you can't see shit. Do we have to set up an airsoft event and you fly over with a Cessna and try to actually judge what's going on with your own two eyes while you're busy flying the plane? Good luck. First documentary features Pierre Sprey who is a charlatan and borderline "aviation stolen valor" by allowing himself to be introduced by Russia Today as the designer of the A-10 and F-16 when he was never anything more than a defense analyst who never worked for Fairchild or General Dynamics. Second documentary, you can argue that Marine Harrier pilots were also grunts in the sky considering that part of their officer training included being trained in forward air control with grunts. Hardly exclusive to the A-10. Again, it's a mission not a platform and pilots need training to perform it. If you listen to pilot interviews from other countries where the main fighter force is composed of multiroles you'll notice that they do rotate from time to time because they need their fighter pilots to also be proficient in bombing. You can make a multirole pilot a grunt of the sky.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec The A-10 was designed for Vietnam where the main AAA threat was 14.5mm guns, not 23mm. The A-7 was just as armored as the A-10, just lacks the mythical titanium bathtub because it doesn't need it. Second ranking in the amount of ordnance dropped over Hanoi with only six USAF A-7s lost in the entire war. Sounds like a survivable aircraft to me. "those are still good numbers other aircraft like attack helicopters would not be able to survive" - But the F-16 flew more CAS missions than the A-10 in 1991 with only three shot down. That's less than half of the A-10 losses despite flying more.
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@markinl.a.4954 Buddy did you drink before posting? Where did I say the Russians praise the F-35? They publish non-stop propaganda about how it's garbage. So why would the Russians want it to fail? If it's so shit, they want it to replace the A-10.
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@terryboyer1342 "Halfway through the campaign at a press conference Horner quietly stated " I take back every bad thing I've ever said about the A-10. I love them. They're saving our ass!"" - Then why were they grounded after 7 shot down and 13 coming back to be written off due to battle damage? The A-10 was grounded, prohibited from flying missions against the Iraq republican guard and it killed less tanks than the F-111.
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@earlwyss520 "The USAF has acquired several excellent CAS aircraft, yet gets rid of them at the first opportunity. Examples are A-7" - The A-7 was dropped because of the pressure to adopt the YA-10. The USAF sacrificed the A-7 to get the A-10. The A-7F variant should have been built, not the A-10.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec "the program was for jet engine aircraft not propeler, drop th crap." - Again I will quote the A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) SYSTEMS ENGINEERING CASE STUDY by David R. Jacques, PhD, LtCol USAF (Ret) and Dennis D. Strouble, PhD. "The A-X was to use an existing state-of-the-art engine in order to achieve an early Initial Operational Capability (IOC). The number and type of engines was not specified by the RAD; they would be determined by trade-space analysis considering performance, cost, survivability and maintainability." "On 19 April 1967, the F-X SPO forwarded a preliminary proposal22 to AFSC headquarters. The AFRDQ A-X Proposal contained the Air Force (ASD) configuration studies for two candidate vehicles. The first vehicle configuration used a single turbo-prop engine, while the second vehicle configuration used two wing-mounted turbofan engines. Neither of these configurations was considered optimal, but they were considered representative of aircraft available in the 1970 time period." "Each of four contractors awarded study contracts in May 1967 submitted design approaches in support of the Concept Formulation Package. These design studies considered a range of design choices in: 1) Airframe and Propulsion; 2) Avionics; 3) Armament; and 4) Survivability Provisions. The performance regime specified for the A-X posed no stringent requirements on the airframe, and conventional aluminum airframes were recommended by all contractors. There was more variation in propulsion options, but all contractors recommended either turboprop or turbofan engines, either in single or twin engine configurations. Engine availability investigations by the Air Force determined there were no suitable turbofan engines that could meet the required IOC, and even excursion investigations that removed the IOC constraint favored the use of turboprops. The reason for this conclusion was that the available thrust from the turboprop exceeded that of the turbofan at all speeds up to approximately 400 knots. The primary operating regime of the A-X existed below this value." The program never demanded a jet engine, in fact the Air Force was hesitant to deploy jet engines because turboprops were more efficient at the low speeds required of the A-X aircraft. How can you ask me to drop the crap when I'm speaking the truth? Here's drawings of the turboprop proposals for the A-X program - http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UsRRCo2Zho4/TipD1H4QzOI/AAAAAAAAAt8/_X_m0YNhWd0/s1600/GD-AX-Turboprop.jpg General Dynamics http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tGZXeRfc5yQ/TipETlz12jI/AAAAAAAAAuE/YplQYPYsR7g/s1600/Northrop-AX-Turboprop.jpg Northrop "armor doesn't have to protect every thing, just the essential" - if you destroy everything around the essential, the aircraft can't fly either because there will be no aircraft left. "i'm done wasting time whit you" - No, you're done getting proven wrong by actual facts.
