Discussion on the A-10

[Farnan]

The survivability of the A-10 is hard to question...

On the ground it was discovered that her A-10 had sustained damage to one engine and to the redundant hydraulic systems, disabling the flight controls, landing gear and brakes, and horizontal stabilizer. A detailed inspection revealed hundreds of holes in the airframe and that large sections of the stabilizer and hydraulic controls were missing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Campbell_(pilot)

And:

http://www.cradleofaviation.org/hist...ivability.html
(One of this guy's own missiles exploded on his aircraft due to enemy fire, and he was able to land it safely)

It is also EXTREMELY popular among the US Army maneuver troops. Yes, other aircraft can perform CAS but not to its level.

The problem is the "Fighter Mafia" doesn't like it as it doesn't fit with the sexy Air-to-Air warfare mission. Thus they rather put all their faith in the F-35 than the well proven A-10.

[Adar]

True, and the changing face of close air support, the fact that as a result of Afghanistan just about every aircraft can do CAS now and some longer standing questions about how survivable the A-10 is in the face of modern battlefield air defence systems. Also some stuff going back to Kosovo and Desert Storm about the apparent inability of western aircraft to effectively find and identify hidden or camouflaged ground units... something that the F-35 is supposed to address.

The less charitable might say the A-10 is increasingly an anachronism, but to be fair it's done well in Afghanistan... mainly because the Taliban don't have much more than an AK and some goats. Great aeroplane for Afghanistan, maybe not so great for the next war - especially if the other side has been shopping in Russia anytime in the last 20 years or so.


As for LCS, it'll be interesting to see how things turn out... I get the feeling the USN is maybe struggling a bit like the USAF in coming to terms with its role in the modern world and that as conon rightly points out, Arleigh Burkes chasing Somali pirates around the Gulf of Aden isn't really the optimal solution. Then again recent events in Crimea might just help the case for continuing development of conventional Cold War type platforms instead of those focussed on asymetric warfare.

The A-10 is pretty unique in it's ability to withstand attacks from handheld air to air missiles.

These systems got a short range, a speed of Mach 1.6-2.5 and a 1-1.2 kg shaped charge that propel a few thousand tungsten balls toward the enemy aircraft when the proximity fuse is set off. A fighter jet is normally not bothered by this kind of threat as the missiles are too slow and short ranged to be an issue. The problem is that for CAS you often want an aircraft able to loiter and with the freedom to select an attack vector without being forced to stay out of sight under the approach. With the A-10 you can take the increased risk of being hit, but in a fighter you cannot.

And I kind of expect the same issue to be true for the Littoral Combat Ship. There is a huge number of portable anti ship missiles with up to a 500 km range and the LCS is far from optimized to deal with those.

[Pielstick]

The survivability of the A-10 is hard to question...

Not really seeing as it has never been tested against anything like modern battlefield air defence systems like the SA-15, SA-19 and SA-22

Lots of stories about how the A-10 has returned to base with lots of holes in the airframe or bits totally blown off. How long does the aircraft then spend being repaired? Can it even be repaired at all? All the while it's not in the air and therefore of no use.

Better to build an aircraft that avoids being hit in the first place.

[Holger Danske]

Better to build an aircraft that avoids being hit in the first place.

... while not being able to provide CAS at any comparable level. Seriously (if we look away from the Fighter Mafia) why didn't the DoD invest in a "Stealth" Warthog?

[Pielstick]

The problem is the "Fighter Mafia" doesn't like it as it doesn't fit with the sexy Air-to-Air warfare mission. Thus they rather put all their faith in the F-35 than the well proven A-10.

It's an argument that gets trotted out far too often and isn't terribly well thought out.

The current USAF Chief of Staff is a former A-10 pilot and has expressed the opinion the A-10 can't survive over a modern battlefield.

[Vanoi]

What plane can survive over a modern battlefield? The US does not send planes into a war-zone until things like SAMs and such are eliminated. Its the entire piton of SEAD. So planes like the A-10 can fly over the battlefield unmolested.

