Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "Is the A-10 Warthog Obsolete?" video.

  1. Who would buy them at their age?
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  2. The full story is more complex. It started as a design for a turboprop aircraft capable of recreating the A-1 Skyraider's success in Vietnam. Then the project was changed and the performance requirements for the gun increased, now being expected to engage fortified positions and armor. The solutions being considered could not cut it, requiring the airframe to be built around the gun rather than have a gun added to an airframe. The Fulda Gap would be a scenario too demanding for even the A-10 so it's more accurate to say the A-10 was adapted for it but not "designed" for that purpose.
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  3. You don't get to "cruise" in a contested airspace. How's the Army going to adjust the supply chain and flight schools? How are they going to afford to keep museum pieces flying?
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  4.  @davidsoulsby1102  with a Longbow radar, the Apache can hit without getting hit.
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  5. The A-10 has good turning abilities but dogfighting also happens in the vertical plane. A fighter jet pilot who knows what he's doing will not outturn the A-10 horizontally, he'll use the vertical climb abilities.
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  6.  @Juiceman-fz6pm  A new production aircraft is cheaper to maintain, and by going down in power it's cheaper to refuel. One of the A-10s advantages is loiter time and fuel consumption. However, it's a WW3 aircraft relegated to light attack duties. Due to its age, it requires parts scavenging and expensive contracts to manufacture replacement parts. The A-10 sits in an awkward middle ground where it's less expensive than multirole jets but more expensive than it should be for the role it does. Its fleet also requires mechanics and pilots who could be used elsewhere.
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  7. USMC A-6s dropped the hate, under the form of Mk20 Rockeyes.
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  8.  @VandalAudi  Flyaway cost of an A-10 has to be 40-50 million nowadays. The 16 million A-10 is a very rudimentary aircraft that has no use in a modern conflict.
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  9.  @BHopper88  You're simply looking at this from an unreasonable position. Staying on station was doable when the only threat was manually aimed 14.5mm. Nowadays you can't hang around unless you're fighting insurgents with no proper SHORAD, and for those you can get much cheaper planes. Why do you need a better deterrent than entire enemy squads being turned into paste? What better way to keep counter attacks at bay by thinning down their numbers and destroying their armored vehicles? Have you noticed that the people who defend the A-10 almost seem to think it's the USAF's job to fight the whole war while the Army just watches? If a flight of F-35s decimates the enemy units, that should be enough to give the guys on the ground the initiative and take advantage of the enemy being stunned and on their back foot. You're way too optimistic about the kind of hits the A-10 is able to take. What about the psychological disadvantage of seeing A-10s go down? The psychological effect may work against people with AKs and sandals. Anyone who can make the A-10s go down in flames will be inflicting a morale blow on US troops. "the USAF was actually willing to upgrade the aircraft vs trying to justify the F35 is a better CAS airframe" - No, the USAF is simply prohibited from retiring the A-10 by Congress.
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  10.  @CodaMission  You need to rule the Z = 0. If you rule the ground, then CAS is not necessary. The problem is that the X-Y plane contains a multitude of threats and you'd need to rule over them to have a safe air space, and calling in CAS presupposes you don't rule the X-Y plane at the moment.
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  11. Literally nobody said CAS was obsolete. CAS is a mission, not a platform.
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  12.  @411bvRGiskard  Losing a pilot is more "expensive" than the aircraft. If the aircraft is more expensive, but less vulnerable, it's actually cheaper in the long run. The A-10 also requires massive logistics support and foreign air bases. If you look at footage from Bagram airbase the A-10 hasn't been flown with full loads. They are lightly loaded. So yes, a turboprop aircraft can pull that type of duty. Turboprop aircraft are almost as fast as A-10s. Yes, A-10s are that slow. Loiter time on propeller aircraft is pretty high. I think the A-29 Super Tucano has 7 hours endurance. They're not as sitting ducks because their use case is the same as the A-10's - against forces that have next to no AA capabilities. And again, they're not that much "slower". The A-10 cruises at 330 knots while a turboprop can cruise at 300 knots.
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  13. It's been replaced. The A-10 does 11% of CAS missions.
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  14. It was estimated that the A-10 force would also get wrecked in that confrontation.
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  15. But you could do the same with any other aircraft. If Ukraine had no Su-25s to spare and sacrifice to demolish that convoy, why would they sacrifice an A-10?
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  16. The F-35A can carry 2k lbs more than the A-10. Everyone forgets the billions it costs to keep the A-10 flying. They've had airframe rebuild programs and now re-winging contracts. They're extremely old.
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  17. If you're that low, people in the ground will fill the air with lead and eventually score a hit. In Vietnam many jets were downed because they were forced to fly low due to SAM threat, and ground fire took them out. F-18s can so the CAS mission while self-escorting so sending the A-10s is redundant.
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  18. Ukraine has Su-25s. They used them where they could. Any area the A-10 could operate on, Su-25s were there. As far as I know, both sides have lost Su-25s. Desert Storm involved a complex SEAD/DEAD operation plus aggressive Fast FAC F-16s diving on AAA to bomb them as they couldn't ve suppressed by HARM.