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@terryboyer1342 What erroneous views? What facts and evidence? Video of gun runs? There's video of fighters doing gun runs on ground targets. "You earlier opined the A-10 was "unsurvivable" on the modern battlefield due to it's slow speed and lack of stealth. And now you propose a turbo prop as a replacement?" - The US is not fighting in a "modern" battlefield, it's fighting in a COIN role. Turboprops can deploy closer to the action, have lots of loiter time, the Super Tucano is just 20 knots slower in terms of cruise speed so if it can operate from closer it gets there faster. "Or that you could just "slap" a GAU 8 on them" - I'd suggest either paying attention, or not lying about what I said. Lying about things I said is one of the few things I cannot tolerate. Do you need 30mm to kill flesh and bone? There's miniguns, three barrel 50 caliber gatlings, if you want there's high caliber single barrel cannons. All of them will shred Toyotas and people. Do you want gun runs? Or do you want the BRRRT? Because I'd respect the honesty if this was about nostalgia. "Relatively simple and low cost compared to most anything else" - It's low cost compared to high performance jets. A Super Tucano costs less than half per hour than the A-10 so if your issue is cost the AF was looking into it through the OA-X. But the BRRRT cultists won, and despite the extra cost the A-10 will continue flying. So don't tell me it's about cost because y'all are willing to pay more to keep the A-10 flying like a ship of Theseus. "He stated the Army would take the A-10 in a heart beat if allowed to" - Again, this is a meme. In the memetic sense, not the internet joke sense. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/02/25/army-not-interested-in-taking-a10-warthogs-from-air-force.html "The service's top civilian, Army Secretary John McHugh, rejected the idea of accepting hand-me-down A-10 Warthogs from the Air Force. "No chance," he said during a breakfast meeting with reporters on Wednesday in Washington, D.C. "That's not even been a topic of casual conversation." "With our own aircraft fleet we're taking some pretty dramatic steps to reconfigure and become more affordable, and the A-10 mission is not something we considered. That's an Air Force mission as it should be and I'm sure the Air Force feels the same way," McHugh said." "I believe he's somewhat more qualified than you to weigh in on this" - I don't question qualifications, but even qualified people make mistakes. Exactly how did this CWO 5 arrive at the conclusion that it would be both affordable and reasonable to take an ageing aircraft, and then either train Army aviators and maintainers in a "new" aircraft or take Air Force personnel and take them under the Army? Did he even make some napkin calculations? Did he consult anyone else? Or what he just spitballing with his friends like one would with a beer in hand? "Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III has taken the brunt of the criticism, often directly. An A-10 driver during the latter days of the Cold War, he’s pushed back, arguing that CAS is a mission bigger than just the A-10. About 80 percent of all CAS sorties in Afghanistan since 2001 were flown by other aircraft, Welsh explained." - https://www.airforcemag.com/article/whats-next-for-cas/ the at the time Chief of Staff of the Air Force, a former A-10 pilot, said it's time to let go of the A-10. If we're comparing qualifications, wouldn't a former A-10 driver supersede said Chief Warrant Officer? “I don't give a rat's ass what platform brings it in. I could care less if it’s a B-52, if it’s a B-1 bomber, if it’s an F-16, an F-15, an A-10. I don’t care if the thing was delivered by carrier pigeon. I want the enemy taken care of.” - https://youtu.be/eJzyN_yiTZ4?t=2837 General Mark A. Milley, Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Maybe the Chief Warrant Officer should have consulted someone, because nobody with actual power to make the decision is in a hurry. "With that I rest my case." - Let's review your case: - Footage of gun run. - Lying about what others said. - Hypocritically dismissing cost after defending the A-10 on the basis of cost. - Quoting an individual who puts his emotional wants over objective needs and whose opinion isn't shared by the people with actual power. Just tell me you love the BRRT. Admit it. You say I'm triggered because of the BRRT, my only problem with the BRRT is it has become a cult but the cultists will not admit it. Just say you're nostalgic and not ready to let go. There's a lot of things I can't let go off. But at least I admit it. Don't come here and LIE about my posts so you can feel better. I'd prefer the truth.
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@tegunn That's fiction.
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@markinl.a.4954 Then why does Russia spend so much time praising the A-10 and shitting on the F-35? Why does a strategic foe, and a country that sells weapons to America's enemies, want the A-10 to stay in service? Riddle me that.
4
@JoaoSoares-rs6ec "it's known for its survivability because it was built to take a pounding" - at the time other aircraft also had similar armor and redundancies built in. "the A10 was built to storm soviet tank columns" - And it was calculated that by the 1980s the A-10 would suffer unacceptable casualties trying to take on armroed columns.
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@NerfMaster000 "the Army is more than happy to take the A-10" - No, they aren't. It costs billions just to rebuild wings, and they'd have to train not just pilots but also ground crews for an aging aircraft that is begging for retirement since the 90s. https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2015/02/25/army-not-interested-in-taking-a-10-warthogs-from-air-force
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec "I have seen records of A7 being torn to peace by AAA" - So was the A-10. "but here it were you get wrong, only a few were lost" - 7 shot down an 13 suffered irrecoverable battle damage.
4
@terryboyer1342 "Kinda stands to reason that the aircraft using weapons closest to troops in contact would be more likely to cause a friendly fire incident" - That doesn't make any sense. So how is a fast jet dropping a bomb from further away capable of more precise hits? "Myself I'm wondering why the hell the AF has the B-1 doing CAS in the first place?" - CAS is a mission not a platform. "An expensive 4 man 4 engine maintenance intensive strategic bomber doing CAS." - Again, CAS is a mission not a platform. It doesn't matter if it came from an alien ship or the ISS. "USAF chief Gen. Mark A. Welsh III—himself a former A-10 pilot—said that “CAS is a mission, not a platform,” that the Air Force was flying 20,000 close air support sorties a year, and that about 80 percent of those flown in Afghanistan since 2001 were by aircraft other than the A-10." - https://www.airforcemag.com/article/the-ups-and-downs-of-close-air-support/
