As the legendary A-10 Warthog looks down the barrel of an uncertain future, could the United States field a stealth iteration of this air support titan for use in the contested airspaces of the 21st century?
That’s a question I’ve been asked, in various forms, a number of times over the past few months — and the premise certainly has its fans.
In fact, everyone’s favorite conceptual aviation artist Rodrigo Avella even has a series of next-generation A-10 graphics he’s dubbed the A-14 Wild Wolf that really bring the concept to life, and he was kind enough to let us feature some of them in this story. Make sure to check out the rest of the incredible artwork on his website!
Make no mistake about it, the Warthog has earned every bit of its hero-worship throughout the past twenty years of combat operations. Yet, unfortunately, as awesome as the phrase “Stealth Warthog” would be to see emblazoned across a new development program, the way the A-10 engages the enemy runs counter to how stealth aircraft have to operate in order to maintain a low profile in contested airspace. But that doesn’t mean the A-10 should be sent out to pasture quite yet.
The real way to bring the A-10 into the future isn’t adding stealth. It’s turning this workhorse aircraft into a decoy-carrying stand-off threat.
Related: Believe it or not, the A-10 can hold its own in a dogfight
The things that make the A-10 great don’t lend themselves well to stealth
Unlike other kinds of air support, which frequently come in the form of precision-guided ordnance delivered by high-flying “fast jets” that don’t often have the gas to stick around for long, the A-10 engages ground troops by flying directly at them at low altitude while unleashing what is — for all intents and purposes — a laser beam of depleted uranium rounds at its targets.
From 1,000 feet away, the A-10’s gun can put 80 percent of a 1,000-round volley inside a five-meter circle at a mind-boggling rate of 70 rounds per second. But there’s a big but here — in order to do that, A-10 pilots have to be willing to eat plenty of enemy fire in the process. The Warthog’s 58′ wingspan provides an ample target for anti-aircraft guns and even small arms fire at such low altitudes. Yet, the A-10 shrugs it off thanks to the titanium tub its pilots nestle in while behind the stick.
Other essential systems also received the titanium armor treatment. Further, the aircraft itself was designed with a number of redundancies to help ensure it could operate against Soviet convoys that would have included radar-guided anti-aircraft guns that would very likely find their targets as the Warthog zoomed in. As a result, it isn’t at all uncommon to see A-10s flying home and landing safely despite taking serious damage in the fight.
Major Kim Campbell knows better than most just how tough the A-10 really is. She flew her aircraft back to its airstrip after taking such heavy enemy fire that she lost all hydraulic power. The aircraft’s backup control systems, which are made up of cranks and cables, allowed her to keep control of the aircraft and make it out of Baghdad. Her perforated A-10, shown in the photo above, tells the tale of a heroic pilot, a resilient jet, and an approach to combat that simply doesn’t jive with how stealth platforms operate.
Related: Watch: This is what happens when an A-10 goes full BRRRRT
Stealth aircraft have to tiptoe in combat zones, but the A-10 wants to strut straight into enemy fire
The A-10 Warthog is, in many ways, the polar opposite of a stealth aircraft as it is designed to operate in uncontested airspace where it can focus its fury on ground targets. We’ve discussed in the past how the A-10 can potentially hold its own against enemy fighters, but no A-10 pilot really hopes to put that to the test. They instead prefer air superiority champs like the F-15 and F-22 to handle airborne threats. The Warthog has no onboard radar for air-to-air combat, but does carry AIM-9 infrared-seeking air-to-air missiles it can leverage against airborne targets if they’re beyond the reach of the Warthog’s famed BRRRRRRT.
The A-10 Thunderbolt II is, without a doubt, an incredible aircraft capable of taking a beating and dishing it out twice as well. But when operating inside contested airspace, making your presence clearly known to the enemy, flying directly at your opponents at low altitude, and eating small arms fire along the way are all things a stealth platform simply can’t do if it intends to remain stealthy enough to fly back home.
Modern stealth designs go a long way toward deflecting radar waves away from an aircraft. Yet, jets like the F-22 and F-35 are still heavily reliant on a coating of Radar Absorbent Materials (RAM) covering the majority of their airframe and layered over any gaps or crevices in an airplane’s body. Even the tiniest gap between body panels on the aircraft can result in producing a larger radar profile, so you’ll often see body seams covered in RAM tape.
