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F-35 To Face Off Against A-10 In CAS Test
An anonymous reader writes: Lara Seligman from Defense News reports that the capabilities of the Joint Strike Fighter are to be evaluated for close-air support (CAS) missions. She writes, "To gauge the joint strike fighter's ability to perform in a close-air support role, the Pentagon's top weapons tester has declared the sleek new fighter jet must face off against the lumbering A-10. The Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation plans to pit the full-up F-35 against the legacy A-10 Warthog and potentially other fighter jets to evaluate the next-generation aircraft's ability to protect soldiers on the ground."
I expect the A-10 will have a very strong showing, regardless of how they try to cripple it in the tests.
sounds like a comparison that the F-35 can't win. It is more expensive to fly, can't hang around for long period's like the A-10 and is relatively fragile by comparison. The only way I see the F-35 coming out on top is with some very carefully crafted scenarios to favour it and some creative weightings on victory conditions.
Airforce has been trying to kill the A-10 for years. Recently they tried to mothball them all and replace them with the defunct F-16 until the F-35 was ready ... congress killed that idea. The troops love the A-10 and the higher ups hate it ... do not expect a fair analysis.
Back in the mid 80s I was on a business trip to an Air Force Base in Utah (Hill, I think, but I visited a lot of AFBs back then). As luck would have it there was a demo happening for some VIPs and I got to watch. They had some old tanks set up, then these ugly-ass airplanes came in and shot them up. I'll never forget the BRRRRR of the gun, the tanks exploding, and about 30 seconds later tinkle tinkle tinkle. I asked the guy I was with what the tinkle was, it was the brass hitting the ground.
That was the first and only time I ever saw an A-10 in action.
It's staged because the F-18 kicks the ass off the F-35, and the cost of operation of the F-35 sucks as well, even though we're stuck with it.
Just watch, the evaluation criteria will be designed to have the F-35 come out on top, even though it lacks the armor of the Warthog, which not only jeopardizes the crew but the astronomically expensive asset as well.
Guarantee that you'll see a test which
-features some contrived anti-air defense that is somehow not good enough to defeat the F-35s rudimentary stealth but is good enough to be a credible thread to the A-10
-doesn't require the aircraft providing CAS to loiter, expend large amounts of ordinance, use the main gun extensively, fly low/slow or do anything the F-35 sucks at
-requires the CAS airfraft to sprint around at higher speeds than the A-10 is capable of
-reconstitutes the CAS mission to consist of dropping a small amount of ordinance from high altitude with no loiter
The F-35 will win, and the pork will continue to flow to the hundreds of congressional districts that get money from the F-35. The A-10 doesn't funnel billions of dollars to congressional districts- all it does is save the lives of troops. For that reason alone, it will be thrown in the trash and replaced with a useless but lucrative pile of garbage.
I suspect that as the article says, there will be pros and cons of each. Obviously the A-10 has been very successful in this role, while the F-35 benefits from decades of technology advancements.
The A-10 is robust. The F-35 gives the pilot a much better view the of entire situation. The A-10 can put a lot of fire down in a small area as it flies low and slow. The F-35 can start applying fire earlier, while it's still further away. The A-10 is a proven system that has stood the test of time. The F-35 doesn't have to run away when an old Russian surplus fighter is detected in the area.
I really like the A-10 and generally I appreciate systems that have stood the test of time - newer doesn't mean better (aka the fundamental belief that means I'm a conservative) .
ALSO, when improvements are made, when someone "does it better", that's also new. SOMETIMES the new thing IS better is significant ways. We'll see what happens in the testing.
The F-35 IS expensive _per_unit_. The A-10 does one job, and there are several other aircraft that do different jobs. So the A-10 sits on the ground while there is air-to-air taking place, waiting while another aircraft handles that. IF the F-35 does four different roles, replacing four different types of aircraft, that cuts the effective cost by 75%. It wouldn't be parked on the tarmac waiting for a time when CAS in needed with uncontested skies. It could, supposedly, when the skies while also bombing enemy airfields , then do close air support.
Let's see how it actually does in testing before we declare the result.
They keep lowering the bar. Next it will square up against a drunk guy with cataracts in a weathered Cessna.
Table-ized A.I.
