If you’ve been following the A-10 Thunderbolt II (AKA Warthog) saga here, you’ll remember that the Air Force tried to kill the A-10 back in 2015, going so far as to accuse airmen who opposed retiring the A-10 of treason. Then in 2016 the Air Force appeared to give up on the idea, possibly due to congressional opposition to the idea.
Well, the Air Force is back to wanting to kill the A-10, and this time they may succeed.
Warthog’s cockpit from the 1970s era tech it had first flown with.”
As new technology enables new means of war-fighting, the Air Force appears to have finally convinced congress that other aircraft can do the same job but better. A big part of the argument for retiring the A-10 is a mirror of the original survivability argument from the 1960s: There doesn’t seem to be much room for a big aircraft that flies low and slow in a near-peer conflict, and likely hasn’t been for some time the A-10 has been effective as long as it has thanks to the low intensity of counterinsurgency warfare that U.S. has been fighting for 20 years. Besides a few man-portable launchers, the Taliban and ISIS didn’t have much air defense that could threaten the A-10, and so the Warthog thrived in the asymmetric warfare conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts say that won’t be the case against a potential enemy like China.
As much as I hate to admit it, these arguments are probably correct. The Russo-Ukrainian War has shown that the threat environment is deadlier than ever, with Russia’s air force unable to achieve air superiority over Ukraine, and Russia has reportedly limited sorties to it’s own airspace due to Ukrainian air defenses. Ukraine has shot down at least 30 Russian Su-25s, the Soviet close air support plane most broadly comparable in role and age to the A-10, which is more than they’ve shot down of any other aircraft type. And the Su-25 is over 100 MPH faster than the A-10.
Also the rise in combat drone number, capability and variety means that the A-10’s close air support role is increasingly being taken over by cheaper, more flexible unmanned vehicles. A-10s would have been perfect for taking out those long convoys strung out on the road to Kiev, but a small swarm of drones with multiple missiles could have done the same thing if they were available, probably at lower cost and without losing pilots. (Some will point to the B-52 as example of older aircraft that are still useful on the modern battlefield, but their mission (high altitude and/or far away using standoff missiles) is the exact opposite of the A-10’s close air support mission.)
Technology marches on, and there’s no reason you couldn’t have drones half the size and one-tenth the cost of an A-10 armed with 10-12 smart missiles replacing most of the A-10’s mission capabilities. Whether the Air Force will let that happen is another question, as the Sky Warden shows the Air Force never wants to give up a mission, but drones have proven too valuable in Ukraine to shove that genie back inside the bottle.
Finally, note that when asked about obtaining A-10s, Ukraine’s own defense minister said they weren’t the right aircraft for the role.
I have to reluctantly conclude that the time for the A-10 may indeed be drawing to a close.
Tags: A-10 Warthog, Afghanistan, Air Force, Budget, Department of Defense, Desert Storm, drone, F-35, Iraq, Military, Russo-Ukrainian War, video
Since it’s not manned, a U.S. Army drone CAS aircraft should not run afoul of the 1948 Key West Agreement, right?
Let’s be brutally honest, here: The Air Force isn’t out to “get” the A-10. The Air Force simply doesn’t want to do CAS for the Army, while simultaneously demanding that the Army be kept from doing CAS for itself… It’s a budget thing, and the fact that they fundamentally do not want to be doing that job. The pilots who fly the A-10 are outcasts that never make high rank, because of the filth clinging to them from their jobs.
My personal choice? Shut the Air Force down; put the strategic weapons under Space Command, and devolve the tactical side over to the Army. Since they shut down SAC, the Air Force is basically pointless, and the toxic culture is contaminating the rest of the services. There are some worthwhile parts of the Air Force, but the sad reality is that they are utterly FUBAR when it comes to doing anything that doesn’t trip their little clits when it comes to playing “Knights of the Sky”. There’s a serious ego problem in the Air Force commissioned staff, and zero rationality. Other than shutting them down and starting over with something else? No idea how to fix it. I’d just move the rockets and strategic weapons over to the Space Force, and call it good. God knows that the rest of the institution is about to be overcome by technology and the tide of history. They’re still gonna be trying to make manned aircraft work about the time that the Chinese are landing drones on the White House lawn and demanding surrender.
