USAF Finally found a way to get rid of the A-10

[M2]

7 hours ago, Lawman said:

I’m hearing from a friend apparently we’ve always known how to do this.

Apparently it was figured out with the Luftwaffe Fulcrums post the wall coming down. Guess somebody just found the old copy of the book.

Spanky?

[Lawman]

Spanky?

Canadian Air Force guy.


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[brabus]

3 hours ago, M2 said:

Spanky?

What a great American!

[Clark Griswold]

Someone at the puzzle palace get the Ukrainians a fox 3 capability

https://en.topwar.ru/188648-azerbajdzhanskie-istrebiteli-mig-29-poluchili-izrailskie-rakety-vozduh-vozduh.html

Homework has already been done


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[Clark Griswold]

The A-10 is retiring and Air Force has no replacement - Task & Purpose (taskandpurpose.com)

 

[hindsight2020]

They can just open their standard USAF playbook for everything from acquisitions to manpower to strategy. It has one page and two entries:

COA #1: Run the clock offense.

COA #2:  Fuck it, give it to the Navy.

Questions? Slide!

They're working really hard to become the LCC/ULCC of the military. Single fleet type ops come hell or high water. jOiNT!

😄 

[Clark Griswold]

They can just open their standard USAF playbook for everything from acquisitions to manpower to strategy. It has one page and two entries:
COA #1: Run the clock offense.
COA #2:  it, give it to the Navy.

Questions? Slide!
They're working really hard to become the LCC/ULCC of the military. Single fleet type ops come hell or high water. jOiNT!
 

Just as there are only so many booms in the air at one time ergo a small tanker fleet probably can’t cut it there are only so many weapon stations in a silver bullet low density pointy fleet, particularly one that has to cover potentially two theaters or one yuuge theater that might as well be two, so you need to replace these tails with another set of tails
My druthers is it’s a combo replacement: American license built family model Gripen that’s designed / modified to operate with CCA or other UCAV(s)
You get affordability, ACE capabilities, and the standard multi role fighter capes plus the new hotness of manned / unmanned teaming in a platform / crew force designed / trained for it


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[di1630]

CAS in the USAF is effectively dead for a multitude of reasons.

First off the USAF has castrated the A-10 community no doubt, basically keeping them separated from knowledge and interoperability that would keep them effective in a big war. So the USAF just sticks with the line “the A-10 isn’t survivable” and people buy it.

The A-10 community hasn’t helped themselves. I’ve personally tried to get them to work into higher end scenarios and the interest is what practicing they’ve been doing for 20 yrs in Afghanistan.

When they do try a higher threat scenario, (see above) they don’t have the knowledge as a community to integrate to the realistic threat.

Now the F-35 CAS capability is different and in my opinion - horrid. As a airframe it currently lacks CAS friendly weapons, and it lacks many of the features you’d want in a CAS platform. But all that doesn’t matter because the community doesn’t care about CAS.

And that’s fine, because it’s not the F-35 mission.

The real tragedy is most leadership doesn’t understand any if this.

F-35 leadership will ignorantly or falsely say they are capable of a mission they barely understand and inept top brass will buy it.

Time to turn the mission back to the Army.


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[nsplayr]

42 minutes ago, di1630 said:

CAS in the USAF is effectively dead for a multitude of reasons.

I feel like you’re maybe jumping to conclusions…moot!

 

[brabus]

@di1630 You’re majorly overacting. CAS is not a priority right now, and it damn well shouldn’t be. But will it spin back up when we get into OEF 69, yep. Will multiple platforms (including TACP/CCT) knock the rust off and be just fine, yep. It’s understandable to be emotionally attached to what our generation did for the majority of our combat careers, but remove the emotion and it’s easy to see why going the direction we are is the right move for now (not to say there’s not a shitload of fuckery along that path). 

Also, the A-10 patch community disagrees with you; they’re pushing to do things that are relevant to the path we’re on. Though admittedly I can’t speak to what leadership roadblocks they may or may not be facing. I hope it’s none. 

 

[di1630]

[mention=5633]di1630[/mention] You’re majorly overacting. CAS is not a priority right now, and it damn well shouldn’t be. But will it spin back up when we get into OEF 69, yep. Will multiple platforms (including TACP/CCT) knock the rust off and be just fine, yep. It’s understandable to be emotionally attached to what our generation did for the majority of our combat careers, but remove the emotion and it’s easy to see why going the direction we are is the right move for now (not to say there’s not a shitload of ery along that path). 
Also, the A-10 patch community disagrees with you; they’re pushing to do things that are relevant to the path we’re on. Though admittedly I can’t speak to what leadership roadblocks they may or may not be facing. I hope it’s none. 
 

I disagree but I understand your perspective.

I’m not emotionally attached, just old.

I’ve flown CAS and seen it evolve for 20+ years and I just think the way we are doing it or proposing to do it is not a good use of F-35 resources.

Also, very familiar with the A-10 proposals but I think it’s too late based on hearing some high ups speak.




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[brabus]

13 minutes ago, di1630 said:

not a good use of F-35 resources.

Totally agree on that. My response is primarily directed at “CAS is fucked, the AF should just hand it over to the Army” comment. CAS is not fucked and we shouldn’t hand it over to the Army - that’s my point. 

[Danger41]

When OEF 69 kicks off, if my (hopefully) retired self hears about F-35’s and B-21’s doing XCAS for some strike cell that thinks cleaning out the bays of strategic bombers on dirt farmers is the greatest thing ever, I’m protesting to my elected officials and streaking through the pentagon.