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  19. But as 73 Easting showed, Bradleys can take out T-72. Fixed wing aircraft are more vulnerable than rotary wing.
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  20. A tool in a toolbox just stays there. This tool drains mechanics and pilots from other aircraft, and it costs money to upkeep even if they don't fly, and more if they are flown to maintain pilot proficiency.
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  21. The problem is that a multirole can SEAD for itself. If you're already flying the A-10 with a fast jet, you can bolt the missiles and bombs to it and just keep the A-10 home. You're thinking of range as a 1vs1 fight. The enemy can be anywhere, and while you aim at troops several kilometers from you, someone with a MANPADS can be less than a km behind you.
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  22. Not really. If you look at Desert Storm figures alone, the A-10 did around 8,000 sorties and six were shot down, while F-16s did 12,000 sorties I think with only three shot down.
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  23. No. It's extremely expensive to keep flying, the deception of sweeping billion dollar contracts to rebuild entire structural components to keep aging aircraft airworthy has fooled people into thinking we have anything to gain from upgrades or research. It was originally set to be retired in the 90s, we squeezed all the juice we could. Boneyard. Now.
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  24. The F-16 is absolutely configured for the role. Many nations have F-16s as their primary CAS delivery aircraft. Strike Eagle pilots dedicated themselves to learning the art of the gun run, and so far none of them has been taken out with a rifle. In fact, most of the bells and whistles in the A-10 that allow it to do CAS are straight up similar to the F-16.
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  25.  @ericmcquisten  Yeah, because a Spitfire would be garbage in a modern dogfight too. Context matters. If something can't hold up its own except under exercise conditions, it's not worthwhile to pursue such capabilities. What do you mean low enough to get a lock? An AMRAAM would be fired from tens of miles out. The lock isn't the limiting factor, it's the motor of the missile. With speed and altitude, range of a high Pk missile shot against an A-10 is actually greater than against a fighter. You can't "avoid" an eye in the sky that can see you from 60 nautical miles away. Hugging the terrain does nothing when the radar is coming from above and Doppler filtering removes the ground clutter. Chaff is a tool of desperation because as it hits the air, it slows down and allows radar to instantly tell that it's chaff rather than a speeding aircraft. Tight turns don't matter when the missile simply knows you'll be at position x,y,z when you finish your turn, and head towards that position.
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  26.  @ericmcquisten  And the A-10 is a Vietnam era aircraft built for an age that doesn't exist. Holding up fine in exercises meant to give the A-10 a chance isn't a good indicator. Create an exercise where the fighter has freedom to engage the A-10 in any condition it wants. Some missiles are heat seeking indeed. But the AMRAAM is there. Modern heat seekers do not work like Vietnam era seekers. The AIM-9X can see the actual aircraft with a thermal camera, it won't be fooled by the ground. Look down shoot down has existed for decades. Low flying does not protect aircraft anymore. How would the A-10 pilot know the bearing of the missile? He'd get a RWR warning a few seconds before impact. Missiles don't make use of turning radius as if they had pure pursuit control logic. They simply measure your movement and predict where you'll be. If you turn right, the missile simply calculates where your turn will put you, and flies straight for impact. I'm not talking about drones. Fighter aircraft have their own radars. Every fighter is an eye on the sky, sweeping for easy pickings. Aircraft have radar. Radar isn't just a ground technology. Yes, air to air missiles use Doppler filtering. Sophistication? Your cellphone is more sophisticated than the Apollo era computers. Missiles are crammed full of sophistication. Why do you still believe it's the 1960s?
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  27. Then the combined team can do the job and leave the A-10 home. Not all SAM threats can be suppressed by Wild Weasel. Only radar SAMs generate the emissions.
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  28. Bomb truck applies to guided munitions. F-16s and B-1s have pulled bomb truck duty. The upgrades are just barely keeping the A-10 relevant, should have been retired in the 90s.
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  29.  @benpurcell4935  The A-10 also sacrifices a lot to carry heavy payload. It's a severely thrust limited aircraft, to the point it had to take off with a light load from locations like Bagram airbase. At 5k feet ASL the air is thin enough that if you tried to take off with an A-10 with full load, you'd hit the perimeter fence.
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  30. Doesn't matter, the A-10 allows rudimentary ground units to contest the airspace. Doesn't matter how many fighters you have to protect the A-10 if the A-10's biggest predator are the ground units themselves.
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  31.  @DubhghlasMacDubhghlas  Having air superiority does not save the A-10. Six of them went down in Iraq despite American air superiority.
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  32.  @DubhghlasMacDubhghlas  Around 8000. For reference, F-16s flew 12,000 sorties with half the losses.
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  33. They wanted to junk the A-10 because it reached retirement age. The Cheyenne program started in the same year the Johnson-McConnell agreement happened. The B-1 is an excellent support aircraft - they didn't promote it, they USED it. Online critics mock the USAF behind a keyboard, the USAF drops payload in combat. Helicopters have agility advantages fixed wing aircraft don't have.