If there’s a more parochial and inflexible service out there, you’d have to show me. They should have been at the forefront of drone technology for the last twenty years; the fact that they’re where they are? Indicative, my friends: Indicative.
The idea that they’re going to do the A-10’s job with the F-35 is utterly ludicrous. Ain’t nobody gonna risk that much money in the form of airframes to be doing close-in CAS; the Army will be lucky to see the glint of sunlight off the canopies of the F-35 from fifty miles away.
If the Air Force was serious about CAS, then they’d have already gotten a functional replacement into the air for the A-10. As they are not, well… Do the math. I’m not at all sanguine about the future; I expect them to make a grab for control over any and all UAV assets that carry weapons in the near-term future, and then immediately de-emphasize them in favor of manned platforms that we can’t afford and which will be obsolete in practical terms.
We should already have the most capable UAV fleet in the world. Why don’t we? Air Force. They don’t want to quit playing Joe Fighter Pilot; it’s an ego trip, and nothing else.
The warts on the Hog have been noticeable from when it came into service.
Israel took a look at the plane to see if they should buy it and turned it down flat. This was right after the 1973 war where they face thick SA-2/3/6/7 SAMs and the ZSU-23 flak vehicles. They said an A-10 type of plane would’ve been shot down left and right because it had to get in close with the gun and dumb bombs. Mavericks were just being introduced I think. A-4s were good because they were small and fast. With tail pipe extensions it could absorb a SA-7 heat seeker SAM.
USAF calculated in the 80’s that full scale, non-nuke Warsaw Pact conflict that within 10-14 days at least half to 2/3’rds of ALL A-10s built would’ve been lost in battle or rendered unflyable.
After Desert Storm USAF discovered that you don’t have be down in the weeds for most CAS. With LGBs, optic guided missiles, etc you could do the job nicely from medium altitudes that keep you out of most ground fire and give you room to evaid larger SAMs. A googdly chunk, up to 1500, of the Iraqi tanks were taken out by F-111s doing ‘tank plinking’ at night with thermal cameras and LGB bombs.
The first B-52 flew in 1952. The AF is currently upgrading the ones that are still flying. All of them older then the pilots flying them. Bombing- a mission the AF likes.
The AF never wanted the A-10. And still doesn’t. It was designed for one mission- and one mission only. Ground support.
The Army has more helicopters then the AF. Many are used for- ground support. Because they can’t fly fixed wing aircraft.
It’s strange to think and a little bit depressing that future CAS is going to be performed by high and low-altitude unmanned arsenal platforms carrying loads of guided standoff weapons. It will just hover around in 12 hour shifts taking a handoff from some drone team in a trailer in Nevada.
21st century warfare is seriously lacking in sovl. Patton was right about push-button warfare.
The Army isn’t allowed to fly fixed wing _manned_ aircraft under the Key West Agreement of 1948, as reinforced by the 1966 Johnson-McConnell agreement when the Army had to give up their Caribou and Buffalo STOL cargo planes during the Vietnam war.
I am pretty sure neither says anything about unmanned fixed wing aircraft. If the USAF kills off their only CAS bird, then the Army buying what amounts to something unmanned, smaller, somewhat faster, and with high precision for shooting and dropping splodey stuff near friendly troops seems legit.
It’s just a drone, zoomie. Whatcha worried about?
It’s difficult and expensive to maintain a supply chain and engineering platform to keep the A-10 effective and ready to fly. The Air Force cannot afford to maintain boutique fleets.
“The A-10 is easy to fly but slow, with a max speed of 439MPH.”
And what, pray tell, is the velocity airspeed of an unladen swallow?
