Let's make new A10 Warthogs

Velocity173 said:
Exactly. This is the point I brought up in the other thread we had about the subject. After “shock and awe” comes SEAD. By the time ground troops start advancing into home turf, we’ve controlled the air.

Like I said in 2004 when I got “fixed wing, Fixed wing…lock!” on my RWR. For a split second I reacted, then I thought, there’s no air threat here. It would have been suicide to be flying rotor wing in the area I was at during the opening days of OIF in 2003. A year later was night and day.
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I read you guys took some pretty heavy battle damage from SAF during the opening phase of OIF. True?
 
Opening? Heck a former coworker of mine was shot down by SAF during infil as deep as mid '04. Took an RPG to the face on LZ approach. Having a team of bang bang bearded bois in the back crash landing with ya tends to increase your odds of survival while waiting for wingman to extricate your bloodied, M-killed mess up. Earned every bit of that DFC and PH.

Iraq was still a turkey shoot by historical standards, but even in 2004 the rotor wing survivability compared to fixed wing peers is in practice rather wobbly (pun intended), even in so-called permissive airspace. Occupational hazard indeed and not for the faint of heart. RW guys are the real deal, rest of us "support" flyers are just REMF scum...or worse, teachers! ewww. :biggrin:
 
Velocity173 said:
Exactly. This is the point I brought up in the other thread we had about the subject. After “shock and awe” comes SEAD. By the time ground troops start advancing into home turf, we’ve controlled the air.
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Unfortunately, the assumption of air superiority is rapidly becoming less tenable in modern warfare planning. My particular slice of the pie involves, among other things, thinking about Navy/USMC medevac. The traditional assumptions about air platform availability for casualties in blue/brown water ops look much more wobbly when considered against a peer/neer-peer opponent actively contesting air superiority or at least trying to deny it. Drones--both ours and theirs--are creating some head-scratching scenarios.
 
Ed Haywood said:
I read you guys took some pretty heavy battle damage from SAF during the opening phase of OIF. True?
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Army did and I would have been part of it if Turkey let us in. We were poised in Kosovo with 8 Hawks waiting on the vote to enter Turkey. Think we (US) offered them $29 billion to use them as a staging ground but they said no way. We turned around and went back to Germany. We would return the next year and relieve the guys that went in on the initial invasion. They had some incredible stories to tell. RPGs, MANPADS, dust storms, taking over random airfields and sleeping in the aircraft and eating MREs.

Yeah still dangerous by the time I got there but the threat had been severely reduced by the initial invasion. Plus, we fell in on air conditioned trailers, DFACs and MWR setup. If you can avoid it, never wanna be the first in or the last out. ;)
 
Velocity173 said:
I would have been part of it if Turkey let us in.
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Velocity173 said:
We turned around and went back to Germany.
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I think I was a part of what you’re talking about. I was set to command an Air Transportable Hospital to be set up in Batman and we were literally lined up to get on the plane that way after several false starts when it finally got cancelled for real by the Turks.
 
TCABM said:
At one time, probably; not no more, though. Most JTACs won’t get into weaponeering, they just want desired effects from what’s available. There are times when it’s helpful to know impact angle, fusing delay, and more, but that’s rare outside the wire.

Now, if you have dedicated support and time to plan, that’s a different story, although also a rare one for the conventional dudes.

I usually had one of two desired effects: 1) make them stop or 2) kill them all.
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Yeah I occasionally had a JTAC/FAC (more commonly a FAC for probably reasons that are apparent) get pretty specific with weapon-tgt pairings, but i think that was more borne out of the inertia of a long-lived conflict with pretty specific ROE. Guy isn’t asking for a LCOL JDAM with a 10 ms DLY for ****s and giggles or out of the goodness of his heart for the enemy (which BTW appears to have the same effects as an M80 or maybe even a sparkler). Outside that very specific set of circumstances, I found them to be broadly familiar with our ordnance, well-enough to probably request the right thing, but the”weaponeering” either wasn’t really required (soft target in the open) or that was left to us. Most commonly it was just a moving vehicle, often fast-moving, so that had its own niche of pretty well known cast actors with pretty standardized “costumes” for them to be wearing when they went high-order

I would add that, weaponeering or not, CAS is probably the ultimate team sport
 
William Pete Hodges said:
I started this thread because the A10 brings unique capabilities to the battlefield that should be preserved. The USAF should either embrace this mission completely or hand it over to the Army or Marines. This half-a**ed attitude of theirs is NOT helping our troops on the ground.