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@terryboyer1342 "10 actual actual search and rescue missions for downed aircraft/ missing people" - Respect where it is due. My father was search and rescue. I won't debate that. "A B-1 was responsible for dropping a bomb on and killing 5 American soldiers on a night CAS mission in Afghanistan. The soldiers were using their IR strobes. The accident investigation revealed that while the A-10s Litening II pod could detect the strobes the B-1s Sniper pod cannot resulting in their being targeted and their deaths." - This is all I can link to about the subject: https://www.defencetalk.com/moody-afb-a-10s-to-receive-new-sniper-pods-20411/ “It’s the Air Force’s pod of choice and is already in use in combat as well as in several active-duty units who are equipped with both the A-10Cs and other aircraft including the B-1B Lancer, F-15E (Strike Eagles) and F-16 (Fighting Falcons),” the colonel said. “Aside from the new improvements, it’s important to focus on the basic abilities that any targeting pod gives to the A-10C.” https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/01/11/b-1-bomber-crews-defend-sniper-pod-after-friendly-fire-incident.html ""Yes, the B-1 can't do it [see IR strobes] because of the pod, but anybody else who has that pod has the same [limiting factors] that we do," said Lt. Col. Dominic "Beaver" Ross, director of operations for the 337th Test and Evaluations Squadron. "It wasn't B-1 specific. If it was an A-10, or an F-15 or F-16 in that situation, they would have had the same issue. I think it was just a misconception," he said." "You seem to have a persistent dislike of the A-10 for some reason" - I have a persistent dislike for myth becoming fact, a dislike for the BRRRRT meme. We get it, the A-10 has a big gun. This meme, and I use the term in the original meaning of the word which is an idea that replicates and mutates like a gene, has taken over aviation discourse and invalidated any argument. Because BRRRT. You can't replace the BRRRT.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec Before there were any prototypes, General Dynamics and Northrop submitted concept aircraft to the program, both turboprop. "the purpose of the titanium bathtub is to protect the most important part of the plane the pilot" - So again, the rest of the aircraft is still vulnerable to 23mm fire. "the position of the engines is very simple avoing the gases from the firing og the gau8 cannon" - Which didn't work, and so the engine ignition sparks while the cannon is fired to prevent flame out. "as for the suposed quote" - It was not supposed, it's right there and you can read it. "actyualy you stated it first" - I didn't. "thye 23mm is a AAA caliber, not the 14.5, thats is why they would focuss on it, it makes no sense to focus on the 14.5" - "Survivability from ground fire was an essential characteristic for the A-X. Structural and system design would need to provide inherent survivability, to include self sealing fuel tanks and, if power flight controls were used, a manual backup system would be provided. The pilot and critical flight systems would be protected from 14.5mm projectiles (common Soviet AntiAircraft shells)." A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) SYSTEMS ENGINEERING CASE STUDY - Air Force Center for Systems Engineering (AFIT/SY) - David R. Jacques, PhD, LtCol USAF (Ret)/Dennis D. Strouble, PhD "damaged by AAA but not shot down" - Again, a couple of A-10s were downed by AAA, and others were damaged, limped back to base and are still buried in Saudi Arabia. Even if you come back to base it's still a loss. It's not invulnerable and it can be killed. "the only ones shot down were whit missiles, i know that for a fact" - Your facts are wrong. Even pro-A-10 sources claims a few were shot down by AAA guns.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec I provided data from the Air Force itself. You have nothing. I happened to come across your comments on another video and realized you're from the country my family is from, so I am going to depart with a firm handshake and stop myself from saying ugly things because if anything, I'd hope that you could at least show some mutual respect after the accusations you threw at me.
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@terryboyer1342 Do you understand what a myth is? If a narrative is generated from real facts but then the narrative outlives its objectiveness it becomes myth. Things become mythical with time to the point their history becomes revisionist. A link to a glorified blog is not going to change that. The relevance of the gun in modern combat is the much smaller danger radius created around the impact area. This is not something unique to the A-10. The BRRRRT meme is the quintessential myth because it pretends that the gun is more powerful than it is and is still able to be the tank killer - even though 1979 testing determined it could only kill a third of 1950s Patton tanks. The tank killer in the A-10 is the Maverick missile which is not in any way exclusive to the airframe. The meme is not parroted by people who understand why the gun still matters. The B-1 or B-52 would not accomplish the same because they wouldn't need to. The A-10 fights the way it fights because it's what it does. Different platforms achieve the same end result in different ways. The F-35, just like the F-15, F-18 or F-16 would be able to perform a gun run. Why would the F-35 be unable? What else can't do gun runs, the Harrier? If your focus is the gun run, we could have replaced the A-10 by turboprops as the OA-X project intended. Slap a gunpod on the belly and rocket pods in the wings, they're making laser guided rockets for use in pods now. Whoosh whoosh whoosh and job's done.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec "Portugal doesn't use or ever used the A7" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_A-7_Corsair_II#Operators https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Portuguese_A-7P_Corsair_II_in_flight_c1984.jpg/1280px-Portuguese_A-7P_Corsair_II_in_flight_c1984.jpg~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_A-7P_Corsair_II
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@terryboyer1342 Do you have anything to say or do you just wail and throw insults like tantrums? EDIT: And by the way, speaking of maturity I certainly would not like someone like you to be performing search and rescue. I don't care how well you can see from above, if your reaction to disagreement is this one you don't deserve to be on the air when lives are on the line.
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@earlwyss520 The USAF never decided to scrap CAS. You'll be hard pressed to find historical evidence of the Army wanting to step on the USAF's toes and most of it comes from a faction of air mobility supremacists that actually wanted the USAF out of the way. You're twisting historical facts for your benefit. At the time the USAF aircraft in service were being developed - which goes back to the 50s - the lack of accuracy of bombs made deep strike and interdiction a more rewarding mission from the benefit/risk analysis because denying the enemy logistics won the war faster and the further away from your own troops you dropped bombs the lower the rates of friendly fire would be. Those missions would also require fast jet performance. So the recently formed USAF, which was still running mostly on Army doctrine, simply did things by the book and invested in aircraft design that could do the hard job better, under the assumption that it would do the less demanding job just fine. You know this isn't true, but hindsight is 20/20 and it was ingrained into the doctrine. So while you claim that the USAF didn't care about CAS, the fact is that it was assumed that strike aircraft would be good at CAS and the USAF was more than willing to provide CAS. The reason some in the Army may have thought they didn't care was because certain proponents of the air mobility did not want to call in USAF support. And it was the USAF chief of staff that discovered the hard way that there were people in the Army with power who wanted them out of the picture. So the USAF did the reasonable thing which was ask what was needed. The A-X project came out of that. And the USAF chief of staff did not oppose the acquisition of armed helicopters for fire support, it was McNamara that shut it down.
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@earlwyss520 Nope. The F-16 was never on the chopping block. The A-7D was nearly canceled due to lack of funding at one point. The A-X program was cheaper.
