Comments by "Titanium Rain" (@ChucksSEADnDEAD) on "Military Aviation History"
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@matchesburn No. It. Isn't. If we're comparing, say, 23mm to 20mm aircraft cannons, you don't bring up a 12 gauge. We're comparing 27mm to 30x173mm, or even smaller 30mm rounds to 30x173mm. There's a much lower capability gap, and you're deliberately throwing out a much lower pressure and lower velocity cartridge to drive a point.
It's not intellectually dishonest. The targets were standing still, visibility was good, there was no return fire and the pilot had plenty of time to line up shots. The damage on the soft kills was also estimated to not have completely disabled some of the tanks, which would be repairable within hours. This is the same problem as WW2 tank kills by aircraft, in which pilots counted near misses and light damage as kills, while on the actual ground they barely made a dent in tank numbers due to how easy it was to repair them. So again, if you want to trash the outside of tanks to temporarily disable them, you don't need 30x173mm. Also, they were goddamn M-47 tanks so the damage caused to more modern threats would not be as pronounced. And let's not even mention that in real life the pilot would be hitting moving targets, dodging AAA and MANPADS, possibly have low visibility, armor is pumping out smoke screens so there's no way the pilot could have scored hits as clean as during the test.
"The only thing that comes close is, again, the GSh-6-30" - At temporarily disabling tanks?
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@jtnachos16 Helicopters use their increased agility and hovering capabilities to mask themselves against terrain. Fixed with aircraft always need to unmask themselves on the pop up, level out for acquisition and release, then dive back down. Meanwhile rotary wing can actually shoot from behind cover thanks to mast-mounted sensors.
Normal fighters doing wild weasel will do nothing. The point of wild weasel was keeping defenses turned off while strike packages moved through. Several aircraft, each carrying several ARMs, shooting them in the air to force radars to turn off can give you several minutes of breathing room. This doesn't protect A-10s. A fixed SAM site has to turn off the emissions even time an ARM is fired. That keeps them suppressed. If there's an A-10 flying over you and you're a SPAAG, you'll turn on the radar, blast the A-10 out of the sky, and turn off. Then maybe start driving away just in case an ARM was fired. If you're a SAM site trying to bag a B-52, you have to keep the radar on for track, lock, then shoot the missile and keep the radar on until impact because you're feeding the control inputs to the missile. That gives a couple minutes for Wild Weasel to target you.
How is the F-35 reduced in capabilities?
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@jtnachos16 "nor was it a temporary measure for while strike packages moved through" - That's the subtle difference between DEAD and SEAD. SEAD is making sure a strike package gets through. DEAD is making sure the SAM won't be there tomorrow.
"You are literally arguing that NO aerial vehicle should be used for CAS duties, because no aerial vehicle is safe from ground fire." - No, I am not. I'm just saying that there's aircraft that have the legs to run, and those that don't.
"If terrain masking works for a rotary, it works for a fixed wing." - Rotary wing with sensors on the mast can target threats behind cover and pop out for a shot, or even shoot from behind cover for a lock on after launch in some cases. Fixed wing comes out of cover, needs to acquire and target, release weapon, then dive back down. Helicopters are squirrely targets. Fixed wing are predictable.
"Say goodbye to your stealth" - Other aircraft don't have it to begin with. Also, stealth is a combination of features. It still benefits from reduced IR signature. This is the problem, you people say "it has to trade advantages" and then present the most biased case possible. Exactly how is a F-35 loaded to the brim with 18k lbs of weapons and almost twice the thrust somehow disadvantaged?
"you are better off with any existing plane that isn't as expensive to operate as a damn F-35" - And you're no better off if that aircraft gets shot down. So at the minimum, you'd still need a Strike Eagle to pull off that job. Not the A-10 limping along with 17k lbs or whatever (47k - 30k gross weight) with its measly 18k lbsf of thrust.
"We saw the EXACT SAME ISSUE with the F-22, where it lost most of it's significant advantages the minute you wanted it to do anything more than hit once and run." - What?
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@TheGrammargestapo1 The issue is that the difference isn't enough to actually penetrate severely outdated tanks, so the damage is limited to sensitive targets outside of the tank's armor.
The DU penetrator was retired and only brought back for use against ISIS. And even then they were reluctant to re-introduce it.
Again, even against M47 tanks most shots could not achieve full penetration. Most of the disabling effects were achieved by attacking their mobility and firepower.