The AX program officially started in September 1966 issued a detailed request for information March 6, 1967. This was followed by a modified detailed request for proposals in May 1970. The first AX10 prototype first flew May 10, 1972. Republic designed and built the first 2 AX10 prototypes from scratch in two years and met every spec the USAF asked for. Right now we have about 250 A10s in service with all the upgrades and improvements over 50 years of service and we still have the best ever CAS aircraft ever put in service anywhere in the world. We also have a boneyard full of retired A10s that can be used to copy and produce new tooling to build more. The US Government owns the right to produce as many as they want.

Why reinvent the wheel if the best wheel ever is still at our disposal?

All it takes this the stroke of a pen and approval from congress. I'll bet new A10s could be put in service in less than 4 years. Republic built the prototype in two years, and they started with nothing!

I say we should do it. I say the the army should demand it. And if necessary give the A10s to the Marines and make it happen.
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If it were up to me, this is what I would do....

The government should authorize and create a low volume assembly/supply chain capable of making 12 new A-10s every year. I am assuming this will take about 4 years to become established to the point where new A-10s in their latest configuration can start rolling off the assembly line, or produce the equivalent in spare parts. That means 120 new A-10s can be produced every 10 years, or the equivalent in spare parts. This low volume assembly/supply chain should be maintained indefinitely, keeping a new supply available and rotating out aging airframes every 20-30 years depending on how large the fleet needs to be.

Once we have the ability to manufacture new A-10s and all the parts as needed, the actual production can be stepped up or stepped down as needed, as long as the assembly/supply chain is maintained. Maybe after 20 years and a resupplied fleet, we step down to 6 per year instead of 12, or maybe we need to step up to 18 per year to resupply or grow the fleet. We can keep it like this as long as we don't shut down the line. This means we keep the best CAS airframe in our military arsenal for ever.

We use aircraft carriers in our navy, and we deploy other vessels to protect them. We are currently doing the same thing with the A-10, and now we are using the A-10 as forward observers to help direct other aircraft to their targets more precisely. The A-10 is not obsolete. It is adaptable.
 
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William Pete Hodges said:
If it were up to me, this is what I would do....

The government should authorize and create a low volume assembly/supply chain capable of making 12 new A-10s every year. I am assuming this will take about 4 years to become established to the point where new A-10s in their latest configuration can start rolling off the assembly line, or produce the equivalent in spare parts. That means 120 new A-10s can be produced every 10 years, or the equivalent in spare parts. This low volume assembly/supply chain should be maintained indefinitely, keeping a new supply available and rotating out aging airframes every 20-30 years depending on how large the fleet needs to be.

Once we have the ability to manufacture new A-10s and all the parts as needed, the actual production can be stepped up or stepped down as needed, as long as the assembly/supply chain is maintained. Maybe after 20 years and a resupplied fleet, we step down to 6 per year instead of 12, or maybe we need to step up to 18 per year to resupply or grow the fleet. We can keep it like this as long as we don't shut down the line. This means we keep the best CAS airframe in our military arsenal for ever.

We use aircraft carriers in our navy, and we deploy other vessels to protect them. We are currently doing the same thing with the A-10, and now we are using the A-10 as forward observers to help direct other aircraft to their targets more precisely. The A-10 is not obsolete. It is adaptable.
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There’s no more expensive way to make something than low volume production. Spend the money on high volume drones to attrit the bad guys en-masse.
 
nauga said:
The Phantom is definitely a joint success story, but the A-7 also performed well for a shorter time for the Navy, AF, and Guard. And while inclusion depends on how you define "warfighting," the C-130 has seen use by more services, domestic and foreign, than the F-4.

Nauga,
supporter of light, medium, and heavy attack
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After the Guard and USAF had the TF41 instead of the miserable TF30, along with the Bomb / Nav system, It did make a formidable weapon. Still the Rhino did a lot of multirole work compared to the A-7.

PS, Thrash Haulers are Trash Haulers world wide. Vital but when they become gunships they are AWESOME .
 
kyleb said:
There’s no more expensive way to make something than low volume production. Spend the money on high volume drones to attrit the bad guys en-masse.
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I disagree with you on this. Steady efficient production can be attained on a small scale if the labor force is versatile and can be moved efficiently from task to task with no lost time between tasks. It won't be as low cost per unit as mass production on a grand scale, but it will be much less expensive overall to get underway and maintain. You can design a production line and support system to produce 1000 machines oer year, which is very expensive to set up and too short sighted to last, or you can target 12 units per year with a small and versatile work force on a 50 year contract. This allows some parts fabrication to take place in the downtime between other projects. Vickers pumps practiced this policy for decades and it worked, but their customers had to place their orders well in advance and if they missed their order window they were out of luck until their turn came around again. It is a little odd, but it works, and produces low volume parts at lower expense. It can be done.
 
