Article

2016-08-06 Government

USAF Goes Around Congress to Drive a Stake in the A-10

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Posted by Alaska Paul 2016-08-06 00:19|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ] Top

#1 Of course the ideal solution of just transfering the 'Hog to the Army and Marines is something not to be even discussed. Hell give them the AC-1390's too. Along with the Air Scouts funding.

Posted by Cheaderhead 2016-08-06 06:06|| 2016-08-06 06:06|| Front Page Top

#2 Areed. We should initiate pilotless aircraft (no more POWs) for the Air Farce and turn over the A-10 to the Army and Marines if they can use them. Barring that, I would not scrap the planes as surely they could be sold or donated to some foreign service (e.g., Chad, Nigeria, Kenya) that could use them.

Posted by Slease Pelosi2504 2016-08-06 10:02|| 2016-08-06 10:02|| Front Page Top

#3 There's a book out (Red Platoon) by Clint Romesha, MOH and one of the defenders of COP Keating in 2009, describing in some detail what a happy event the arrival of Apaches and A-10's over the battlefield was. (Apparently, watching a couple of hundred bad guys finding out what a 30mm Gatling gun can do tends to improve morale.) Whatever the brass says, I don't think your Army and Marine infantry would be real happy about standing down the A-10's.

Posted by Matt 2016-08-06 11:49|| 2016-08-06 11:49|| Front Page Top

#4 The F35 will never provide the ground support the A10 provides. This is their game. They will do the fly off. They will show people that don't understand ground support that it will work. Congress will swallow and it will be done. The F16 was sold to congress as a ground support aircraft, the F14 was sold as a ground support aircraft, the F15 was sold as a ground support aircraft. Then after they bought them they had them modified to carry a different payload. The weapons necessary for ground support had their install mods removed. When you call them out on it they say it can do that mission but we don't have any in that configuration and it will take months to modify them. Its a bullshit game and our soldiers are the pawn. They should disband all ground support aircraft from the Air Farce. Give it to the Army and Marines.

Posted by 49 Pan 2016-08-06 11:50|| 2016-08-06 11:50|| Front Page Top

#5 If they want a meaningful 'fly-off' (they don't, of course) it needs to run for multiple sorties of the same aircraft - maybe 10? - over a one week time. Doesn't matter if the F-35 is better (unlikely) on one pass if it can't show up again for a week. And the test has to include being shot at and still being able to go around again.

Posted by Glenmore 2016-08-06 13:24|| 2016-08-06 13:24|| Front Page Top

#6 These are the same guys who back in the sixties didn't think a fighter should have a gun and that missiles at 100 miles, via the AARAM missile was how dogfighting would be done in the future.

These idiots in R&D seem to think they can do close air support from 20,000 with smart airplanes and smarter bombs. They are essentially raccoons distracted by the latest shiny object.

As for close air support mods, sell them to the Israelis and wait a year and they will have all the close air support mods you want. Funny, I don't think our Air Farce has the stomach for close air support.

SO why don't we just transfer the A-10 to the Marines I am sure they would LOVE to get rid of those decrepit old Harriers and early model Hornets.

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2016-08-06 14:04|| 2016-08-06 14:04|| Front Page Top

#7 Army for sure. Is there any way to launch and recover an A-10 from a ship?

Say what you want about the new Battlestar Galactica I found interesting the opening moves - the old stuff being retired and when the Cylons attacked, all the new stuff was hacked.

Posted by swksvolFF 2016-08-06 14:34|| 2016-08-06 14:34|| Front Page Top

#8 Only takes a directional order from the SecDef to move CAS to the ground bounders and out of the zoomies responsibility. Hell, if you can direct a third gender integration, you can direct doctrine.

Posted by Procopius2k 2016-08-06 15:45|| 2016-08-06 15:45|| Front Page Top

#9 Maybe if a few of the fighter mafia generals get shot for treason, the lesson would take.

Posted by Silentbrick 2016-08-06 17:22|| 2016-08-06 17:22|| Front Page Top

#10 RE: Cheaderhead's comment "pour encourager les autres" (hat-tip, Candide)

Posted by Lone Ranger 2016-08-06 17:56|| 2016-08-06 17:56|| Front Page Top

#11 I guarantee if the techies in the Air Farce weapons R&D were true stick and rudder guys, you would not see this kind of silliness.

Yep, an airplane that is a flying WiFi hotspot with multiple computers collecting terabits of information, what could go wrong?

If they can hack the Defense Department or the FBI what makes you think they can't hack one of our flying computers?

Our aircraft are flying computers with pilots playing video games. An armed force for the millennialists and snow flakes that want to fight a war without offending anyone.

Posted by Sock Puppet of Doom 2016-08-06 18:44|| 2016-08-06 18:44|| Front Page Top

#12 Oh SPOD how true you are.

This is so typical of all tech projects. Been there done that for 30 years and it always comes down to techies wanting to do the latest and greatest (mea culpa) to deliver the spiffiest solution possible. Rugged? Invulnerable? Idiot proof? Never seen those requirements on the spec.

Posted by AlanC 2016-08-06 19:18|| 2016-08-06 19:18|| Front Page Top

#13 Show some sympathy for the fly boys. The F-35 is their last gasp before the Robot Mafia takes over air combat maneuvering.

I realize it goes against the Treaty of Westphalia or some damn agreement, but giving the A-10s (and their budget!) to people who want and need them makes such good sense that I can almost guarantee it will never happen.

Posted by SteveS 2016-08-06 19:37|| 2016-08-06 19:37|| Front Page Top

#14 I believe I've told this story here before. In several of our family's Marine Sargent's 'encounters' during the Iraq invasion and subsequent AQI actions, nothing lit up smiles on the wounded guys waiting for evac like the sound of those turbofans at the start of a run.

The riflemen on the lines were too busy to smile, but they were thinking the same thing.

"Here comes Hell, you F*ckers!!"

The aviator folks at Pendleton that I talked to about 10 years ago would've loved to have the A-10. Unfortunately the USMCA today doesn't have the resources to keep their existing birds flying or pilots properly trained. Probably by design.

Hopefully that changes soon.

Posted by Mullah Richard 2016-08-06 20:40|| 2016-08-06 20:40|| Front Page Top

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