A-10's are obsolete and no longer useful!

[Trailrider #896]

The Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10...primarily because the highspeed fighter mafia says so. So, how come they have and are being used in Iran to attack small boats and other targets near the Straits of Hormuz?  Something like what happened in "Nam with those old obsolete C-47's! when somebody stuck some mini-guns in the leftside of the cabin! 

[Cypress Sun]

Meanwhile, one of their 100 million dollar F-35's (the one that's supposedly invisible to radar) got all shot up today. The pilot was able to land at a US base in the region and is in stable condition. The A-10 needs to stay in the US arsenal for many years to come.

[DocWard]

Been hearing they're obsolete since before Desert Storm.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

They've been trying to get rid of the A-10 for 20 years. Because it's NOT the newest, sexiest, fast mover in the service. As long as it continues to do its job, they can't come up with any reason replace it with something better, because there IS nothing better.  

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

I still have a Son, thanks to the A-10.

[Michigan Slim]

Used to be a squadron based here in Fort Wayne. When they flew over it made me glad to be a good guy. That is one mean and beautiful airplane.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

"Well hell... the F-35 can do ANYTHING the A-10 can do!  And LOTS more!!"  

... but at over a $ hundred mil per, they sure as hell ain't gonna go sending 'em down in the weeds!!  

 

 

[Rip Snorter]

https://www.twz.com/a-10-vs-f-35-close-air-support-flyoff-report-finally-emerges

[Dr. Zook]

A10 is the perfect can opener, last thing you 'may' hear is the gatling...

[Texas Lizard]

B-52....Was repairing the bombing radar  in 1967 on them things....What is still flying today....

 

Texas Lizard

[Rip Snorter]

Product of the original Skunk Works, if I recall correctly!

[Sedalia Dave]

1 hour ago, Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967 said:

"Well hell... the F-35 can do ANYTHING the A-10 can do!  And LOTS more!!"  

... but at over a $ hundred mil per, they sure as hell ain't gonna go sending 'em down in the weeds!!  

 

 

  It’s not the cost that keeps it out of the weeds,  it’s because the smoking holes it would make when it got shot down would tell everyone that they lied about the F-35’s suitably as CAS platform. 
 

 

[Buckshot Bear]

3 hours ago, Trailrider #896 said:

The Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10...primarily because the highspeed fighter mafia says so. So, how come they have and are being used in Iran to attack small boats and other targets near the Straits of Hormuz?  Something like what happened in "Nam with those old obsolete C-47's! when somebody stuck some mini-guns in the leftside of the cabin! 

 

A great plane for that. 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Warthogs are still viable and still make bad guys wet themselves dreaming about them at night.

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

Too bad they can't mod it with a tail hook and let the Marines use it.

 

[Buckshot Bear]

1 hour ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

Warthogs are still viable and still make bad guys wet themselves dreaming about them at night.

 

 

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[Buckshot Bear]

Do they have open days when you can walk around a B2 bomber?

Anyone ever been up close to one? How impressive are they?

[Trailrider #896]

1 minute ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said:

Too bad they can't mod it with a tail hook and let the Marines use it.

 

Or turn them over to the Army like Marine Aviation is to the Marine grunts.  Except most blue-suiters wouldn't like having to buy green uniforms! Of course, "we are not putting 'boots-on-the-ground' in Iran"...yet. The MEU aboard the Tripoli are just taking a "short" cruise...from Japan to ??? They have F-35B's on board, but having A-10's overhead might be encouraging.

[Trailrider #896]

6 minutes ago, Buckshot Bear said:

Do they have open days when you can walk around a B2 bomber?

Anyone ever been up close to one? How impressive are they?

When the Association of Air Force Missileers took a tour of Barksdale AFB, just to see how the other half lives, we got right up to a BUFF in front of Base Operations.  Saw a bunch of them take off, too. Very impressive! 