Zero point zero chance the Air Force restarts production of the A-10. None. Zip. Nada.

Question is whether they could justify continuing to keep a few squadrons active. I think yes.
 
William Pete Hodges said:
Steady efficient production can be attained on a small scale if the labor force is versatile and can be moved efficiently from task to task with no lost time between tasks.
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That assumes the labor force has access to existing tooling. To a large extent the tooling no longer exists for the A-10.

Nauga,
production-unready
 
William Pete Hodges said:
...if the labor force is versatile and can be moved efficiently from task to task with no lost time between tasks.
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I don't believe that's possible with something as complex as a military aircraft. There are extensive training and certifications required for each task and many are very specialized. If someone went months or more without doing a task, they'd have to be re-trained and re-certified. Moving people between tasks will certainly create inefficiencies and lost time, not avoid them. ("Yes, I know you were a machinist yesterday, but today we need to you to troubleshoot and rework electronic circuit cards.")

Furthermore, consider that an A-10 production line is really many production lines at many suppliers all over the world. All those lines require inspection and certification and regular sampling. A A-10 isn't built from off-the-shelf parts kept in large stock. At the quantities you're talking, many suppliers will no-bid. Others will only bid if you offer a one-time lifetime buy up front, which won't save you anything. A supplier who does bid at such low quantities will have to amortize their cost to stand up a production line over a very small number of units, driving component cost through the roof.

Your alternative then becomes re-designing components and subsystems around part availability. That often leads to new qualification testing. Any idea what that will do to costs?

And all it takes is for one supplier not to deliver or to no-bid to hold up the whole thing. Q - How many parts does it take to build an A10? A - All of them!

There is some optimum production rate that minimizes cost, but I'm pretty sure this ain't it.
 
nauga said:
OK Mav, show us some of that pilot ****. Talk numbers. Rate/radius. Excess power. Kill ratios, Vietnam and total. Loss rates.


Tell us more about this A-6 Corsair you speak of?

Nauga,
with an Intruder alert
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"Crusader pilots would claim the best kill ratio of any American type in the Vietnam War, 19:3"

Rate/radius/power don't mean crap. Killing the enemy does. The F-4 never got close to that ratio. Also BVR missiles mean SQUAT when you must visually confirm each target (over Vietnam). I don't have time to list all the F-4 faults. First being don't ask a bomber interceptor to engage in close quarter gunfights... without a gun DOH! All that radar, and another entire human dragged along to operate it... and it still didn't hit much of anything.

ALso my typo's are my superpower. Of course I meant A-7.

I like the look of the F-4, its squat and mean... but it was never a serious match (close quarter) for the Migs on the era.
 
TCABM said:
think what gets (somewhat) lost in the sauce is that ground troops usually don’t get committed until localized air superiority is achieved (at a minimum). That means the big ADA threats have been turned into flaming bits of hair, teeth, and eyeballs, too.
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You are not talking about Vietnam. The dense jungle and dense SAM protection of Hanoi made 'air superiority' a moot point.

How many tons of ordinance wacky CIA ops did the US waste and still never significantly affect movement of troops/material to the South?
Dense forest was the ally that helped the NVA the most.

I am not anti-USA or a Vietnamese conflict conspiracy theorist... but the US has lied to much about the debacle that when you learn the real facts it counters all the US propaganda most people know.
 
pfarber said:
I like the look of the F-4, its squat and mean... but it was never a serious match (close quarter) for the Migs on the era.
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And that was the point made by learning to fight dissimilar aircraft. Once the F-4's strengths were utilized it did quite well dogfighting but that was done by avoiding getting in a knife fight where the Migs strengths were. Do you actually have any military TAC-Air experience?
 
Pugs said:
And that was the point made by learning to fight dissimilar aircraft. Once the F-4's strengths were utilized it did quite well dogfighting but that was done by avoiding getting in a knife fight where the Migs strengths were.
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And the exchange ratio post-NFWS standup reflects that. What's lost in the 'beast' argument is that the F-8 had few A-A kills in Vietnam, and of those something like 3 or 4 were using the much-vaunted gun, with the majority using the same short-range IR missiles used by the F-4 (AIM-9). Much of that comes down to fragging and ROE but the small number of kills easily skews the ratio.

Half Fast said:
I think Robin Olds demonstrated the F4's capabilities very effectively.
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As did Cunningham and Driscoll, and Ritchie and Feinstein.