I think A-10s remain useful. UAVs fly slower and have a comparatively anemic payload. Imagine A-10s strafing the length of a trench—much more precise and sustained than cluster ammunition with no residual unexploded munitions to later bedevil friendly forces. Interdicting the meat attacks at Bakhmut would have been an additional niche role for this old warhorse.
If it’s easy to fly and offers a big punch against ground troops, the cold-blooded trade off of a few valuable pilots flying war relics vs. numerous soft targets could be attractive some to Ukraine strategists.
In reality the US doesn’t actually have a dedicated CAS aircraft now because of the vulnerability of the A-10, so the A-10 is more (less?) than redundant. Any peer or near-peer enemy will have enough small arms and manpads to drive it away — like the Iraqis did during the Gulf War. The A-10 got so shot up in one of the first battles that the theater Air Commander pulled them from flying any missions close to the ground. Even before that were generally restricted from flying below 10,000 feet simply due to organic AA small arms fire by the Iraqis. Their only antitank weapon was the maverick missile, which could be fired by any type of aircraft, and it had only two. It’s only night attack capability was from the Maverick, and again once it expended them, it was blind so it had to go home. It was not the big tank killer of the war, that honor went to the supersonic-capable F111, which could also conduct interdiction missions closer to ground targets, and at night.
(The Army also found out that low and slow is not where it’s at when they got an entire battalion of attack helicopters shot up by Iraqi ground fire. They didn’t try that again).
Every upgrade that’s been made to the A-10 to make it more survivable and give it longer reach has also been made(usually first) to its faster and more survivable brethren.
The only point to getting low and slow is to use the Mark one eyeball for identification and situational awareness, but that’s been taken away by increasingly effective manpads and the ever effective ground fire. The big difference for the since 1980s is the major increase in targeting systems capability and battlefield awareness through electronic systems and networking among both air and ground forces. GPS made the backbone for this by letting everyone able to accurately identify their positions. With the spread of laser, IR, and optical designators and drones to the ground forces smaller unit levels connected via networks to the air forces, the ground guys can accurately by ID targets and the air forces can accurately engage them without having to fly right over the top of them.
The argument that the F-35 won’t be used because the Air Force (and I guess the Marines and the navy too?) won’t let it get close to the ground has a false premise to it. It doesn’t need to get close to the ground. And neither do any of the other airplanes who can launch guided ordnance. Dropping dumb bombs and short range missiles has long gone out of style because of the realities of even a semi-modern battlefield. Factors for closer support. It doesn’t matter what kind of aircraft is dropping the weapons as long as the ground guys have the means to identify the target.
For COIN, where you have enemies that do not have effective anti-aircraft, like small groups of insurgents/terrorists/whatever-you call-them, the Air Force does have the AT802U, which is much cheaper and easier to maintain than the A-10, and goes even lower and slower where that is still a survivable environment.
Regarding CAS, there’s something I’ve noticed about the Ukraine war that is relevant:
There are manpads in every tree line
Anything that’s below 10,000 AGL is in terrible danger if it even attempts to get within range to just see the objective area much less launch its weapons. You’ve seen this especially with the attack helicopters who’s nap-of-the-earth tactics and unguided standoff weapons (rockets) have been woefully inadequate in getting the results desired. A) Nap of the earth doesn’t work so well when every hedgerow hides a manpad and B) the 3-4km range of your unguided rockets is useless and ballistically firing them high-angle for an extra 4km of range doubly so.
What I’m getting at is this, the Ukraine conflict is a much more adequate and adept representation of the true battlefield environment the A-10 was designed to operate in, but 40 years ago, and the modern environment would attrit the A-10 fleet in days, not even weeks…just like it is with Mil and Kamov helicopters and Su-25 Frogfoots.
When you’re talking about big WWIII battlefield engagements like the Battle of Kursk, Bulge, or Seelow Heights than it’s a different story because you’ve got the deliberate offensive logistics support to rake every tree line with massive artillery and air support just to get to your air power to the objective. We’re not dealing with that here. It’s WWI static trench lines with ATGWs and manpads, and nobody has the logistic capacity to erase one grid square with coordinated support fire much less 20 or 30 grid squares.
