In a rant that is unusually incoherent for Red State, Erick Erickson states:
Yesterday, President Obama announced that he will personally participate in delivering a devastating blow to ISIS. This news came at the same time as United States military sources confirmed that the American Air Force could not take out ISIS oil tankers because we ran out of bullets.
To save you a click, the confirmation comes in a CNS news story. Yes. THAT CNSNEWS.
As it so happens, I know a little bit about the A-10. As does every other single combat arms soldier on the planet, who absolutely adores the flying tanks. They’re fucking amazing platforms, spew hate and fire and 30mm rounds out of a gatling gun. Woe be to all that fall in the path of an A-10. It is, quite honestly, a plane that was built around and to accommodate a gun for close combat support. It has a cockpit made of titanium. It can basically fly with one wing.
When an A-10 confronts something, that something ceases to exist. So I know the story he was talking about. Here it is:
American warplanes destroyed around 280 of ISIS’ oil tanker trucks along the Syria-Iraq border on Monday, U.S. officials told NBC News.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said that A-10 Warthogs and AC-130 Specter gunships launched 24 precision-guided bombs and strafed the tanker trucks with heavy machine-gun and cannon fire.
The vehicles were gathered at a “fuel collection point” in the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor.
The planes dropped leaflets warning the drivers to “run immediately or you will be killed,” according to the officials, adding that similar leaflets were dropped during U.S. airstrikes last week that destroyed 116 oil tanker trucks.
In addition, the officials said, the planes make several low-level passes over the targets prior to the air assault.
So, when Erick von Erick sees “confirmation” that the planes ran out of ammo, he interprets this to mean that Obama is such a pussy that he won’t even fund the military enough to buy rounds for the A-10. What this story actually says, to anyone with half a brain (meaning, not your normal Red State reader or writer), is that THERE WERE SO MANY FUCKING TARGETS AND WE DESTROYED SO MANY OF THEM THAT THE PLANES FIRED EVERY ROUND THEY HAD.
This happens. Planes don’t come with an unlimited supply of ammunition. Neither do soldiers- the basic load is 210 rounds. This is real life, not a video game or Hollywood. As Soonergrunt noted:
They'd blame Obama for the fact that we only carry 210-300 rounds, don't have Austrian accents or cool catchphrases https://t.co/YM412bHPbE
— soonergrunt (@soonergrunt) November 25, 2015
These are the idiots who want to run our foreign policy and invade, well, everywhere.
mtiffany
Are we still retiring it in favor of the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none F-35?
Mudge
And the Air Force wants to get rid of A-10s and replace them with useless F-35s.
schrodinger's cat
So many idiots so little time. Glad you are giving them a push back. Most people don’t have a stomach to take on the raving lunatics on the right.
Sherparick
A brief review of Erick Erickson’s biography reveals that he also is one these war advocates who some how never found time to serve in the military.
Skippy-san
Erikson is worthless. Put him in front of an A-10 30MM gun. That would be a public service.
Punchy
Did Erick Son of Erick run the requisite sandbox demos to confirm this loss of ammo?
The Pale Scot
Gee John, I never knew you were a ginger
(Katherine Tate, not SP)
Zandar
USE UNLIMITED AMMO CHEAT LOL
mtiffany
@Zandar: up up down down left right left right b a start
KG
They don’t want to invade everyone… they want to build a wall along the southern banks of the Rio Grande so they don’t have to think about 65% of the Americas.
KG
@mtiffany: no, that just gives you 99 lives. which you need if you’re going to beat the original Contra.
Culture of Truth
Alternate headline:
“Wimp Obama Tell Military Not Kill Terrorists to Save Ammunition”
oldster
“As does every other single combat arms soldier on the planet, who absolutely adores the flying tanks.”
Except for the combat arms soldiers who make the mistake of firing on American troops who can call in air support.
Peale
If they aim the gun off-screen and press the trigger twice, five more rounds automatically appear. At least that’s how its worked for me in the past.
dmsilev
Erick Son of Erick of the House of Erick sees himself as Mel Gibson screaming FREEDOM! at the end of Braveheart, forever.
Except without the drawing and quartering.
sharl
Fortunately some Rambo dolls might be represented – rarely, alas – by online parody characters, created in a long overdue effort to skewer some of the sillier (yet somehow well compensated) NatSec “experts” who are brought on by our 24/7 “news” media to bloviate on matters well beyond their abilities.
For example, here is Professor Jeff Wilhelm covertly offering advice to Ben Carson. The creation of Wilhelm was inspired by a real person* who shows his ass whenever he bloviates on topics outside his area of expertise (basically, Russia, former USSR & Balkans).
FYI/FWIW, Prof. Wilhelm is one of several parody characters created by Weird Twitter dudes Felix (@swarthyvillain) and Virgil Texas (@VirgilTexas), a couple of …Millenials… {spits, contorts face into pure contempt}. Felix is the one mostly responsible for the Wilhelm character.
