Don't mess with an A-10

[tor lives]

I am so glad the A-10s are on our side
Jihad this boys.....and remember, you are just 30mm away from your 72 virgins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XZaTVH-6Hc

TOR

[hrtpaul]

Long live the BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT

[tor lives]

Long live the BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT

Just for you Paul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvIJvPj_pjE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvg7qrIiDTM
TOR

[hrtpaul]

Long live the A-10. That IS a real fighting machine. You won't see an F-35 doing gun runs on a compound full of goat rooters. Wait. Lets use a really expensive plane ($?k my computer doesn't have that many 0's ) with an equally expensive ($27k) JDAM to take out a couple of goat rooters in a mud hut. Or a proven, cheap and reliable weapon system throwing a few rounds of 30mm high explosive (100 rounds at $46 a pop, $4.6k) to put a few holes in said Daesh losers. Anyways I don't care what ya say, the A-10 rocks at CAS and NOTHING is better. Now where's my 1/72 A-10C

[Adam the Akrodude]

Agreed = A-10 KICKS ASS! I did like the A-10's ability to "prune" trees in those clips!

These aeroplanes also kick serious ASS over there:

B-1
F-15E
F-16
F-18
B-52

A-10 great for troop moral because they can see it. Bombs are far better for killing bad guys versus cannon shells though - very hard to run from a supersonically expanding shockwave! The Small Diameter Bomb is coming too. A whole lot of whizz Bang stuff is on it's way. This is also pretty mild in terms of threat level to the A-10 driver here. No SAM's, possibly nothing more than 12.5mm AAA - i.e a fairly "permissive" environment. F-35 is designed to operate in much higher threat levels - environments where the A-10 just would not survive.

F-15E doing CAS in Afghanistan - granted not as "sexy" as the A-10. As the head army guy says referring to the bad guys - "It's not going to be OK. They don't know what's about to hit 'em!".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDvugsSjI6s

To me this is the best way to take out bad guys. Cannons are cool - bombs are better!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D_zHRakOXY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1OqbwtIPy4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHGwPmsJMF8

Jeez, even those boring drones are doing CAS now - all from the comfort of a air conditioned office half a world away - and the operators are getting medals (just plain weird if you ask me).

I do very much want to build a A-10. From my research, it looks like that Italeri 1/48 kit is currently best on the market. The Trumpy 1/32 kit has lots of "issues" - as usual.

[hrtpaul]

Bombs are better Pretty hard to run from a hail of 30mm hell I think you'll find mate.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Bombs are better Pretty hard to run from a hail of 30mm hell I think you'll find mate.

Urgent message - USAF CSAF

It is the solemn belief of A/CAM that only one form of strike/attack aircraft is required in your inventory - the A-10! We suggest immediately grounding all other strike aircraft (drones included) and re-opening A-10 production. It has become apparent that the 30mm cannon is the only righteous and seriously cool weapon now required. Bombs are apparently useless!

Ah Paul, perhaps best study the effects of bombs versus 30mm depleted Uranium rounds (developed of course to destroy the masses of Soviet armour that was expected to surge across the "Iron Curtain". The lethal radius of bombs is much greater than a 30mm round. Bombs don't just destroy and kill everything within the blast, but way beyond due to the supersonically expanding shockwave that can turn internal organs into jelly. A-10 -(yes a truly wonderful aeroplane designed to destroy Soviet armour) to survive, it had had to find other work - like all other airborne military weapons. World has changed and so too have the roles of military aircraft.

The one role I think the A-10 just has no suitable replacement for is Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR - or "Sandy"). The A-10 as it's predecessor the A-1 just so excels in this role. The F-35 has a ground breaking state of the art radar and IR package, but I do believe nothing beats the Mk.1 eyeball in the down and dirty CSAR role. Drones are just not the whole answer here either due to the very narrow field of view the camera systems provide. Humans have almost 180 degree field of view. Wide angle lenses in cameras may give a FOV of perhaps 120 degrees, but there will of course be visual distortion. When I was on the F-105 "thang", I corresponded to a one time F-105 pilot John Piowaty. Piowaty went on to fly surveillance missions over Iraq in Cessna 337 Skymasters and told me just how much better the human eye could pick up on the finest detail - far better than camera based systems. Humans can also far easier see changes in the environment - getting to know a particular area and then being able to pick up changes. Drones would often overfly and area and pick up nothing - mainly due to the narrow field of view of the camera. Because John lived with the "customer" on the same base, the transfer of information was immediate as well. Still drones have become the flavour of the month and huge amounts of money is going into developing and fielding this technology.

My main point is, any strike aircraft has and does perform the CAS very well - has been done and will continue to be done in the future. The 30mm GAU-8 whilst a fearsome and supremely cool weapon, was designed to destroy masses of Soviet armour and really is not the best weapon system for killing dug in bad guys due to the very limited and small lethal blast radius of those rounds - looks cool, but just does not remotely compare to a well placed JDAM or even a Hellfire shot from a Apache. Precision bombs and rockets are far more effective and destructive - that's a fact Jack!

As mentioned above, my only query in regard to retiring the A-10 is just how the USAF will do the CSAR role. It will be entirely up to fast jets and attack helo's to do this role now. It will be a sad day indeed when the A-10 goes - next year apparently. What may come along is something like this jet as a replacement for small CAS/CSAR missions. I think the Scorpion is a great idea. The USAF has always not warmed to budget fighters - never wanted them in the past. This would be an ideal National Guard aircraft I think.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textron_AirLand_Scorpion

[hrtpaul]

Thanks for yet another enlightening lesson. And ......................... I'm done

[Adam the Akrodude]

Bombs win! YAY!

[Adam the Akrodude]

How's this for a cool A-10 build (c/o LSP).

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=58142