 

See the movie, "A Gathering of Eagles". It is a bit dated but one scene shows a Minimum Interval Take Off. Was shot at Beale, IIRC. While it was made when SAC was still in business, Global Strike Command goes through the same training and "No Notice Operational Rediness Inspections, or their equivalent, which can give Wing CO's gray hair, ulcers or heart attacks! (Col. John Carrol, CO of the 341st Missile Wing in the 1960's  was being medically evaluated after two heart attacks. When the doc told him he was fine and to get dressed, he dropped dead right there!  )  

 

God Bless all our military, in contact or not!

 

Edited March 20 by Trailrider #896

[Cyrus Cassidy #45437]

Funny...I'm a strategic level planner. Everything I do is joint -- in other words, I'm helping combatant commanders make decisions that affect an entire theater of operations. It's clearly not service or domain centric. On the contrary, my level of war considers services and domains to be agnostic, at least in theory, because service parochialism is a real thing, especially in budget battles before Congress. Everything is big picture, incorporating, ground, air, sea, space, and cyber into a holistic viewpoint.

 

After years working jointly, one key observation I've made is that Air Force officers are woefully inadequate at understanding or even thinking in terms beyond their individual fighting platform. They function at levels below tactical--essentially they are highly skilled weapon system operators. They are the world's best pilots, but that's literally all they're capable of. They have no idea how what they are doing fits into the bigger picture, nor do they care to (and yet they strut around announcing to everyone that they are pilots and acting like overpaid frat boys). 

 

Argue or get offended if you will, but the Air Force's LeMay Center published an internal study a few years ago declaring everything I've just said. This is the Air Force critiquing itself (and yet doing absolutely nothing to rectify it). One hard-hitting quote from the LeMay study declared, "Air Force officers lack credibility with sister services due to their unfamiliarity with joint doctrine and terminology..." And remember, this was written in a diplomatic way to soften the blow. 

And yes, the service leadership has long advocated to Congress that they A-10 be decommissioned to make room for more advanced aircraft. It is not survivable, they argue, in a near-peer conflict. And yet Congress repeatedly forces them to keep it at the behest of the Army, who argues that we don't care about its survivability in a near-peer conflict; that's not what it's being used for. This is yet another example of Air Force officers not being able to think beyond their domain or individual platform. 

[Chantry]

9 hours ago, Rip Snorter said:

Product of the original Skunk Works, if I recall correctly!

 

No, it was developed by Fairchild Republic.

 

And the Air Farce is determined to get rid of them, possibly this year.  Institutional fighter pilot arrogance. The US Air Farce doesn't want slow, ugly combat aircraft and doesn't want to do air to mud in close proximity to the front lines to destroy such unimportant things like tanks, AFV's, etc. They want to go fast in 'sexy' aircraft bombing high value targets.

 

The only reason(s) the B-52 is still around:  https://www.jalopnik.com/2039880/why-boeing-b52-bomber-will-be-flying-at-100-years-old/

Higher availability rates, cheaper to fly and with stand off weapons it isn't especially vulnerable to ground based anti- aircraft defenses.

 

 

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

The A-10 is facing the same internal BS, that killed the SR-71/A-12 program. 

[Chantry]

I'll add that the F-35 wasn't designed or expected to do CAS, but use it's stealth to make  attacks itself and more importantly serve as 'spotter' to conventional aircraft (such as the F-15) that will fire their weapons, air to air and air to surface from beyond visual range.  There is proposal for the F-15 to act as an 'arsenal' plane with the capability of carrying up to 18 air to air missiles (or fewer air to ground missiles).  The F-35 would provide target info and the F-15 would fire the missiles from outside visual and possibly radar range.

[Chantry]

13 hours ago, Trailrider #896 said:

  Something like what happened in "Nam with those old obsolete C-47's! when somebody stuck some mini-guns in the leftside of the cabin! 

 

There is story, probably true, that the gunships were initially called FC-47's.  Fighter/Cargo - 47.  Allegedly the fighter pilot* community were  deeply offended by this and had a hissy fit which resulted in the Air Farce bringing the A for Attack back into use, resulting in the AC-47.  While the AC-47 did exceptional work in South Vietnam, it was too slow to survive over North Vietnam or the Ho Chi Minh trail, which why some C-130's were turned in gunships as well as the AC-119 due to the need for the C-130 to serve in it's cargo role.

