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This is a real moral dilemma for me. I served in the military, and the A-10 is simply the best manned aircraft we have for CAS. However, I also hate the defense

This is a real moral dilemma for me. I served in the military, and the A-10 is simply the best manned aircraft we have for CAS. However, I also hate the defense lobby. One one hand there's probably a job interest in keeping the A-10 running. Mac Thornberry has taken campaign donations from lots of defense contractors, including some related to the A-10: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/pacs.php?cycle=2016&cid=N00006052&sector=D&seclong=Defense&cat=D01&induslong=Defense+Aerospace&newMem=N http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/pacs.php?cycle=2016&c... On the other hand, no other aircraft does what the A-10 does as well, and the Air Force would shut it down if simply given the money in a lump sum with no conditions. The defense contractors associated with the F-35 would love to replace the low-margin A-10 with their newest shiny toy even if it is not as effective. The fact that this is a debate right now is a sad testament to the power of the defense lobby and poor defense procurement. They ought to think ahead and refit the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones.

vinceguidry 10y ago
> They ought to think ahead and refit the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones. Curious as to whether this is even possible. Even if it was, I doubt the pilot requirement is the only thing keeping the Air Force from wanting to keep it around. Edit: Quora FTW https://www.quora.com/U-S-Air-Force-Could-you-turn-the-A-10-into-a-drone https://www.quora.com/U-S-Air-Force-Could-you-turn-the-A-10-...
- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  I don't know why you were downvoted but I think it's a fair question. I think the biggest limitations would be keeping a solid comms link (you don't want to lose connection in mid-dive for instance), and air speed (you want more reaction time due to the potential for lag or lost connections). You would want to build in auto-pilot redundancies to have the drones fly home if they lose communications links. For speed, the A-10 would be one of the better candidates, due to its slower loitering speed of about 300 Mph which is still significantly faster than an MQ-9 Reaper (200 Mph or so), but in-line with the MQ-9's top speed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunde... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper Another interesting option would be to strip out the gun mount from the A-10 and slap it on the underside of a quadcopter drone as a turret.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    > Another interesting option would be to strip out the gun mount from the A-10 and slap it on the underside of a quadcopter drone as a turret. Are you talking about this monster?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger No way could you put that thing on a helicopter. It barely fits on a plane (the entire plane was designed around that gun) as it is. https://what-if.xkcd.com/21/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/21/ Even if you managed to make it stable enough to sustain fire on a target, where would you put the ammo drum? A-10s have special stands you have to put under them when you take the drum out, otherwise the whole thing tips over.
    - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
      If we can make this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130 I'm pretty sure it's doable.
      - vinceguidry 10y ago
        Apparently you have a different idea of what a quadcopter is than I do.
jokoon 10y ago
Can't apaches do CAS properly because they're not fast enough, so they make good targets?
- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  Problem is they are too close to the ground and very audible. It's a delicate balance between accuracy and survivability.
- Symmetry 10y ago
  You could say the same about the A-10.
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Apaches are great for CAS, however one of the more common things for CAS is when someone gets pinned down. You need CAS ASAP and don't always know when you'll need reinforcements. An example would be when I was in Iraq and a pair of Kiowas with .50 machine guns and missle pods were doing air support of raids. One of the kiowas took a well aimed RPG to the tail rotor and went down in the middle of a very bad part of Tall'Afar. They made a military channel episode about it which included some of the video I shot as the payload (camera) operator of a surveillance drone in it. http://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-Diaries-Episode-Kiowa-Down/dp/B000KGGNCS http://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-Diaries-Episode-Kiowa-Down... I was a Shadow 200 UAV (aka drone) pilot. We needed some heavy CAS onsite ASAP to prevent a pretty large armed crowd of insurgents doing a repeat of Blackhawk Down in Somalia. So, we radioed to the nearest airbase (in Mosul) roughly 60k away and they launched a Harrier loaded with a GBU50 (Also called an Enhanced Paveway II / 2000lb bomb). The plane was onsite in a few minutes where it would have taken an Apache much much longer to get there. They dropped that big boy munition on a weapons cache where the insurgents were going back to re-arm. Miraculously, the single infantry platoon near the crash site managed to secure the pilots and hold their ground long enough for the engineers to send a combat wrecker, pull the burning hulk of the Kiowa onto the flatbed, and get everyone out. The only