The Hog Is Here to Stay

[miketx]

Let's see. Take away the GAU big gun and let's see what is left.

Extremely short range. With a total combat radius of just over 300 miles, it operates well inside the range of most enemies short and medium range surface to surface missiles. That means, going up against Iran, the A-10 can't be used. It can't be used against Chine or Russia. Every flight would have to have a full air refueling and the Tankers are too much in need all across the board to do that. it's one thing to go against a bunch of 12th century rag heads but another to go against a well equipped military.

In order to get that over 300 mile radius, you have to load the bird light. This also includes loading the big gun light as well. If you do a heavy loadout, you limit your range to about 150 mile radius. There are some Artillery that have that range.

Loiter time. If you want to have any loiter time, you are going to have to strip the load to get it. You are going to have to limit the range and loadout in favor of more fuel. You are dealing with a 4 hour lightly loaded A-10 flight where you go out one hour, loiter 2 hours and then come straight home with no combat involved. Do any combat and that loiter time goes down. An A-10 needs to be able to do more than one pass but that's is usually all it gets. Us old hands remember the old A-1Es and AD-4D that did 6 passes and would go out over 600 miles to do it and still make it home. Watching the A-1Es work was like watching a bunch of angry hornets attacking in a Cartoon. The A-10 gets one, maybe two passes and it's time to go home.

It's built to take damage. It had better be. With even the ragheads armed with shoulder fired heat seekers, the A-10 can be taken out or heavily damaged by one single ground troop. ICUUCMe comes to mind. Then there is the AA Guns and Sams. A-10s rarely get that low anymore.

The bulk of the CAS missions are no longer done by the A-10 or even the F-16. The CAS is normally done by the AC-130 now that they have them in enough quantity. Yes, the F-16 and the F-16 (and now the F-35B) also does some CAS but the AC-130 is real busy. It has about a 6 hour loiter time, can move from station to station and be used for many different types of targets without having to go back and reconfigure. And you can't hit the AC with a AA or small arms ground fire. He's up too high. Most Sams don't even reach that high if he's shooting from 30K or better.

Ground Troops could care less who does the successful CAS just as long as it gets done. Even if it's done by a Buff.

You sound like one of Obamas military advisers. What kind of an idiot would remove combat aircrafts weapons?