The fight for the A-10 starts anew. What say you?

I think the cost to re-work the A-10's to a more 'modern' platform would still save a boat-load of money compared to trying to make a F-35 fly for more than two minutes...that, and there is a reason it is called low and slow - when you are in a fire-fight, an A-10 stirs more emotion than anything ever in the troops it was sent in to protect and deliver. It flies low and slow to save those asses on the ground. It gets eyes on because it is low enough to, and delivers when asked - oh, and its titanium tub keeps the pilots alive too - oh and it can fly riddled with bullets and missing half a wing and one engine and still deliver munitions - oh and the sound of BRRRRRRRRRT is the sound of its people.

Taking a step back before the steam from my ears overheats the monitor, I had great successes with the F-16 and 15, 18 and even a B-1 once...love the super cobras and apaches, and the AC-130 is a beautiful beast in its own right, but the A-10 is it...it was literally made for the role it plays, which is saving lives on the ground.

Being a JTAC I deal with all CAS platforms and speaking from experience the A-10 is by far the best. When the topic of retiring the hog is brought up the JTAC community hangs it's head in dismay. Being on the ground trying to nutralise a threat or target is much easier when you have long loider time and payload, which the A-10 has both. The people in charge of making the decision to retire the A-10 one are either non JTACs, or two use to be or have once been JTACs and have been out of the community for too long to remember the importance of the A-10. If they want to replace the A-10 don't short change us. Keep the guys on the ground in mind when you make decisions like this. To them it's numbers... To me it's lives, weather they are lives saved or lives taken.

If you are against the A-10, then you have never really needed one.

Déjà vu – all over again. The good idea fairy wants to take the venerated A-10 (with an excellent record in Desert Storm, OIF and OEF) off the roster and into history.

They (AF leaders) wanted to ice the A-10s and buy new toys after Desert Storm but Congress shut it down (even after they shot down 2 Iraqi helicopters with cannon fire). Since the late 1990s the AF has planned to scrap the A-10 program and shift it over to the Joint Strike Fighter. This expensive little gem, still trying to get to IOC for its primary mission, only has a 25 mm gun and 182 rounds to use. The F-35B and F-35C models can be fitted with a gun pod that carries 220 rounds, but the pod negates the plane’s stealth capability.

Supposedly putting all the Hogs in mothballs (saving ~$3.7B from 2015-2019) would pay for about thirty F-35s.

In addition to the money argument, we are told ad nauseum that in a time of shrinking budgets the USAF cannot afford a single-role platform. In addition to the Offensive Counter-Air and Defensive Counter-Air operations, F-16s conduct Wild Weasel missions and F-15s perform “mud mover” missions.

Granted, the A-10 only does one mission – save lives. In doing so it flies higher than attack helicopters can in RC-East (Eastern Afghanistan), it gets under the weather better than F-16s, and there are more of them than other specialized platforms (AC-130s). According to the Air Force, the A-10 only brings one 30 mm GAU-8/A seven-barrel Gatling gun (with 1,174 to 1,350 rounds); up to 16,000 pounds of mixed ordnance on eight under-wing and three under-fuselage pylon stations, including 500 pound Mk-82 and 2,000 pounds Mk-84 series low/high drag bombs, incendiary cluster bombs, combined effects munitions, mine dispensing munitions, AGM-65 Maverick missiles and laser-guided/electro-optically guided bombs; infrared countermeasure flares; electronic countermeasure chaff; jammer pods; 2.75-inch rockets; illumination flares and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles.

Uniformly, our Soldiers and Marines are loudly advocating that the Air Force keep the Hog. The Tactical Air Control Party Association, speaking on behalf of the Air Force’s JTACs and ALOs, also is vocal in their desire to keep the A-10s.

Some have suggested that the Army “pitch in” some funding to keep the program alive, but that is a non-starter. Each military department is extremely parochial when it comes to funding.

So much for history – both recent and longer-term. Why does this continue to come up?