It does not matter one bit what type of aircraft you fly. In a modern battlefield with SA-15s, SA-19s, ect. will shoot you down just as easy in an F-16 as an A-10.

[Pielstick]

What plane can survive over a modern battlefield? The US does not send planes into a war-zone until things like SAMs and such are eliminated. Its the entire piton of SEAD. So planes like the A-10 can fly over the battlefield unmolested.

It does not matter one bit what type of aircraft you fly. In a modern battlefield with SA-15s, SA-19s, ect. will shoot you down just as easy in an F-16 as an A-10.

Modern battlefield air defence systems are embedded into the ground units. They are of a very different nature to the kind of theatre level air defence systems that a modern SEAD campaign would target. An AGM-88 toting F-16CJ or EA-18G is absolutely no use against a dude carrying an Igla or an IR/optically guided air defence system. It's neither practical nor possible to take them all out before getting an A-10 type aircraft to perform low altitude gun and bombing runs.

At the same time these air defence systems are pretty limited in their engangement envelope. They're not much use against an aircraft flying at medium altitude or higher. This is precisely why the major improvement in capability given to the A-10C was the addition of an advanced targeting pod and integration of modern precision guided weapons - so it can sit safely up at medium altitude and plink the targets without going down into the engagement envelope of the battlefield air defence systems. Which is exactly how every other aircraft in the western inventories is doing CAS nowadays.

Thanks to the experience in Afghanistan CAS is a far cry from what it was back in the 1980s and 1990s. Pretty much everybody carries an advanced targeting pod nowadays, datalinks and lots of aircraft can use ROVER - a system where the imagery from the aircraft's targeting pod is datalinked down to a laptop used by the JTAC on the ground where he can see exactly what the pilot sees and can mark targets which are then instantly uploaded to the aircraft's navigation and attack systems.

The A-10 itself has a real myth built up around it. I've linked here before an interview with General Chuck Horner where he explains most of the A-10's kills in Desert Storm were with the AGM-65 missile and NOT the gun. He also explained how when he sent the A-10s against the Republican Guard he ended up with fourteen aircraft damaged and had to pull them off the Republican Guard and send them after softer regular Iraqi units whilst F-16s had to finish off the Republican Guard. In Kosovo NATO aircraft - including the A-10 - had a hell of a time finding Yugoslav armoured vehicles because the JNA were very good at camouflage and decoys. When the JNA withdrew from Kosovo it had lost less than 30 armoured vehicles and artillery pieces. Combine this with the infamous "Scud Hunts" of Desert Storm and you've got pretty clear evidence of major problems locating and identifying camouflaged or hidden ground units. This was one of the lessons taken into the F-35 and something it is supposed to address.

I'm not questioning the A-10's efficacy in the kind of operations in Afghanistan. I am however questioning its continued efficacy in modern aerial warfare given the experience in Desert Storm and Allied Force and the existence of potentially very potent modern battlefield air defence systems like Pantsir-S1, Tunguska, Tor and the more modern Igla variants - none of which the A-10 has been tested against. These would effectively deny the A-10 use of the low altitude airspace over the battlefield and push it up to medium altitude with all the rest of the other combat jets... which are all multi-role and can be used for other stuff unlike the one trick pony A-10.


I understand the issue of withdrawing the A-10 is an emotive one because it's such an iconic aircraft. We had exactly the same kind of argument in the UK when the retirement of the Harrier was announced. One thing I have noticed is the kind of people who advocate keeping the A-10 because of its unique capabilities in getting down low, mixing it up with the bad guys and sucking up all that damage are the same people who will extol the virtues of the amazing untouchable F-22. So the kind of amazing technology that allows the F-22 to cruise around the skies seeing all and attacking from impunity can't be applied to the ground attack mission? What makes people think the technology and capability available for the ground attack mission lags so far behind that for the air-air mission? Surely if there is a valid argument to retain the A-10 in service then there must be an equally valid argument for the USAF to retain a fleet of F-16A?