You're not penetrating the tank. You're disabling it. That's enough. Again, under perfect conditions most fire from the A-10 will not even come close to achieving full penetration on an ancient M47 tank. This was shown by the 1979 test and assumed that T-55s would have similar results but T-62s would not have full penetration and thus only the GAU-8 would only disable the tanks by damaging the exterior. You can achieve the same with other cannons.
"so that it could be recovered and the powerpack, tracks, and cannon barrel switched out so that it was back on the battlefield in less than a day" - AGAIN, this was exactly what the 1979 testing showed. The tanks would only require hours to a day of repairs to bring back to action. The point was to make the tanks combat ineffective, win the fight, they won't get recovered. If they do, too bad. That's what the GAU-8 was shown to be capable of in 1979, but you somehow use this against other cannons while giving the GAU-8 a pass.
The actual tank killing weapon in the GAU-8 is the Maverick.
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@matchesburn Can you please condense whatever you're trying to say?
1. You used a reductio ad absurdum by bringing up shotguns. I don't care if you're mad, if you're on the spectrum, or whatever. If you actually think that bringing up the fact that there's different shells with the same nominal caliber is an argument, you're done. Again, CONTEXT.
2. Again, most of the disabling power of the GAU-8 was through damage that could be repaired and put the tank back in action. The extra penetration power of the GAU-8 made very little contribution.
3. No, you learned to be a person who makes constant use of fallacies to get an argument through. The point is that tanks do use smoke to obscure their position from optically guided weapons. This makes aiming at specific vehicles or specific parts of a vehicle harder, which means that real world damage dealt will be even lower than tested.
4. "in order to simulate movement through a hostile air defense systen" - There's no simulation if you're not evading fire. Again, you can pretend to be the world boxing champion by dodging punches in front of your mirror. Doesn't mean much when a real punch is thrown at you.
5. Out of 93 impacts only 17 were perforations.
6. There's literally no hypocrisy, both sentences are compatible.
7. You didn't read. Only 277,000 rounds were 105/120mm. 35 million rounds were 30mm.
8. "the A-10 pilot was doing a gun run based on if it was an actual potential threat, you oligophrenic." - Pretending on your mind there is a potential threat isn't the same as having an actual threat. A real threat will force an aircraft to disengage from a run when the tracers start flying.
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@Grathew "says nothing about why or how the A-10 is going to get shot down over another aircraft" - Because it's own design makes it vulnerable. It's important to remember that the original goal of the A-X program predates modern defense systems. It's a thrust-limited aircraft and it never got engine upgrades because the avionics were a higher priority. It cannot get out of trouble as easily as other aircraft.
"phycological affects of the A-10" - Now reverse it. What are the psychological effects of A-10s being shot down? It negatively affects your troops while giving a huge morale boost to the enemy. That's a two way road argument. I find effectiveness more important than focusing on psychological effects because of how easily they're reversed.
"You need to be able to evade and that's where the turning circle matters in addition to speed." - The problem is that evading AAA makes you vulnerable to a missile and evading a missile gets you in the path of AAA. The problem with the A-10 is that the ways to counter air power essentially layer themselves to catch these lower performance aircraft. Focusing on tighter turn radius when modern processing power simply tells the missile or gun turret "oh, here's turning in a X foot circle, therefore make place Y the intercept path so they'll meet" is a flawed thought process.
"That's about half to a third of any other aircraft we currently have" - But air combat isn't a pure turn circle match. That's why energy is so important. You could have a 1 foot turning circle and it wouldn't matter. Other aircraft may have a wider turn circle, but when they point their nose to place X the missile has to create a much wider angle offset on the intercept path because it's trying to catch up. Then point to place Y, suddenly the missile cannot expend the energy to turn to the new intercept path without drag losses completely tanking its residual energy. A tight turn radius is a last resort to attempt to get outside the limits of the missile flight envelope, but we're talking such short ranges that in comparison to the A-10 the missile is almost going straight and gets to the aircraft with minimal maneuvering.
"Most anti-helicopter weapons are either ManPAD missiles or human guided AAA" - Not just that. Optical track. Laser beamriding. Anti-helicopter weapons are pretty well developed because they're such a squirrely target. Human AAA and MANPADS are just the extra threats to deal with, because the more threats the greater the chance that a pilot will make a mistake from being overwhelmed.
