A-10 Warthog

[KevinB]

I think fundamentally the question is how much COIN does one expect to do that justifies keeping a separate type that has limited utility elsewhere. The A-10s being 9.5% of the fast jet combat fleet is a substantial hindrance for the USAF. That will get cut down. If all that's planned is occasional fights in Africa, than a smaller dedicated fleet of 50-80 frames (of a COIN aircraft that is substantially less capable than the A-10) is probably what they end up with. But looking at what is happening with next gen rotorcraft, we're fast converging to a point where coax and tiltrotors have much of the same performance characteristics of an A-10. Only a matter of time to me before the Army and Marine Corps start asking why the USAF has OA1s when they can just weaponize an MV-75 and do the same job. And there's a case to be made that they can do it much better than the USAF.

Ye ole Key West Agreement rears its ugly head. I can see the USAF digging it's heels in about it isn't a rotary wing, so you can't arm it offensively ...
While that can't stop the USMC, the Army only really gets to do something with Armed Airframes if either it's hidden by USASOC or the USAF doesn't want and abdicates the role. The Army won "Chopper Wars" as the USAF didn't want it, and then USAF fought the Army adopting the Chinook and tried to bury that way back when as well. Army Aviation has ceded any gunship development to USASOC, and 160th has been rather hot/cold on the MV-75 due to it not working a lot of mission profiles.

Also the USAF doesn't own the OA1's that is SOCOM. Yes AFSOC, but funded out of SOCOM for SOCOM as the Big USAF didn't want the mission.

 

[ytz]

Yep. There's a lot of institutional politics and inside baseball on how this plays out. Mostly my point is that technology is converging to enable a rotorcraft weapons delivery platform that has the same speed, range and endurance as an A-10. As that happens, obviously current paradigms need to evolve.

 

[Kirkhill]

Yep. There's a lot of institutional politics and inside baseball on how this plays out. Mostly my point is that technology is converging to enable a rotorcraft weapons delivery platform that has the same speed, range and endurance as an A-10. As that happens, obviously current paradigms need to evolve.

On the other hand the A-10 is in the inventory right now and has trained crew to fly and support them.

I am not a fan of discarding current assets to procure future assets.

I prefer to keep one foot on the ground as I advance and start bringing in the new before disposing of the old. Even if that might cost money.

 

[KevinB]

Yep. There's a lot of institutional politics and inside baseball on how this plays out. Mostly my point is that technology is converging to enable a rotorcraft weapons delivery platform that has the same speed, range and endurance as an A-10. As that happens, obviously current paradigms need to evolve.

Agreed.

However if you need that cannon, outside something bigger than the MV-22 Osprey being fielded, you aren’t getting there from here in a non fixed wing. Now that said I think that rocket/missile loadout is preferable on the AntiTank role. The GAU-21, M61 and other lower recoil systems provide decent anti-material options outside of hard armor. Quite frankly while I think that while the A-10’s days are numbered, that @Kirkhill is right, they are still around, and many have just been recently (last 3-4 years) upgraded, so we may as well use them

I honestly don’t know what a future platform will look like, we know that with the cancellations of the attack helicopter side of Future Rotary Lift that Army Aviation doesn’t either — just that it likely won’t be a manned system.