[Town Watch]

Modern battlefield air defence systems are embedded into the ground units. They are of a very different nature to the kind of theatre level air defence systems that a modern SEAD campaign would target. An AGM-88 toting F-16CJ or EA-18G is absolutely no use against a dude carrying an Igla or an IR/optically guided air defence system. It's neither practical nor possible to take them all out before getting an A-10 type aircraft to perform low altitude gun and bombing runs.

At the same time these air defence systems are pretty limited in their engangement envelope. They're not much use against an aircraft flying at medium altitude or higher. This is precisely why the major improvement in capability given to the A-10C was the addition of an advanced targeting pod and integration of modern precision guided weapons - so it can sit safely up at medium altitude and plink the targets without going down into the engagement envelope of the battlefield air defence systems. Which is exactly how every other aircraft in the western inventories is doing CAS nowadays.

Thanks to the experience in Afghanistan CAS is a far cry from what it was back in the 1980s and 1990s. Pretty much everybody carries an advanced targeting pod nowadays, datalinks and lots of aircraft can use ROVER - a system where the imagery from the aircraft's targeting pod is datalinked down to a laptop used by the JTAC on the ground where he can see exactly what the pilot sees and can mark targets which are then instantly uploaded to the aircraft's navigation and attack systems.

The A-10 itself has a real myth built up around it. I've linked here before an interview with General Chuck Horner where he explains most of the A-10's kills in Desert Storm were with the AGM-65 missile and NOT the gun. He also explained how when he sent the A-10s against the Republican Guard he ended up with fourteen aircraft damaged and had to pull them off the Republican Guard and send them after softer regular Iraqi units whilst F-16s had to finish off the Republican Guard. In Kosovo NATO aircraft - including the A-10 - had a hell of a time finding Yugoslav armoured vehicles because the JNA were very good at camouflage and decoys. When the JNA withdrew from Kosovo it had lost less than 30 armoured vehicles and artillery pieces. Combine this with the infamous "Scud Hunts" of Desert Storm and you've got pretty clear evidence of major problems locating and identifying camouflaged or hidden ground units. This was one of the lessons taken into the F-35 and something it is supposed to address.

I'm not questioning the A-10's efficacy in the kind of operations in Afghanistan. I am however questioning its continued efficacy in modern aerial warfare given the experience in Desert Storm and Allied Force and the existence of potentially very potent modern battlefield air defence systems like Pantsir-S1, Tunguska, Tor and the more modern Igla variants - none of which the A-10 has been tested against. These would effectively deny the A-10 use of the low altitude airspace over the battlefield and push it up to medium altitude with all the rest of the other combat jets... which are all multi-role and can be used for other stuff unlike the one trick pony A-10.


I understand the issue of withdrawing the A-10 is an emotive one because it's such an iconic aircraft. We had exactly the same kind of argument in the UK when the retirement of the Harrier was announced. One thing I have noticed is the kind of people who advocate keeping the A-10 because of its unique capabilities in getting down low, mixing it up with the bad guys and sucking up all that damage are the same people who will extol the virtues of the amazing untouchable F-22. So the kind of amazing technology that allows the F-22 to cruise around the skies seeing all and attacking from impunity can't be applied to the ground attack mission? What makes people think the technology and capability available for the ground attack mission lags so far behind that for the air-air mission? Surely if there is a valid argument to retain the A-10 in service then there must be an equally valid argument for the USAF to retain a fleet of F-16A?

Were the F-16s any more effective in CAS role, in Balkans campaign? What about F-15 CAS role?

A-10 is shall we say somewhat expendable aircraft, at least compared to the F-15 strike variants.

Then again F-16 isn't terribly expensive either. But, the current unit pricing of F-35 is, shall we say, quite frightening.

[Pielstick]

Were the F-16s any more effective in CAS role, in Balkans campaign? What about F-15 CAS role?

