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

I was addressing your post #191 in which you wrote "while the A-10 can only muster a 500 lb. bomb" (the "reply with quote" was not working). As I wrote, the A-10 carries Mk-84 as a gravity bomb, plus other 2,000 lb warhead weapons with various configuration such as the Mk-84 with Paveway kit or the JDAM kit. The point is the A-10 carries a lot of different stores, the internet isn't the most accurate source.

And weight of stores and stealth isn't the end-all and be-all of CAS. Whats the minimum speed of an F-35 fully loaded? I don't know, but I'll guess its a lot faster than that of a loaded A-10. When its very dynamic on the ground and you have to give the pilot visual references, a jet whizzing by isn't so good. Or when the target is mobile and the pilot has to find it and kill it based on general directions. The A-10 is at home when low and slow, its got a very high turn rate and can reorient on a target very quickly.

Yes, CAS is dangerous. What do you think will happen when those precious and rare Billion dollar F-35's get shot down during CAS missions? And it will happen when the US fights a real enemy, the US does not have a monopoly on brains and technology. Stealth doesn't make an aircraft invisible, it just reduces the radar cross section and heat signature, at 20 miles its nearly undetectable, at 2 miles its not. The F-35's will get pulled from the CAS role, there won't be enough F-35's to meet all the demands of a real war and they will be reassigned to higher priority missions. There is a reason the A-10 was built like a truck and built "cheap".

 

The A-10 tooling has been destroyed...what we have is all there will ever be.

Currently there are 348 across the active inventory, guard and reserve.

The USAF plans to buy a total of 1,763 F-35A variants which are conventional landing and take-off...through 2037.

This is just the USAF, there's also the USN F-35C and USMC F-35B, I don't have the numbers for these, they will be less however.
Last estimate was 260 of the Navy version and 340 for the USMC.

All told, just for the U.S. that's over 2,300 F-35s in the inventory.

All told between the U.S. and the allies purchasing the F-35, over 3,500 will be made...

That's the plan anyway.

The A-10 can't compete in numbers either, and once the A-10 is gone...it's gone for good; no more can be built.

Those who are advocating we scrap the F-35 and keep the A-10 strictly because the A-10 has a big gun and can fly low and slow...thank goodness..they are not dictating policy based on such short sighted views.

 

You can buy at least ten A-10s for the price of one F-35.

 

And exactly how often is a 1 ton JDAM used for CAS?

Seems to me that would be a perfect example of the cure killing the patient. Almost all of the time, in CAS the idea is to use the minimum level of explosives possible, because it is done by definition close. Hence, most A-10 explosives being in the sub-500 pound range (like the Zuni, with around 35 pounds of explosives).

To be honest, I can't think of a single CAS mission which would call for any kind of large munition, 500 lb bombs are generally prefered.

Actually, we got our collective butts kicked several times in Vietnam. And the First Gulf War could very well have been a really tough war, if Saddam had ever managed to pull his head out of his butt (he did completely subdue Kuwait in less then 48 hours after all). On paper, Iraq even had the advantage in both air and ground forces. They had the equipment, they had at least some of the training. What they largely lacked was a good strategy, in-depth training through all of their military instead of selective units, and morale (in addition to C&C which we systematically destroyed prior to the war actually starting).

 

That's the acquisition plan for 22 years. It means nothing. All the services are facing major cost cuts, the Navy is looking at reducing from 10 air wings to 9 right now, the Army is cutting 800 helicopters from its acquisition plan, all the services are going to have to make some painful cuts in the next few years. So far the golden goose F-35 has been spared, but its the big ticket item and its day will come.

The A-10 is going out, I've never said it should be kept. I have said there was a lot of misinformation in this thread, and there is.

The F-35 can do some CAS, just like the F-16 and F-15. But it can't do what an AC-130 can do, and it can't do what an A-10 can do. An F-35 can stand-off at altitude and drop JDAM's on coordinates or laser guided with someone else lasing, but so can the A-10, and it can do the low-and-slow as well. And the F-35 can't sit up there with eyes on the target and give real time information or walk rounds right on top of the enemy or onto a moving enemy or give cover for maneuvering friendlies like an AC-130 (maybe you know something about that). CAS isn't just one thing, or one airframe.

 

They are not manufactured any more.

Do folks not get that?

The tooling has been destroyed.