*The employment status in the bio at the top of that tumblr post is out of date, because of reasons (NOTE: scrolling down too far takes you into NSFW territory).
Betty Cracker
Some other chairborne, vicarious dick-swinger was grousing about the leaflet drop yesterday on the grounds that civilian drivers deserve to die too, since they’re working for ISIS. (“Little Eichmanns,” as someone put it in another context.)
dmsilev
@KG: The secret cheat code for beating Contra is REAGAN; it automatically ships weapons to the Contras and makes them at least seem to be on your side temporarily.
MomSense
@Mudge:
Not sure the Air Force really wants them, but the Congress certainly wants the Air Force to want them.
Mr. Longform
But Erik Erickson is a real patriot, and you are merely a person with knowledge of the equipment used and experience in its deployment, so who should we believe?
maya
Well then, Ewick, instead of sitting on your cud why don’t you and your posse comatose send all your personal ammo to “the troops”® you love soooo much. Immediately. It would be the patriotic thing to do, no?
You can enclose a tea bag with your donations if you like.
oldster
Hunting down that photo of the damaged plane up above, I ran into the whole story here:
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Stories1/001-100/0016_A-10-battle-damage/story0016.htm
Captain Campbell is one bad-ass pilot, and her story is an inspiration. I hope she has gone on to even bigger and better things.
Sherparick
@Mudge: The useless and very expensive F-35, which no one will ever want to get close to the ground fire such as shot up the A-10 in the picture since it will be hard to explain losing a $120 million dollar airplane. (If you add development and long term maintenance costs it may be a $600 million dollar airplane). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II
The problems of F-35 were clearly predictable and actually repeated the problems of the F-111 program of the 1960s. Les Aspin, who had been one of one of McNamara Whiz Kids in the DoD before running for Congress had been named Clinton’s first Defense Secretary, and apparently still was charmed by the apparent cost-benefit analysis of having a common air frame for multiple missions. But of course this is a unicorn that is never found because the actual engineering an air frame for multiple missions creates compromises and unforeseeable deficiencies so you get flying white elephants that can’t do anything well. Les was Secretary of Defense for less than a year and never lived to see what a disaster this decision became, getting fired for mishandling “Don’t Ask Don;t Tell” and the Blackhawk Down Somalia adventure. He died of a heart attack shortly after Clinton fired him.
Llelldorin
@Peale:
That’s not going to help much for an A-10, would it? 5 more rounds would last a hair over 70ms, going by the numbers on the Wikipedia page.
kindness
Went over and the RedState comments. What a bunch of major dickwads! Must be rose colored glasses but I thought I remembered right-wingers who didn’t lie with every opening of their pie holes. If they still exist they don’t go to RedState. As a proud banned RedState commentator (they didn’t like that I pointed out that CardinalRazinger/exPope was a Hitler youth) I guess it’s par for the course. I had hoped someone might say something to the effect of this post and hear the ‘Clean up on aisle ‘ chime in but no….no one said anything remotely reasoned. Again, not a shock but sad about that. This is who we face politically. They will lie with gusto. They will cheat as a badge of honor. They will steal (see Supreme Court placing Dubya on the throne in 2000).
ruemara
These are infernally stupid people.
GoBlue72
These guys are playing to the dumbass part of the room. It’s what they do to earn their shekels. Who cares what Micropenis Son of Penis thinks?
Gus
@Mudge: The Air Force could give a shit about close air support.
NorthLeft12
@mtiffany: If the A10s cost a billion dollars each, I am sure the Air Force and Congress would have no trouble in justifying their continued purchase.
GoBlue72
@kindness: Which is why liberals need to stop playing by Marquess of Queensbury rules when fighting them.
Anoniminous
Air Force despises air-to-ground support because it violates their ideology. The A-10 is a magnificent weapons system that does it’s job superbly only because the Air Force generals hated it and didn’t piss into the design. This allowed the engineers to base the design using actual data and information from actual combat and people with actual combat experience.
GoBlue72
@Gus: The Air Force could give a shit about any of the other service branches.
Ben Cisco
I miss that plane – spent half my career working on them (Pave Penny troop). Holy cow but the PTB are stupid as hell for trying to dump it.
MattF
Someone should explain to Ewickson that real weapons aren’t plugged in to a wall socket.
Another Holocene Human
@kindness:
I am laughing so hard over here. That is the best Red State banination story ever.
Gus
@kindness: I’ll occasionally take a deep breath and wade into the comments at NRO. I don’t comment much myself, because I don’t like trolls so I don’t typically troll even at troglodyte sites. Yesterday, though, I had to comment because someone said that they really expect Obama to declare a state of emergency and suspend the 2016 elections. I told him I’d read the same thing about Bush in 2012 in comment threads on left leaning and told him not to be so paranoid. Today, I see an article on “African American paranoia,” and sure enough in the comment section someone is saying how ridiculous it was that in 2012 they saw comments about Bush suspending the elections. I agreed that I found that hilarious and noted that his fellow NRO commenters said the very same thing about Obama in 2016. The commenter didn’t find that quite so ludicrous, saying that it would be in character for Obama. So a conspiracy theory that supports his worldview isn’t quite so outrageous, apparently. Truly we live in different universes.
oldster
I’m in moderation up thread, don’t know why.