As I explained above, Chuck Horner said when he had fourteen A-10's sat on the ramp with battle damage he decided enough was enough and sent F-16s after the Republican Guard and sent the A-10s after the "softer" targets. Draw what conclusions from that you will.

In the Balkans pretty much every aircraft was disappointing when it came to finding and destroying JNA ground units. NATO spent weeks and an eye watering amount of money blowing up decoys. That was perhaps indicative of a wider limitation or shortcoming of contemporary combat aircraft.

A-10 is shall we say somewhat expendable aircraft, at least compared to the F-15 strike variants.

In the modern era, as far as western militaries go no aircraft is expendable. Especially so if it means dead or captured pilots being paraded around on the bad guy's TV.

Then again F-16 isn't terribly expensive either. But, the current unit pricing of F-35 is, shall we say, quite frightening.

The F-16 is relatively cheap - but the Block 40/50 aircraft currently flown by the USAF are a hell of a lot more expensive than the first F-16As 30 years ago. Primarily because of the feature creep that has made the F-16 grow from a daytime WVR fighter to an all singing all dancing poster child for modern air combat. In a way not unlike how the original vision for JSF is a long way from the current F-35. If you really want to make your eyes water look how much one of the UAE's Block 60 F-16s costs...

Multi role jet fighters are the indisputable masters of open terrain CAS.

But I see two issues with optimizing for such circumstances:

1) Flight costs when your new CAS aircraft is at least twice as expensive per flight hour. I know synergy costs tend to be touted as a way to reduce costs. But with the volumes operated by the USAF there really isn't much synergy you can get by replacing a cheap aircraft with something more epensive. Having an air force of silvet bullets is only a reasonable business if you face the Lycans

I like the analogy

The very real pressing need to reduce costs now is of course weighing heavily on lots of minds, but then again you've got to balance that against the political backlash when your servicemen start coming home in bodybags. Look for example at the MRAP and how much money was spent on that. The problem US strategic thinkers have to work out is how many fights is the US going to have with Lycans in the next 20-30 years?

It's been decided that simply cutting aircraft numbers won't do and if real savings are to be made then entire fleets with all their associated costs need to go. If it's any indication of how serious things are I've even read about proposals to retire the F-15C fleet. That of course doesn't jive with the A-10 cheerleaders' rallying cry that the USAF only cares about super cool fighters. It's no coincidence that the three types that most often get nominated for the hit list (A-10, B-1 and KC-10) all fill roles that other aircraft currently perform.

I think Robert Dorr is on to something when he says a very realistic way the USAF could save money is to close under utilised bases and consolidate units into larger, better utilised bases. This of course would leave several states without active USAF or ANG bases and the local politicians won't allow it. Political interference is another huge problem the USAF has to overcome - look at how they are being forced to ditch the U-2 - an platform they want to keep - and buy more Global Hawks - a platform they don't want.

2) Flexibility. I can see a case for small sacrificable drones providing close observation and then have a loitering aircraft send the actual missile. But until then there will be a need for an aircraft able to risk being hit by MANPADs. Retaining the A-10 mean that the development team of the JSF can focus less on fire supression systems and other survivability systems that are of help against a MANPAD but fairly useless toward heavier A2A missiles.

Small expendable drones.... check out Fire Shadow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Shadow

I'd argue it's far better to build an aircraft that doesn't get hit in the first place rather than one that is designed to soak up damage. Don't forget even if the aircraft can survive the damage and get its pilot back to base it will very likely never fly in that conflict again. Througout the history of aerial warfare low altitude has always been the most dangrous environment. Perhaps now for the first time in that history the advances in sensor, networking and weapon technology mean it's not strictly necessary to get down low in the teeth of enemy fire to reliably identify and destroy a target.

[Adar]

Small expendable drones.... check out Fire Shadow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Shadow

I'd argue it's far better to build an aircraft that doesn't get hit in the first place rather than one that is designed to soak up damage. Don't forget even if the aircraft can survive the damage and get its pilot back to base it will very likely never fly in that conflict again. Througout the history of aerial warfare low altitude has always been the most dangrous environment. Perhaps now for the first time in that history the advances in sensor, networking and weapon technology mean it's not strictly necessary to get down low in the teeth of enemy fire to reliably identify and destroy a target.