We can't call up Northrop and say, order us about 100 new A-10.

Yes it's cheaper to operate an A-10 and Lord knows the F-35 is pricey...however I am shocked at the level of short-sighted being argued.

The military's attention and production lines have been focused on bombing individual bad dudes in Toyota pickups for a decade now.

Do folks honestly envision the A-10 going head to head..at 300mph against Chinese, North Korean or Russian super-sonic fighters?

The F-16 and F/A-18 are getting older also...the F-35 is designed to replace..basically 3 aging platforms and will throw in the AV-8B for good measure.

It's not just the A-10...and I'll even concede the A-10 is better at a specific niche mission...nevertheless...to retire it now will save $4.4 Bn of an estimated $122 Bn total budget, much of which will go to the F-35 which eventually will replace the F-16 and F/A-18 also...not just the A-10.

We can't have our cake and eat it too, and the military needs to prepare for a future against a near peer every much as they do these smaller asymmetrical conflicts.

As it is 80% of CAS missions are being performed by a platform other than an A-10...not even factoring in the F-35.

 

Myself, I would rephrase from "The A-10 carries Mk-84 (2,000 lb)" to "The A-10 can carry a Mk-84 (2,000 lb)".

Like most aircraft, the ordinance loadout is determined based upon the mission (is sent after a specific target) or expected engagements (if sent on a more general support role without a specific target in mind). If the mission is "go to XCZ12345678 and drop a big bomb on the building located there", it may well have a 1 ton bomb as payload. However, if it's mission is "go to XCZ12345678 and listen to ground bassed controller on frequency 7890 and then offer CAS to 8th battion 45th Marine Regiment who is expected to engage hostile light infantry in that area", then expect the loadout to be very different.

And the JDAM is not a specific weapon, but a tracking package to go on multiple bombs. From 1 ton down to 500 pounds (the GBU-12 is the smallest I am aware of at 500 pounds). There may be smaller ones, but I am not aware of them.

 

Many people don't realize when a production line is closed down, it's dismantled and most of it is disposed of, usually being sold as surplus or scrap.

The Air Force said they needed a minimum of 400 F-22's to guarantee air superiority for the next forty years into 2050. This was taking in that the Air Force would get all of the F-35's they were asking for.

When Obama killed the F-22 in 2009 with only around 200 F-22's being produced, Lockheed Martin didn't dismantle and disposed of the tooling and assembly line right away. They waited until the elections of 2012 to see if Obama was going to be reelected. Obama was reelected and the F-22 assembly line is gone for ever.

North American Rockwell did the same thing when Carter and the liberals in Congress killed the B-1A bomber during the 1970's. Before dismantling the B-1 bomber assembly line after Carter killed it, they waited to see who would be elected POTUS in 1980. Reagan was elected and Reagan convinced Congress to bring the B-1 bomber back to life and we got the B-1B bomber. If Carter were have been reelected in 1980, the B-1 bomber assembly line would have been dismantled and disposed of.

 

And how often in the last 30 years or so has the military been allowed to meet it's expected purchase requests for such equipment?

The Air Force wanted 132 B-2 bombers, it was allowed to buy 21. They wanted 150+ B-1 bombers, they got 100. They planned on 100+ F-117 fighters, they got 64.

So forgive me if I look at such claims with a grain of salt the size of Mount McKinley. Most of the time the last 3 Presidential Administrations, planned acquicitions has fallen far short of reality. And remember, I only count on what is in our hands now, operational and in use. Not on future procurements and planned acquisitions and upgrades.

Neither is the B-1, B-2, or B-52.

Is the mission for all of those aircraft done, or should they be retired just because they are no longer made?

Sorry, that is not a valid argument at all. They are not making 1964½ Mustangs anymore either, does that mean that they are nothing but junk?

 

Gulf war...the F-117 tepresented only 2.5% of the shooters in theater that first day, it hit over 31 % of the targets. During the war, it flew almost 1,300 combat sorties, dropped over 2,000 tons of bombs, flew over 6,900 hours and demonstrated accuracy unmatched in the history of air warfare. The value of the F-117 was that it combined stealth technology and precision delivery. The F-117 was the only aircraft to operate in this environment over downtown Baghdad. Precision delivery assured the F-117 could destroy those targets in a single mission...

