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There's a lot more to CAS than simply how many bullets your gun has. In any case, it's often not the preferred weapon. Bullets are indiscriminate. Small, precis
by ckozlowski 11y ago
There's a lot more to CAS than simply how many bullets your gun has. In any case, it's often not the preferred weapon. Bullets are indiscriminate. Small, precision warheads are becoming more in favor because the safety margin is better.
We've been seeing quite a bit in Afghanistan now where CAS is actually being performed by a B-1 carrying a SNIPER pod, sitting up at medium altitude with a large load of small precision bombs.
But that shows you the type of environment Afghanistan is, where the Air Force can deploy high value assets like a B-1 to perform CAS, because their anti-air threat is non-existent. The Air Force is not developing the F-35 to fight insurgents, they're deploying it to fight a well equipped, conventional force that will have multiple layers of sophisticated weapons. They'll do everything they can to soften these up before the strike aircraft go in. But there /will/ be some that remain, and its in this environment, that the F-35 needs to survive.
In the low-threat environment against insurgents, you can do that job just as well as the A-10 with the A-29 as the article states, for ever cheaper.
This is the conclusion that the Air Force has come to, and that's why they're retiring the A-10.
- protomyth 11y agoMy cousin has related stories of the A-10 watching over him and his troops. Bullets most definitely were the main item related. The A-10's ability to stay above his group and fire a couple of rounds every so often allow them to sleep. The F-35 or B-1 is not going to do that. Drones don't currently do that. The goal is to safeguard the troops and bullets work very well. The Air Force hates CAS and will say anything to get out of it. The fact that a modern version of the A-10 has not been developed (the F-35 is not a modern version) says everything about the Air Force's direction.
- kosmic_k 11y agoThe A-10 is an obsolete concept. Weapons are so much more advanced than armor that the best defense is to not get hit. If you want cannon fire supporting you from above then you want an Apache.
- megaman22 11y agoCurious why half of your postings are ragging on the A-10 and claiming it is obsolete? For that matter, the Apache is considerably more fragile than the A-10.
- ckozlowski 11y agoI was a little puzzled about this as well. Specifically, this incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_attack_on_Karbala https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_attack_on_Karbala
- toomuchtodo 11y ago> Drones don't currently do that. Drones would be perfect for long dwell time CAS, as long as they carry enough ordnance for a prolonged sortie.
- tsotha 11y agoPeople need to realize that while the A-10 is a good morale booster, it only carried out 20% of CAS missions in A-stan. The numbers just don't support its continued existence for anything but anti-tank warfare.
- Gibbon1 11y ago> The Air Force is not developing the F-35 to fight insurgents, they're deploying it to fight a well equipped, conventional force that will have multiple layers of sophisticated weapons. Essentially the F35 is the blu-ray of fighter planes.
- digi_owl 11y agoMeh. Blu-ray as a storage medium is a nice upgrade from the DVD. Blu-ray as a movie delivery format on the other hand. Thing is that what blu-ray tried to do for movies, was already tried once before by using DVDs to produce higher bit rate CDs. Thing is that mechanically neither product more convenience for Joe Consumer. While the CD brought instant track selection vs the cassette (and was a more practical size than the LP), the DVDA/SACD didn't bring anything close vs the CD. And similarly the DVD removed the whole rewinding issue vs VHS, never mind that you could now pack a whole series season in the shelf space of a single VHS movie. Frankly i just wish that we could have something floppy like in terms of UI For BRRW discs. copy, paste, done, rather than having to mess with burner programs etc to lay out the disc beforehand.
- lovich 11y ago> Bullets are indiscriminate. Small, precision warheads are becoming more in favor because the safety margin is better. How are bullets less discriminate than a bomb?
- ckozlowski 11y agoBombs are guided. This assumes, of course, your target identification is correct. Which doesn't always happen. But it's an improvement.