 

*Being cynical (again) I find it interesting that Air Farce pilots flying dedicated attack aircraft still refer to themselves as fighter pilots rather the more correct attack pilot.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

7 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

 

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7 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

 

7 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

 

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That, and the whupwhupwhupwhupwhup sound of Hueys coming the shoot the bad guys off your back, bring re-enforcements and supplies and /or to take you home, are two of the greatest sounds in the world. 

 

Back in 1980-1995 there was a nightclub in Montclair, CA that my wife and I used to  go to.  It had  great food and a very good multi-talented singer/ piano played who was amazing.  He ended his show at midnight when the lights went way down and his music slowly died away and the whupwhupwhupwhup came from all around, almost silent at first, growing louder and louder  until it  was almost too loud, then slowly dying  away again.  It lasted about six  to eight minutes.   The last thing you heard was Ronnie whispering "God bless you, one and all."

 

The crowds were nearly silent while this went on.  It was almost a religious few moments.

 

I saw a lot of tough-as-nails, hard core, really mean SOB, he-man types leave with tears running  down their cheeks.

[Chantry]

44 minutes ago, The Original Lumpy Gritz said:

The A-10 is facing the same internal BS, that killed the SR-71/A-12 program. 

 

What I've read was that the SR-71 was a very small community and lost the budget battle with what was then Space Command, who insisted they could do the same job with satellites.  That eliminated the diplomatic issues of flying a manned aircraft over countries not on friendly terms with the US.

[Rip Snorter]

57 minutes ago, Chantry said:

 

No, it was developed by Fairchild Republic.

 

And the Air Farce is determined to get rid of them, possibly this year.  Institutional fighter pilot arrogance. The US Air Farce doesn't want slow, ugly combat aircraft and doesn't want to do air to mud in close proximity to the front lines to destroy such unimportant things like tanks, AFV's, etc. They want to go fast in 'sexy' aircraft bombing high value targets.

 

The only reason(s) the B-52 is still around:  https://www.jalopnik.com/2039880/why-boeing-b52-bomber-will-be-flying-at-100-years-old/

Higher availability rates, cheaper to fly and with stand off weapons it isn't especially vulnerable to ground based anti- aircraft defenses.

 

 

I was speaking to the comment  about the B 52.

[The Original Lumpy Gritz]

46 minutes ago, Chantry said:

 

What I've read was that the SR-71 was a very small community and lost the budget battle with what was then Space Command, who insisted they could do the same job with satellites.  That eliminated the diplomatic issues of flying a manned aircraft over countries not on friendly terms with the US.

Goes a bit deeper than that. Lot of it was personal against the head of Lockeed.

When I lived in PMD, my next door neighbor was a SR-71 Crew Chief and part of the SR-71  recovery team. Heard lots of what Plant 42 Skunk Wks had to deal with. It was 99.99% politics! 

[Rip Snorter]

BTW - today https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2026/03/20/warthog-versus-the-mosquito-a-10s-hunting-iranian-suicide-boats/

[PowderRiverCowboy]

Some where I have action Footage of a A10 in close action in Afghanistan  I will have to see if i still have it 

 

[Chantry]

1 hour ago, Rip Snorter said:

I was speaking to the comment  about the B 52.

 

Built by Boeing, so Lockheed had nothing to do with the design that I know of

[Irish Pat]

that is an A-10 30mm dummy round that is used to teach new guys how to load the planes. The live rounds had a depleted uranium 

bullet that will go through any armor Russia might have. The 50 sitting next to it is puny looking. Irish ☘️ Pat

[Chantry]

14 hours ago, Buckshot Bear said:

Do they have open days when you can walk around a B2 bomber?

Anyone ever been up close to one? How impressive are they?

 

Sometimes.  Usually behind rope to prevent people from touching it.  No tours inside of it

[watab kid]

i think they mentioned them in action in the straight of hurmus todays news - if they are doing the job , keep doing it 

[PowderRiverCowboy]