injury was one of the infantryman caught a bullet in the heel. So... to recap, you need something that can go a bit faster than a helicopter sometimes to get CAS somewhere ASAP. A warthog's top speed is 460mph compared to an Apache's top speed of 182mph. The speed will save lives at times like in that video. I know this because I was literally there. It was terrifying. EDIT (forgot to add): Apaches in fact were almost always doing aerial overwatch of large convoys when we would be driving a batallion of Strykers from Samarrah to Tall'Afar, or to Mosul, etc. The thing is that they do catch a lot of flak by being low, loud, and slow. Helos of any type tend to "hunt in pairs" as we were told as when one starts catching flak and taking fire, the other will pound the originator while the other takes evasive maneuvers. In the above story, the 2nd Kiowa was pounding the hell out of the ground but had to leave station as it was running low on ammo and 2 down helos is a really bad place to be in the middle of a very angry city.
55acdda48ab5 10y ago
> the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones. This is just a super expensive and failure prone way to do what 100 year old artillery technology does. Site the enemy, call in artillery fire. Drone techno fetishism is a big problem right now. Most of this stuff does not work nearly as well as people are pretending it does.
- dforrestwilson1 10y ago
  Artillery (while often sufficient) is not as accurate as someone hovering/diving from directly overhead. This is why artillery often employs aerial spotters. http://www.c4isrnet.com/story/military-tech/uas/2016/04/08/army-envisions-unmanned-aerial-spotters-ground-vehicles/82800168/ http://www.c4isrnet.com/story/military-tech/uas/2016/04/08/a...
- GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
  Artillery has a range measured in the tens of miles (discounting MLRS and ATACMS). Drones have a range measured in the hundreds of miles.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    I don't know why you would discount ATACMS. Technically that's artillery, and end-to-end it's cheaper than aircraft.
    - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
      While I don't have number in front of me, my instinct is that ATACMS is more expensive and less flexible on a per target basis than aerial bombardment using an A-10.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        Even if so, it might still be cheaper to keep units equipped, trained, and operational with it between actual combat missions, which might make it more cost effective on a long-term analysis. Combat aircraft are expensive even when they aren't fighting.
jasonwatkinspdx 10y ago
> the A-10 is simply the best manned aircraft we have for CAS You won't hear it here or on jalopnik et all, but there's substantive disagreement on this. The A-10 no longer has a primary mission: the gun is not effective enough against modern tanks. For CAS in low intensity conflict it's both overkill and overly expensive per operating hour vs alternatives. The CEP on the big gun is >10m while the CEP on small guided munitions is now <1m. The accuracy of the GAU-8 fire depends heavily on pilot skill, since aiming requires pointing the whole plane. This is why the A-10 has generated more friendly fire incidents than any other aircraft we fly. Let's compare to Beech's proposed attack variant of the T-6 Texan II. Depending whose numbers you believe, it's 1/5th to 1/10th the total operational cost per flight hour. Since it's our primary trainer essentially every pilot is already familiar with it. Likewise the ground crews can keep them running with ease. There is no parts problem, whereas with the A-10 replacements parts we don't have in the sitting in the AZ desert have to be done as small scale reverse engineering (for the cost of re-winging an A-10 we could have bought a new Texan or Tucano). It has a built in stabilized E/O ball, the advantage of which could be mitigated a bit by putting a pod on the A-10. But the T-6 is also a two seater, which allows situational awareness an A-10 pilot will never have. The back seater can focus exclusively and continuously on the situation on the ground, whereas an A-10 pilot has to re-acquire and re-orient on every pass, losing awareness of changes between passes. The two seats allows operational concepts the A-10 (and F35 for that) matter do not. For example, the back seater doesn't even need to be a pilot: they could be a controller/coordinator from a different branch, service, or even nation. The aircraft could be easily adapted to ISR roles with a back seater specialized in tending the electronics. There's this huge internet enthusiast crowd that's infatuated with a big gun and can only see taking the A-10 out of service as some sort of conspiracy. But that's not the case, there is straightforward, solid, strategic thinking behind this. People need to look at A-10 enthusiasm critically, and consider that maybe the planners actually know some of what they're doing, rather than being pawns in congressional conspiracies.
- unchocked 10y ago
  Spot on. People complain that the F-35 is overkill for brushfire CAS missions, but what they miss is that the A-10 is overkill too. A weaponized T-6 crew with an observer and modern ISR would have way better situational awareness than a hog driver will ever get. A turboprop would also be able to spend far more time in loiter due to the low speed efficiencies of a large prop versus a small fan. But the AF wouldn't play ball in that game. Let the Army fly fixed wing aircraft and a practical CAS solution for interminable brushfire conflict would be implemented pretty fast I think.