I agree with you in that it is better to not get hit, but my point is that sometimes you need to send aircrafts into a situation where they will get hit. And in those cases it is much better if it is an A-10 that take the hit. The Middle East is the perfect place for fast jets, but to support actions against insurgents/light infantry in mountains or heavy forests you probably want to keep the A-10 around until we can replace it with fire control drones.

I am also curious on how many of the damaged A-10s that would have been dead pilots if another aircraft had been hit. There is an awesome interview with Chuck Horner on Dessert Storm (read it here) and I think he got very good points for the environment he fought in.

[mrmouth]

Just because the youtube videos show A-10's doing gun runs almost exclusively lets not forget they still have a standoff capability with LGB and JDAM. It'd be a hell of a thing to strap a Joint Standoff Weapon to that thing so it can take out any gun/missile systems from a safe distance and then go in and mop up any support, or anything unlucky enough to park near it.

I don't think the A-10 is dead. At least not the idea. Let the shiny new jets do the deep air and let the A-10 feast on CAS mission. Because friends don't let friends dial up F16's for gun runs. Open some air corridors for the ground element to operate under and let the A-10 eat.

[Garbarsardar]

Split from the LCS thread.

[Condottiere 40K]

I don't really think this needed to be split off, because it relates back to the paranoia the infantry has that the Air Force will abandon them, if given the opportunity, dedicated glory hounds that they are in trying to decide any conflict by their lonesome through strategic bombing, and with sequestration can justify themselves.

It's obvious that future aerial platforms that near the battlefield will likely be unmanned, for round the clock observation and fire support; the question will be, who gets to control them?

[Pielstick]

It's obvious that future aerial platforms that near the battlefield will likely be unmanned, for round the clock observation and fire support; the question will be, who gets to control them?

Agreed.

[conon394]

It's obvious that future aerial platforms that near the battlefield will likely be unmanned, for round the clock observation and fire support; the question will be, who gets to control them?

I would not be so confident since so far drones have only been used in very permissive environments the equivelent (or more so) than Pielsticks knock on the A-10 and the lack 'Modern battlefield air defence systems'. Drones have not been used against a modern state/military seeking to prevent their use. Even no operators have suffred from virus incedents and insurgents amnaged to tap into download feeds. Once you statrt moving the something like the job of the A-10 to a drone everyone will have an incentive to figure out how to jam or hack it.

[Condottiere 40K]

Undoubtedly, they'd try, since it's much the way I'd plan to fight it.

Anyone who'd have sophisticated equipment that could jam, spoof or intercept those frequencies, is likely to have MANPADs (assuming you don't make it too easy for the above activities) combined with some mini-HARMs to take out these entrepreneurs.

You're looking at a 4D or 5D environment; if not, you could be back in Afghanistan, making life difficult for a bunch of radical turban wearers who're trying to make life difficult for you.

In either event, having the drone shot down represents less political and material cost than a plane, and preserves the skills set safe at base.

[Pielstick]

If you assume that the drones would be used in the same way a 1970's era A-10A would then yes, they would experience the same difficulties.

If you use drones from medium altitude with advanced targeting pods and precision weapons - just like contemporary tactical jets are used - then potentially you could have more assets on station with a longer loiter time. You could also entertain the possibility of CAS drones which are at least partially controlled by the ground forces.

Concerns about the security of the datalinks and control systems for drones are valid, but given just about everybody with a decent sized budget is pursuing them you can probably assume that there is an equal effort being put into making drones secure from hacking or cyber attack. Then consider the ultimate goal of drones which can operate autonomously.


Coming back to the capabilities of other aircraft versus the A-10 in the modern era - back in Libya in 2011 an RAF Tornado GR4 was called in to attack a column of vehicles. The Tornado fired twelve Brimstone missiles simultaneously and wiped out the entire column in the space of a few seconds.