(probably for a link.)
Another Holocene Human
@GoBlue72: I know two people who joined AF because it had a rep as the most candy ass branch.
You wouldn’t know it from the way AF people strut around on base, though.
Paul in KY
@mtiffany: LOLing!!!
Another Holocene Human
@Gus: Well, he and I agree that Bush and Obama are “totally different”. It ends there, though.
Paul in KY
@MomSense: The USAF has never liked them, because the planes are generally not a vehicle to get promoted to General. The pilots who fly them were probably lower rated & could only choose to fly them (as the higher rated pilot trainees get to choose the plane they would like to fly, before the lower rated ones get to choose. Not too many choose the A-10).
Stupid reasons, IMO. Great plane with a very important mission.
p.a.
@GoBlue72: Where are A10s made? Their Congressional reps have no pull?
Anoniminous
@Mudge:
F-35 is not useless. It can run away from ground fire really, really, really fast after it drops its ordinance in the wrong place.
ETA: “Dropping ordinance in the wrong place” thus continuing a 60 year USAF tradition
Paul in KY
@Another Holocene Human: Co-worker who served in Navy said the MO for building an Air Force base was that they first built the O-Club/golf course and then with what was left over would build the flight line, etc. etc.
misterpuff
@Mudge: It ain’t sexy enough for the fighter jocks. But it only does its job.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mudge: Zoomie generals are idiots. Jack Ripper was not much of a parody…pretty much a direct take in Curtis LeMay.
As for Erickson, like I care what one of my NCOs referred to as “fucking civilian slime” thinks about anything. Chickenhawk cowards.
Sad_Dem
@oldster: I made that correction in my head too. A YouTube search for “A-10 house” should turn up a video of what an A-10 can do to a house occupied by the guys who are shooting at you. (Spoiler: it turns out badly for the guys in the house.)
So naturally, since our soldiers love the damn thing and our soldiers’ enemies fear it, the Air Force brass have canceled the A-10.
Villago Delenda Est
@Another Holocene Human: We Army types referred to it as “The Country Club of the Services”.
When I was in Honduras in ’85, so USAF pilots came down and couldn’t live the CAT huts, because no A/C. The whining was nervewracking.
Jager
My little brother was really into Roy Rogers when he was about 7 or 8 years old. My sister, in high school at the time, would watch Roy with him and count the gun shots from Roy’s 6 shooter. 7-8-9-10, my little bro would go ape shit when she did that. She’d also ask why poor Bullet the Dog didn’t get to ride in the Jeep or why the Nellie Bell wasn’t faster than Roy’s horse. She drove him crazy, I’m surprised he didn’t grow up to be a right wing blogger.
catclub
@GoBlue72: That is not true. They simply know them well, as their enemies in the search for dollars.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Mudge: There’s a good long piece on the A-10 at TheAviationist. It’s not a replacement, but the AC-130 gunships are highly capable (when they don’t attack hospitals due to various equipment malfunctions and mistakes by the people in charge).
:-(
Both of them are vulnerable to small missiles that are far too common in advanced militaries. But against bands with machine guns and the like, which civilization faces far too often these days, they’re quite potent.
Cheers,
Scott.
qwerty42
@Anoniminous:
I believe the Army offered to take the plane off their hands, but the Air Force declined. They really, really want the F-35. As I recall, the Marines have their own A-10s so the AF can’t get those.
catclub
@Sad_Dem:
But the problem goes back to the interservice rule that the Army cannot have its own fixed wing planes.
Stupid rule to protect the AirForce. Let the Army have its own fixed wing aircraft and the A-10 lives on.
A Ghost To Most
@p.a.:
They were built at Fairchild Republic in Hagerstown MD. The last A-10 was built in1984.
p.a.
Oops. Obviously (except to me) since production has stopped, A10 is a red headed stepchild.
Villago Delenda Est
@Zandar: You make jokes, but one of the truisms of the military art is that amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. You’ve captured the mentality of the uber-amateur perfectly!
Anoniminous
@p.a.:
A-10 is no longer being manufactured. Northrup has the capability to provide spare parts but I doubt it could ramp-up production. And the design is 45 years old and could be improved – if the Air Force generals could keep their mitts off of it. (Doubtful) Besides the A-10 is not cost effective. It’s price tag was $18 million, so make it ~$45 million today, while the bare bones F-35 is coming in at around $116 million.
(“Bare bones” means minor additional equipment, such as engines, are not included in the cost estimate.)
catclub
@Gus:
I really wish I could bet money against this person, on this issue. But I suspect they would not pay up on
the first Wednesday in November 2016.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub: That idiotic agreement in the late 40’s that dictated that all fixed wing combat aircraft had to be USAF or USN. Leaves the Army with helicopters for close air support, unless the Air Force deigns to provide fixed wing CAS, like the A-10.