The F-117 was retired in 2008...barely a peep...

The mud dwellers may be very good at trigger pulling and sleeping in feces...but they are short sighted in terms of military doctrine.

The F-117 is as historically a success as any aircraft to ever fly...not many came to it's defense when the USAF decided to retire it.

The A-10 has had it's day in the Sun..and that Sun is now setting..no different than the F-117.

80% of close air support missions since the terrorist attacks on 9/11...have been performed by a platform other than an A-10. So what the F-35 needs to do is cover 20% of the CAS missions in addition to being able to be a denied access strike aircraft and potentially going head to head in the air.

 

Not referring to JDAM but during the Vietnam War, don't know about later on, Marine F-4, F-8's and A-4's were the only aircraft that used the Mk-81 bombs for CAS. A 250 lb bomb. They also used the MK-82 just as much maybe even more.

Why the Mk-81 and not the 500 lb. MK-82 ? The MK-82 is either a high drag or low drag bomb. The MK-81 is a no drag bomb. The MK-81 impression is larger than the MK-82 high drag bomb and about the same as the MK-82 low drag bomb. A Marine attack aircraft loaded with MK-81 bombs can carry twice as many bombs at the same payload but being able to hit twice as many targets with the same results as the M-82.

The Navy and Air Force never used the MK-81 but they weren't really in the CAS business.

 

The USAF plans an unmanned next generation bomber to replace the B-1, and B-52...the B-2 should be around through 2058 last I heard...but we only have about 20 of them.

The next bomber will be an unmanned system with an optional manning...that's on the books anyway. A lot can happen at this point relating to funding. One thing is for sure the F-35 already has a lot of sunk costs and many orders from foreign countries...it's not going away.

If it's so bad why have about 10 of our allies ordered them? Including Israel..and their survival is at stake. They wont buy them to use as hood ornaments.

Israel signs contract to purchase additional 14 F-35 fighter jets
Source: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Is...rchase-additional-14-F-35-fighter-jets-391789
Each plane will cost 110 million dollar according to contract; Israel has bought 33 jets so far.

If this plane is a lemon according the the PF "experts"...and I'll fully admit I'm no expert on this particular system...if it's so bad...
if any nation needs a reliable combat aircraft, it's Israel. They are threatened...daily..from extinction.

So please tell me..experts of PF, why has Israel invested 33 x 110Mn per plane, if indeed it's "junk" and under-performing.

Do tell us experts...I'm serious. If this aircraft is a lemon, explain to me why Israel is investing $3.6Bn in them.

 

From the OP of this thread, post #1. It's actually what the topic of this thread is about.

 

To be fair, the Buffalo was not a bad plane when it was designed, in 1935. And it was vastly superior to the Japanese carrier aircraft of the time, the Nakajima A2N. But by WWII it was hopelessly outclassed.

By 1941, the Navy was already in the process of replacing the Buffalo with the F4F Wildcat, and the F6F Hellcat was already in development. The main reason that there were Buffalo's still in service is that there was not enough time to replace them all by December 1941. The factories for the F4F were already at their peacetime capacity, as was P-Cola in training F4F pilots.

And interestingly enough, one of the most honored but least remembered aircraft of that era was another reject, the P-39. Most countries only took it because they had no choice, and many thought it was a garbage fighter.

But much like the later A-10, it was an aircraft built around the weapon system, in this case a 37mm cannon that fired explosive rounds. Not as nimble as the Zero, it was nevertheless fast, and it's cannon could bring down a A6M faster then a Wildcat (which only had .50 cal ball and tracer ammunition).

 

In Australia's case a decision to buy the F-35 was announced before a tendering process could be completed. IMO a political & strategic decision was made that it was important to have the same aircraft that the US military will be flying (but there is also the suspicion of greased palms in the aiding of such decisions).

Historically Australia has been close to the US ever since WW2 & we like to do our part whenever the US goes on a major military campaign. Australia's purchase of the F-35 does not mean the aircraft is good or bad but just that we can fit in with US forces as well as possible, do think we should get 50 of something else to go with it though.

My understanding is that Israel is getting it's own major repair facility & source codes. An Israeli F-35 is going to be better than other F-35s by the time they get finished modifying them, the same as with their other aircraft.

There is also the advantage of getting spare parts from a supplier who will stand by you no matter what.