[Adar]

If you assume that the drones would be used in the same way a 1970's era A-10A would then yes, they would experience the same difficulties.

If you use drones from medium altitude with advanced targeting pods and precision weapons - just like contemporary tactical jets are used - then potentially you could have more assets on station with a longer loiter time. You could also entertain the possibility of CAS drones which are at least partially controlled by the ground forces.

Concerns about the security of the datalinks and control systems for drones are valid, but given just about everybody with a decent sized budget is pursuing them you can probably assume that there is an equal effort being put into making drones secure from hacking or cyber attack. Then consider the ultimate goal of drones which can operate autonomously.


Coming back to the capabilities of other aircraft versus the A-10 in the modern era - back in Libya in 2011 an RAF Tornado GR4 was called in to attack a column of vehicles. The Tornado fired twelve Brimstone missiles simultaneously and wiped out the entire column in the space of a few seconds.

Multi role jet fighters are the indisputable masters of open terrain CAS.

But I see two issues with optimizing for such circumstances:

1) Flight costs when your new CAS aircraft is at least twice as expensive per flight hour. I know synergy costs tend to be touted as a way to reduce costs. But with the volumes operated by the USAF there really isn't much synergy you can get by replacing a cheap aircraft with something more epensive. Having an air force of silvet bullets is only a reasonable business if you face the Lycans

2) Flexibility. I can see a case for small sacrificable drones providing close observation and then have a loitering aircraft send the actual missile. But until then there will be a need for an aircraft able to risk being hit by MANPADs. Retaining the A-10 mean that the development team of the JSF can focus less on fire supression systems and other survivability systems that are of help against a MANPAD but fairly useless toward heavier A2A missiles.

[Condottiere 40K]

And of course, with a shrinking number of platform slots, they'd rather have one aircraft that can do everything reasonably well, than a whole bunch of specialized ones that do a couple of things superbly.

Except air superiority, otherwise it's pointless for the rest.

[Pielstick]

Adar you know I'm not a huge fan of F-35, F-22 nor indeed the whole "5th gen" concept. However, in this case I think technology really can make a difference and cut the historically high number of aircraft that are lost in the low level environment - and I'm not talking about the kind of jiggery-pokery speak that is designed to sell very expensive 5th gen jets to politicians and taxpayers.

The crux of my argument remains - the A-10 was designed in the 1970's. The state of the art with regards to sensors and weapons at the time means that the aircraft had to get low and slow to do its job - i.e. identify and attack ground units. The low altitude environment has always been a very dangerous one and has become even more lethal with the advent of weapons like Tunguska, Tor, Pantsir and modern Igla variants. However, sensor and weapon technology has advanced in the same time to the point where it's not strictly necessary to reliably find, identify and attack enemy ground units in the manner the A-10 was originally intended to and this can now be achieved without putting the aircraft in the heart of very nasty air defence systems.

Then the argument comes back full circle to the powers that be in the USAF having to decide:

i) What capabilities do you want?
ii) What capabilities do you need?
iii) What capabilities can you afford?
iv) What casualties are you prepared to accept in light of the above?

The question of the A-10 can't be considered in isolation. You've got to work out where the A-10 fits into the modern US military - if at all. I'd say it's nice to have, but not indespensible given the capabilities of contemporary jets. Don't discount the effects of inter service pissing matches and turf wars.

If you look at the USMC - they operate their own air force(!). One of the differences between USMC aviation and USAF or USN is every pilot who is in a Hornet, Harrier or Cobra started out in the very same basic rifleman training as every other marine. As such he has a unique affinity with the guys on the ground, and his entire reason for being in that cockpit is to help his fellow marines on the ground. CAS is pretty much these guys' bread and butter. Yet they've done it for all these years without an A-10 and the USMC doesn't seem to have been any the worse for it.

I've seen it proposed that the A-10 be given to the USMC. I wonder how receptive they would be to such an idea? It could be argued an A-10C is more useful to them than an F-35B.