Felonius Monk
An A-10 may run out of ammo, but Erick the Erickson will never run out of bullshit. If only we could use bullshit as a weapon against ISIS.
Anoniminous
@qwerty42:
IMO, the A-10 should be the core of a new Army Air Corps.
Which would give the Air Force Generals a heart attack.
So …. A TWOFER!
Paul in KY
@catclub: There are exceptions to the rule. Army generals have fixed wing lear jets to swoosh around in.
Mike J
@Anoniminous: We’d save a ton of money if we just got rid of the Air Farce and let the other services handle it all.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@p.a.: Last ones rolled off the line in 1982, I think. So yeah, no pull.
p.a.
@Anoniminous:
GE powered? (I have stock.) Hell if the USAF is in it for $ why not me?
Patricia Kayden
Seems like lying/distorting the truth is all Republicans/Conservatives have so Erickson’s fabrication comes as no surprise. Again, thank goodness for President Obama and his cool head. All Erickson wants is for President Obama to send American troops to die in Syria so he can slam him.
Amir Khalid
@Anoniminous:
An Army Air Corps was what the US won WWII with, wasn’t it? A separate air force was only created in the 1950s, as I recall. Did it come about because of the start of the Cold War?
goblue72
@Anoniminous: $116MM? How is Lockheed supposed to make a profit at that price?
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: It came about because the flyboys saw that the Germans and the Brits had separate air arms and wanted in on that action. It’s the entire “Knights of the Air” thing that we saw in The Blue Max…they’re just so much better than those ground pounding dunderheads.
Shakezula
I’m surprised Ewick didn’t toss a tantrum about wimpy Obama warning drivers to run for it before opening fire.
p.s. Thanks for helping me meet my RDA of things going Kaboom.
Anoniminous
@Mike J:
A point.
I’m not sure what the value of the current Air Force is over the next 30 years. We’re in the middle of a major technological revolution in weapons systems and the Air Force decision makers are stuck in preventing the Red Army from reaching the Rhine via the Fulda Gap. Having said that, controlling the air-space is the key component of 3-D deep battle and it is a specialized job.
p.a.
@Patricia Kayden: to paraphrase Fred Clark (riffing on C.S Lewis IIRC); when you believe a lie (for whatever reason) after it has been shown to be untrue, you must continue to believe every succeeding supporting lie as they become more and more distanced from reality until you’re not just a liar, you’re insane.
Emma
@Sad_Dem: Jesus. Christ Jesus. It looked like something out of a war propaganda film. And the sound!
Marc McKenzie
The Warthog’s ugly as shit, but damn is it one of the greatest (and toughest) planes ever built.
PurpleGirl
@dmsilev:
Except without the drawing and quartering.
But, but, but… that’s essential to the story. Would the story be as great if William Wallace had retired to a nice highland castle and lived out a quiet life with wife and kiddies? No, you need William Wallace to be killed in a gruesome manner to show how important freedom is!
Anoniminous
@Amir Khalid:
The Army Air Corp was turned into the Air Force by the National Security Act of 1947. At the time the only weapons platform that could deliver a, i.e., drop, nuclear weapon was a bomber and bombers remained the only reliable method of nuclear warfare until the full deployment of the ballistic submarine well into the 1960s. IIRC, the underlying idea was to streamline the Command and Control of the nuclear force, been so long since I studied this stuff I can’t remember details.
Anoniminous
@goblue72:
They lose money on every plane but they’ll make it up in volume. :-)
NorthLeft12
I just finished reading as many comments as I could stomach on the linked story. Are all these people so bloody stupid that they actually “think” that the US military does not have enough bullets and missiles? Sort of puts the lie to all these conservatives being knowledgeable about the military and their hardware in general.
As usual, there were numerous calls to carpet bomb/nuke ISIS and whoever else is in the general vicinity. There were also numerous protests about warning the drivers of the trucks before destroying them. The general feeling in that thread was that these drivers are all ISIS and deserve to die. Bloodthirsty bastards aren’t they?
Villago Delenda Est
@Marc McKenzie: Reminds me of the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik, aka the Red Army’s “flying tank” of WWII.
Robert Sneddon
Oh dear… The battleship^W A-10 boosters are on parade again, are they?
The A-10 was built to combat light Soviet armour and thin-skinned vehicles on the German plain, accepting substantial losses in the 1970s vision of WWIII. The dick-waving exercise of a gun the A-10 is built around has an effective range of about a kilometre, less if the plane is bouncing around close to the ground and to deliver an attack with the gun it has to fly straight at the target which makes it a fine juicy target for the defenders, if they’re prepared for such an event.
