F-35s Won't Outdo A-10 in Battlefield Capabilities

Single mission bombers?
The B-2, B-1B and B-52 have all been used in CAS....and the B-52 is on the chopping block mainly due to age.

by definition the B-2 is multirole...it can carry and drop GPS munitions. conventional and nuclear ordnance. It's chief advantage is the ability to penetrate enemy airspace because of the low observable features.

What can the A-10 do besides CAS? I think it shot down a couple helicopters in the Gulf war, so I suppose there's that. Can an A-10 penetrate enemy airspace? It's useless in contested airspace other than it can take a licking, but against a near peer, I doubt it will survive.

345 mph cruising speed does not make it suitable, realistically, for any other type of mission aside from operating in permissive airspace in response to troop contacts with the enemy. Even the other low & slow CAS platform, AC-130, is faster; but the AC-130 can also be regarded as aerial artillery.

The new tanker, the KC-46 is multi-role. It can carry gas, troops and/or cargo and be fitted as a mobile hospital; and it can operate in a medium threat environment. It isn't strictly a tanker that passes gas.

 

MoD facing legal challenge over armed drone deployment outside Afghanistan -> http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...nge-armed-reaper-drone-deployment-afghanistan

https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/interview/2013/05-10-drone-weapons-ihl.htm

 

Actually, even CAS is a secondary role for the A-10. It is primarily designed as a "tank buster", going after tanks, artillery, and other heavy ground targets behind the front lines. CAS is actually it's secondary role, but the same capabilities that make it excell in destroying armor formations is also well suited to CAS.

And no, it does not nessicarily need "permissive air space", and it is designed to operate in contested airspace. That is where the "low and slow" comes into play. Just like helicopters, it is designed to operate below the "contested airspace", and below the attention of the fighters who are acting like knights of the air duking it out at high altitude. The exact same area of airspace that helicopters operate in (which is why it is known to engage helicopters).

And the AC-130 is very different, because it operates in yet another area of the airspace. Not armored and even more poorly defended against air attacks, it is the CAS that only operates when we have air superiority.

And yes, the A-10 can penetrate enemy air space. It is designed to do exactly that, by operating below the minimum engagement altitude of most surface to air missiles and taking advantage of gaps in the enemy RADAR grid. It's original design was created to take advantage of the terrain in Central Europe, pass over the Forward Edge of Battle Area (FEBA) and engage Warsaw Pact armor and mobile formations just behind the enemy lines, then return to friendly lines again.

It was not designed to pass 200 miles and operate behind enemy lines, but operate right on the edge of the ground combat lines.

Just like helicopters.

In Air Defense, the thing that scared us the most was not enemy fighters and bombers, it was enemy helicopters. They often came in below our RADAR or took advantage of ground clutter and terrain features that let them get really close before we could detect them. And they operated so damn low that the only thing my Battalion could engage them with was our M2 .50 cal machine guns (or hope some other unit with MANPADs was operating in support of us). They were way to low for our PATRIOT systems to ever engage. More then once in exercises a Battery Commander could only look on helplessly as some Hind came overhead and destroy his entire unit, knowing there was not a damned thing he could do about it.

And if our enemies had some kind of CAS aircraft even close to the A-10, we would be scared of that too. But thankfully they do not, so all they can throw at us is helicopters, or catch us on the move.

 

The A-10 was never designedfor NOE flying like helicopters, and they certainly can't hover behind a ridge either. They're not invunerable to SAMs as you allude , 11 were lost in Desert Storm, mainly to the SA-13, specifically made for low altitude engagements.

The F-35 may ultimately be a disappointment, but the A-10 was approaching obsolesence anyway. In 2003 an A-10 was shot down near Baghdad by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile. Russian-made SA-16 and SA-18 have shot down 10 Apache helicopters in Iraq since 2003.

I don't know why you think low flying aircraft are invulnerable. The Soviets lost plenty of Hinds to American made Stingers

Here's a list of all the Soviet losses in the Afghanistan war...many of these were the Mi-24 Hind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_aircraft_losses_during_the_Soviet–Afghan_War

These shoot downs were accomplished by either small arms or shoulder fired missiles...the Afghans certainly did not have any mobile SAM batteries.

 

The F-15E, B-1B along with the F/A-18 and other multirole aircraft, have provided more than 75% of close air support since the terror attacks of 2001.