One thought is that close air support (CAS) isn’t one of the 6 listed Air Force core competencies (Air and Space Superiority, Global Attack, Rapid Global Mobility, Precision Engagement, Information Superiority and Agile Combat Support) as defined in AFDD 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, Organization, and Command, but rather a subset. The AF doctrine is that “[a]irpower has a degree of versatility not found in any other force. Many aircraft can be employed in a variety of roles and shift rapidly from the defense to the offense. Aircraft may conduct a close air support mission on one sortie, then be rearmed and subsequently used to suppress enemy surface-to-surface missile attacks or to interdict enemy supply routes on the next.”

Another thought is simply that CAS isn’t “sexy” enough for Air Force leadership. Fighters shoot down opposing fighters and after 5 kills the pilot is an “Ace”. Bombers remind leaders of the massive campaigns of WW II and Vietnam. In both cases, that airpower is managed by senior AF leaders. CAS serve the ground maneuver elements and is directed by those elements through JTACs that are attached to the ground commander.

Lastly, some have speculated that AF leaders are using the A-10 as leverage to secure funding from Congress or mitigate damage from potential sequestration...a dangerous game if it were so. In advocating for the scrapping of the Hogs our AF leadership appears uninformed, out of touch and disingenuous.

Let us hope that clear heads will eventually prevail and the A-10C will continue to support our men and women in harm’s way.

I would like to say the AFSec. James is correct in that CAS is not a plane, it is a mission. HOWEVER, the A-10 is a plane designed specifically for that mission, like no other plane is. I think the interesting thing about the Air Forces rhetoric is how obvious their true intentions are. They say that they must retire an air frame (specifically the A-10) in order to be able to field the F-35. But they fail to even consider retiring other aircraft of the same age which are explicitly meant to be replaced by the F-35 (the F-16 and F-15 in particular). Both aircraft are of similar age to the A-10 and while they have performed strike and CAS missions quite well they are obviously not the same. My suggestion would be to retire the F-16 and I think it should be obvious that that aircraft is most similar to an F-35.

Also, when listening to the Air Force rhetoric it seems like they are trying to imply that Strike and CAS capabilities are the same. This lends further credibility to the idea of retiring the F-16 since of the 3 aircraft that take on the majority of these missions it is the only one that is not a dedicated platform (A-10 = CAS, F-15E Strike Eagle = Strike). Then they even say they are dedicated to the CAS mission yet we all know they have tried to rid themselves of it before and even shutdown production of the A-10 after its initial run (real supportive). The one advantage there is that they do enjoy their strike mission (it combines their 2 favorite things fighter aircraft and strategic bombing) so at least they aren't completely vacating the ground-attack. Unfortunately that hasn't translated into a love of the CAS mission.

That brings me to my final point, why is the Air Force so insistent on ditching the CAS mission and the A-10. If not for CAS the Air Force would have essentially been relegated to transport for the duration of the past 2 wars after the initial strikes and "Shock and Awe" had ended. They are even changing configurations on the AC-130 which, in my opinion, change it from CAS to CAS/Strike (bombs on a cargo aircraft? losing the cannon?). Furthermore, their beloved Air Superiority and Strategic Bombing missions are not likely to materialize anytime in the near future so why keep themselves out of the game?

Those are my thoughts, at least some of them.

Here is a good article looking at the subject too.
http://www.jqpublicblog.com/mission-air-forces-misguided-plan-kill-10-exposed-pure-politics/

Speaking from a direct nature as a weapons loader and technician on the A -10, let the facts speak for themselves. It is the preferred aircraft when in support of groundtroops. The best FMC rate (fully mission capable ) rate during the first Gulf war. So as we go forward in our progress lest we not forget the aircraft that performed on a daily basis with very little down time.

In all seriousness, I am a big fan of the A-10. It is a well proven scunion layer, tank killer, and does a pretty damn good job on personnel. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Army has been talking the same talk for the M1 Tank.

TSgt (Join to see), I've been retired for a long time, so I can't speak from personal experience, but from all I've heard from those in the know, it seems like this is an aricraft that the USAF should maintain and keep in active service.

As a U S Marine , I say keep the A-10. They can control fire better in ground support missions , The F-16 and the F-15. Are on and off the target in less than 5 seconds. I want that A-10 there killing the enemy and giving us full support in a way that helps and can be corrected in its use much faster and more easily
SEMPER FI

When they can find a more cost effective and more maneuverable airframe to build around that gun, then they can retire it.