3
@earlwyss520 You're correct on your statement but this was after the A-X program.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec "there were more than 14.5 mm the north Vietnamese had" - But the A-X project was focused on 14.5mm because it was perceived to be a much more common threat. The titanium bathtub on the A-10 is rated to stop 23mm. But that wasn't an initial consideration. "you keep forgetting that until the A10 the USF had no CAS aircraft" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_A-7_Corsair_II#United_States_Air_Force_A-7D "To meet its need for close air support of its troops in South Vietnam, the Army pressured the Air Force to procure a specialized subsonic close air support fixed-wing aircraft that would suit its needs better than the general-purpose supersonic aircraft that the USAF preferred.[25] The Vought A-7 seemed to be a relatively quick and inexpensive way to satisfy this need. However, the USAF was initially reluctant to take on yet another Navy-designed aircraft, but Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was insistent. On 5 November 1965, Secretary of the Air Force Harold Brown and USAF Chief of Staff General John P. McConnell announced that they had decided to order a version of the Corsair II, designated A-7D, for the Tactical Air Command.[25]" "it didn't fly straight to the ground" - https://youtu.be/sTs8lAbA1FE?t=211 then how was it supposed to point the HUD to the target? "the A10 lost were all due to IR missile destroying the engines" - (Serial Number : 78-0722)[45] AAA ground fire 60 miles northwest of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. (Serial Number : 79-0130)[47] Hit by ground fire approx 60 miles northwest of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec Let me explain again, but sloooooowly. When the A-X program started it was meant to be a turboprop aircraft. The A-10 didn't exist as a concept just yet. If it had been made to handle 23mm it would have barely taken off, let alone carry a payload or have loiter time. Aircraft design is a compromise. That's why the A-10, which is more powerful than the original A-X project envisioned and thus able to be more armored, still only has a titanium bathtub around the pilot and flight systems. Other armor panels, like the ones around the ammunition drum, are not required to stop 23mm shells, only to detonate them before they could set ammo on fire. So again, the point of the A-X program wasn't to make an aircraft invincible to ground fire, just resist it. And the design parameters were 14.5mm because that was perceived to be the big threat while 23mm was too costly to counter. The dual turbofans on the A-10 allow for more armor without sacrificing payload, but it's still not meant to be invulnerable to 23mm. It's only meant to save the pilot and flight controls from it. The rest of the plane can be destroyed by 23mm. "No I'm not forgetting that USF didn't had a dedicated CAS aircraft" - I was QUOTING you, do you know what quotation marks mean? "soldiers on the ground love the Tham thing" - Which is an emotional response, do you want to base your opinions on facts or feelings? "any plane ment to replace it has been seen as a step back not forward" - According to whom? Bloggers and career politicians? "do happen to know that all A10 lost, both of them were to IR missile not AAA" - I literally gave you the tail numbers of two A-10s shot down by AAA. Let's see more http://www.rjlee.org/air/ds-aaloss/ Or here https://www.2951clss-gulfwar.com/loses.htm OA-10A 77-0197 Hit by AAA small arms. A-10A 78-0722 AAA ground fire 60 miles north west of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. A-10A 79-0130 Hit by ground fire approx 60 miles North West of Kuwait city while attacking Republican Guard targets. A-10A 80-0248 Hit by either 'optical AAA' ground fire or SAM 20, unconfirmed which it was, NM SW of Kuwait City, Kuwait.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec What question?
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec 1. Because of the lack of question marks I'm going to assume that the question was "why hate the A-10?" - the answer would be I don't. I just hate the internet narrative around it. 2. Portugal. I saw a comment of you saying Portuguese pilots did not like the A-7 because of accidents.
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@earlwyss520 Excuse me, but that makes no sense. None of the countries poised to buy the F-35 except maybe India and Indonesia would be open purchase Sukhoi aircraft. Most are Western allies, Middle Eastern countries aligned with the US, etc which would not buy Eastern aircraft. Why would Russia run a misinformation campaign that would at most result in more F-16s, Eurofighters, Rafales, etc being sold? And consider the fallout of choosing Eastern weapons systems. The Turkish purchase of the S-400 got them kicked out of the F-35 program. Why would some Russia Today clips be a greater influence than political pressure from NATO and potential "punishments"?
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@BandanaDrummer95 If the A-10 doesn't understand the concept of being killed, why did 7 get shot down in 1991 and forced the USAF to pull them out?
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@Fadamor You're parroting the same old military reformer bs. There was an inquiry around 88/89 to reform the CAS role but in 1990 it was blocked by Congress. There's not many references to this online, so it's difficult to ascertain the truth. Mind that at the time, the A-10's planned replacement would start in 1993. So they were only a few years away from having to come up with a plan and that lead to the failed A-16 replacement. However, despite the fact that the F-16 flew more sorties, more A-10s were shot down. And currently it flies around 30 percent of CAS missions while the A-10 flies 11 percent. The F-16 has been vindicated.
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@will9357 "So how many minutes did F-16s actually spend performing CAS duties (I'm talking minutes in the combat area rather than flying there and back)" - If it takes less time to do the job, does it matter? One pass, haul ass. "I would expect the plane that can loiter for over an hour to take more losses" - I would expect the plane that can loiter to get shot down in 5 minutes, so the other 55 minutes are meaningless when all that fuel only contributes to the fire ball it makes when it hits the ground.
