6 ms·

Nothing can replace the A-10. Just make more of them. The more the better. A-10 saves the day baby. <3<3

by gau3avenger 8y ago

saluki 8y ago
A-10 is an amazing plane. Keep it, improve on it.
- gau3avenger 8y ago
  Nice to see someone writing like a Marine.
gau3avenger 8y ago
What kind of trygots downvotes this? Obviously someone benefiting from replacing the A-10 with some crap snits.
- gau3avenger 8y ago
  Must be a faggot to downvote my A-10 shins.
etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
Our military industry will not occupy itself with making effective, durable, long-lasting, cost-effective weapons. We must go after the New and Shiny, and it costs billions. Kind of like a lot in our society.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  This is an organizational culture problem and needs a serious push from multiple levels of leadership to adjust. The F-35 started as an idea to actually save money by consolidating multiple missions onto one plane, which proved a terrible idea for multiple reasons and that wasn't cancelled because there would be no other option for some of the roles it should cover. A simplistic solution would be to design weapons around common, proven components and, if possible, interchangeable ones - designing engines and weapons to have similar mount-points, avionics that can be used on multiple vehicles and be field-upgraded and build everything about as much incremental improvements as possible (yes, I know nothing will make an F-14 a stealth fighter so some big steps are needed, but if the follow-up plane could use similar engines, that'd make logistics much simpler)
  - zentiggr 8y ago
    And would only cost about ten trillion to prototype and agree on design specs since every three-star+ and every design team/think tank would have a thumb in the pie and design-by-committee would have to market it with the slogan "2100 or Bust!"
    - rbanffy 8y ago
      That's why it'd need to be pushed from top to bottom with a "unless you have something valuable to add, stick your thumbs somewhere else" message from the top.
- vinceguidry 8y ago
  I think the real problem here is that land warfare itself is changing too rapidly for anyone to really get on board with developing and scaling a CAS weapons platform. I read military writers on Quora and the general sense is that it's going to be the Army and Marines that are going to form the backbone of power projection on land. The Marines are shifting their squad composition from 3 teams of four and a leader to four teams of three. One of these squad member's only job is to operate the proliferating tech tools that's becoming available to individuals. So it's not even certain what capabilities CAS is going to need to have in the near future. Everyone's talking about loiter time, and certainly, that's really helpful, but what about the squad's soon-to-come drones? If that doesn't make the need for loiter obsolete I don't know what will. A squad with a reconnaissance drone and portable mortars can do a hell of a lot without having to commit an aircraft. What will they need that aircraft for? Carrying weapons that the squad can't. Cue the fighter-bombers. I can see why the Pentagon isn't chomping at the bit to spend boatloads of money on something they probably won't even need half of by the time they're done.
JackCh 8y ago
The GAU-8, everybody's favorite reason to love the A-10; the autocannon the A-10 was built around, is obsolete. 30x173mm can no longer kill what it was meant for killing, and what it's actually killing in practice today can be killed just as well by 25x137mm. If you built a new plane around a GAU-12 you'd get pound for pound more killing. Lighter smaller ammo means more of it, and trust me 25mm will kill anything you might plausibly be killing with 30mm in this century. Don't worry though, I'm pretty sure the USAF is too arrogant to actually adopt a turboprop airplane, so the A-10 will likely be with us for the foreseeable future...
- rbanffy 8y ago
  > I'm pretty sure the USAF is too arrogant to actually adopt a turboprop airplane They can at least try to make it look more modern. Adopt pusher engines and a canard wing.
  - megaman22 8y ago
    The AF is still running AC-130s, aren't they? Granted, that fills a role where air-superiority is a given, and it is reasonably safe to fly a bus loaded with auto-cannons in lazy circles, blasting the daylights out of anything that moves.
    - RandomTisk 8y ago
      Those older planes can loiter like a teenager at a mall on Saturdays too.
    - mxvzr 8y ago
      They are, but ever since [1] they only do so at night. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khafji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khafji
  - toomanybeersies 8y ago
    Incidentally, Burt Rutan (the founder of Scaled Composites, who are making Virgin Galactic's space ships) almost made a prototype of exactly this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES > The original layout was of a low wing canard configuration, aircraft powered by a pusher turboprop, and built around a 30 mm Gatling gun capable of destroying light armored vehicles The actual prototype ended up with a turbofan. Still had a canard wing though. It also had a GAU-12 as the canon, just like GP wants. It's also made out of fancy composites. It sounds like the perfect plane for the Hacker News Air Force.
FussyZeus 8y ago
I mean, I'm sure we could design a fighter that would do the A-10's job better than the A-10. However what the USAF went out to do was design a plane that could replace the A-10, the F-18, etc. etc. all the way through and it's been a disaster from the start. IMHO, it's like an All-in-One printer. You can have a machine that sucks at a bunch of things, or does one or two things really, really well. Not both.
- saluki 8y ago
  Double True. They went off in the wrong direction. We need to get back to creating the next generation of fighters that carry on the greatness of the F-14 and F-15. And just forget this all-in-one mistake ever happened.