Sorry Warthog. I love you, but nailing hajis with glorious 30mm might have been her last hurrah.
The death of the A-10 program ain’t the significant thing, here. What is significant is that there’s nothing in the pipeline to fill that role and perform that mission. The Air Force has not bothered developing it, doesn’t want it, and could care less that they’re leaving a gaping chest wound where CAS used to be.
It may well be true that the A-10 is DOA. However, comma, that was also true when the battlefield environment made the JU-87 obsolete. The mission is still there, however… And, what, precisely, is replacing it, in terms of capability?
Nothing, really. The Air Force doesn’t want the mission, but it doesn’t want the Army to have armed fixed wing aircraft even worse, so every time the Army comes close, like with the AH-56 Cheyenne, they do whatever it takes to kill it.
If it weren’t so damn serious, the childishness of it all would be humorous. As it is, however? I’m all for lining up the responsible flag-ranked twatwaffles responsible for it, and putting a bullet into the back of their skulls. It’s what they deserve; the sorry bastards are more concerned with their damn parochial little career interests than they are in supporting the soldiers out there getting shot at.
I don’t happen to believe that the A-10 is the perfect tool for the mission, but at the moment? It’s the only damn tool we have, thanks to the idiot class we put in charge of this stuff.
+1 Kirk, good on ya.
….from an old ’79-’81 RAF Bentwaters A-10 jock.
– Grumpy 92TFS
I have to disagree, Kirk. There are plenty of options for handling CAS. Heck, the Army has an incredible capability with PGK, and if M1299 ever enters service and gets the long-promised autoloader and MRSI-capable fire control, troops should have excellent fire support. If IVAS (and more importantly, the encrypted mesh radio network it uses) works out, they may be able to call for it even faster than the Ukrainians can with their home-grown app-based system. The Army also has no restrictions against using munitions-grade drones; again, Ukraine has demonstrated great potential, and the Army has access to LPI/encrypted comms that would be necessary if Russia had half the EW capability it displayed in 2014. The Army needs to catch up on the armed mini/micro-drone front. There are also going to be lots of Apaches for the next few decades, and maybe even an actual Kiowa replacement in a few years, plus more-conventional UCAVs like Gray Eagle.
And then we come to the zoomies. Remember that the A-10, for all its ruggedness, got banished from the Republican Guard sectors for taking too many hits when F-16s weren’t. And, most A-10 kills were with Mavericks that could have just as easily been fired by F-16s. The A-10, for all its hype, didn’t really come into its own until Afghanistan, where ROEs often required visual confirmation of an enemy before they could be engaged (shades of Vietnam), and deconfliction with friendly troops was always a problem. Even there, heavy bombers with JDAMs ran a large percentage of the CAS missions.
Back in the days of AirLand Battle, it was assumed that staying low was the best way to stay alive. Desert Storm shocked us with a reality that was almost exactly the opposite: low-flying aircraft, whether A-10s or Tornados with JP.223s, took damage and losses far out of proportion compared to focusing on SEAD to roll back medium/long-range SAMs and flying at medium altitudes to out-range AAA, manpads, and golden BBs. Early FLIR pods enabled pilots to begin spotting targets without having to descend into Mk 1 range. Sensors are now good enough to observe individual soldiers from medium altitudes, and there are a number of smart weapons that are small enough and cheap enough to be used en masse against squad-sized enemy elements–or, in extremis, individuals.
So, while I love a good BRRRRRT, I can’t really find much justification for guys risking their necks flying low and slow enough to pick the enemy out with binoculars (which is an actual thing for A-10 pilots). If the EW environment is contested enough that drones can’t be used, a manned F-35 can still see people from dozens of miles away, and can supposedly see vehicles just as well through clouds using SAR. And on the business end, JDAMs, SDBs, and potentially even smaller weapons (like APKWS2, which is already integrated with most tactical fighters other than F-15E and F-35) can offer anything from large-scale destruction down to danger-close drops.