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Michael Longstaff "Enemy positions move dynamicly and extremely quickly in those situations so any GPS/INS guided weapons" - Yeah I'm chalking this one as a strawman argument, bub. Nobody suggested the use of GPS guided bombs. "Low cloud ceilings or poor visibility and laser guided weapons like the GBU 12 are no use" - You say this like unguided bombs (put the thing on the thing, chunk chunk) or laser guided rockets that are fired from much lower altitudes don't exist. "While airframes like the F-16, F/A-18, F-35 ect are amazing bjts of kit, a multirole platform will never eat a true purpose built one" - Why? "The A-10s low speed" - That's a bad thing. Speed is life in the air. "massive payload capacity" - The F-35 can carry 2,000 lbs more. "loiter time" - Loiter time doesn't mean anything unless the enemy allows you to just fly without that meaning certain death. "Its avionics are 100% focused on ground attacks" - You mean the avionics that were gutted and replaced by modern ones, that just operate like most modern fighter aircraft? It's got MFDs and targeting pods, big whoop. "blow other fixed wings out of the water" - Why? You say things and expect us to believe them. Can you actually explain why the MFDs and targeting pods on the A-10 are better than on other aircraft? "even reverting from hydrolic control of flight surfaces to a backup pully system at the flip of a switch" - The F-35 is built with independent hydraulic systems so that it can't get bled dry in the first plane unless you literally shoot off every control surface. And it's got even more body lift than previous designs. We already saw a F-15 land without a wing and stabilator, and a F-16 landed after losing half a wing. The F-35 has got even more body lift going for it. "Not to mention the tub the pilot sits in is heavily armoured unlike multirole fighters." - This is a joke, right? Okay, the entire aircraft gets cut in half by missile, but the pilot has a titanium bathtub to protect him from 23mm. Great. Meanwhile a multirole fighter doesn't get hit in the first place. Hmmmm. "A-10s have been known to be hit buy SAMs, destroying an engine and it has finished its mission before returning and landing safely." - In 1991 seven A-10s were lost to SAMs and AAA, with 13 more too battle damaged to repair. This lead the USAF to pull the A-10 from missions against the Iraqi Republican Guard because the losses were unacceptable. If you're known to get hit... that's bad. If you have to be sent into battle in a titanium bathtub because we know you're gonna die because of how poorly your airframe performs... you need to ask for a new plane.
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This is revisionist history. The Army was the spoiled brat. Or, to be more accurate, there was a gang of spoiled brats working within the Army. Their plan was to expand the air mobility capabilities of the Army and shut out Air Force from the CAS role. The Air Force chief of staff discovered through inquiries that the Army's boots on the ground was happy with Air Force CAS when they got it, but many higher ups did not want to call for Air Force support. The Air Force did complain that the Army was attempting to make the Air Force's mission obsolete at a time they were developing the A-10 precisely because they studied what the Army wanted from a CAS aircraft. But the Army and Air Force chiefs of staff met together and dealt with the issue internally. The Air Force was not opposed to more rotary wing fire support. SecDef McNamara didn't want the Army expanding their air mobility even more, though. The A-10 needed retirement. It was considered outdated by the 1980s, and it suffered a bloody nose in 1991. It remains relevant because it gets twice the number of trigger pulls when strafing and more loiter time versus other jets. It remains in flight because the hard on for nostalgia killed the OA-X program that would have replaced the A-10 with an even cheaper aircraft more suitable for COIN.
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@willstikken5619 The F-35 can literally carry a little more payload than the A-10 but go off, king. Survivability? Modern body lift means that it will probably handle better than that F-15 that landed with like two feet of the right wing left attached at the root in case it gets a wing shot off, and the independent hydraulic systems means it can't get bled dry. Plus, it's way less likely to get hit in the first place. "It simply isn't designed for it." - Why? "You really don't seem to have a clue about how the A-10 operates or the gaps in the F-35 capability." - No, it's you who doesn't seem to have a clue on what CAS is but you watched a few youtube videos of A-10 gun runs and you think yourself an expert. How about you actually explain with actual facts and evidence rather than automatically consider yourself correct and refuse to discuss the topic?
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@willstikken5619 I've offered everything. The F-35 is a multirole on steroids, and multiroles already proven themselves. The F-16 provided more CAS in 1991 despite suffering less losses. The bombs don't care what aircraft they're dropped from and sacks of meat get ripped apart just the same. I can look for the article where Eagle drivers say they thought gun runs at night were too dangerous to be practical, but after months in a sim they perfected it to the point they were ripping it on a daily basis. If the F-15 can do gun runs (at night!) why can't the F-35? The A-10 got only 20% of CAS missions since around 2005 and only 11% since 2014. You claim it can't be done. It has been. F-16s, F/A-18s F-15s, B-1s are performing CAS. You claim it can't be done. I've never attacked you. On the other hand you have been nothing but disrespectful to me because you can't back up your claims so you deflect with insults. I never said anything against you or questioned your credibility, I simply ASKED for credentials you insisted on providing and then backed out.
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@willstikken5619 "can provide multiple types of CAS" - Let's hear about the "types" of CAS then. "operated under different doctrines than the A-10" - The A-10 isn't even operating under the doctrine it was designed for. "The "fast jets" rely on higher altitudes and higher speeds for their survivability" - Against AAA and SAMs. Which are deadly against A-10s anyway as proven by Desert Storm. "I didn’t insist on providing my credentials" - You said you had expertise in the subject matter, then backed out from mentioning any details. "I didn’t feel the need to respond to your insult" - If you think being a mission planner or part of the ground crews is an insult, that's on you. "I also have to walk a line related to my current and future employment." - Convenient. Don't bring up credentials you aren't willing to disclose in the future then.
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That's not what happened. The Air Force started inquiries into the CAS issue and discovered that the Army was trying to shut them out. The Army and Air Force chiefs of staff met together and agreed to delineate responsibilities and the Air Force was not opposed to the Army acquiring rotary wing aircraft for "fire support" (aka "we don't call it CAS"), but SecDef McNamara was opposed to expanding the air mobility of the Army. The Air Force getting pissy is revisionist history, they were the ones worried about the Army's "we don't need the Air Force" attitude from the air mobility supremacists and when it went too far even McNamara, previously on the side of the air mobility expansion, had to shut them down.