Much of what the A-10 can do, is in fact duplicated by multi-role aircraft. The ability to convert a platform not originally designed with CAS in mind, into a competent ground attack aircraft is due primarily to precision guided munitions operating in conjuction with a JTAC on the ground. There are specific niches the A-10 fulfills that say an F-15E Strike Eagle cannot. However operating and maintaining an aircraft system is the bulk of the operations cost above and beyond the cost of the actual aircraft, it is therefore cheaper to retire the entire inventory.. The savings is a very tangible $4 billion dollars.

Arguing the merits of the F-35 is not what I'm discussing...as it is 75% of the current CAS workload is done by other aircraft aside from the A-10. No one seems to want to address that reality. I fail to see how the close air support mission is being abandoned because of retiring one platform.

 

*grins*

OK, let's discuss this in regards to each item, ok?

OK, the Gopher, or SA-13 (Strela-10 to Warsaw pact).

That really is fairly formidable. However, it is not really a "surface to air missile" as most think of it. In reality, it is more in line of a "vehicle mounted MANPAD", comparable to the US STINGER-AVENGER system. A heat seeking man portable missile mounted onto a vehicle. And did I not specifically say that it's only real threat was MANPADs?

The vast majority of SAM threat is in the "big boys". The SA-3, the SA-17, the S-300, the kind of missiles that have RADAR to acquire and track targets, and can reach out dozens or hundreds of miles and strike even a supersonic fighter or bomber out of the sky. These are not a threat to helicopters or the A-10, because they operate below their level of engagement.

For missiles of this class, they need the target to be beyond a minimum height and altitude. If the target is less then 1 km away or below 500 meters, many of them will simply not engage. Ever. Period. The SAM operators can yell and scream at their equipment all they want, it will not engage for many reasons. Most importantly is altitude. Ground scatter, dead zones, safety of personnel on the ground, ability to achieve flight that low, and altitude control of the missile simply refuse to allow them to operate at those altitudes.

So yes, once again as I said, aircraft flying that low (like the A-10) are indeed safe from such missiles. But they are vulnerable to the smaller (and less capable) MANPAD class systems.

And to clarify what you said, indeed 11 A-10s were lost to the SA-13 in the Gulf War. But "lost" means the aircraft were damaged to the degree that they were unreoverable. 6 of those 11 returned to base and were declared a loss once they were on the ground with the pilots still flying them (another 1 crashed on final approach, so 7 actually returned to base, 1 was lost on the runway).

7 of 11 aircraft hit by a surface to air missile returning their pilots alive to the base, that is actually pretty important to me. How many other aircraft can make that kind of claim?

SA-16 and SA-18, once again a MANPAD. You keep talking about the threat from missiles, and seem to always return to the exact same class of missile I said they were vulnerable to in the first place.

And BTW, all aircraft are vulnerable to MANPADs. It is just that the high fliers are less vulnerable because of speed and altitude, but this is offset by their increased danger from the medium to long range systems. We lost F-14, F-15, F-18, and F-16s to the SA-2 system in the Gulf War, does that mean we should stop flying those aircraft as well?

Actually, yes I do. Remember my MOS. I also understand the difference between these missiles, and what kind of threat each class means. Why you keep jumping to MANPAD as proof of their vulnerability (which I said they were vulnerable to) and ignoring the fact that they were not shot down by the systems that are a real threat (like the SA-2) I have no idea.

In an area which had no air threat, much like our recent wars.

Are you also planning on fighting the next war exactly like the last one?

 

For many different reasons.

The F-18 primarily for Marine units, piloted by Marine (and sometimes Naval) officers. Marines primarily support Marine units, the Air Force primarily supports Army units. Also you have issues of linger time (the bombers are king of this), and time to respond.

But I bet the A-10 was able to engage targets the others could not, and was more effective when it was called in. Ask Apache which was more effective in Vietnam, calling in a slow mover, or requesting a B-52 to try and do CAS. I happen to know ROE kept systems like the B-1 and B-52 from doing a lot of CAS engagements because of the proximity to friendly troops and civilians.

Plus you have the simple fact that the inventory of other aircraft is much higher then that of the A-10. When the A-10 is maybe 10% of the aircraft inventory in theatre, of course it is going to have a smaller number of engagements. The issue is how effective each of these is in it's role.

And yea, I am also aware that almost all aircraft are "multi-role". After all, was it not our own Air Force that fired an ICBM from a C-5? A prettty bad-assed multi-role if you ask me, a cargo aircraft launching nuclear missiles.

