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Wow, one of the contributors is Pierre Sprey. I would take his criticisms very seriously. He's basically the father of the A-10, which he came up with when he
by hangonhn 9y ago
Wow, one of the contributors is Pierre Sprey. I would take his criticisms very seriously. He's basically the father of the A-10, which he came up with when he studied WWII records and interviewing soldiers the aircraft was meant to support. The Air Force hated it and still does to this day but that plane proved to be cheap, durable, and useful. The A-10 is pretty much the opposite of these fancy weapons projects.
- throwaway7645 9y agoI understand that ground troops love the power of the A-10, basically the "tank of the skies". Not sure why we can't have classes of distinct planes now like bomber, fighter, ground-support, and reconnaissance. Pick 1 area and be the best possible plane at doing that. The jack of all trades plane seems to perform poorly at all those things.
- dingaling 9y agoThe USAF could transfer the A-10s to the US Army ( as has been proposed many times since the 1970s ) and focus on the supra-tactical missions, but that would require them to swallow their pride and end the Johnson-McConnell 'agreement'. That dates back to 1966 and forbids the Army to operate armed fixed-wing aircraft. The USAF would rather keep the A-10s, no matter how unenthusiastically, than ever permit the Army to take control of the air-support mission. It is ridiculous that such 'pride' has any part in national security decisions.
- throwaway7645 9y agoNever heard of that before. Pretty crazy.
- dreamcompiler 9y agoThe Air Force hates the A-10 because it's ugly and low-tech, and the AF is all about sexiness. The A-10 is the most Soviet-looking piece of hardware in America's arsenal. But it works very, very well.
- eric_h 9y agoIt sort of follows the unix philosophy ;) It does one thing very, very well. It's literally a massive gun with wings attached.