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@earlwyss520 I got my timelines mixed, McNamara put a stop on the acquisition of more fixed wing such as the OV-1 Mohawk. However the Air Force did relinquish any claim to rotary wing fire support aircraft during McNamara's tenure. Aircraft used in Korea were obviously designed before 1953 due to the linear progression of time. I don't even understand how that's a point of contention. Of course they were ill suited, they were following doctrine inherited from the USAAF. You're talking about the government blocking the transfer because the Army cannot operate the A-10, which was a concept that was totally spitballed by a study resulting from the NDAA FY88-89 mandating a study. The USAF had their A-16 plans cancelled and was mandated by Congress to retain two A-10 wings, with four wings of F-16s retrofitted for CAS duties. After Desert Storm McPeak wanted to give CAS to the Army in return for ATACMS but he was outvoted by other service chiefs. A story being told with embellishments and omissions that certain people liked to promote, to sell books. And now the internet parrots it uncritically. "By scrapping or wanting to scrap the A-10 the USAF is in essence saying that it wants to abandon the CAS mission" - The USAF has scrapped F-16s, does this mean they're saying they want to abandon the fighter role? The USAF was criticized in a 1979 GAO report for buying too many A-10s. The last A-10s to be produced date from 1984. They were supposed to have had their replacement process started by 1993. It's complete nonsense to reject the reality that ageing aircraft need to be replaced. And the Air Force needs to make cuts somewhere. The A-10 is what makes more sense. It's essentially a single mission aircraft. It's the one that most desperately needs retirement. But the nostalgia and brainless politicians keep the zombified remains in the air and wasting money on the rebuilding of wings for an aircraft that deserved it's eternal rest two decades before. "Because if the much slower F-100 couldn't do the mission 55 years ago, then the faster F-16 can't do it now." - Look inside the F-100 cockpit. Now look at the F-16. Your concerns have no basis in reality considering that the A-10 did 20 percent of CAS since 2001 and 11 percent since 2014. Fast jets are doing CAS. You claim it's not possible. Something's wrong and it's not reality. You don't understand the fundamental problem so you attribute responsibilities to something that is tangible - like speed values.
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@atomicskull6405 "they only ever pretended to entertain that idea as a distraction while they tried to retire the A-10 in the background" - They're not trying to retire it in the background. The USAF has to perform budget cuts. The A-10 is the one that makes the most sense to put on the chopping block. Flat out. No clock and dagger, no conspiracy. Congress blocks it. Rinse and repeat. That's all there is to it. Embellishing the story is at this point as bad as lying. "it's harder to justify expensive new toys when they have an effective and much cheaper option for doing the same job" - This is absolutely ridiculous. The A-29 is cheaper to operate and maintain so that argument doesn't even make sense. Airplanes cannot fly forever. "Nuclear weapons ensure we will never have a full scale conflict with a peer nation." - In 1991 Iraq wasn't a peer nation and the A-10 still got reality-checked. You think near-peer or proxy nations aren't getting defense systems from peer nations? The US had to send F-22s to drop bombs in Syria because of the Russian defense systems in place. The nukes didn't explode.
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@sithticklefingers7255 I've commented a billion times in this thread so I don't know what you're referring to, what sucks at what?
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@earlwyss520 The F-22 unit price was excessive because "too few" were made. They were meant to replace the F-15 but the orders were cut. If they had kept making them the price would drop. The F-35 is as cheap as a new production F-16, and the A variant is actually cheaper than the Eurofighter and Rafale.
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@earlwyss520 The failed experiment was just that, a failed experiment. If you think it validates what you've been saying it doesn't. The A-10 had to use Mavericks to kill tanks, and the vast majority of targets destroyed by the 30mm would be vulnerable to 20mm fire too. Especially now, that the use of DU in the 30mm has been discontinued due to the lingering effects of heavy metal.
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@will9357 "Literally no one gives a crap about the 30mm gun as a tank killer" - Please read any thread regarding the A-10, thank you. "it's not the A-10s only armament" - It's literally the only one that matters. The ONLY reason the A-10 remains in use is because the 30mm gun is stabler than 20mm platforms and the gun has a much shorter danger radius to friendly troops than bombs. Everything else, be it rockets, bombs or missiles can be loaded on any other aircraft. Only the A-10 has the gun, and it's the only thing that allows it to stay relevant. The fact that bombs sometimes can't be dropped due to friendlies in the area. "taking out tanks has barely been relevant to the A-10's mission on the whole for at least a couple decades now." - Yeaaaahhhhhhh that's the point...
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Michael Longstaff If modern equipment is better then how was my point missed? The A-10 was designed to escort Army helicopters and provide CAS in an age where pilots' awareness of what was happening on the ground was extremely poor. In a Vietnam setting. It's extremely capable in the extremely narrow application it was designed for. Modern battles happen on the modern world. Houthis have shot down jet aircraft. If you expect that new insurgent threats will not be gifted capable equipment by hostile nations, or that a new near-peer conflict won't happen, then you're stuck in the "fighting the last war" attitude that always reared its ugly head. Everyone's gearing up for a new war, the Marines are restructuring themselves to expect an island hopping campaign rather than being Army 2 like they have been during the GWOT and the remaining services are focusing on dealing with cruise missiles and the hypersonic threat. "You cant always expect a CAS flight to be sat waiting for your call put in the air just for you" - You can, when you don't need specific airplane to provide it. If your needs can be met from almost every plane in inventory you'll have the true benefit of the multirole which is round the clock availability. "5 to 10 minutes of support before hes off station." - So you got 5 to 10 minutes of death from above and that didn't do the trick? "In Afghanistan, the taliban where terrified of the A10" - I'd rather have the effective weapon rather than the psychological weapon. I don't want someone terrified, I want someone dead. If I were an insurgent I'd love the fact that I could get scared and run away, so I can survive. Then two weeks later you'll have to deal with me again. And if I die then, shit at least I bled thousands of American taxpayer dollars with my worthless life like Bin Laden intended. "I honestly belive that if you ask anybody who has been in a situation where you feel the ground under your feet shake and feel the impact of each round" - That's an emotional argument. That's the entire problem, emotion overcomes logic. If other aircraft were able to put on a show they'd be as loved as the A-10, but oh no the only thing they can do is kill stuff you need dead. That's a dealbreaker, somehow. "pilots love it too" - That's not an argument, if you have the chance of flying you'll love whatever you can strap yourself into that isn't a death trap. Every pilot loves his machine. If he doesn't, you have a huge liability.
