Pentagon To Scrap tha A-10 Warthog....the warplane The Islamic State Fears

[asaratis]

It can't be because of age..the B-52 is 20 years older and we still use them. It can't be because of effectiveness in close air support...it has no match. What other plane carries a 2.5 ton 30 mm forward shooting Gatling gun?

IMHO, this is a really stupid move....a REALLY stupid move!





Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears The A-10 Thunderbolt - Investors.com

Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears
The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block.

We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union.

 

[I.P.Freely]

We Brits feared it as well and we were on your fucking side.
Wounded British soldiers condemn US cowboy pilot World news The Guardian

 

[asaratis]

Friendly fire casualties happen too often. It's generally not the fault of the weapons platform.

 

[Sunni Man]

Our beloved pres. Obama knows what is best for America and its people.

Everyone needs to put their trust in him and his decisions. .......

 

[asaratis]

Our beloved pres. Obama knows what is best for America and its people.

Everyone needs to put their trust in him and his decisions. .......

You mimic the spider talking to the fly. Obama has not completed his web yet...but he's working on it.

 

[waltky]

Air Force keepin' the A-10 Warthog...

US Air Force Shelves Plan to Retire A-10 Warthogs
Jan 14, 2016 | The U.S. Air Force is reportedly scrapping what has become an annual attempt to retire the A-10 Thunderbolts from the fiscal 2017 budget request being drawn up.

Maj. Melissa J. Milner, an Air Force spokeswoman on budget matters, said Wednesday she could not comment on the Defense One report that the Cold War-era attack aircraft had been spared indefinitely, but boosters of the plane affectionately known to ground troops as the "Warthog" hailed the move to keep them in the inventory. "It appears the administration is finally coming to its senses and recognizing the importance of A-10s to our troops' lives and national security," said Rep. Martha McSally, a Republican from Arizona and a retired Air Force colonel who flew the A-10. "With A-10s deployed in the Middle East to fight ISIS, in Europe to deter Russian aggression, and along the Korean peninsula, administration officials can no longer deny how invaluable these planes are to our arsenal and military capabilities," said McSally, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, referring to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, also known as ISIL.

A-10 Thunderbolt II​

For the past three years, the Air Force has sought to begin mothballing the A-10s in favor of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to take over the close air support mission. Each year, the House and Senate have blocked the cuts. In a statement, Sen. John McCain, a Republican from Arizona and the chairman of the defense panel, said, "I welcome reports that the Air Force has decided to keep the A-10 aircraft flying through Fiscal Year 2017, ensuring our troops have the vital close-air support they need for missions around the world." The debate over the A-10s appears to have been shelved as commanders in the Iraq and Syria air war increasingly call upon the Thunderbolts flying out of Incirlik air base in Turkey and other bases in the Mideast for attack missions.

Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, has repeatedly cited the "devastating" effects of the A-10's GAU-8/A seven-barrel, Gatling-type cannon on the positions and fighters of ISIS. In a session with reporters last September at the Air Force Association's annual conference, Air Force Gen. Herbert J. "Hawk" Carlisle, head of the Air Combat Command, called the A-10 "a fantastic airplane doing fantastic work downrange" in Iraq and Syria. "One of the questions I get is if you're going to retire the A-10s why are you still using them in the fight? Well, that's an easy answer. I don't have enough capacity. I've got to use every single thing I've got. I don't have enough capacity" to handle the missions in Iraq and Syria without the A-10s, Carlisle said.

US Air Force Shelves Plan to Retire A-10 Warthogs | Military.com

See also:

Navy Exploring More Uses for Futuristic Rail Gun Technology
Jan 14, 2016 | An aggressive effort to make the U.S. Navy more lethal and efficient will include experiments with new uses for missiles and application of new rail gun technology to smaller weapons systems, the service's director of surface warfare said Tuesday.

Amid a rapidly changing global environment in which Navy technology was fast being outpaced, Read Adm. Peter Fanta said the service was adopting a philosophy of increased lethality and "three ways to kill everything." "I realize that might not be the nicest way to talk about things, but folks, our job is to kill people and break their toys," he told an audience at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium near Washington, D.C. "There's nothing else in the world that matters."

Among projects in the works for the Navy is the development of new gun rounds, including the possibility of a smaller version of the electromagnetic projectile launching technology used by the rail gun weapon now in development. The rail gun, which can hurl a projectile at well over 5,000 miles per hour, is being evaluated for possible mounting on a Zumwalt-class destroyer by the mid-2020s. "When we take that projectile with the rail gun, why not make it small enough to put in a five-inch round ... with a couple of hundred five-inch rounds that now can shoot something as far, almost as accurately as a rail gun?" Fanta suggested.

