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With the concept of strategic bombing being a moot point, replaced by unmanned guided missiles and our moral unwillingness to strike at population centers, the

by douche 12y ago

With the concept of strategic bombing being a moot point, replaced by unmanned guided missiles and our moral unwillingness to strike at population centers, the only real purpose of the Air Force is close-air-support. Even air superiority is, really, an adjunct to that role, in that it protects the troops on the ground against enemy ground-attack aircraft and provides cover for our ground attack aircraft. Seeing, arguably, the most effective warplane of the last fifty years scrapped for an overpriced, ineffective boondoggle is sickening.

gnoway 12y ago
What I don't understand is why the various services care so much about what the other services do or don't do. Why does the AF insist on managing the A-10 when they clearly do not and never have wanted it? The Army wants it, let them have it. We're obviously not that concerned with duplication or waste given how much money we've spent on this and the F-22 for, apparently, no gain.
- Marazan 12y ago
  The USAF has dominion over all fixed wing planes - it's written into how the US Military is organised.
- chernevik 12y ago
  The services guard their missions jealously. They don't want competition within their various roles -- those roles are their justifications for budget, status and involvement. There are good reasons for specialization, of course. But the institutional politics can't be ignored. I've heard that the Marines actually have really good air support, because they have their own planes and the generals make damn sure those pilots put the bombs where the grunts need them. I doubt the Air Force likes that. But the Marines are part of the Navy, and the folks running the Navy aren't interested in ground combat. They've already got an air role, on the carriers, and a strategic bombing role, in the missile subs, so they aren't likely to encroach much on the Air Force. Since the Navy puts a cap on how far the Marines' mission would grow, the other services can live with the Marines mixing things up a bit. It also helps that the Marines have a PR operation unlike anything anywhere on the planet. And they might be a natural home for the A-10, right? But you can't fly an A-10 off a carrier.
  - spiritplumber 12y ago
    So get rid of the USAF / fold it back into the Army, this way the Navy has an air wing, and the Army has an air wing. Large sky battles are unlikely to happen ever again... the USAF was designed to deal with those, right around when they had become obsolete. Hooray for Parkinson's laws. The A-10 is a magnificent brute of a plane and does exactly the job it was designed to do, very well... so of course they want to mothball it. I wonder how hard it would be to make it carrierable, or how hard it would be to string a bunch of barges together to make a floating airfield for it (and use a standard carrier for mechanical support).
    - krapht 12y ago
      The A10's minigun is ineffective at killing modern main-battle tanks, so I wouldn't say it's a raging sucess. In addition, it would certainly be blown up immediately if it came within shooting distance of a tank by any number of man-portable anti-air missiles. What it can do is provide reasonable close air support against Toyota pickups and infantry, but replacement parts for the plane or the molds to create them don't exist. The A10's titanium airframe will soon need wholesale replacement as it reaches its fatigue limit, so the entire plane would need to be remanufactured. A drone-based replacement would be far more cost efficient. I don't see why mothballing the A10 is a poor decision.
      - venomsnake 12y ago
        > The A10's minigun is ineffective at killing modern main-battle tanks, so I wouldn't say it's a raging sucess. I love those improvised battle tanks by the guerrilas that the US has been encountering in their last 30 years of wars.
        remarkEon 12y ago
        Yeah good thing no one we're dropping bombs on today has any armored vehicles. http://defensetech.org/2015/01/07/us-airstrikes-agaisnt-isis-destroy-184-humvees-and-58-tanks/ http://defensetech.org/2015/01/07/us-airstrikes-agaisnt-isis...
- remarkEon 12y ago
  The Army wants it, let them have it. Part of the problem is that, maybe because the acquisition process is so absurdly long, the concepts and ideology guiding policy for this thing is from the 1990s. This plane is designed for what we thought war would be like in 2025 back in 1996 or something. Even beyond the terrible $1.4T cost of this thing, I worried it's designed for the entirely wrong concept of warfare going forward. So yeah, maybe bringing the entire CAS mission into the realm of the Army would be a good idea - but even then, how much of that future demand for CAS can be satisfied by Drones for much lower cost and risk? That's the real issue, I think, because it would precipitate sort of an existential crisis for the Air Force.
philwelch 12y ago
No, that's not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia There are still valid strategic targets that are well outside of the role of close air support, including command centers, AAA/SAM sites, military bases, manufacturing facilities, bridges, roads, and communications facilities.

