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"It's like an AC130 without a howitzer and a totally different machine gun" making it entirely unlike an AC130. The AC130's GAU23 and the GAU8 on the A10 are ve

by SEJeff 8y ago

"It's like an AC130 without a howitzer and a totally different machine gun" making it entirely unlike an AC130. The AC130's GAU23 and the GAU8 on the A10 are very different. I also did targeting missions in Ramadi for AC130s, and it was a lot of fun. Have you ever been in combat with an A10? I have. I was literally the guy putting a laser (from my Shadow 200 TUAV) onto a weapons cache building in Tal'Afar, Iraq and watched an A10 BRRRRRTTTTTT cut the building in 1/2 before it ignited from all of the ordinance inside. As to showing the A10's effectiveness in Desert Storm, that was what, 1991? The Soviet T90-A was designed to specifically be fine against 30mm GAU8 rounds, and it was released in 1993. Soviet armor divisions also have serious business anti-aircraft like the Pantsir system, which would obliterate an A10 no question. All recent Soviet weaponry, up to and including the most recent T14 Armata would survive strafing from an A10 just fine, and in the meantime provide targetting data to anti-air platforms to take it out. TL;DNR: Using the weapons from the early 1990s to fight a war now is a great way to lose. The A10 is an amazing machine, but so was the P51 Mustang in its heyday.

mcguire 8y ago
"Been in combat"? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-7_Shadow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-7_Shadow) :-)
- SEJeff 8y ago
  It isn’t flown from Nevada like the bigger UAVs. It’s flown from in country, often only 1km from the mission site (although the total effective range is up to around 160km depending on wind direction, wind speed, and altitude). We’re doing convoys, we’re getting shot at, we’re risking our life. We woke up to mortar and missile fire every day. This is what the military refers to as combat, even cooks see combat. Did you? :) If you get a combat patch and combat pay, it is combat. If your operational flight record says you have 482 combat flight hours, what would you call it (that is the number of hours I got in OIF II 2003-2004). You don’t have to kick down doors and drop bodies with your hands to be in combat. It was the RQ-7A in specific I flew as the RQ-7B is a bigger airframe with better endurance.

by SEJeff 8y ago

mcguire 8y ago

"Been in combat"? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-7_Shadow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-7_Shadow) :-)

SEJeff 8y ago
It isn’t flown from Nevada like the bigger UAVs. It’s flown from in country, often only 1km from the mission site (although the total effective range is up to around 160km depending on wind direction, wind speed, and altitude). We’re doing convoys, we’re getting shot at, we’re risking our life. We woke up to mortar and missile fire every day. This is what the military refers to as combat, even cooks see combat. Did you? :) If you get a combat patch and combat pay, it is combat. If your operational flight record says you have 482 combat flight hours, what would you call it (that is the number of hours I got in OIF II 2003-2004). You don’t have to kick down doors and drop bodies with your hands to be in combat. It was the RQ-7A in specific I flew as the RQ-7B is a bigger airframe with better endurance.