The F-16s that carried out most ground attack missions in the Iraq war stood off several kilometres and fired Hellfire and Maverick missiles into the targets or dropped precision-guided bombs from five kilometres up. The A-10s did carry out some bomb and missile attacks to but they’re small planes carrying the deadweight of that DWE of a gun. By comparison the F-16 and its successor the F-35 can carry large amounts of PG bombs and missiles as well as greater fuel stores meaning they can both fly faster to a situation when called for and stay on a target longer while remaining at all times clear of ground fire from irregular forces.
The pictures of severely damaged A-10s that made it back to base are nice, the pictures of the ones that didn’t are not so pretty. As for the USAF’s “dislike” of them you might note that the current senior officer in the USAF, Gen. Mark A. Welsh III has in his official biography this line:
Aircraft flown: F-16, A-10, T-37 and TG-7A
There’s a good discussion by actual knowledgeable folks about CAS and the A-10 here pointing out the unpalatable facts about a thirty-year-old antique.
Villago Delenda Est
@Robert Sneddon: Still doesn’t change the fact that the F-35 is a flying white elephant.
ellie
In Vietnam my uncle was in PsyOps and they dropped leaflets on the North Vietnamese. I thought that was hilarious as a child.
Mike J
@Robert Sneddon: Most of the argument there seems to be that the A-10 couldn’t do well in a war against a modern superpower. It does better against guys in Toyotas.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Gus:
Obama himself had the funniest answer to that, along the lines of, If they think Michelle would let me do that, they don’t know my wife.
NorthLeft12
@Anoniminous: F-35 at $116 Million? Our understanding that the cost to Canada for sixty aircraft and all the sustaining support was around $50 Billion CAN. Even the Conservative government of the time blanched at shelling out that kind of moolah.
And as an aside, the costs for these weapon systems are always higher than the estimates.
kindness
I like the Warthog. I think the Army and Air Force need to revise their rules. When the services separated (back in the 50’s) the rule became Army could fly any helicopters but no fixed wing aircraft. I think the Army should be able to fly A-10’s. It’s readily apparent the Air Force doesn’t want the Close Support role. Army needs these planes. Make a deal stoopids.
catclub
@Robert Sneddon: It is well known that the A-10 can really only fly where we have complete air superiority AND the enemy on the ground has no effective anti-aircraft missiles.
It just so happens that this is the case in all those places we have used the A-10 to great effect
over the past 20-30 years.
My understanding is also that each of those proposed air-to-surface missiles will cost more than the target
being destroyed. unlike the case of using the A10 machine gun.
kindness
@Robert Sneddon:
– you know how much many of us would covet a Ferrari from the 80’s and still drive the beast? You come off knowledgeable but you deny the Air Force hates the role as well as the plane but lurvs them some F-35 which can’t operate in a moderate rain. That’s right, their billion dollar love child’s radar doesn’t work in the rain.
NorthLeft12
@Shakezula: The bloodthirsty commenting corps took care of that for him. I guess it never entered those psychopaths minds that those drivers may have been forced to drive those trucks.
I don’t know if it is a part of growing older, but I am finding that I have very little patience or understanding for these miserable excuses for human beings.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Robert Sneddon:
I will very freely admit that I don’t understand most of the military equipment stuff, but there seem to be quite a few people who feel that there’s still a need for a close support aircraft that can’t be filled by something that attacks from a further distance. Do you disagree with that and think that further distance aircraft can do everything a close support aircraft can do, or do you think the need for close support is exaggerated?
Robert Sneddon
@Mike J: The F-16 does a better job against guys in Toyotas and they never get a chance to shoot back at all. It’s a faster, larger, more capable aircraft, more modern in its current versions with better more efficient engines, better electronics, larger payload capacity and the ability to go deep into enemy territory and come back. The A-10 is a one-trick pony powered by low-powered fifty-year-old fuel-hog engines and it’s dead meat against anyone with significant military capabilities and organisation — in the Kuwait war in 1990 A10s flew fewer missions than the F-16 and still suffered twice the airframe losses to deliver less ordnance per mission to more limited targets.
The F-35 is designed to be a replacement for the F-16, with even more modern capabilities intended to make it an all-rounder. How it will actually perform in service is another matter but it’s shaping up to do a decent job of ground attack and CAS the way it should be done with the targets never knowing it’s there until it’s too late. And no dick-waving exercise of a gun weighing it down.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: I saw the same thing, people going off on Facebook about how Obama is a traitor because they dropped leaflets first.
catclub
@Robert Sneddon:
It carries 10 Maverick air-to-ground missiles. And the cannon.
Does the F-16 carry 50 of them? Or just 12? Or 6?
Djchefron
Abolish the Air Force What it does on its own — strategic bombing — isn’t suited to modern warfare. What it does well — its tactical support missions — could be better managed by the Army and Navy. It’s time to break up the Air Force. PLUS: Farley discusses his case for abolishing the Air Force with several bloggers.
http://prospect.org/article/abolish-air-force
Anoniminous
@NorthLeft12:
The key is “all the sustaining support.”