And I haven’t even covered laser cannons yet (for starters, their acceptability by the international community for use against infantry has not been raised, much less established).
The biggest issue WRT CAS is not the platforms or the weapons; it’s the doctrine, planning, and training used by *both* services, and the places where they mesh poorly or fail to communicate properly. That’s the biggest problem that needs fixing, and Ukraine’s app-based calls for fire may show a possible way forward (EW permitting). I’ve heard stories of soldiers using the texting functions built into BFT to call for support, because that was the fastest and most accurate way to get the information in the hands of the people who could provide it. That’s where both services really need to be focusing a lot of effort: not just in the technologies, but in how to use them to communicate with each other and be understood.
@kirk and at the other end of the spectrum, there’s the innovation of the Marine Corps having Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from trucks. 4 per truck, five trucks per unit.
Now *that* is a serious can of whoop-ass.
From Peter Zeihan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUXiGNc-x4g
The A-10 was designed to stop a Soviet invasion. Not much has changed since then. The author posits that the Chinese are a different kettle of fish. Really, do tell us what they have developed to stop the A-10.
Yes it is old, any sane person would build a new one using the appropriate technology. The F-35 cannot do what the A-10 does. As for killing armor at a zillion miles I’ve heard that one before from the same dinosaurs who brayed the tank was obsolete and that the aircraft carrier had no place in modern warfare. Harvard gender studies majors all.
Since the Air Force hates ground support, and always has, all ground support aircraft should be the responsibility of the army and marines. Watch the fly boys change their tune.
When your on the ground try getting a F-35 to loiter over your position for an hour. I do hate the opinions of experts whose military experience was developed in a school yard sandbox playing with their GI Barbies.
Fred: the A-X program began life during the Vietnam War as a replacement for the A-1. It was later sold as a tank-killer, but the truth is, the GAU-8 was never capable of penetrating tanks–except for certain older models, from certain angles and ranges. The cannon would have been much more useful against BMPs, MTLBs, and other thin-skinned vehicles. It’s primary weapons against T-80s would have been Mavericks and Rockeyes. Note also that tactical fighters (including the A-10) armed with Mavericks could and *did* kill tanks from a dozen or more miles away 30 years ago… and yet the tank is still not obsolete, despite the threat, because combat is not so black and white as that.
As for getting a F-35 to loiter over your position for an hour, I would note that the A-10 carries 11,000lbs of fuel and 16,000lbs of ordnance, whereas the F-35 carries 18,000lbs of fuel and up to 5700lbs (internal only) or 18,000lbs (total including external) ordnance. If it helps, think of the F-35 as a stealthy A-6E, which carried exactly the same amount of ordnance, and was rather appreciated when used for CAS.
As for the Air Force hating ground support, that’s a simplistic take on a complex subject. Certainly, there have been a number of zoomies who loathed the mission, and plenty of them were generals whose most meaningful combat was fighting over the defense budget. And yet, for the last 22 years, we’ve seen an amazing amount of CAS performed by every platform up to and including B-1s, which flew a large percentage of CAS sorties in Afghanistan. Rather than engaging in continued interservice rivalries, it would be more productive to figure out how to continue to improve CAS in less permissive environments against opponents armed with more than 1st/2nd-generation manpads.
I should have added: I highly recommend “The Revolt of the Majors: How the Air Force Changed After Vietnam” (https://etd.auburn.edu/bitstream/handle/10415/595/MICHEL_III_55.pdf) and “Eagles, Ravens, and Other Birds of Prey” (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60548629-eagles-ravens-and-other-birds-of-prey) on the issues the USAF faced with regards to designs and doctrines after Vietnam. There was a lot of actually intelligent thought that went into that stuff; it wasn’t all just a “Army bad, we hate CAS” stereotype.