But just because something can do something, does not nessicarily mean it excells at it. And remember, I am a belt and suspenders type of guy. Keep the multi-role aircraft, but also keep the specialized ones as well. Be they cargo, air to air intercepters, or CAS. We should have all of them in our inventory. And myself, I believe that once the bugs are worked out, the F-35 will be an awesome aircraft. But it will never replace the A-10 or F-15 in their specialties.

 

The Marine variant of their C-130 tanker, the KC-130J "Harvest Hawk," is armed with Hellfire missiles to engage ground targets and 30mm cannon...the weapon kit is roll on/roll off, so the aircraft can be a tanker or gunship as needed...it's been used with success in Afghanistan as a close air support platform.

Again though, it's important to note this is being used in permissive airspace. You mentioned the F-15, 16 and F/A-18 were shot down in the Gulf war, and they were; does this mean they are obsolete too? They are in fact, getting older and approaching obsolescence, other than more advanced variants of the newer block "Super Hornets."

The F-35 was ideally supposed to be the go to fighter/strike/attack aircraft replacing all of those. A one size fits all aircraft with economies of scale built in as eventually the more they make, the cheaper they are supposed to be. Of course the F-35 has so far not lived up to expectations in terms of the cost vs. benefit analysis and the haters are having a field day desiring to go back to the older aircraft. I think it's too soon to write off the project entirely, and either way, the A-10s and F-15s are getting long in the tooth even if we could afford to keep them and field the newer F-35s simultaneously.

 

It was the Stinger missile system that in no small measure turned the tide of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and gave the mujahideen a fighting chance. Prior to their use, the Hinds could strafe ground target almost at will, small arms fire did neglible damage to the armed helicopters.
The Stinger changed all that. While high flying fighters and bombers were largely immune, anything flying sub-sonic and below 10,000 feet was a potential target.



In the wake of advanced MANPADs and mobile surface-to-air systems, the U.S. is leaning more and more towards stand off offensive measures....on the order of air-to-surface cruise misslies launched many miles from the intended target at stand-off range. A blimp, could potentially be an attack aircraft as the munitions themselves contain the technology. The aircraft serves the purpose of being a winged truck.

The A-10 had a physical presence on the battlefield and a distinctive noise the ground guys loved. The USAF was the angel over their shoulder, in a very physical way. A B-52 leaving contrails in the sky flying at higher altitudes doesn't have the same psychological effect, even though the precision guided weapons, directed by ground based controllers, can be just as devastating. Against a near peer bad guy, equipped with more sophisticated surface-to-air defenses, even the armored A-10 is vulnerable. I believe the future of CAS is stand off, with rotary wing brought up once the dust clears.

 

Well, two different things here really.

The REDEYE and STINGER was not as effective as many seem to think in destroying Soviet aircraft. What it did however was make the Soviets react to the Mujahadeen, and they had to start working in teams instead of solo, and fly along known safe lanes instead of anywhere that they wanted to without fear as they had before. And just flying in teams of two effectively cut the amount of ground they could protect in half.

Plus the STINGER was much more commonly used against aircraft, not helicopters. Soviet aircraft were very vulnerable to even light missiles like MANPADS< while the helicopters (especially the HIND) was highly armored and resistant to them. Plus they had other ways to bring those down, including conventional ground fire and shoulder fired anti-tank weapons (the method used against the US in Somalia of RPG7 missiles taking down helicopters had been developed by the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan).

STINGER was a game changer, but it was really not as effective as some make it out to be. Just seeing the number of Soviet aircraft shot down in Afghanistan shows how true this actually is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_aircraft_losses_in_Afghanistan

Just looking through the list shows that they had been shooting down aircraft in considerable numbers long before the STINGER was even deployed. It simply made it easier to shoot down aircraft, the vast majority were shot down before it even made an appearance (the first downing of a Soviet aircraft by STINGER was actually 7 months after they were first provided).

But the range of this weapon also makes it easy to evade. Flying over woods, over terrain that prevents the deployment of troops, and the like are the easiest way to avoid this threat.

 

LOL, a person can be informed and talking out of there arse as well. You do know its the internet I imagine.... so I'd wonder why you'd ask that? If you don't have discussions with people (other then seemingly pointing out your opinions of them while avoiding the actual discussions) who tell you how long their smith is, then it might be best for you to assume everyone hasn't and just not discuss with them. I never answer that question, and its pretty rude to ask it actually.

 

Isn't it a Johnson ?

 

Sure is!