[brabus]

Manchester

[Majestik Møøse]

The Air Force is locked into throwing jets into the “survivable” or “not survivable” bins as a justification to promote them or delete them to congress. The Air Force actively promotes the KC-46 as “survivable” and the scoffs the A-10 as “not survivable”, even though who is going to get shot at and when is dependent on lot of stuff.

[SocialD]

7 hours ago, Danger41 said:

When OEF 69 kicks off, if my (hopefully) retired self hears about F-35’s and B-21’s doing XCAS for some strike cell that thinks cleaning out the bays of strategic bombers on dirt farmers is the greatest thing ever, I’m protesting to my elected officials and streaking through the pentagon.

 

 

LOL, oh man did you bring up just one of the many memories that highlighted the idiocy of still being in Afghanistan.  Circa 2011/2012, I'm over Nangalam (maybe Mitarlam, a bit hazy) with a B-1 in the stack (below me), thinking WTF are we doing?  I never would have dreamt that I'd be back over there 10 years later.  

[MT near]

What we need to do is retire every platform except the F-35. 

[Clark Griswold]

22 minutes ago, MT near said:

What we need to do is retire every platform except the F-35. 

19fortyfive would agree with that:  The F-35 is Key to Our Economic and National Security - 19FortyFive

Don't get me wrong, it's (the 35) a yuuuge deal and really turning out better as time goes on but it can't do everything to a standard that would make it the jack of all trades and master of all.

Big Air Force's with big budgets can afford specialized platforms / crewforces, or in this case ones that focus on a mission set while maintaining adequate capability in others.

[Biff_T]

Just get a few VTOL Amys.  Have them ID the targets, pull into a sick hover and start blasting.  Lol.   No need for Gunships,  Apaches or Hogs.  Just a stealth fighter hovering over a bunch of dudes serving up death.   It works in video games...lol. 

[VMFA187]

18 hours ago, di1630 said:

Now the F-35 CAS capability is different and in my opinion - horrid. As a airframe it currently lacks CAS friendly weapons, and it lacks many of the features you’d want in a CAS platform. But all that doesn’t matter because the community doesn’t care about CAS.

 

That might be accurate for the AF F-35 community but I don't think it would extend to the USMC F-35 community. 

I would agree that there are certainly better platforms for CAS but the F-35 functions as well as an F-18 in that role. 

[di1630]

That might be accurate for the AF F-35 community but I don't think it would extend to the USMC F-35 community. 
I would agree that there are certainly better platforms for CAS but the F-35 functions as well as an F-18 in that role. 

I hope it meets the USMC needs for the sacrifice in capabilities the F-35 program made to get that variant.

I stand by my assertion— I don’t want to be anywhere near a MCO CAS environment in the F-35. I’ll happily stand-off and enable the jets that have the weaponry and survivability to get up close.

Manpads and AAA while I’m heads down in my 2005 era TFLIR lasing a Vietnam era gbu-12 from my $100m single engine stealth designed to to stand-off aircraft?!! No thanks.

We can do better.









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[VMFA187]

1 hour ago, di1630 said:

I hope it meets the USMC needs for the sacrifice in capabilities the F-35 program made to get that variant.

I stand by my assertion— I don’t want to be anywhere near a MCO CAS environment in the F-35. I’ll happily stand-off and enable the jets that have the weaponry and survivability to get up close.

Manpads and AAA while I’m heads down in my 2005 era TFLIR lasing a Vietnam era gbu-12 from my $100m single engine stealth designed to to stand-off aircraft?!! No thanks.

We can do better.









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We certainly can do better, and I agree that the limitations that resulted so that the Marine Corps could have a STOVL 5th gen fighter were not worth it. But I will stand by my assertion that it is any bit as capable as an F-18 in the CAS role. Sure, I'd prefer to have GBU-54 capability, but the GBU-12 isn't ineffective. 

[Majestik Møøse]

Well this whole discussion proves why the Marines feel the need to have their own Air Force. If I were them, I wouldn’t trust the other services to help me whatsoever. I’ve said otherwise in the past, but now I get it. Trust no one.

[Danger41]

Not to make this an ACSC discussion, but if we base our nation’s war fighting strategy around a littoral force dependent on Close Air Support, we deserve to lose a big war.

I love the Marines as much as the next guy, but I also believe in a lot of various Air Power theorists that think CAS is a poor use of it*. And the Marines have tried pulling their own Air Force move back in Desert Storm and got smacked down hard for it. Everyone also seems to neglect the prerequisite that CAS assumes localized air superiority. That happens by USAF and USN fighters clearing the air picture, working with ground based fires (not to mention NKE) to do SEAD, tankers to support it all, support assets to F2T2, and more. That’s just to allow every Marine a rifleman F-35 pilots to drop GBU-12’s to support their fellow Marine (who is probably an F-35 ground FAC…which I love). It has been 70 years since an American on the ground has been killed by an enemy airplane. Hopefully that helps with trust but probably not. 
 

Sorry for the word vomit but it irks me when people accuse the USAF of not caring about CAS. What I’ve seen AF dudes (in a wide variety of platforms) do to support guys on the ground is crazy. That was also in very permissive environments with close tankers/bases. If we are chopping ATO sorties to CAS in a China scenario, it’s a poor use of resources IMO. 
 

*Easily the most satisfying missions of my life were doing CAS and supporting ground units via JTAC. 

[MT near]

Barf.