The Navy test fires an electromagnetic railgun in a lab.​

While he said some of Navy's testing and evaluation efforts were classified, Fanta said the service was looking at new rounds for existing weapons in the fleet that were based on "leap-ahead technologies" such as the rail gun. "We're learning to build how we're operating, how we're testing and we're developing those capabilities in the rail gun and we're expanding that to the rest of the fleet," he said. "It would be a shame if we took all that science and all that engineering and just left it for the science project that will become operational in the future instead of tacking as much as we can onto the current weapon." And development of new rounds was just one line of effort in a push to get more out of the Navy's weapons.

Fanta also reaffirmed plans to install an over-the-horizon surface-to-surface missile on a littoral combat ship later this year, an effort he first announced last October. He referred to an early 2015 experiment in which a Tomahawk cruise missile launched from a destroyer hit a moving target at sea. Why, he asked, could the system not be adapted to find moving targets on land as well? "I got it, it's not perfect, it doesn't meet the ideal ... [but] let's change the payloads, let's change the sensors, we've done this already," Fanta said. "This is not aspirational," he added. "This is operational."

Navy Exploring More Uses for Futuristic Rail Gun Technology | Military.com

 

[Correll]

This sounds like bullshit.

Congress demands cuts. The Pentagon offers something up that even the morons in Congress can see shouldn't be cut.

Though I have been hearing that the a-10 might be vulnerable to newer SAMs.

 

[bodecea]

It can't be because of age..the B-52 is 20 years older and we still use them. It can't be because of effectiveness in close air support...it has no match. What other plane carries a 2.5 ton 30 mm forward shooting Gatling gun?

IMHO, this is a really stupid move....a REALLY stupid move!





Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears The A-10 Thunderbolt - Investors.com

Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears
The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block.

We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union.

How many times have they put the Warthog in mothballs, just to pull it out again?

 

[Alystyr]

It can't be because of age..the B-52 is 20 years older and we still use them. It can't be because of effectiveness in close air support...it has no match. What other plane carries a 2.5 ton 30 mm forward shooting Gatling gun?

IMHO, this is a really stupid move....a REALLY stupid move!





Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears The A-10 Thunderbolt - Investors.com

Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears
The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block.

We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union.

How many times have they put the Warthog in mothballs, just to pull it out again?

They've tried a few times, but I don't think that they ever actually succeeded.

 

[whitehall]

Like it or not the CIA is in charge. I'm surprised that the presidential debates don't address this unconstitutional inconvenience. The CIA's strategy is anonymous, unverified, unmanned drone killing.

 

[shadow355]

It can't be because of age..the B-52 is 20 years older and we still use them.

Another = Marine Corp "Cobra" and the Navy "Huey".

Congress is ignorant, and placing the blame "somewhere else". They are at fault......MOST Definitely ; but again assign the blame on the innocent.





Shadow 355

 

[asaratis]

It can't be because of age..the B-52 is 20 years older and we still use them. It can't be because of effectiveness in close air support...it has no match. What other plane carries a 2.5 ton 30 mm forward shooting Gatling gun?

IMHO, this is a really stupid move....a REALLY stupid move!





Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears The A-10 Thunderbolt - Investors.com

Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears
The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block.

We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union.

How many times have they put the Warthog in mothballs, just to pull it out again?

I've been away for a while. I see the stupid move has been reversed. The WartHog will live on for a few more years....as it should.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

It can't be because of age..the B-52 is 20 years older and we still use them. It can't be because of effectiveness in close air support...it has no match. What other plane carries a 2.5 ton 30 mm forward shooting Gatling gun?

IMHO, this is a really stupid move....a REALLY stupid move!





Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears The A-10 Thunderbolt - Investors.com

Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears
The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block.

We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union.

How many times have they put the Warthog in mothballs, just to pull it out again?

I've been away for a while. I see the stupid move has been reversed. The WartHog will live on for a few more years....as it should.

It's only real job is the AO-10 mission. And it can only do it within a 150 mile radius. Past that and it's something else that has to pick up the mission. Like CAS. The last year, the majority of the CAS missions has been done by the B-1. Before that, it was the -16. The OA-10 replaced the OA-37 that just got old. The mission that the A-10 was designed to fly is in Eastern European Forest regions not the open desert areas of the ME. A replacement IS needed. One with good firepower (not overwhelming), good range, good survability, etc. But it doesn't need that overkill gun that is expensive to operate and cuts down on the range so much. What is needed is in the T-6 or A-29 range.

 

[waltky]

Warthog gonna take on the jihadis...