Nothing can replace the A-10. Just make more of them. The more the better. A-10 saves the day baby. <3<3

saluki 8y ago

A-10 is an amazing plane. Keep it, improve on it.

gau3avenger 8y ago
Nice to see someone writing like a Marine.

gau3avenger 8y ago

What kind of trygots downvotes this? Obviously someone benefiting from replacing the A-10 with some crap snits.

gau3avenger 8y ago
Must be a faggot to downvote my A-10 shins.

etaioinshrdlu 8y ago

Our military industry will not occupy itself with making effective, durable, long-lasting, cost-effective weapons. We must go after the New and Shiny, and it costs billions. Kind of like a lot in our society.

rbanffy 8y ago
This is an organizational culture problem and needs a serious push from multiple levels of leadership to adjust. The F-35 started as an idea to actually save money by consolidating multiple missions onto one plane, which proved a terrible idea for multiple reasons and that wasn't cancelled because there would be no other option for some of the roles it should cover. A simplistic solution would be to design weapons around common, proven components and, if possible, interchangeable ones - designing engines and weapons to have similar mount-points, avionics that can be used on multiple vehicles and be field-upgraded and build everything about as much incremental improvements as possible (yes, I know nothing will make an F-14 a stealth fighter so some big steps are needed, but if the follow-up plane could use similar engines, that'd make logistics much simpler)
- zentiggr 8y ago
  And would only cost about ten trillion to prototype and agree on design specs since every three-star+ and every design team/think tank would have a thumb in the pie and design-by-committee would have to market it with the slogan "2100 or Bust!"
  - rbanffy 8y ago
    That's why it'd need to be pushed from top to bottom with a "unless you have something valuable to add, stick your thumbs somewhere else" message from the top.
vinceguidry 8y ago
I think the real problem here is that land warfare itself is changing too rapidly for anyone to really get on board with developing and scaling a CAS weapons platform. I read military writers on Quora and the general sense is that it's going to be the Army and Marines that are going to form the backbone of power projection on land. The Marines are shifting their squad composition from 3 teams of four and a leader to four teams of three. One of these squad member's only job is to operate the proliferating tech tools that's becoming available to individuals. So it's not even certain what capabilities CAS is going to need to have in the near future. Everyone's talking about loiter time, and certainly, that's really helpful, but what about the squad's soon-to-come drones? If that doesn't make the need for loiter obsolete I don't know what will. A squad with a reconnaissance drone and portable mortars can do a hell of a lot without having to commit an aircraft. What will they need that aircraft for? Carrying weapons that the squad can't. Cue the fighter-bombers. I can see why the Pentagon isn't chomping at the bit to spend boatloads of money on something they probably won't even need half of by the time they're done.

JackCh 8y ago

The GAU-8, everybody's favorite reason to love the A-10; the autocannon the A-10 was built around, is obsolete. 30x173mm can no longer kill what it was meant for killing, and what it's actually killing in practice today can be killed just as well by 25x137mm. If you built a new plane around a GAU-12 you'd get pound for pound more killing. Lighter smaller ammo means more of it, and trust me 25mm will kill anything you might plausibly be killing with 30mm in this century. Don't worry though, I'm pretty sure the USAF is too arrogant to actually adopt a turboprop airplane, so the A-10 will likely be with us for the foreseeable future...

rbanffy 8y ago
> I'm pretty sure the USAF is too arrogant to actually adopt a turboprop airplane They can at least try to make it look more modern. Adopt pusher engines and a canard wing.
- megaman22 8y ago
  The AF is still running AC-130s, aren't they? Granted, that fills a role where air-superiority is a given, and it is reasonably safe to fly a bus loaded with auto-cannons in lazy circles, blasting the daylights out of anything that moves.
  - RandomTisk 8y ago
    Those older planes can loiter like a teenager at a mall on Saturdays too.
  - mxvzr 8y ago
    They are, but ever since [1] they only do so at night. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khafji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khafji
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  Incidentally, Burt Rutan (the founder of Scaled Composites, who are making Virgin Galactic's space ships) almost made a prototype of exactly this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_ARES > The original layout was of a low wing canard configuration, aircraft powered by a pusher turboprop, and built around a 30 mm Gatling gun capable of destroying light armored vehicles The actual prototype ended up with a turbofan. Still had a canard wing though. It also had a GAU-12 as the canon, just like GP wants. It's also made out of fancy composites. It sounds like the perfect plane for the Hacker News Air Force.

FussyZeus 8y ago

I mean, I'm sure we could design a fighter that would do the A-10's job better than the A-10. However what the USAF went out to do was design a plane that could replace the A-10, the F-18, etc. etc. all the way through and it's been a disaster from the start. IMHO, it's like an All-in-One printer. You can have a machine that sucks at a bunch of things, or does one or two things really, really well. Not both.

saluki 8y ago
Double True. They went off in the wrong direction. We need to get back to creating the next generation of fighters that carry on the greatness of the F-14 and F-15. And just forget this all-in-one mistake ever happened.