Nauga,
aces high
 
William Pete Hodges said:
I disagree with you on this.
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Economies of scale are real.

Lycoming makes maybe a couple hundred new -540's a year. Ford builds about 750K F-150's. You're looking at $40K for a V-8 powered F-150 and $125K for a new -540 from Airpower. A truck is far more resource intensive than an aircraft engine. But costs <1/3 as much. Why? Economies of scale.
 
Half Fast said:
:yeahthat:
I think Robin Olds demonstrated the F4's capabilities very effectively.
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Robin lived in Steamboat Springs in his later years. I got to know him and other Fighter Pilots and skied the mountain together on occasion. Also had not a few Jeremiah Weeds at times. He had a good opinion of the Rhino.
 
nauga said:
And the exchange ratio post-NFWS standup reflects that. What's lost in the 'beast' argument is that the F-8 had few A-A kills in Vietnam, and of those something like 3 or 4 were using the much-vaunted gun, with the majority using the same short-range IR missiles used by the F-4 (AIM-9). Much of that comes down to fragging and ROE but the small number of kills easily skews the ratio.


As did Cunningham and Driscoll, and Ritchie and Feinstein.

Nauga,
aces high
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Nauga,

Any idea how many A2A kills the US has claimed in the last 50 years? Were any of 'em gun kills? Seems to me a gun is a nice thing to have, but the lack of one isn't a show stopper with today's more reliable/accurate/deadly missiles.
 
kyleb said:
Seems to me a gun is a nice thing to have, but the lack of one isn't a show stopper with today's more reliable/accurate/deadly missiles.
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I’d love to hear our military pilots comment on this one. I was involved in developing some of those modern weapon systems, and it seems to me that if you need to use a gun in an air-to-air encounter, your tactics must really suck.

But I’m certainly open to being convinced otherwise.
 
Half Fast said:
it seems to me that if you need to use a gun in an air-to-air encounter, your tactics must really suck.
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The mantra from Vietnam was "They left the gun off the Phantom. We'd have had lots more kills if we'd had the gun."

Maybe. But you've gotta be really good to hit a maneuvering target at 600 mph. And AIM9's are pretty accurate/reliable today. Maybe not in Vietnam, but today they are a menace.
 
kyleb said:
The mantra from Vietnam was "They left the gun off the Phantom. We'd have had lots more kills if we'd had the gun."

Maybe. But you've gotta be really good to hit a maneuvering target at 600 mph. And AIM9's are pretty accurate/reliable today. Maybe not in Vietnam, but today they are a menace.
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Now days you should be making a kill waaay beyond gun range.
 
EvilEagle said:
FIFY
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Probably true. Sadly. We work our butts off designing systems that let you detect, ID, and track targets at (redacted) miles and weapons that reach out (redacted) miles and can stick a warhead in an enemy’s left ear, all while you remain safely invisible to him, then some fool behind a nice, safe desk decides to require visual ID before launch.
 
pfarber said:
….the US has lied to much about the debacle that when you learn the real facts it counters all the US propaganda most people know.
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Son, I’m not sure what axe you have to grind, but your ignorance is shameful. If you’re just now learning the US Government lies to its citizens and the world, well then welcome to the party, pal. Amazingly, so does just about every other government, and ruling powers have done that since pretty much the beginning of existence.

I can say that with authority having seeing it firsthand as an instrument of US aggression in multiple conflicts.

I can also tell you that, after having directly contributed to the after action reports, having been an investigating officer to some events, and also having read the services’ official histories of those same events, then read and have seen movies of some of the events in unofficial histories sold by Amazon/Barnes & Nobles, Warner Bros, and the like, it’s real hard to distinguish fact from fiction and fiction, by definition, is a lie.

If you want some credibility as an expert on aerial warfare in the Vietnam era, pleas tell me your FWS/WIC or Top Gun class number. Having seen the movie doesn’t count.
 
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Half Fast said:
Probably true. Sadly. We work our butts off designing systems that let you detect, ID, and track targets at (redacted) miles and weapons that reach out (redacted) miles and can stick a warhead in an enemy’s left ear, all while you remain safely invisible to him, then some fool behind a nice, safe desk decides to require visual ID before launch.
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*USS Gettysburg has entered the chat*
 
nauga said:
That assumes the labor force has access to existing tooling. To a large extent the tooling no longer exists for the A-10.

Nauga,
production-unready
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Then we need to make the tooling again and keep it. We mothball it if necessary, but we keep it. You all seem to forget that Republic built the first two prototypes in 2 years starting from nothing. We are not starting from nothing.. It can be done, and it should be done. We can start by ordering 120 new A-10s to be delivered over 10 years. After that we renew the contract for 60 A-10s every 5 years. Then we renew the contact every 5 years.
 