You’ll need things like … ya know … engines … to make the thing operational. And those cost money.
daveNYC
@Robert Sneddon: Unless ISIS and whatnot are going to get their hands on some T-90s and S-300/400s, I don’t think saying that the A-10 is only useful against light armor in areas where there isn’t much AA is a major reason to get rid of it.
Lightly armored targets with little anti-air capability in areas with little ground cover are what we’re fighting and the A-10 is pretty damn good for the job.
Robert Sneddon
@catclub:
You mean like Bosnia, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq where several A-10s were lost to ground fire and short-range AA missiles? Most A-10 sorties in those conflicts were actually carried out with Mavericks and Hellfires and PGM bombs and they rarely fired their guns in anger. The venerable F-16 did a better job with fewer losses with the same munitions in all those conflicts.
@kindness:
So, how many A-10 pilots does the US Army have? How many trained mechanics do they have to keep these old aircraft flying (the last airframe came off the production line in 1984 IIRC)? Army air bases that can handle them? Munitions handlers, refuelling equipment etc. etc.? Command and control, data links, targetting and mission assignment specialists?
It would be a bit like giving the much-loved Iowa-class battleships (look at the size of those guns! Wow!) to the US Coast Guard, and about as useful.
Robert Sneddon
@daveNYC: The ISIS forces have access to ZSU23-4 air defence guns which have about the same range as the A-10’s Avenger gun (about a kilometer effective). If the A-10 can shoot them they can shoot back. See also “flak trap”.
This does not apply to stand-off missiles like Maverick, of course (maximum range 16km) which is why A-10s carry them and don’t fire their useless gun much any more. Sadly the gun in the A-10 can’t be removed and replaced with something more useful (like extra fuel storage, for example) and the plane was literally built around the gun and it would need to be redesigned to accommodate such changes.
There’s maybe a case to be made for a purpose-built ground-attack/CAS aircraft to replace the Warthog, a modern design, faster (supersonic would be nice) with new fuel-efficient engines, lots of pylon and internal ordnance storage etc. etc. and no stupid gun but the money’s not there to build it in part because the only thing it can do is CAS and nothing else. The F-16 can do a lot more and cover the ground-attack and CAS missions very well, as will the F-35 when it enters service.
Gravenstone
@Emma: You have to remember, that cannon was designed to destroy enemy armor. So when used against a “soft” target like a structure, the results will be nothing short of brutal.
Villago Delenda Est
@Robert Sneddon: If the Army had fixed wing CAS, they’d have all that capacity. The fact of the matter is that they’ve been prohibited from developing the infrastructure to support it for half a century.
You sound like one of those whining zoomies I met in Honduras.
judy in SD
I see this post has been highlighted by Charles Pierce at Esquire.
kindness
@Robert Sneddon: Uhhh, Buddy? You are skirting a line of advocacy and trolling. We get you love the F-35 and hate the A-10. When discussing differing points of view with those who hold them it is important to give your opponent(s) the benefit of having a reasonably thought out opinion of their own. You aren’t doing that.
The F-35 is almost a billion dollars a piece. Where you came up with $116M is not just cray-cray but up there with Trumpisms. And the F-35 isn’t designed to be nor will it do Close Air Support very well. That’s why we have different classes of planes, to handle different jobs. Fighters and CAS are wildly different roles. Having planes maximized to their role is best IMHO. But that’s just me (and many others).
Robert Sneddon
@Gravenstone: The F-16 has a Vulcan cannon too, the M61. It’s only (?) 20mm but it carries more than 500 rounds compared to the A-10’s 210 heavier rounds. Those 20mm rounds would also make a mess of thin-skinned targets like fuel tankers and trucks but they’d not need to break off the attack so soon when they ran out of ammo.
The AUG-8 Avenger gun in the A-10 was meant to rip up thin-skinned armour like BMPs with tungsten or DU penetrators hence its size and mass. It was designed in the 1960s when air-launched missiles were not as well-developed as they are today — a modern aircraft can salvo-fire Mavericks or Hellfres at multiple targets fire-and-forget and be sure they will hit what they’re aimed at (including tracking and engaging moving targets) unlike the aircraft gun where the pilot has to point the plane precisely at the target and keep it lined up while the gun is firing giving defenders a clean shot at it in response.
Kenneth Fair
@Robert Sneddon: An A-10 can carry up to 1,350 rounds of 30mm ammunition for its GAU-8 cannon.
The cannon fires at 3,900 rounds per minute, so it only has 20 seconds worth of ammunition. Of course, it’s fired in short bursts, but it wouldn’t take that long for one A-10 to use up its cannon ammo in a target-rich environment.
Robert Sneddon
@Villago Delenda Est:
So what’s the budget line for providing that new capacity today? Removing A-10 operations from the USAF won’t be as cheap as introducing that capability to the Army’s structure will. Either the military budget is increased or the Army does without something else to take on this role. What gets cut?