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@johnc8910 "In all reality, the AF has never been wild about the CAS mission." - literally all historic evidence points to the contrary, with only internet pundits and "reformers" trying to sell books saying otherwise. Air Force support is more integrated with ground units than it was back in WWII, when the air power was under the Army. Another historical fact to keep in mind was that due to accuracy of the weapons employed at the time strategic bombing and interdiction produced the most effects on the enemy while posing the least risk to American ground troops, and strategic bombing/interdiction demanded more from the aircraft so the logic was to use aircraft designed for a harder job for CAS. Poor technology hindered the use of fast jets for CAS but the logic was straight out of army doctrine. The air force "manual" was largely written by the army in the early days. Preparing for the most demanding missions on the assumption that such a force could then deal with less demanding ones remained in Army field manuals at least until the 1980s and Join Doctrine publications until the 2000s. "No glamor in air-to-mud." - And yet at the time the Army was trying to shut out the USAF from CAS, the Air Force chief of staff was inquiring into the satisfaction of the Army with the Air Force and what could be done to improve CAS. But I guess fancy phrases you can repeat over and over matter more than history. Did you know that a 1979 GAO report slammed the Air Force for buying too many A-10s?
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@willstikken5619 "as versatile as the F-35 is it isn't well suited for the same type of close support the A-10 provides" - The "type" of CAS it provides is dictated by airframe and the enemy. The A-10 is a flying gun facing off sandal wearing bags of meat and thin skinned Toyotas. So the type of CAS it is known for offering is diving down and ripping off bursts of gunfire. If the A-10 was a different aircraft it would do things differently but the end result would be the same. The F-35 can drop boom-boom and if needed has 200-something rounds for gun runs. It's much lower than the A-10, yes. But if the focus was the gun run the OA-X project could have replaced the A-10 with a cheap aircraft running a gun pod.
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@willstikken5619 I'm deflecting? I'm not insisting anything. I've said everything that needs to be said, you can't prove your reasoning. You have direct experience? Share the credentials, then. Prove it. Without evidence you could be just any Joe making up BS to entertain the fellas. What's the direct experience? Flight planning? Maintenance? Flying them? You're giving us nothing. Share with the audience.
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@viperlabs7735 The A-10 carries more payload than the AH-64 to make up for those shortcomings.
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@JoaoSoares-rs6ec My mistake, I saw a comment by someone called João but his surname was Pacheco.
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@Fadamor Fact: 7 A-10s were shot down and 4 F-16s were shot down http://rjlee.org/air/ds-aaloss/ The F-16s flew 13,500 sorties while the A-10 flew around 8000.
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@barnmaddo But that's not true. This all stems from a big misunderstanding - the USAF grew out of the USAAF so during the Cold War most of the Air Force's "manual" had been written by the Army. In the late 40s and 50s bombing accuracy wasn't that great so essentially deep strike/interdiction missions were considered to be the most helpful to the infantry on the ground while posing the least risk to troops. Following the Army's own doctrine, the USAF prioritized aircraft designs that would be the best at completing the hardest mission and assume that such aircraft would be sufficient for the easier ones. So they settled for high altitude, high speed aircraft that could deal with the deep strike missions. These aircraft were not well suited for close air support, contrary to doctrine. In the late 60s the USAF, by their own initiative, studied the Army's satisfaction with close air support and found that while it was considered satisfactory, many Army higher ups weren't calling for close air support and prioritized armed helicopters. The USAF then started the A-X project, which resulted in the A-10, precisely because they wanted to do CAS. And in the late 70s the Air Force was accused of buying too many A-10s. This whole "Air Force doesn't like CAS" narrative is all revisionist nonsense that takes the facts out of context.
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Law Dorherty That's a nice story. There's also one of a F-16 diving at supersonic speeds and pulling up, when the sound hit the ground the enemies scattered because they thought bombs were dropping. If we're going to praise a weapon's system that scares away people when you know they are going to be targeting you again two weeks later, we're doing something very wrong.
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@Planesrifter It is an exceptional aircraft. It does warrant decommissioning. Exactly how many "modern" aircraft do you think we've decommissioned? We keep producing new ones to bring the older ones out of circulation. A-10s haven't been manufactured since 1984. A higher caliber cannon makes no sense. The A-10 stayed relevant due to the lower collateral damage from gun rounds. If you want to engage AA and tanks precision guided missiles and bombs are already a great investment. Other aircraft? There's no point trying to make the A-10 into a multirole. Railguns have massive power consumption. You'll only see them mounted on nuclear-powered ships. Speed helps because speed is life. Forget aiming, the A-10s biggest problem is SURVIVING a modern battlefield.
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@Planesrifter "How many do I think could have continued on with upgraded systems and advancements and still had a viable place?" - You don't understand. You constantly load and unload metal or composites, fatigue starts to set in. You fly too many hours, things break apart mid air. Look at Japan Airlines Flight 123. An incorrect repair on the rear pressure bulkhead created a structure that after calculation, was found to have lasted 10,000 pressurization cycles. On its 12,318th flight after incorrect repair, the stress crack ruptured, breaking hydraulic fluid lines and ejecting the vertical stabilizer. 520 people died, only 4 survived. You can't simply upgrade - planes will break apart in flight if they're not retired. Old F-16s go to the boneyard. Old F-15s go to the boneyard. It's easier to buy a new than just rebuild entire sections. "My primary point is that due to the A-10's unique design elements to incorporate a gun like it does, it would be an existing airframe with a notable compatibility for testing airborne railgun tech" - But why? The mass of the gun and batteries would be so high it probably wouldn't even take off. "I'm sure you know that the power burst for firing a railgun comes from a capacitor array discharge. This array simply takes time to recharge, and could be pre-charged for the first shot to be ready before takeoff, with external generators, perhaps mounted on hard points" - Huhhhh. So we're carrying extra fuel for these generators, huh? The A-10 engines are notorious for being underpowered, in Afghanistan the altitude limits the takeoff weight. And if you mount bigger engines, it'll guzzle more fuel. "Airborne versions may only have a shot ready every minute" - We have missiles and rockets that can fire as fast as you can change targets on the MFD screen. "But what if you're not IN a battlefield, but BVR (Is that the term? I forget. Beyond visual range?) and lining up a shot without hostiles knowing you're there? Yes I know missiles and (some) guided bombs can engage from those distances too, but the railgun would be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper per shot, and likely harder to trace the origin of" - Who cares if it's cheaper? A a million dollar stealth glide bomb destroying several dozens of millions of dollars worth of equipment and killing the trained crews that operate it is extremely cheap. No need to pinch pennies by using impractical weapons in impractical aircraft doing impractical roles. With the projected range of naval railguns, they might as well just fire directly from sea and the payload dives on target at Mach 5. No need to load the gun on an airplane. "desire to see the A-10 improved and revamped to better fulfill its role" - It's role barely exists anymore. It's not being used for the original role, it's not being used for the secondary role picked for it, it's doing COIN. No need for a railgun to do COIN.