by douche 12y ago

gnoway 12y ago

What I don't understand is why the various services care so much about what the other services do or don't do. Why does the AF insist on managing the A-10 when they clearly do not and never have wanted it? The Army wants it, let them have it. We're obviously not that concerned with duplication or waste given how much money we've spent on this and the F-22 for, apparently, no gain.

Marazan 12y ago
The USAF has dominion over all fixed wing planes - it's written into how the US Military is organised.
chernevik 12y ago
The services guard their missions jealously. They don't want competition within their various roles -- those roles are their justifications for budget, status and involvement. There are good reasons for specialization, of course. But the institutional politics can't be ignored. I've heard that the Marines actually have really good air support, because they have their own planes and the generals make damn sure those pilots put the bombs where the grunts need them. I doubt the Air Force likes that. But the Marines are part of the Navy, and the folks running the Navy aren't interested in ground combat. They've already got an air role, on the carriers, and a strategic bombing role, in the missile subs, so they aren't likely to encroach much on the Air Force. Since the Navy puts a cap on how far the Marines' mission would grow, the other services can live with the Marines mixing things up a bit. It also helps that the Marines have a PR operation unlike anything anywhere on the planet. And they might be a natural home for the A-10, right? But you can't fly an A-10 off a carrier.
- spiritplumber 12y ago
  So get rid of the USAF / fold it back into the Army, this way the Navy has an air wing, and the Army has an air wing. Large sky battles are unlikely to happen ever again... the USAF was designed to deal with those, right around when they had become obsolete. Hooray for Parkinson's laws. The A-10 is a magnificent brute of a plane and does exactly the job it was designed to do, very well... so of course they want to mothball it. I wonder how hard it would be to make it carrierable, or how hard it would be to string a bunch of barges together to make a floating airfield for it (and use a standard carrier for mechanical support).
  - krapht 12y ago
    The A10's minigun is ineffective at killing modern main-battle tanks, so I wouldn't say it's a raging sucess. In addition, it would certainly be blown up immediately if it came within shooting distance of a tank by any number of man-portable anti-air missiles. What it can do is provide reasonable close air support against Toyota pickups and infantry, but replacement parts for the plane or the molds to create them don't exist. The A10's titanium airframe will soon need wholesale replacement as it reaches its fatigue limit, so the entire plane would need to be remanufactured. A drone-based replacement would be far more cost efficient. I don't see why mothballing the A10 is a poor decision.
    - venomsnake 12y ago
      > The A10's minigun is ineffective at killing modern main-battle tanks, so I wouldn't say it's a raging sucess. I love those improvised battle tanks by the guerrilas that the US has been encountering in their last 30 years of wars.
      - remarkEon 12y ago
        Yeah good thing no one we're dropping bombs on today has any armored vehicles. http://defensetech.org/2015/01/07/us-airstrikes-agaisnt-isis-destroy-184-humvees-and-58-tanks/ http://defensetech.org/2015/01/07/us-airstrikes-agaisnt-isis...
remarkEon 12y ago
The Army wants it, let them have it. Part of the problem is that, maybe because the acquisition process is so absurdly long, the concepts and ideology guiding policy for this thing is from the 1990s. This plane is designed for what we thought war would be like in 2025 back in 1996 or something. Even beyond the terrible $1.4T cost of this thing, I worried it's designed for the entirely wrong concept of warfare going forward. So yeah, maybe bringing the entire CAS mission into the realm of the Army would be a good idea - but even then, how much of that future demand for CAS can be satisfied by Drones for much lower cost and risk? That's the real issue, I think, because it would precipitate sort of an existential crisis for the Air Force.

philwelch 12y ago

No, that's not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia There are still valid strategic targets that are well outside of the role of close air support, including command centers, AAA/SAM sites, military bases, manufacturing facilities, bridges, roads, and communications facilities.