The A-10 airframes are reaching end-of-life absent an expensive upgrade like the current re-winging process, ditto for the engines. As I said, the last new A-10 airframe was built in the mid-1980s, that’s thirty years ago, and thanks to a lot of wog-stomping ground wars around the world pretty much all of them have racked up thousands of hard flight hours flying low in thick air. Starting up the production lines again, no point. A new design of CAS plane, OK but it’s going to cost a lot and it can only do one job with no parts compatibility, cross-training for pilots etc.
Folks love battleships, yeah I know, the USS Constitution is a much-loved warship and its the same with other classics like the A-10, the SR-71, the Spitfire and Lancaster but times change and better comes along and it’s time to say goodbye to yet another relic of the Cold War, basically.
Thoughtful Today
…
I appreciate Cole highlighting this idiocy. I couldn’t believe it when I read right-wingers whining that the Warthogs ran out of bullets. Then I realized:
Right-wing keyboard commandos have never lugged a box of ammo over a hill, the closest they’ve come is sitting in front a TV screen playing games in GOD MODE with infinite bullets.
NB: CNN hired Erik Erikson. It was CNN’s “Foxification Accomplished” moment.
Villago Delenda Est
@Robert Sneddon: How about picking up the USAF infrastructure and just moving it to the Army? Except for the air bases (and the Army does have access to a lot of those…Ft. Lewis has it’s own airfield seperate from McChord, and I was stationed at Wiesbaden AB in the Army in the early 80’s…) this isn’t all that difficult to imagine.
You can do all that with the stroke of a pen. It’s not like it didn’t happen in 1947, you know.
The USAF could develop (but won’t) a dedicated CAS airframe in the mode of the A-10 with updated everything. But they won’t. Because it doesn’t properly ZOOM.
Robert Sneddon
@Villago Delenda Est: The USAF doesn’t “develop” anything, they take what Congress gives them.
The idea the USAF top brass doesn’t like carrying out CAS and pounding ground is a myth. As I pointed out the current head of USAF has bum-in-seat experience with the A-10 which puts the lie to the idee fixe some folks have that only zoomie-boomies get promoted to flag ranks. The problem with the A-10 is that it was narrowly configured for busting light armour while accepting heavy losses in a face-to-face all-out war with Soviet armour in Germany and that role doesn’t exist any more. It’s old, it’s outdated and it needs replacing with a new airframe and capabilities for the 21st century. The gun is engorging and stiffy-inducing, sure but it is a flintlock in a belt-fed world just like the Iowa’s 16-inch rifles are in a world of aircraft carriers and cruise missiles. If it was possible to remove the A-10’s gun, double its speed, upgrade all its electronics and radars, re-engine it so it’s not a 1970s fuel-hog and a whole load of other things then maybe it could stay viable but you might as well build a new plane, and Congress won’t spend the money for a new one-trick pony which can’t do other things like deep-penetration bombing runs on targets well behind a front line or supercruise at Mach 2 to get quickly to a flashpoint that’s come under attack.
John Cole
Robert Sneddon- All of your points would be valid if there were another CAS platform in existence. There isn’t. So the A10 should live on until there is.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
You’ve really been piling on Erickson lately, and I can’t thank you enough. And, now, having thanked you, I’m going to ask that you keep piling on him. People like him need a serious beating, and, while a physical one would be ideal, a beating with words is better than nothing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Robert Sneddon: Oh, you just admitted that no zoom, no go.
Villago Delenda Est
@John Cole: And the F35 is NOT that platform.
Tehanu
@judy in SD:
Not just highlighted, quoted at length (well, medium length). Still, congrats to John Cole!
Robert Sneddon
@John Cole: The F-16 works very well as a CAS delivery vehicle. It flew more ground attack and CAS missions during the Gulf war than the A-10 and suffered fewer losses doing so. It was also able to penetrate the front lines and strike backfield targets, not something the range-limited A-10 can easily achieve. The F-16 is still being produced and upgraded so zero-hour structural components are readily available unlike the A-10 hence the expensive retooling operation Boeing is being paid big bucks for to provide new wings for over a hundred A-10s at the moment.
It’s not sexy, it’s not edgy but it’s generally a better tool for the CAS job, and it can do other things too.
Robert Sneddon
@Villago Delenda Est: The A-10 takes a long time to get anywhere and if it’s needed somewhere in a hurry, well it can’t hurry (top speed of about 450mph or about as fast as late-war Spitfires). The F-16 can hurry (800 mph at sea level, 1500mph at altitude). The zoomie-boomies are the fighter jocks, the air combat Top Gun sex machines so beloved of the movies and fiction. Having a CAS ground attack plane that can zoom to provide support quickly is a good thing.
Sad_Dem
Robert Sneddon, all your points are well taken, and they explain why we stopped building the A-10, but do you think the F-35 is not a ridiculously overpriced turkey? Also, speaking of things outdated, has the rule that the Army can’t have fixed wings outlived whatever usefulness it had?