vinceguidry 10y ago

> They ought to think ahead and refit the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones. Curious as to whether this is even possible. Even if it was, I doubt the pilot requirement is the only thing keeping the Air Force from wanting to keep it around. Edit: Quora FTW https://www.quora.com/U-S-Air-Force-Could-you-turn-the-A-10-into-a-drone https://www.quora.com/U-S-Air-Force-Could-you-turn-the-A-10-...

dforrestwilson1 10y ago
I don't know why you were downvoted but I think it's a fair question. I think the biggest limitations would be keeping a solid comms link (you don't want to lose connection in mid-dive for instance), and air speed (you want more reaction time due to the potential for lag or lost connections). You would want to build in auto-pilot redundancies to have the drones fly home if they lose communications links. For speed, the A-10 would be one of the better candidates, due to its slower loitering speed of about 300 Mph which is still significantly faster than an MQ-9 Reaper (200 Mph or so), but in-line with the MQ-9's top speed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunde... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper Another interesting option would be to strip out the gun mount from the A-10 and slap it on the underside of a quadcopter drone as a turret.
- vinceguidry 10y ago
  > Another interesting option would be to strip out the gun mount from the A-10 and slap it on the underside of a quadcopter drone as a turret. Are you talking about this monster?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger No way could you put that thing on a helicopter. It barely fits on a plane (the entire plane was designed around that gun) as it is. https://what-if.xkcd.com/21/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/21/ Even if you managed to make it stable enough to sustain fire on a target, where would you put the ammo drum? A-10s have special stands you have to put under them when you take the drum out, otherwise the whole thing tips over.
  - dforrestwilson1 10y ago
    If we can make this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130 I'm pretty sure it's doable.
    - vinceguidry 10y ago
      Apparently you have a different idea of what a quadcopter is than I do.

jokoon 10y ago

Can't apaches do CAS properly because they're not fast enough, so they make good targets?

dforrestwilson1 10y ago
Problem is they are too close to the ground and very audible. It's a delicate balance between accuracy and survivability.
Symmetry 10y ago
You could say the same about the A-10.
SEJeff 10y ago
Apaches are great for CAS, however one of the more common things for CAS is when someone gets pinned down. You need CAS ASAP and don't always know when you'll need reinforcements. An example would be when I was in Iraq and a pair of Kiowas with .50 machine guns and missle pods were doing air support of raids. One of the kiowas took a well aimed RPG to the tail rotor and went down in the middle of a very bad part of Tall'Afar. They made a military channel episode about it which included some of the video I shot as the payload (camera) operator of a surveillance drone in it. http://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-Diaries-Episode-Kiowa-Down/dp/B000KGGNCS http://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-Diaries-Episode-Kiowa-Down... I was a Shadow 200 UAV (aka drone) pilot. We needed some heavy CAS onsite ASAP to prevent a pretty large armed crowd of insurgents doing a repeat of Blackhawk Down in Somalia. So, we radioed to the nearest airbase (in Mosul) roughly 60k away and they launched a Harrier loaded with a GBU50 (Also called an Enhanced Paveway II / 2000lb bomb). The plane was onsite in a few minutes where it would have taken an Apache much much longer to get there. They dropped that big boy munition on a weapons cache where the insurgents were going back to re-arm. Miraculously, the single infantry platoon near the crash site managed to secure the pilots and hold their ground long enough for the engineers to send a combat wrecker, pull the burning hulk of the Kiowa onto the flatbed, and get everyone out. The only injury was one of the infantryman caught a bullet in the heel. So... to recap, you need something that can go a bit faster than a helicopter sometimes to get CAS somewhere ASAP. A warthog's top speed is 460mph compared to an Apache's top speed of 182mph. The speed will save lives at times like in that video. I know this because I was literally there. It was terrifying. EDIT (forgot to add): Apaches in fact were almost always doing aerial overwatch of large convoys when we would be driving a batallion of Strykers from Samarrah to Tall'Afar, or to Mosul, etc. The thing is that they do catch a lot of flak by being low, loud, and slow. Helos of any type tend to "hunt in pairs" as we were told as when one starts catching flak and taking fire, the other will pound the originator while the other takes evasive maneuvers. In the above story, the 2nd Kiowa was pounding the hell out of the ground but had to leave station as it was running low on ammo and 2 down helos is a really bad place to be in the middle of a very angry city.