US Will Keep ‘Warthog’ Flying to Combat Islamic State
February 27, 2016 - The U.S. has put off the retirement of a 1970s era fighter plane, citing its effectiveness in the fight against the Islamic State military group among the reasons for keeping the jets flying.

The A-10 Thunderbolt, nicknamed the "Warthog," is a close-support aircraft designed in the early 1970s to counter Soviet armored forces. The twin-engine jet is not fast, but is able to engage a wide variety of ground targets with its main gun, a 30mm cannon, as well as missiles, rockets and other munitions launched or dropped from wing pylons. The plane is also extremely durable and can withstand considerable damage from ground fire and keep flying.

A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II fighter jet lands at Incirlik airbase in the southern city of Adana, Turkey​

Major role in Iraq War, Afghanistan

The A-10 was first used in combat during the 1991 Gulf War, destroying thousands of Iraqi tanks, armored vehicles and artillery pieces. It has played a role in most major U.S. military action since then, including the Balkans conflict in the late 1990s, the Iraq War and Afghanistan. The U.S. Air Force has called for retiring the A-10, citing budget savings and saying the aircraft's role can be filled by newer, more versatile planes. But the 2017 Defense Department budget says the Warthog will keep flying at least through 2022.

A U.S. Air Force Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II in-flight over Afghanistan​

Efficient in combating IS

This week, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told Congress the A-10's usefulness combating IS in Iraq and Syria is one reason the Pentagon wants to keep the plane. "I saw some of the A-10s that are flying bombing missions against ISIL when I was at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey last December, and we need the additional payload capacity they can bring to the fight," Carter told a House Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday. "We're pushing off the A-10's final retirement until 2022 so we can keep more aircraft that can drop smart bombs on ISIL." ISIL is another acronym for Islamic State.

http://gdb.voanews.com/7FB9EDF1-03F3-4C91-AE77-0F5E25059284_w640_s.jpg[/img]
U. S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter addresses the U.S. troops as he stands in front of a drone at the Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey​

Sen. John McCain, a long-time supporter of the A-10, said earlier this month he was pleased the Warthog would remain in the U.S. arsenal. “I look forward to seeing our A-10 pilots continue to make important advances in the fight against ISIL in the Middle East, boosting NATO’s efforts to deter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, and supporting vital missions for U.S. national security wherever they are needed,” McCain said in a statement.

US Will Keep ‘Warthog’ Flying to Combat Islamic State

See also:

Air Force Plans to Keep A-10s, Buy Fewer F-35s, Delay C-130 Upgrades
Feb 09, 2016 | The Air Force on Tuesday released a 2017 budget geared to rebalance the force and counter readiness problems resulting from years of deployments, personnel shortages and sequester-forced spending caps that have cut into modernization programs across the board.

At $167 billion, the service's budget is roughly $5 billion more than was appropriated for fiscal 2016, according to Air Force figures that show end strength will remain unchanged from the current year at 317,000 airmen. Funding is designed to meet combatant commanders' needs in part by delaying the previously planned retirement of the A-10 Thunderbolt II now being used for operations in the Middle East. But officials are warning that the money is still not enough to retain a solid edge over adversaries who are "closing the gap in military capability," according to budget documents. On the reserve side, end strength for the Air Force Reserve and the Air National Guard is basically unchanged for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. The Reserve would drop from 69,200 airmen to 69,000, while the air guard would actually increase by 200 airmen when it goes up to 105,700.

The Air Force continues to leverage the Guard and Reserve to meet mission, officials said. "The Air Force continues to have significant readiness concerns," the budget documents state. "Though very good at current operations less than 50 percent of combat air forces are proficient in other required mission sets. Moreover, adversaries are closing the gap in military capability." The Air Force reduced from 48 to 43 the number of F-35s it planned to buy next year and also put off modernization and recapitalizing programs in a number of areas, including delaying incremental replacement of its C-130H fleet. "The [fiscal year] 2017 budget request represents a 'pivot point' for the Air Force to continue the recovery to balance the force for today's readiness and the readiness needed 10 to 20 years from now," the Pentagon said in its overview of the budget.

http://images.military.com/media/equipment/military-aircraft/a-10-thunderbolt-ii/a-10-thunderbolt-ii_010-ts600.jpg[/CENTER]

While the services did receive some relief from spending caps for 2016 when lawmakers raised the limits, the Pentagon suggests the move may "simply represent a pause to the devastating effects of sequestration level funding that will return in FY 2018." The Air Force's 2017 budget for next year includes $5.2 billion for 43 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters; $2.2 billion toward the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B), up from 2016's $1.5 billion; and $3.3 billion for the KC-46A tanker -- an increase of roughly $3 billion from 2016. The next generation conventional and nuclear bomber remains one of the Air Force's priority acquisition programs. Also critical to readiness is the KC-46A Pegasus tanker. Still under development, the KC-46A is to be capable of handling multi-point aerial refueling of U.S. and allied aircraft as well as handle aeromedical evacuation and cargo and passenger airlift.