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@Planesrifter "I meant new production models" - Completely impractical. "Re-producing an existing product would only require retooling costs, not the millions or billions of RnD costs for an entirely new design and airframe" - No.... The world has changed. First of all, you're not going to be making the old airframe. You need to use modern processes and materials. Remaking old designs is often a complete waste of money because you need to remake things the way they were done decades ago, and we do a lot of things differently. You will have to RnD a entirely new airframe and plan an entire production line. We can't hit a stop button on a clock and keep the old machines and old machinists and welders. "And in comparison to missiles, tanks are surprisingly cheap. Guided bombs can (emphasis on can) cost upwards of 10x that of a modern tank." - What? A Maverick missile's supposed unit cost is 110k. The unit cost of a T-72 is two million. "Yes but how many missiles and bombs do they carry? And what are the mobility limitations of them?" - An A-10 can comfortably carry 4x Mavericks and several pods of rockets. The guided rocket conversion kits can be fitted on the 19-shot pods. Mobility limitations? Less than batteries and generators. "What if the entire airframe is ripped apart by the first shot due to an unforeseen caveat, and you spent billions on the new aircraft?" - Sounds like someone not only skipped the engineering phase that would predict at which point things start to rip apart, and then skipped the static ground tests that would show anything that the math and physics wouldn't by ripping apart a carbon fiber test bed shaped like a section of the fuselage of the airplane, rather than the actual airplane. You're the one who wants to spit out metal out of an aircraft at Mach Jesus and now you're worried about things ripping apart? "Mountainous regions would block almost all naval rounds unless dropped straight down" - I'm sure there's a problem here. The whole point of naval-fired rounds is firing at an arc. If you thought the rail gun was a direct fire weapon primarily, here's the scoop - one of the payload options for the railgun is theorized to be a shell filled with tungsten cubes. The shell self-separates before impact and unleashes thousands of high velocity projectiles with very high density that can destroy aircraft not stored in concrete bunkers and may even penetrate through the tops of tanks. "Not to mention the flight time still exists" - The projectile will literally arrive before a plane can take off on short notice. "a LOT of atmosphere in the way, and ballistic coeffiecients exist for a reason." - Yeah. That's why the shot is fired upwards to fly the most time in thinner atmosphere, and then drops down because even though there's a ballistic coefficient you don't lose speed when you have gravity assisting you. You shoot upwards at Mach 7, the projectile falls down at Mach 5. "An aircraft would not have to worry about terrain at all, and the target would be significantly closer, reducing the chance to miss." - I mean, aircraft do have to worry about terrain, considering that you don't want to crash into terrain, and that you can also use terrain to prevent being shot down. And terrain can obscure targets too, which is why lofting bombs is pretty cool. If you know a target's position you can pull the stick back, drop a bomb and it flies forward over the mountain and hits the target without you exposing yourself. Being closer increases the chances of being shot down, and a rail gun shot would require pointing the aircraft at the target and flying in a straight path. The lower chance to miss only happens when you greatly increase your chances of becoming a sitting duck. "I'm studying mechanical engineering with a focus in ballistics and weaponry" - A word to the wise here, focus on manufacturing. If you think half a century old manufacturing can be reactivated with the snap of a finger you're being too optimistic.
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Yeah we can figure that out. We have to stop fishing because most of the plastic down there is from fishing nets.
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@THESLlCK How long since you've been to a beach? You literally find the blue plastic strands that come from fishing nets in the sand.
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@THESLlCK No, fishing wire is typically one strand of nylon, I'm talking about frayed blue strands that make up the fishing nets.
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@VisibilityFoggy Something like this: https://www.123rf.com/photo_80596324_dangerous-plastic-sea-pollution-tangled-nylon-fishing-net-washed-up-and-caught-on-a-rusty-beach-groy.html These fishing nets eventually come apart and in many beaches you can find the frayed strands. If you live close to the beach I don't know what to tell you, I haven't inspected every single beach I went to so I don't exactly notice if they were present or not, but maybe there's not a lot of fishing in your area. As a kid I dug a lot of sand to build tunnels and castles in the beach so I found the plastic all the time, as a grown up I'm not exactly digging trenches when I go on a beach outing.
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How does steel cased ammo affect the results? In rifles you're used to steel cased ammo being loaded for low cost rather than quality so steel case is loaded with sloppy powder measurement and sloppy bullets with copper plating rather than copper jacketing, then being fed into weapons made to fire brass. If the cannon is made for steel, and the steel case is loaded for quality rather than cost, the bullet doesn't care where it's fired from. The moving platform has gyros and radar lock to compensate for the movement. The heavier the round, the less it is affected by the atmospheric conditions. If the benchrested precision rifle could be made to fire something with the mass of a baseball rather than a 200 grain pill without losing muzzle velocity you'd get something that's 3000m capable. You'd need the rifle to weigh-in at 20 lbs or something.
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@michaelabratzel6371 I can't find any sources for the testing of the XM140 cannon but it might be possible the target was 25 inches rather than centimetres, which would give 0.72 MOA.
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@michaelabratzel6371 Since the GAU-8 Avenger from the A-10 is rated to land 80% of shots inside a 40-foot diameter circle at 1.2km, could the target be 25 feet rather than inches or cm?
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