William Pete Hodges said:
Then we need to make the tooling again and keep it. We mothball it if necessary, but we keep it. You all seem to forget that Republic built the first two prototypes in 2 years starting from nothing. We are not starting from nothing.. It can be done, and it should be done. We can start by ordering 120 new A-10s to be delivered over 10 years. After that we renew the contract for 60 A-10s every 5 years. Then we renew the contact every 5 years.
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don't forget the contract(s) for the logistics tail.
 
William Pete Hodges said:
Then we need to make the tooling again and keep it. [...] We can start by ordering 120 new A-10s to be delivered over 10 years. After that we renew the contract for 60 A-10s every 5 years. Then we renew the contact every 5 years.
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What is your estimate of unit cost when new tooling is amortized across your proposed production run? What is that unit cost when you consider that there's no assurance beyond the initial 120 you propose?

Nauga,
and a point design
 
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William Pete Hodges said:
Then we need to make the tooling again and keep it. We mothball it if necessary, but we keep it. You all seem to forget that Republic built the first two prototypes in 2 years starting from nothing. We are not starting from nothing.. It can be done, and it should be done. We can start by ordering 120 new A-10s to be delivered over 10 years. After that we renew the contract for 60 A-10s every 5 years. Then we renew the contact every 5 years.
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For a weapons system that is largely obsolete other than in mop-up duties or versus lightly armed troops with no anti-air?

The threat the A-10 was designed for (tank warfare in Europe) is gone. Drones have seen to that. In a world of unlimited resources, you'd keep a fleet of A-10's to use against insurgents or militias, but resources are limited. You give up the A-10 so you have more B-21's or F-35's which can do things that are more valuable from a strategic standpoint than the A-10. Big picture, you can always use an F-35 against a band of insurgents, but an A-10 isn't going to help you defend Taiwan or Estonia.
 
I’ve always said the A-10 is just another aircraft overhead with a gun and a PGM. Its strengths really don’t put it head and shoulders above its competition. It’s developed mostly a mythical reputation for saving a soldiers bacon but for every “crunchy” on the ground who claims that, there’s an F-16, F-18, AH-64, etc., that’s done the same.

None of the ops that I saw in OIF / OEF were like”we need A-10s for this.” They simply assign whoever is in theater. Could be F-16s out of Balad. Could be F-15Es out of Bagram. Or, could be B-1s out of an “undisclosed location.” Point being, they all do really well at CAS with all having strengths and weakness's. Only thing I’d put in the A-10s favor is cost. Loiter times are good but there’s so much overlap and tanker support, its not as important as one would think.
 
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Velocity173 said:
Only thing I’d put in the A-10s favor is cost.
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And resilience to ground fire. Not a huge factor in COIN, but potentially more of a factor against conventional forces where every combat vehicle has a 12.7 mounted.

The A-10 pilots I have known had a different mindset than the fast movers. Willing to get down low and take risk. More than willing, eager even. I don't think we want to lose that warrior mindset, even if it's just a few squadrons of weirdos in the ANG.

As the force transitions to Gen 5 fighters, I am highly skeptical that air force commanders are going to risk 100 million dollar platforms to save a couple of dirtbags in a hole in the mud. As a former dirtbag, I think they need to be forced to allocate some of their budget to that end.

kyleb said:
You give up the A-10 so you have more B-21's or F-35's which can do things that are more valuable from a strategic standpoint than the A-10.
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There's some history here. The Air Force always wants to spend their money on big strategic war winning stuff. Air Power theorists have loved that story since Giulio Douhet. Then they get in a war and relearn a basic principle: airplanes cannot take or hold ground.

kyleb said:
an A-10 isn't going to help you defend Taiwan or Estonia.
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Disagree.
 
nauga said:
What is that unit cost when you consider that there's no assurance beyond the initial 120 you propose?
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Besides, over 10 years, there's not much assurance the remaining quantities won't change, or be cancelled, as the world situation and the intended mission evolve.
 
William Pete Hodges said:
Then we need to make the tooling again and keep it. We mothball it if necessary, but we keep it. You all seem to forget that Republic built the first two prototypes in 2 years starting from nothing. We are not starting from nothing.. It can be done, and it should be done. We can start by ordering 120 new A-10s to be delivered over 10 years. After that we renew the contract for 60 A-10s every 5 years. Then we renew the contact every 5 years.
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It’d probably be faster and cheaper to start from scratch with a new platform.
 
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