You call it a mistake. It's name is "Warthog". Calling it "Thunderbolt" or "Thunderbolt II" just marks you as an outsider. Troops on the ground sure don't call it that. "Incoming Hog, duck!" No one wants to be clipped by a wing as the Hog passes overhead. Let's see if those fucking F-35's get that low to the ground.
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200 years from now, we'll still be paying for it.
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A jdam is a complete package of dumb bomb, sensors and guidance package. Think of it as the short range JSOW (all of the above + large fins that let it glide long range to target. Source - I'm a former EOD tech.
The A-10 flies at about 420 MPH. Even 1980s fighter jets fly at mach 2, about the same speed as the bullets from the A-10 gun. An A-10 going after a fighter is literally the same ratio as a scooter going after a Ferrari.
Don't misunderstand, scooters are good. They are useless for chasing down sports cars, and an A-10 is just as useless for engaging enemy fighters. The fighters would (and do) fly by as if the A-10 is standing still.
Actually, even fighters from 1950's can fly at mach 2, BUT:
Even those 1980's fighters won't be flying at mach 2 at 95% of their time. They can only fly at mach 2 at high altitudes on straight line, full afterburner, wasting huge amount of duel.
Practically all dogfights happen at subsonic velocities. When you start doing high-g manouvers the velocity drops to subsonic very quickly.
> no known aircraft can survive the A-10's gun. It is the most powerful dogfight cannon
The bullets from the A-10's gun go about the same speed as the fighter. So if somehow, magically, the A-10 got on the fighter's tail and fired, the bullet probably couldn't catch up to the fighter. If it was fired off angle, it might hit the fighter at 30 MPH relative speed - not enough to dent the sheetmetal.
Survive that A-10s gun? No jet fighter in the last 40 years can be HIT by the A-10 gun unless the fighter is either a) parked or b) intentionally flying toward the A-10 without shooting it down.
This part is so incorrect....
The speed of bullets from GAU-8 is 1070 m/s.
Top speed of the worlds fastest jet fighter(mig-25) is ~890m/s flying on straight line on high altitude, with afterburner, but only ~333 m/s on low altitude.
Top speed of most modern jet fighters is in the class of 700m/s. (high, straigt line, full afterburner)
Common speed of modern jet fighters during dogfight is about 250-350m/s , 3-4 times slower than the bullets from GAU-8.
A-10 is actually quite good plane for shooting down slow low-flying aircrafts such as helicopters. It can use AIM-9 missile from slightly longer range, and from the close range the GAU-8 is very deadly. And because it can fly lower and slower it can more easily hit those slow low-flying targets than faster, higher-flying aircrafts can.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... A really interesting story there. It got to the point where the Red Team commander (a retired general) quit the exercise to avoid putting the simulation guys in the situation where they'd get conflicting orders.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
> It's a little late for testing with several of these deployed in Europe.
You are confusing the F-22 Raptor with the F-35 JSF. The F-22 has recently been deployed to Europe because of the russian attack on the Ukraine. The F-22 is a twin engine stealth fighter with extremely high operating costs and not exactly stellar reliability/availability levels, even after 15 years of service, but at least it works and is VERY capable.
In contrast, the F-35 JSF is a single engine stealthly fighter-bomber, which hasn't been deployed anywhere yet, still being essentially a prototype with many tech problems, despite 100 of them having been assembled. Most problems stem from the fact that it is actually based on a russian prototype called Yak-141, whose design the drunkard Yeltsin sold to USA (L-M) for 300m USD in the late 1990s. L-M company had no experience whatsoever in vertical landing planes and relied on this tech import to compete against Boeing-BAE-Rolls-Royce, who bidded with the X-32 prototype as a very distant successor of the Harrier. L-M won, but proved unable to integrate a russian-derived airframe with western electronics. On the other hand, Pentagon was asking for too much, landbased, marine and naval fighter in a single basic arframe, constant mission creep, etc.
It's staged because the F-18 kicks the ass off the F-35, and the cost of operation of the F-35 sucks as well, even though we're stuck with it.
You didn't read the rest of the story, which states "In order to make the comparison fair, the A10 will be fuelled with paraffin wax and weedkiller, have a large number of anvils bolted to it, and will be dragging a large boat anchor. 'We hope this at least evens the odds a bit so the F35 will look OK', a Pentagon spokesthing was quoted as saying".
