Kickstart My Heart....A-10 Warthog style.

[1srelluc]

47 years in active inventory......The A-10 was born to be a rock star.....A killer rock star.

​

 

[martybegan]

47 years in active inventory......The A-10 was born to be a rock star.....A killer rock star.

​

 

[Manonthestreet]

And still better than anything on this planet at what it does

 

[toobfreak]

47 years in active inventory......The A-10 was born to be a rock star.....A killer rock star.

I thought there was talk of retiring the A10? It is designed to fly low and slow and apparently is a pretty easy target to hit.

 

[mamooth]

An obsolete aircraft, hence the retirement. It's a flying target in any environment where the USA doesn't have absolute air supremacy. That was true even in the Cold War era. The 30mm cannon has always been kind of useless. It couldn't hurt a tank except by attacking the side or rear, and to do that, it would have to circle around and expose itself to SAMs. In the Iraq conflicts, it stayed back and lobbed Hellfire missiles from a safe distance.

Now drones can do what the A-10 does cheaper and better, so the A-10 isn't needed.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

47 years in active inventory......The A-10 was born to be a rock star.....A killer rock star.

​

That was SICK!!!
Haven't seen this one before!!

 

[BackAgain]

47 years in active inventory......The A-10 was born to be a rock star.....A killer rock star.

​

It does my heart good to see it in action and know it’s on our side.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

I thought there was talk of retiring the A10? It is designed to fly low and slow and apparently is a pretty easy target to hit.

The A-10 is like a flying tank and can absorb a shitload of punishment and still fly.
It has a titanium bathtub for the pilot and multiple redundant controls as well as landing gear that doesnt fully retract so it can still land with damaged landing gear.
Not only can it take a shitload of punishment it's cheap to maintain and easy to repair in the field.
They were talking about having the F-35 take its place but who the hell wants to lose such an expensive aircraft?
And of course the ground troops love the A-10.

 

[martybegan]

An obsolete aircraft, hence the retirement. It's a flying target in any environment where the USA doesn't have absolute air supremacy. That was true even in the Cold War era. The 30mm cannon has always been kind of useless. It couldn't hurt a tank except by attacking the side or rear, and to do that, it would have to circle around and expose itself to SAMs. In the Iraq conflicts, it stayed back and lobbed Hellfire missiles from a safe distance.

Now drones can do what the A-10 does cheaper and better, so the A-10 isn't needed.

Mamooth's just mad because it's death from above on his terrorist buddies.

 

[Oddball]

 

[Flash]

An obsolete aircraft, hence the retirement. It's a flying target in any environment where the USA doesn't have absolute air supremacy. That was true even in the Cold War era. The 30mm cannon has always been kind of useless. It couldn't hurt a tank except by attacking the side or rear, and to do that, it would have to circle around and expose itself to SAMs. In the Iraq conflicts, it stayed back and lobbed Hellfire missiles from a safe distance.

Now drones can do what the A-10 does cheaper and better, so the A-10 isn't needed.

You may be a little confused about this.

The A-10 was designed to be an armor killer on the Fulda Gap against a Soviet invasion.

The mountainous terrain of the area was to provide cover for the slow low flying aircraft for ambushes.

It would have been very effective with proper pilot training. They would have greatly slowed down the Soviet advance. The Soviet ground anti aircraft defenses were designed to protect against higher flying aircraft, not something like the A-10 coming over a mountain out of nowhere at low attitude.

It was also heavily armored and robust. Hopefully still being functional with damage.

It was never designed to be a general purpose close support aircraft. If was specifically designed for the terrain around the Gap. It was a mission specific aircraft.

However, it worked out great in the wars in the Middle East, even in a flat environment, because it did not have much, if any, anti aircraft opposition. Having no place to hide for an ambush was not that much of a problem.

Although it never fought in the role it was designed for it has been a great asset in the Middle East conflicts.

 

[mamooth]

The mountainous terrain of the area was to provide cover for the slow low flying aircraft for ambushes.

Mountainous terrain helps much more with ambushes from the ground. It would have provided perfect cover for Soviet "Shilkas" to ambush the A-10s.

That's the ZSU-23-4 quad-23mm radar-guided AA vehicle, which was quite effective at clearing the middle-eastern skies of any Isreali aircraft that tried flying low.

The A-10s were essentially going to be sent on suicide missions. They'd get some tanks, but few A-10s would come back.

 

[martybegan]

Mountainous terrain helps much more with ambushes from the ground. It would have provided perfect cover for Soviet "Shilkas" to ambush the A-10s.

That's the ZSU-23-4 quad-23mm radar-guided AA vehicle, which was quite effective at clearing the middle-eastern skies of any Isreali aircraft that tried flying low.

The A-10s were essentially going to be sent on suicide missions. They'd get some tanks, but few A-10s would come back.

The A-10 was armored to be proof against 23mm projectiles to the critical systems, and resistant to 57mm projectiles.

 

[Flash]

Mountainous terrain helps much more with ambushes from the ground. It would have provided perfect cover for Soviet "Shilkas" to ambush the A-10s.

That's the ZSU-23-4 quad-23mm radar-guided AA vehicle, which was quite effective at clearing the middle-eastern skies of any Isreali aircraft that tried flying low.

The A-10s were essentially going to be sent on suicide missions. They'd get some tanks, but few A-10s would come back.

Everybody near the front lines were on a suicide mission if there was ever an invasion.

In 1967 before going to Vietnam I was stationed on the Fulda Gap in an ASA unit. We were told that we wouldn't survive the first few minutes of the invasion because the Soviets had targeted our installation.

The A-10s and the attack helicopters would be tasked with slowing down the advance to buy time for more rearward mobilization of artillery and armor. I am sure the A-10 pilots were told the same as we were told in my unit. Dead Man Walking.

It was the skill of the pilot to use the nap of the terrain to be effective and survive to have another mission but I suspect in a few days most forward close air support from both sides would be depleted.

We never got a chance to see how effective American A-10 pilots would be against units like the Soviet Third Shock Army and to me that is a good thing. We know they were effective in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'll take it.

 

[mamooth]

The A-10 was armored to be proof against 23mm projectiles to the critical systems, and resistant to 57mm projectiles.

The bathtub was. The rest of the plane would be shredded.

 

[martybegan]

The bathtub was. The rest of the plane would be shredded.

with redundant systems and armor over certain points.

 

[mamooth]

with redundant systems and armor over certain points.

Gulf War, more A-10s were shot down more than any other coalition aircraft.

That's the real world.

 

[martybegan]

Gulf War, more A-10s were shot down more than any other coalition aircraft.

That's the real world.

because they went exclusively air to mud and were put in the hottest situations.