"the radar SPAAGs should be dealt with ARMs during the SEAD phase" - Ahah. No. ARMs will be spent on the major defenses to clear a path for important strikes. Dedicating SEAD flights to cover for CAS is insanity. Not only does it subtract from important missions, it will be a waste because radar crews know they have to shut down radars during the SEAD phase. Having SEAD in the air does nothing when crews only need to wait for A-10s to get close, open up, shoot down, shut the radar off and move. The SEAD flight will not be able to stop a close range attack on the A-10, only react to it and retaliate if they find the source. And again sensors that operate with IR or electro-optical systems are good enough for SHORAD without emitting a signal that can be homed on.
"low speed" - Low speed and altitude hinders Maverick range.
"I don't understand the whole "Suicide Drone" thing" - As we have seen in recent conflicts, there's drones that drop ordnance and drones that carry an explosive payload and dive onto the intended target. They're not missiles because they do not fly like a missile, they loiter over the battlespace like an aircraft. My point is that these weapons are smaller in dimensions than traditional aircraft, they're often built with some degree of stealth features, they're not ultra fast or have powerful engines so they have lower IR emissions. They're harder to detect and thus stop. This has forced defenses to become better. If defenses are being upgraded and developed to target these small, almost-stealth threats what hope does an A-10 have? In fact, they can almost certainly shoot down a Maverick coming from long range due to the velocity drop off.
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@SergeantAradir The major difference is that you need multiple additions to that "light infantry" in "some foxholes". You want a good analogue, you'll need bunkers too, AT mines, pre-sighted artillery, ATGMs, ambush sites with shoulder fired rocket launchers and AT guns ready to take out vehicles as they roll in, plus the enemy having tanks and IFVs of their own. There's no ground radar to detect tanks like aircraft are detected, so I guess the enemy has forward observers and drones to provide early warning and correction to artillery.
Your enemy has an entire spectrum of weapons dedicated solely to swat aircraft out of the air. And you want to compare this to just light infantry and foxholes.
If you plan your tank advance poorly, you won't roll in with ease. You'll need to do everything in your power to fight every one of those individual weapons before the tanks can even roll in. You have to kill observers. Take out drones. Find the ambushes. Evade the mine fields. Use your artillery/cruise missiles to take out the artillery. You need a well oiled machine to "roll in with ease" through those defenses.
Russian attacks missed. What else is new? They got the Aliexpress version of Desert Storm. Do you think that if the US was blue team and Ukraine red team, that moving defenses around would have made the US say "aw shucks" and give up? No, they'd continue with SEAD.
The Iraqis started defensive moves after the initial attacks blew their defenses apart. To the point that most US aircraft were not allowed to fly under 10k-12k feet due to the threat their defenses still posed. Even when SAMs were suppressed, AAA wasn't. It has to be suppressed "manually".
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@tinkerjeeppublications9823 Narrowing the window of interdiction matters when you have one opportunity to deter an attack deep into your territory. Not when the enemy aircraft will be loitering around.
If you're sending other elements to destroy AA, those same elements can just do the A-10s job. Why send less capable aircraft that need escorts, if the escorts themselves can just do the job in the first place?
Other aircraft can do the job without needing that support. The fact of the matter is that defenses can be masked from ground troops while being able to engage aircraft once they cross a certain threshold. So an aircraft cannot depend on ground support to engage the defenses.
What's new is that your proposal to have ARMs doesn't make a lick of difference when the A-10 is most vulnerable to defenses that are not directly in front of it. There's context behind the things I say, and we were talking about your ARM proposal. The fact is that other aircraft do not have to place themselves in this risky situation, and your argument is that we should place the A-10 in this situation, and as a last resort give it a weapon that won't have the effect you think will have.
Please don't start the F4 thing. The Phantom didn't need a gun. The Navy didn't put one in their Phantoms.
The "reputation" of the GAU-8 was scope creep. The A-X program had nothing to do with the Phantom, and the lack of gun wasn't an oversight. No, the F-4 wasn't better with a gun. It required the use of a smaller radar and the weight up front negatively impacted the handling characteristics. Over Vietnam the USAF scored 89 missile kills, and something like 5 kills with the internal gun. The Navy scored 40 kills without guns.
The A-10 isn't effective. It's not proven. The first real war it got, it had to be pulled back due to excessive losses.