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  34.  @eliteecho9383  The B-1 doesn't perform the role like the A-10 so the fuel consumption is less of a factor. It's not a "replacement", the A-10 was replaced by a multitude of aircraft. The B-52, F-16, F-15E and B-1. Each with its own strengths and drawbacks. The Army isn't going to take 40 year old aircraft and spend 10 years setting up their own logistics. The Marines can't fly A-10s off short deck carriers do they don't care.
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  35.  @technocrat4613  Do you have an actual point? Yes, the B-52 is old but there's no aircraft to replace it and no point in designing a new one. Meanwhile the A-10 doesn't even get most of CAS missions because other aircraft have replaced it. Structural replacements are expensive, which is why the re-winging program cost almost a billion for the first run and another billion for the second run.
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  36. A-10s are much more vulnerable than helicopters. Of course F-16s could do the A-10s job while taking fewer losses. You're only making multiroles look good.
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  37. The AC-130 is known for being extremely vulnerable. One got downed in Iraq because they stayed overhead supporting Marines even though they were not meant to fly during daytime. An entire crew killed because they couldn't provide support to the men on the ground safely.
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  38. The Ju-87 lost effectiveness halfway through WWII. Both Ju-87 and IL-2 kill counts are massively inflated as never performed as well as they're claimed to have.
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  39. The AC130 is very vulnerable. A hit from a MANPADS killed a whole crew in 2003.
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  40. How was the A-10 designed against the Mujahideen if it was essentially designed to fight North Vietnam? Why would people in the 60s and 70s be aware of 2001? The A-10 was designed for an all out fight, but rendered immediately obsolete by air defenses. Taking a hit? From what? A fast firing 30mm which can shred it from nose to tail? Or a continuous rod warhead capable of slicing it in half?
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  41.  @hereiam2005  The A-10 was designed to be used like the Skyraider, which was used against North Vietnam. They did shoot back, considering that roughly 200 Skyraiders were lost. There's also a case of a pilot who died trying to land his damaged A-10 when he should have punched out rather than try and save the aircraft. It's pointless.
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  42. Those platforms have a fighting chance. The A-10 is hopeless. The B-52 is in a unique position. It was meant to be replaced by it didn't pan out. The fall of the Soviet Union delayed the need for a suitable replacement. It's also large enough that upgrades have room inside the airframe. Nobody talks about retiring the B-52 because it's a non-issue. The A-10 being unable to fly into a contested environment makes it unfeasible. Air superiority cannot protect the A-10. The A-10 is vulnerable even after air defense systems are degraded, it doesn't get impunity. The operational cost of the A-10 is artificially hidden because billions have been spent to keep it able to fly. It's an extremely dated airframe that had entire chunks rebuilt as the structure physically wore out with use. Loiter time of drones and turboprops is comparable to A-10s if not greater. Getting low is a requirement from the 1960s. A-10 pilots ID'ing targets for themselves have made plenty of mistakes. There's a reason it's the ground controllers who give the call to start the attacks, not pilots. They need hand-holding from ground forces to pick off the right targets. When left alone, they easily target friendlies by mistake. Taliban fighters hit by F-16s probably don't hate to see them overhead because they either died or never saw what hit them. What's worse? Seeing a slow aircraft coming and giving you time to escape, or seeing your friends vaporized without you knowing any aircraft was even there? The latter seems like absolute terror. But that's just me. It wasn't retired because Congress asked for a new aircraft to replace it, while the USAF couldn't convince them that multiroles had already replaced it. It's simply Congress refusing to move on from the 1960s.
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  43.  @CodaMission  Very few Tucanos and AT-6Bs were acquired. They're mostly to train, rather than fight.
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  44. Because of politics. Military wants it retired, Congress forces it to stay in service.
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  45. I woke up and chose violence today so I'll offer the countering opinion. While Stingers are out of production, the obvious direction for next gen manpads involves true imaging seekers. Instead of a heat source, the missile "sees" an aircraft and can be programmed to slam the fuselage rather than the tail. Even gen 2 Strelas had a control algorithm that gave it a last second jink to impact ahead of the heat source, because it was understood the small warhead was a problem and a slightly higher chance of direct impact was helpful. If an enemy has the ability to attack airfields, you'll have trouble operating A-10s as they'll need fighters to cover them.
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  46. False. The USAF acquired over 700 of them and the GAO actually slammed the Air Force for purchasing so many without justifying why that excessive amount was acquired. Reformers invented the fairytale that the USAF never wanted the A-10 which is historical revisionism.
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  47. Every pilot loves their aircraft. The troops are psychologically attached to A-10s they can see and hear even if the job was better performed by something else. The job is what matters, not the air show. The US had air to air combat in Iraq. The F-22 is a drain because there was a bipartisan will to stop the program, which makes it more expensive in the end.
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  48.  @ton73z28  Because all those weapons can be used on other aircraft. It doesn't get talked about because it's not unique.
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  49.  @michaelpcoffee  F-16s, Strike Eagles, B-52s, B-1s, etc.
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  50. Then the drones could take out the convoy. Why waste time with A-10s?
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