 

UAV's already have a role in CAS. Predator caries more than Hellfire, there are several variants of Predator, and there are other UAV's flying. Many carry the AGM-176 Griffin missile (so does the AC-130), the UAV loiters over friendlies to provide real time precision guided support. When Marines or soldiers need an immediate pin-point strike on a sniper or bad guys behind a wall or a moving vehicle, they either designate or send coordinates and the UAV overhead provides the support. Over 1,000 Griffins have been used in this role.

The UAV also provides guidance to the troops on the ground, it loiters out of sight and the operator continuously watches the friendlies and the area around them and can give warnings and help select a route. Because of the track ball, the operator literally has continuous eyes on the situation.

UAV's are not going to completely replace manned aircraft any time soon, but they are taking over some of the roles of manned aircraft.

 

I'm confused at the comparison. The A-10 is a tank buster. The F-35 is a fighter/bomber. They have different combat roles. So why the comparison?

 

Because there is no one jet which will replace the A10 when it retires, so people think that means there will be a capability gap. It tends to avoid the changing nature of systems being employed so its better to look at the capability rather then the systems fielded by a single platform.... as systems change faster then airframes. What might be happening is some people are looking for specific circumstances which perfectly fit the platform (A10) and then point it out as a capability gap.

The closest argument to that I guess is supporting FID to stop it turning to COIN, because its cheaper and easier to supply bullets then guided ordnance. For that they need the 2 seater A10 ideally I'd say, but the A10 could probably use use local supplies of dumbbombs and the main cannon to support the friendly and demoralise the enemy..... but the AC130 might be more suitable for that - as if things escalate to the point the A10's speed is required, then your already committed logistically to override any benefit of using the A10 over other systems which would be required at that point, IMO.

The F35 is 'part of' what is intended to replace the capability of the A10 AFAIK.

 

I don't see it. It is a stealth fighter/bomber, not a tank buster/close in support. Now I understand that the Marine version has VTOL, but that still doesn't give it close in tank busting or troop support capabilities. It's too big, loud, and expensive for that role. I think it is short-sighted in the extreme to moth ball the A-10, as I think it is short sighted to spend such an huge amount of treasure on a single weapons platform of dubious capability that doesn't actually give us what we really need, an upgraded combat theatre ground support platform. They would have been much better off upgrading the F-22 and spending the difference on advanced combat support craft.

 

Hell, that is rather obvious, since the A-10 does not carry the Hellfire missile!

The AGM-114 Hellfire carries 20 pounds of high explosive, and the Predator carries a grand total of 4, 2 on each of the 2 hardpoints.

The A-10 typically carries the AGM-65 Maverick missile, each with 126 pounds of explosives. 66 of them, 6 on each of 11 hardpoints.

Now please try to tell me how the Predator carries more missiles. It carries only a fraction of the missiles as an A-10, and a missile that is more then 7 times smaller then that of the A-10.

 

The close in CAS doesn't mean low, or slow. As I said its not its replacement, its part of its replacement.... the rest is covered by advances in weapons and systems integration. The US ORBAT is trying to move forwards, not stay static.

You cant scrap the FA18, F16, A10 and AV8B and replace those with a modified F22, that is what the F35 was designed for. The only valid argument I know is it's all a bit high tech, and if the satellites are all knocked out, tactical EMP devices and intense EW renders modern equipment redundant, then its the simple low tech platforms which are going to have a better chance of being useful - but you cannot build a military posture of technological advantage by doing that, you have to defeat it with technological advantage....... and lots of redundancy engineering.

 

As tech capabilities change, so will weapons systems and every other facet of warfare. The same goes for CAS roles and how that gets handled. 'Old' tech fills the gaps, sometimes for decades, until systems are either perfected or discarded as unsatisfactory, as the case may be. As for the cost of the F-35, yes it's too expensive, so is every other thing whose budgets are determined by politicians who need pork to shovel into their states while the public whines about 'corruption', even as the public practically demands corruption that benefits them; the 'other guy's pork' is the 'bad' pork. That's a domestic issue; it shouldn't get in the way of advancing our systems one whit. A lot of other R&D is buried in that F-35 budget as well, some of which is going to be very useful, and some of which isn't related to aircraft at all. It's the nature of the beast that the Defense Dept. hides all kinds of stuff in defense spending, for obvious reasons, not all of which involve sinister reasons. The A-10 is a wonderful system, but it is antiquated and on its way out.