The countermeasure to a 30mm bullet is concentrating fire on the aircraft that is performing a predictable straight line dive. Which is why in 1991 pilots quickly learned they had to use the Mavericks to take out targets from a distance and save the cannon rounds for later.
If there's a hurricane outside and we have save means to accomplish a task, you don't insist on going outside because it's the only way you know how to accomplish it. It's not that you'll get wet, it's that you can get killed or waste emergency service resources.
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@Aaron-wq3jz Then don't increase morale by lying to troops and claiming air shows are the most effective CAS available. Increase morale by telling them that fast flying jets can point a laser at someone's dick from 15,000 feet AGL and drop a bomb on it.
"We do need worry about their feelings, that's one of the main things they teach you to control in the military." - You know what I meant. It was a rub on the whole "facts don't care about your feelings" meme. Do we talk about combat by pointing out what's effective? Or what "feels" effective?
"The plane is built with a titanium bathtub to protect the pilot" - Because it was designed at a time 14.5mm was seen as the biggest threat. The world has moved on. Now, if your plan A is expecting to get hit, you've already failed. The pilot will still go down if the rest of the aircraft is shot full of holes. Integrated air defense systems are a death sentence to A-10s, MANPADs are a threat and the 23mm ZSU-23-4 is more than capable of bringing A-10s down. The 2K22 Tunguska is even worse, as it fires ammunition almost as large as the GAU-8. If you slap enough armor on an airplane to survive the modern battlefield, it won't even make it out the runway.
"the A10s niche is low intensity warfare again a poorly equipped enemy" - A niche better served by turboprops that fly almost as fast but can take off from FOBs much close to the action, loiter for longer, guzzle less gas, cost less to maintain, etc.
"Even if you are in combat against a well equipped enemy you just load stand off weapons" - standoff weapons gain effectiveness by being launched by aircraft flying faster and higher.
"on a cheap platform" - The A-10 is not "cheap", it's straight up an aircraft that you can't buy more. The price may as well be "infinite", it doesn't matter how cheap it was in the 1970s if you can't replace it. That makes a greater case for armed drones because they're replaceable, don't risk the pilot, etc.
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@matchesburn Nobody's asking for 5th grade anything. Just for less text, holy crap.
1. Again, it was a fallacy. Everyone knows what a 20mm M61 Vulcan is here.
2. Yes, requiring specific cartridge dimensions when context makes it clear is peak internet insanity. Stop being like this. Be a normal, sane person.
3. Irrelevant. The same goal is accomplished with smaller cartridges.
4. I have not strawmanned you a single time, while you do it every time.
5. Nobody's talking about IR. Smoke will block VISIBLE radiation too. What do you use to aim at tanks through the HUD? Eyes. Nobody said cannon rounds are heat seeking. You're an insane person.
6. Again, another fallacy. Nobody said training isn't training. I'm saying that not being shot at makes things easy. Again, you're insane and you cannot read. Yes, it was a strawman.
7. Actually, the results I got were from the END of the report. Not page 3.
8. There's no contradiction. Smaller cartridges can cause external damage.
9. You're insane. You copy-pasted the following:
"The U.S. Army is managing the potential 'demilitarization and disposal' of the depleted uranium (DU) ammunition, which also includes hundreds of thousands of 105mm and 120mm armor-piercing tank shells."
You brought up 105 and 120 shells first. Did you not read what you copy pasted? If you didn't read why did you even post it? Still, if you had read the rest you'd see over 30 million 30mm rounds were to be retired. You just stopped reading when your eyes saw 105/120 mm and decided to copy paste.
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@ABCantonese It's more powerful, but not enough to make a difference. There is only one aircraft that carries it, so it's incredibly hard to justify keeping it in the air.
Modern cartridge design (like 25mm APEX) can compensate for the smaller payload. If you want even more explosive filler, a APKWS rocket has around 5-6 miles of range and it gives you a pinpoint rocket strike at a comparatively low cost as you don't have to put millions of dollars worth of aircraft and pilot within 2500 feet of the enemy.
The 30mm isn't going to be shared with ground troops. First, that's a logistical nightmare to rob Peter to pay Paul, only the most dire of situations would require it. Second, you don't know what "near the frontlines" is. Third, there's only a small amount of Stryker Dragoons with the Bushmaster 30mm cannon. Sorry, the USAF won't keep fuel, weapons, pilots and maintainers (very precious resources) near the frontline where a good MLRS attack could wipe out an entire air base.
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