You didn't read the rest of the story, which states "In order to make the comparison fair, the A10 will be fuelled with paraffin wax and weedkiller, have a large number of anvils bolted to it, and will be dragging a large boat anchor. 'We hope this at least evens the odds a bit so the F35 will look OK', a Pentagon spokesthing was quoted as saying".
Sadly the A-10 will still come out on top as it can probably run on paraffin. It's also maneuverable enough that the pilots will turn the boat anchor into a weapon and swat enemy fortifications with it just before purging the boiling wax on their position. And still have enough fuel to loiter longer than the JST.
From TFA:
"We're looking at all the missions and where it would make sense to do comparison testing and where it wouldn't, and we're going to be working with the services to develop that plan."
In other words, that's exactly what will happen; they just need to figure out the best way to rig this in the shiny new thing's favour.
Reopen the A-10 production line.
Not really economically feasible. While it is technologically possible, supply chains are fragile things and once they are taken apart it is VERY expensive and difficult to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I speak from personal professional experience. I'm both an industrial engineer and an accountant and I run a manufacturing company. A large part of my job is putting together supply chains. Once you stop production on something complex like an aircraft there is SO much tribal knowledge lost that it would be FAR cheaper in most cases to start from scratch.
For the programmers out there the analogy would that it is like trying to duplicate an entire operating system with huge amounts of source code missing, none of the build tools, and the original programming team scattered to the four winds. Yeah you can do it but it's easier and cheaper to start over most of the time.
Even with the cost of retooling and reopening the A-10's production line, we could probably build five of these for the cost of a single F-35. Ignoring the cost of tooling and opening the production line, we can build ten or eleven A-10's for the cost of an F-35.
I think we could come up with something brand new but very similar for a LOT less money than trying to redo the A10. Plus we could probably update for lessons learned in the last 30+ years presuming the A10 continues to make tactical/strategic sense. If they kept the A10's philosophy of being tough and inexpensive then it might make sense. Although honestly I think the Army should be given control of their own CAS even for fixed wing aircraft. (Yes I know they reasons why this won't happen)
On the other hand as good as the A-10 reportedly is, there is always the danger of trying to fight the last war. Surface to Air missiles have improved substantially and the A10 reportedly isn't much use in contested airspace. The A10 is apparently very good at what it was designed for but it's unclear (to me anyway) how long that will continue to be the case. Maybe it will be like the B52 and it will serve for 50+ years but then again, maybe not. I don't pretend to know.
> Most problems stem from the fact that it is actually based on a russian prototype called Yak-141 ...snip ...
L-M won, but proved unable to integrate a russian-derived airframe with western electronics.
That really would have been an amazing trick, since the Yak-141 (aka Yak-41) had THREE engines. One main thrust engine, and two VTOL engines. The F-35 airframe has NO similarity to the Yak-141 except for the fact that it has wings and a cockpit. The three engine design is documented in several web pages and books about the Yak-141.
I have no love for the F-35 or JSF program. However, I have to call out arguments that are just patently wrong. I suppose it is possible L-M borrowed some VTOL ideas from the Yak-141. However, the F-35 is drastically different.
- speaking only for myself, as always
F_35 CAS:
Solider: "You see that that little hut next to the big tree two klicks from our smoke?"
F-35 pilot:"Negative, I have no visual"
Solider:"You have to come down from 35k"
F-35 pilot:"Negative, I'm not authorized to operate below 15k".
A-10:
Solider: "You see that that little hut next to the big tree two klicks from our smoke?"
Target disappears in a cloud of smoke, debris, and body parts.
A-10 Pilot: "You mean that one?"
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The A10 isn't a plane. It's a tank they managed to make fly.
http://www.aircraftresourcecen...
Did not see this happen during DS, and subsequent generations of marines did not see this during OEF/OIF.
The A10 sucks for CAP. Given a choice for no CAP or A10, would probably choose none unless it was determined we will die in any case. Those idiot A10 bastards shot at my unit twice, then disappeared during the actual assault phase.
God bless them fuckin F18s.
I can just picture this.
A10 Approaches tank.
Tank commander: Ooooooh shiiiit!
A10 Overflies tank.
Tank commander: Phew!
*CLUNK*
Tank is now thirty feet from where it was. And upside down.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."