Thoughtful Today
The Rumsfeldian fixation on the superiority of fast moving aircraft that fly behind enemy lines to shock-and-awe opponents into oblivion seems to miss several facts:
Neither al-qaeda or daesh has an air force (did I miss a memo?), the only anti-aircraft guns and/or SAMs they have are what they’ve captured (again, did I miss a memo, do they have some manufacturing capacity or supplier I’m not aware of?), there’s no real fixed enemy lines, and, importantly, ground troops appreciate the Warthog flying low and slow and pulverizing ground forces.
It’s not like the F35 isn’t available for fast and furious bombing. But it’s a hit and run operation, not a hit and hit and hit and stay and hit some more operation.
F35’s are superior if we’re fighting Russia or China. If that’s that’s your argument, make it. For instance, if you want to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria (ahem, or Turkey) which would inevitably mean shooting down Russian aircraft, F35’s a great choice to start a wider war with bigger enemies. (… /facepalm)
But if you’re fighting militant fanatics on the ground that don’t have AA guns or SAMs (you know, the wars-we’re-in), Warthogs are superior.
Justdale
Won’t UAVs be a better choice for some of the CAS roles? Better pilot protection and longer loiter times (and probably a fraction of the cost of an F35).
Villago Delenda Est
@Robert Sneddon:
This is one of the most absurd sentences I have ever read. The USAF has no input into its primary fighting platforms? Really?
Jack
@Robert Sneddon:
Uh, Robert? As an Army mech infantry LT, I got to see the first A-10’s in Europe working out at Graffenwohr Trainig area in 1977. We were very glad to see them, as they were an antidote to the huge number of tanks the Warsaw Pact had. And the A-10 was not designed to take out only lightly armored vehicles as you keep repeating. It’s Mavrick missiles are essentially TV/IR guided 500lb shaped charges that would destroy any existing heavy tank. The 30mm gun fires down on the lightly armored tops of tanks and eats them up, including main battle tanks like the T-54, 55, 62, and their follow ons like T-80.
The main thing now is that it is here, now, and is perfect for fighting the most likely war for the next 20 years – against ISIS and similar light forces with no sophisticated AA systems like S-300/S-400. It is frankly insane for the AF to try to get rid of it now, when the F-35 is not ready to take over, not ready to even fire its cannon until 2019 ( software glitch ).
Go talk to Ground pounders and special ops Communities, we DO love the A-10 and need it in the near term, and something like it but updated when it makes its last trip to the boneyard.
The F-35 is not that replacement.
Jack
Good article about the situations where the A-10 is the best CAS platform:
http://www.thestate.com/news/nation-world/article44918940.html
Robert Sneddon
@Sad_Dem: What is the cost of a CAS aircraft that gets shot up going in close to use its gun and which has to retire from the mission? What is the cost of a lost aircraft and a downed pilot? The real world shows the A-10 is vulnerable compared to the F-16 in performing CAS and ground attack. The gun is sexy, sure but the A-10 has to get in close to use it and that causes losses and aborted missions. Those losses were considered acceptable attrition for WWIII on the German plains, they’re not so acceptable over today’s insurgency battlefields. If the ISIS maniacs ever get hold of a downed American pilot and burn them alive on internet video then the chances are it’ll be an A-10 driver.
On the other hand if you’re going to specify a low-cost wog-stomping plane that doesn’t need to face credible short-range AA defence then you don’t need the antiquated A-10. There are other new-build airframes on the market like the cheap-n-cheerful F-15 or the new Scorpion prototype which is designed around commercial aircraft components and which can fly missions for a fifth the dollar cost of an A-10.
In addition modern CAS and ground attack benefits from a two-seater aircraft design, a pilot to fly the plane and a back-seater to select targets and fire weapons. the A-10 has a bad reputation in the blue-on-blue arena as the single crewmember can be easily distracted or confused about who they’re attacking since they’re concentrating on flying the plane at low altitude most of the time and differentiating good guys and bad guys can become a little bit tricky. You may remember the scene from “Jarhead” on this subject.
You can’t rotate A-10s into a mission that requires more capabilities like stand-off, stealth, endurance etc. The F-16 is a more flexible airframe than the one-trick A-10 and the F-35 will also be multi-role with the same pilot, the same support facilities, the same munitions handling equipment. Have a look sometime at the ammo loader for an A-10 sometime to see something that only works with one particular aircraft and which has to work for the aircraft to be loaded with ammo. In contrast all the underwing and bomb-bay munitions on an F-16 can be handled with standard dollies and trucks or in the worst case the lighter stuff can be lifted into place by hand (not recommended though).
Robert Sneddon
@Robert Sneddon: Oops, I crossed the F-15 and F-16 in the previous post.
Mike G
@Anoniminous:
Management screws up engineering — story of my career.
The A-10 is what happens when people with knowledge make the decisions.
The F-35 is what happens when people with authority and political power make the decisions.
.