This RAM is rated to absorb upwards of 70-80 percent of inbound electromagnetic energy (or radar waves), making it extremely useful for stealth applications, but also extremely problematic for bruisers like the A-10. Current RAM is quite fragile, particularly when exposed to the high heat of supersonic flight. Repairing or replacing RAM coatings makes up a substantial portion of the huge cost of operating America’s fleets of F-22s and F-35s. Now imagine covering an A-10 in this pricey material and sending it back into the shredder of A-10 operations. The titanium tub would still protect its occupants, but the RAM would likely need to be completely removed and then replaced each time the aircraft took fire.
That would very quickly make the currently inexpensive-to-operate A-10 one of the more expensive aircraft in Uncle Sam’s hangars.
But believe it or not, the RAM problem wouldn’t be the most expensive part of making a stealth A-10 Warthog. Rather, the aircraft’s design itself would have to fundamentally change, and that would cost so much money, you’d be better off building an entirely new jet instead.
Related: How do the world’s stealth fighters really stack up?
The A-10’s design lacks stealth, and that means it would have to change dramatically to evade radar
The A-10 Thunderbolt II’s design was largely finalized by 1972. This is approximately 11 years before the world’s first stealth aircraft, the F-117 Nighthawk, would enter operational service. In other words, the Warthog’s design comes from a pre-stealth era, so bringing it up to snuff would require more than a facelift — it’d need an entire design overhaul.
You’ll notice that aircraft like the F-35 don’t have a giant hydraulically driven seven-barrel Gatling-style autocannon sticking out of their noses. That is, of course, partly due to the fact that the A-10’s GAU-8/A Avenger cannon system is approximately the size of an entire Volkswagon Beetle, but it’s also because having a big cannon protruding from the front of the aircraft would wreak havoc on its stealth profile.
Rodrigo Avella saw this one coming. He even prepared a full series of images of his A-14 concept that don’t leverage the big gun up front that he’s named the A-14B.
Likewise, on the opposite side of the A-10, its two high-mounted General Electric TF34-GE-100A turbofan engines are a big problem for both limiting radar and infrared returns. Just about every facet of the A-10 airframe would have to be redesigned in order to mitigate detection, and like the Ship of Theseus paradox recently referenced in Marvel’s Wandavision, there comes a point when replacing every external body component that you have to ask yourself, is this even still the same aircraft?
It would be more cost-effective to simply start from scratch on a new A-X platform that combined low-observable design elements with some heavy-hitting weaponry. Yet, even in that case, you’d still be facing the same problems we discussed above. The truth is, building a stealth aircraft just to fly it straight into enemy gunfire simply isn’t a very cost-effective idea.
Related: How much stealth can you add to a 4th generation fighter?
Even if it had stealth, the A-10 and its mighty cannon would struggle against modern armor
The truth of the matter is, that the A-10 Thunderbolt II is an incredible aircraft that’s approaching the end of its lifespan. That’s not necessarily as bad a thing as many might think. While it is true that the Warthog’s incredible close-air-support capabilities will be sorely missed when it’s finally sent out to pasture, no amount of spray-on stealth paint or design tweaks can change the fact that these jets likely won’t last beyond the 2040s.
In fact, even a stealth-infused A-10 wouldn’t be able to do the job the aircraft was originally designed to do in modern combat. The massive 4,000-pound cannon the A-10 is built around may be insanely powerful, but it isn’t actually quite as powerful as you might think. It was originally designed to penetrate the armor of post-WWII Soviet tanks like the T-55 and eventually the T-62, but the truth is… the mighty Avenger cannon has proven fairly ineffective in doing so.
A 91-page report from the Naval Postgraduate School, penned in 1979, assessed the A-10’s famed GAU-8 against different kinds of armor, and clearly showed that the Warthog would perform poorly in head-on gun runs against a column of Soviet-era tanks like we see in Ukraine.
The report shows that the Avenger cannon can effectively penetrate the armor on the back of dated tanks like the T-62, but struggled against the sides (though it did destroy the suspension, taking the tank out of the fight). Importantly, however, it proved ineffective against these tanks from head-on, where their armor is most concentrated.
The truth is, as good as the A-10 is at devastating ground troops with its massive Gatling gun, even a big boost in stealth wouldn’t make the Warthog the most effective option for engaging dated armor, let alone a modern main battle tank like China’s composite-armored Type 99A or Russia’s long-delayed T-14 Armata (if its production ever comes to fruition).
The A-10’s legendary BRRRRT may be the infantryman’s favorite means of ground support, but in a near-peer conflict against a well-equipped military, the A-10’s most effective weapons would be the ones it carries under-wing. Indeed, today’s A-10s could make short work of modern tanks thanks to wing loads of 70mm rockets and AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missiles, as well as a variety of bombs. But if the goal is to deliver bombs or missiles to targets at close range inside contested airspace, the A-10 is likely not the best choice for the job.