55acdda48ab5 10y ago

> the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones. This is just a super expensive and failure prone way to do what 100 year old artillery technology does. Site the enemy, call in artillery fire. Drone techno fetishism is a big problem right now. Most of this stuff does not work nearly as well as people are pretending it does.

dforrestwilson1 10y ago
Artillery (while often sufficient) is not as accurate as someone hovering/diving from directly overhead. This is why artillery often employs aerial spotters. http://www.c4isrnet.com/story/military-tech/uas/2016/04/08/army-envisions-unmanned-aerial-spotters-ground-vehicles/82800168/ http://www.c4isrnet.com/story/military-tech/uas/2016/04/08/a...
GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
Artillery has a range measured in the tens of miles (discounting MLRS and ATACMS). Drones have a range measured in the hundreds of miles.
- gozur88 10y ago
  I don't know why you would discount ATACMS. Technically that's artillery, and end-to-end it's cheaper than aircraft.
  - GunboatDiplomat 10y ago
    While I don't have number in front of me, my instinct is that ATACMS is more expensive and less flexible on a per target basis than aerial bombardment using an A-10.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Even if so, it might still be cheaper to keep units equipped, trained, and operational with it between actual combat missions, which might make it more cost effective on a long-term analysis. Combat aircraft are expensive even when they aren't fighting.

jasonwatkinspdx 10y ago

> the A-10 is simply the best manned aircraft we have for CAS You won't hear it here or on jalopnik et all, but there's substantive disagreement on this. The A-10 no longer has a primary mission: the gun is not effective enough against modern tanks. For CAS in low intensity conflict it's both overkill and overly expensive per operating hour vs alternatives. The CEP on the big gun is >10m while the CEP on small guided munitions is now <1m. The accuracy of the GAU-8 fire depends heavily on pilot skill, since aiming requires pointing the whole plane. This is why the A-10 has generated more friendly fire incidents than any other aircraft we fly. Let's compare to Beech's proposed attack variant of the T-6 Texan II. Depending whose numbers you believe, it's 1/5th to 1/10th the total operational cost per flight hour. Since it's our primary trainer essentially every pilot is already familiar with it. Likewise the ground crews can keep them running with ease. There is no parts problem, whereas with the A-10 replacements parts we don't have in the sitting in the AZ desert have to be done as small scale reverse engineering (for the cost of re-winging an A-10 we could have bought a new Texan or Tucano). It has a built in stabilized E/O ball, the advantage of which could be mitigated a bit by putting a pod on the A-10. But the T-6 is also a two seater, which allows situational awareness an A-10 pilot will never have. The back seater can focus exclusively and continuously on the situation on the ground, whereas an A-10 pilot has to re-acquire and re-orient on every pass, losing awareness of changes between passes. The two seats allows operational concepts the A-10 (and F35 for that) matter do not. For example, the back seater doesn't even need to be a pilot: they could be a controller/coordinator from a different branch, service, or even nation. The aircraft could be easily adapted to ISR roles with a back seater specialized in tending the electronics. There's this huge internet enthusiast crowd that's infatuated with a big gun and can only see taking the A-10 out of service as some sort of conspiracy. But that's not the case, there is straightforward, solid, strategic thinking behind this. People need to look at A-10 enthusiasm critically, and consider that maybe the planners actually know some of what they're doing, rather than being pawns in congressional conspiracies.

unchocked 10y ago
Spot on. People complain that the F-35 is overkill for brushfire CAS missions, but what they miss is that the A-10 is overkill too. A weaponized T-6 crew with an observer and modern ISR would have way better situational awareness than a hog driver will ever get. A turboprop would also be able to spend far more time in loiter due to the low speed efficiencies of a large prop versus a small fan. But the AF wouldn't play ball in that game. Let the Army fly fixed wing aircraft and a practical CAS solution for interminable brushfire conflict would be implemented pretty fast I think.