 

And what exactly has changed CAS over the decades? Because since the end of WWII it is a role that has demanded the slowest aircraft we have in our inventory.

Hell, the most effective CAS aircraft prior to the A-10 was the WWII era Propeller driven A-1 Skyraider.

And for all the talk some people keep implying with "advanced technology", "drones", and advances in ordinance, nobody has yet to actually bring up a replacement for the A-10. They all just keep shoving other aircraft designed for something else into the role.

Yea, I can stick a bunch of guns on a Boeing 747 and have it fly in to do CAS. But that would not make it a CAS aircraft.

 

Surface to Air Missile Systems:

SA-2 GUIDELINE
SA-3 GOA
SA-4 GANEF
SA-5 GAMMON
SA-6 GAINFUL
SA-7 GRAIL
SA-8 GECKO
SA-9 GASKIN
SA-10 GRUMBLE
SA-11 GADFLY
SA-12 a/b GLADIATOR/GIANT
SA-13 GOPHER
SA-14 GREMLIN
SA-15 GAUNTLET
SA-16 GIMLET
SA-X-17 GRIZZLY
SA-18 GROUSE
SA-19 GRISOM

and of course there is anti-aircraft artillery...

How long do folks honestly think a Vietnam era Skyraider would last against a near peer bad guy?
or anything low & slow for that matter in even a medium threat environment.

The A-10 has excelled in low threat environments for the most part. Even during the Gulf war where the platform really shined, the F-117 did most of the SEAD while the F-15s took care of any stray MiG 29s that had the misfortune to actually get off the ground. A-10s operated with impunity for the most part.

They are designed to take a lot of punishment, but a damaged aircraft is like a wounded soldier. It takes more manpower to fix something than it does to simply bury it. In fact the 5.56mm round was designed, in part, to maim the bad guys, because a wounded enemy took more out of the fight than simply killing them.

All of the National Guard AH-64 attack helicopters have been transferred to the regular Army. There is no shortage of "low & slow" CAS capable platforms the US Army will have access to.

The F-35 is replacing the Marine's AV-8B jump jets, mobile artillery, the KC-130J gunship/tanker, F/A-18 Super Hornets and they have their AH-1 Super Cobras...not to mention the U.S. Navy offshore compliment of ships capable of inland bombardment...so the Marines should be good to go to manage their own close air support.

 

You keep bringing up that the A-10 is to slow and vulnerable to missiles, yet put in it's place the even more limited helicopters. Which can opeate in even fewer areas, and operate even slower. Huh?

And the ability of any naval ships to perform bombardments is an almost complete joke. The most any of our ships can do is a 5" gun (I think a few ships have 2 5" guns). The inability of our Navy to do any kind of shore bombardment is something Apache and I have brought up in here many times.

 

Helicopters are true nap of the Earth capable, the Longbow can look over ridges without exposing the aircraft... the only defense the A-10 has is chaff...as a single seat aircraft there is no room in the avionics for anything remotely jamming capable...so the A-10 operates as a cowboy hoping to dodge and evade rather than actually counter a threat. The B-1B is capable of electronic jamming.

You seem to think the A-10 hugs the ground, pops up, shoots and pops back down...that's not how it operates, it's a flying gun basically...it needs to strafe to be effective and that requires a descent from altitude. Other than the gun, any other ordnance it is capable of carrying can be done in another platform that is much faster...so it's the gun you like...and the gun is a valuable CAS asset...but the platform carrying the gun is old technology.

 

Actually, it's main defense is flares since it's main threat is heat seeking missiles.

And I know it does not fly at tree top level, I never said it did. It does however operate below the engagement level of most RADAR homing missiles. Most of these need a minimum altitude in the range of 300-500+ meters, and the A-10 is designed to operate inside of that altitude window.

Myself, I actually think it is past time to start to design a real CAS aircraft to replace the A-10. But primarily keeping most of the good things of the A-10 and modernizing them. Composite materials, baffeling to reduce the exhaust profile, and a second seat in a tandem configuration for an observer-gunner. This would allow it to expand it's role into a recon-observation role, something that the US has been lacking since the OV-10 was retired.

Trust me, I know how the A-10 operates, I have played enough games with them over the years (both as a grunt, then as Air Defense). At Yuma in 2009 we had 2 of them screaming right at one of our Batteries, and there was not a damned thing they could do about it because they were only at around 200 meters altitude. Battery was a total loss (6 launchers and RADAR), the A-10 was considered to have recieved "minor damage" from the .50 cals at the site during the pass.