The budget also includes $906 million next year for 24 MQ-9 Reaper drones. Of that amount $341 million is in the Air Force base budget and the balance from the Overseas Contingency Operations budget, a fund kept separate from the service's budget, exempt from spending caps and used for combat operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The RQ-4 Global Hawk is in line for $256 million for development and modification work next year but no purchases are planned, according to the Air Force budget. The budget includes no funds for the MQ-1 Predator, which last year was budgeted at $3.2 billion and is being phased out for the bigger Reaper.

[URL='http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/02/09/air-force-plans-to-keep-a10s-buy-fewer-f35s-delay-c130-upgrades.html']Air Force Plans to Keep A-10s, Buy Fewer F-35s, Delay C-130 Upgrades | Military.com[/URL][/quote]​

 

[Daryl Hunt]

It can't be because of age..the B-52 is 20 years older and we still use them. It can't be because of effectiveness in close air support...it has no match. What other plane carries a 2.5 ton 30 mm forward shooting Gatling gun?

IMHO, this is a really stupid move....a REALLY stupid move!





Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears The A-10 Thunderbolt - Investors.com

Pentagon To Scrap Warplane The Islamic State Fears
The venerable A-10 Warthog, designed to stop Soviet tanks, and the perfect weapon to "degrade and destroy" the Islamic State, as President Obama promised, faces a budgetary chopping block.

We have noted the irony of how Obama was going to war against the Islamic State with weapons systems he had scrapped, ending the production runs of the F-22 Raptor and Tomahawk cruise missiles. They were dismissed by the administration as relics of the Cold War even as Russia was rearming and trying to reassemble the old Soviet Union.

How many times have they put the Warthog in mothballs, just to pull it out again?

So ISIS fears it the most, right? The A-10 has recently returned to the Middle East. It was removed because it has some very serious shortcomings. In AFG, having a runway above a mile like was needed seriously degraded the A-10 for fuel and weapons load and range. To us it in Iraq, you have to be within 150 miles of your target because that is the range of combat for the A-10. In Syria, it can be stationed on the Turkey Border and be useful. But so can the AC-130U that is even more deadly.

The A-10 steals the show from other AC. Because of the limitations it has, it has a low factor of CAS. Now, it's doing a good job as a Sandy because there just isn't anything else. But CAS where you need longer legs and heavier weapons loads, it's severely limited in use. For the Fuel trucks, the claims were that you were watching an A-10 attack on numerous fuel trucks. Supposedly it was shot from an A-10 Gun Camera. What I saw was that the bird shooting it was always moving to the right, in a circle and hitting offbore targets. Newsflash: That was an AC-130U doing all that damage in the camera. Not only was it shooting the film, it was doing the shooting.

All those sams in Desert II were phonies. It wasn't the A-10s fault. It just drew the area that had all the decoys to draw fire power to a worthless area. The majority of the real sites were spread across the spectrum of aircraft and armor. But the news went on and on about all the SAMS the A-10 killed and all the armor it took out. The Buff killed many times the armor that the A-10 did but there is nothing sexy about a Buff carpet bombing.

Then there is the argument that the A-10 is 10 years newer than the Buff. Yes, 1963 v 1973. But what isn't mentioned is that the mission profile of the A-10 is much harder on the bird than that of the Buff. So the Buff has a much longer airframe time than the A-10. The Buff may fly once a week and in straight lines while the A-10 flies 2 and 3 times a day twisting and winding.

The A-10 isn't the only aircraft needing to be replaced. We have F-18s/15s/16s almost as old. We fly them becuase we have no other choice. They are high time, high maintenance and it just gets worse as their mission has to be softened up just to keep them in the air.

The A-10 has reached that point as has the F-18C/D, some of the F-15Cs and early F-16s. While we could buy more F-15s/18/16 we can't buy more A-10s. The replacements are seen as a way to improve all services. But the newer birds are not being replaced. It's only the older tired less affective brids. And there are no new or recently new A-10s to be had. It hasn't been in production since 1978.

So, the AF came up with a way that some of the stupid people in congress can't do a thing about it. Starting late this year, they will be shutting down single units down one at a time, training them on the new weapons system and the reactivating them with the new AC. Do we move forward or do we stay the same. Our Enemy will be moving forward.