Israel is also a manufacturer of UAVs & may have or have in development something to compliment the F-35 when it goes on missions.

 

Of course you can't call Northrop and order more. Northrop never built the damned things.

No, but then the A-10 was never designed to go up against Russian or North Korean fighters. They were designed to go up against tanks and other ground forces. Jeez, this far into this conversation, and you haven't figured this out yet?

 

Yes, the Israelis modify their systems to suit their particular needs, so they're usually buying the basic platform; they do not have the production capacity for bottom to top full manufacturing on a large scale, and choosing a system from a country that isn't likely to shut off shipments and parts at critical times is key to their survival, 'best' system or not. Before LBJ they relied a lot on French systems.

And yes, there is a lot of price gouging and palm greasing going on re the American defense biz, and it's a crying shame the American public does not care much about that, despite the threat it poses to national security. We have a high tolerance for corruption here, and one day those chickens will come home to roost; it won't be pretty.

 

Yea, but Fairchild Republic is no longer in business, bought out by M7 Aerospace, which in turn was bought out by Elbit Systems.

I am betting they would then turn to the company that built a lot of great aircraft, Northrop Grumman.

 

http://www.northropgrumman.com/Capabilities/A10ThunderboltII/Pages/default.aspx

 

And what do a new generation of bombers have to do with CAS?

And remember, I do not consider "future generations" on "future developments", I am a realist. I only exist in there Here and Now, and make strategic and tactical plans based on what really exists. Not fantasy and moonbeams.

 

The F-117 flew into airspace which no other aircraft (other than the B-2 and the F-22, which joined the fleet later) could venture. Over Baghdad, which, under Saddam, was heavily defended. It flew similar missions in Panama, the First and Second Gulf War, Afghanistan, and Yugoslavia.

During the Yugoslavia war, one F-117 was shot down by the Serbs, during a 79-campaign, after having flown a myriad of missions over Yugoslavia over the same route again and again, in a very repetitive pattern.

That means A SINGLE F-117 being shot down throughout the aircraft’s over two decades of service flying into the world’s most dangerous, most heavily defended airspace.

To me...this is the unsung hero of the USAF.

Not many tears were shed, not many threads on aviation forums and certainly not political forums..when the grand gal was hung out to pasture. Most agreed, she was obsolete.

CAS missions today (fixed wing), are not done at tree top...the vast majority involve precision guided munitions dropped from stand off distance between 10,000' - 15,000'.

In fact the A-10 has accounted for only 20% of CAS sorties, and what percentage of those involved low level "guns blazing" attacks that only the A-10 can perform?

The fact is the A-10 has operated in benign environments for the past 10 years...it has never been tested in a truly hostile environment on the level the F-117 has.

Gulf war, I can personally attest, as I have seen the air tasking orders, of A-10 squadrons being called back from attacks against Iraq's highly trained Republican Guard..after taking too many hits..the AO was deemed too dangerous for it. The F-117 was sent in along with the faster jets to eliminate the threat.

The Nighthawk went, where the Warthog dared not tread.

 

Over the 2009-11 period, the U.S. military suffered a total of 14,627 casualties, according to the most agreed upon data.

Of that total, 8,680, or 59%, were from IED explosions, based on data provided by the Pentagon’s Joint IED Defeat Organisation (JIEDDO).

For the sake of argument, we'll say 38% of the remaining casualty numbers were from hostile action with the remaining 3% as non-combat related.

The bigger threat then, is not hostile action, but rather IEDs. These are going to be your limb amputations and traumatic brain injuries.

More than 18 billion dollars on high-tech solutions aimed at detecting IEDs before they went off, including robots, and blimps with spy cameras were implemented. At least in Afghanistan as the technology did help, the Taliban simply planted more of them.

$18Bn is a lot of money, and this still wasn't a real solution.

The leaders decided the way to address the problem was more dismounted patrols...get the soldiers and Marines out of the vehicles and out amongst the locals. The aim was to win the hearts and minds and turn them away from the Taliban. What this led to was more dismount complex blast injury form the IEDs.

My point?

While I agree that technology alone, does not win battles and certainly does not win wars...getting rid of the A-10 or keeping it, will probably not make one iota bit of difference in the final analysis.

The objective in a war is not to wow the troops from a low level strafing run by an A-10...it's to win the war.

Having 340 or so A-10s in your arsenal of democracy golf bag...play little to no real strategic value in the final analysis in terms of putting an end to Islamic extremisim/terrorism.

They certainly did in the Gulf war...the A-10 when operating in non-contested airspace was an efficient killer of armor and vehicles...it performed brilliantly in this role. However in these more asymettrical wars...the enemy simply adapted.

If we want to spend the $4.2Bn or so to keep the A-10 on the payroll for 5 - 10 more years...because of it's stellar job report in the Gulf war / Kosovo...I fail to see what inroads it has made in the decade or more of fighting these lower intensity types of conflicts. (Post 9/11)

Perhaps the better solution is to admit there is no military solution; we must accept an untidy World, and brace for the larger potential of a coventional war against a near peer. In the context of a coventional war against a near peer foe, I do believe the system is approaching obsolescene. The trend is towards denied access battlefronts. The A-10 simply is not suited for that type of warfare any longer.

 

I think most Americans don't realize that the majority of American troops who were killed or wounded in Iraq weren't even engaged in actual combat with the enemy. But they are now listed as either "killed in action" (KIA) or "wounded in action" (WIA.) Even though they weren't in action.

The Bush administration changed the definition of KIA and WIA for insurance reasons, so those family members back at home would receive a larger payout on their fallen son or husband or daughter's life insurance policy. Bigger payout if you are killed in action.

I have a high school buddy who was drafted in 69. He was a door gunner on a slick during his first tour of duty in the Nam. For some reason he shipped over and did a second tour of duty but this time he was a REMF and was stationed at the Tan Son Nuht air base. I think it was the Christmas Eve of 1971 he was off duty and was driving a jeep to Saigon to get drunk and some poontang.

He hit a land mine in the road and it flipped the jeep over on top of him. His legs were pretty (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up. While the Vietnamese civilians were stripping the jeep clean of every thing they could walk away with he was yelling in Vietnamese "Get the MP's, get the MP's."

He was off duty, his mission was beer and (*)(*)(*)(*)(*). Was he WIA ? He spent a month in the hospital and soon was back in the big PX and for over a year he spent his time in an apartment on the beach and would show up at Fort MacArthur twice a month to pick up his pay check. Back then you still had to fulfill your enlistment contract be fore you were discharged. He still gets that VA disability check every month. Yep, he got his Purple Heart even though he wasn't actually wounded in action.

I have a friend of mine who back in 2003 was a Lt. Cmdr. in the Navy Reserves. He was an engineering officer and spent 20 years serving on subs. In his civilian career he was a electrical engineer.

In 2003 or 2004 he got called back to active duty and got his orders for Iraq. What in hell was a navy submariner doing out in the middle of the desert in Iraq ? We kept in touch with each other using e-mail and at first he wouldn't say why he was serving in Iraq. Then he said why, he was building robots to detect and dispose of IED's.

12 year later we still haven't been able to come up with a counter measure dealing with IED's.

 

And in a greater time period involving many more missions and conflicts, only 5 F-16s have been shot down, and 2 F-15s. So your point is what exactly?

2 of 1,198 F-15s lost to enemy action, 1 of 64 F-117s lost to enemy action. You keep throwing out random statistics, without even trying to connect the dots.

As it was already shown, a bomber carries so much more ordinance that your statistic of 20% is worthless, especially considering the fact that the A-10 is less then 20% of the air combat fleet in theatre! In other words, it is doin'g it's own work load and then some more. If it was doing missions on a one per one level, then it's percentage of sorties would be closer to the single digit percentage. How do you account for this skew in percent of aircraft when compared to the amount of missions?

 

The F-117 was retired from the active inventory in 2008...which is why I brought it up.

The F-16 and F-15 are still int he fleet.

Not many complained about a gaping hole in mission readiness after the F-117 was sent to the boneyard...despite the fact it performed well in Desert Storm and went where no other aircraft at the time could have survived as a precision strike aircraft.

The A-10 may be saved or it might not, I don't envision a gaping hole in close air support in it's absence either..the ...more have died from IEDs than the lack of CAS. We've spent BILLION's on anti-IED technology. What's the point of that? Can we safely assume ground troops are now free of exposure to IEDs?

Perhaps the key to protecting ground troops is not sending them to protracted wars in the first place...seems to me that is both the safest and cheapest alternative.