However, the addition of advanced new weapons designed to confuse air defenses or to engage from standoff ranges could actually give the A-10 a renewed purpose in even the most hotly contested near-peer fights.
Related: The Air Force just landed A-10s on a Michigan state highway
Screw stealth and the GAU-8: The A-10’s future will be carried under-wing
Despite the Air Force’s best efforts to divest its A-10 fleet and retire America’s Warthogs, Congress has other ideas. The A-10 is expected to keep flying well into the 2040s, stealth be damned. However, that does beg the question: If a near-peer conflict were to kick off any time soon, how could the A-10 help America win that fight without sending a lot of pilots to early graves?
The answer seems to be to move away from relying on the aircraft’s reputation-defining cannon for many operations, and flooding the airspace with highly-capable long-range weapons and decoys any time the A-10 needs to get up close and personal with the bad guy.
In a fantastic piece by A-10 weapons officer Maj. Maurice “SPAWN” Grosso for Task & Purpose recently, Spawn breaks down how integrating stand-off weapons (SOWs) on the aircraft could offer commanders in-theater a valuable uptick in ordnance on-target. According to his assessment, the A-10 could feasibly carry four or even five AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles or JASSMs into the fight. To date, the only other fighter in American hangars that can match that feat is the F-15E Strike Eagle, with room for five such weapons. The furthest reaching iteration of these air-launched cruise missiles has a reported range in excess of 1,100 miles, meaning an A-10 could launch these missiles from well outside the reach of enemy air defenses.
Let’s build upon Spawn’s suggestion and look at this from a cost-per-launch perspective. The A-10 is particularly cheap to fly compared to more advanced jets, at just about $20,000 per flight hour, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies. (There are reports of significantly lower operating costs from other sources).
Assuming a four-hour flight to launch five JASSMs, we’re looking at a total cost of $80,000, or about $16,000 per missile launched. The F-16 is also very cheap to operate, at a cost of about $23,000 per hour, but can only carry two AGM-158s per sortie. That means it would take three F-16s to deliver the same five missiles at a per-launch cost of between $46,000 (if launching six missiles) and $55,000 when launching five. The F-15E can carry five JASSMs in one sortie at a per-hour cost of $32,500, resulting in a per-launch cost of $26,000 — or $10,000 more per launch than the A-10.
Now, that’s obviously an oversimplified example and real costs would vary more significantly due to variables like cruising speed, but no matter how you cut it, the A-10 doesn’t need stealth to deliver ordnance on target and significant savings.
Related: Why is it so hard to develop stealth aircraft?
The A-10 could become a game-changing decoy mothership
While Spawn’s pitch for arming the A-10 with JASSMs is a convincing one, his discussion about using the A-10 to deliver a high volume of ADM-160 Miniature Air-Launched Decoys is even harder to ignore.
Not exactly a weapon, the MALD is an ingenious air-launched flight vehicle developed by Raytheon systems to perfectly mimic the radar signatures of any aircraft in American or allied arsenals. These relatively inexpensive decoy aircraft have a range of about 500 miles and can currently be deployed from both the F-16 Fighting Falcon and the B-52 Stratofortress. When employed in a large volume, they can saturate enemy airspace with enough spoofed radar signatures to make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for air defense systems to find the real targets.
The more advanced MALD-J also offers radar-jamming capabilities, further complicating matters for surface-to-air missile batteries trying to find a lock on any aircraft, including the A-10 despite its lacking stealth. At just about 300-pounds per decoy, the F-16 can currently carry and deliver as many as four MALD decoys into the fight. The massive B-52, on the other hand, can delivery as many as 16.
But here’s the real kicker: according to Spawn, two MALD decoys can be loaded onto each of the A-10’s triple-ejector racks, giving it the ability to carry 16 of these swing-wing decoys — or the same number as the significantly larger B-52. And if you thought the A-10 carrying JASSMs could offer cost savings over other aircraft, you should know that the B-52 costs more than a whopping $70,000 per hour it’s in the air. Spending just $20,000 per hour to deliver the same number of decoys is a hard amount of cost savings to ignore.
“A four-ship formation of A-10s could bring up to 64 MALD to a fight. The A-10’s robust, agile combat employment capabilities (low maintenance footprint and ability to operate from unimproved or makeshift runway surfaces) combined with the ability to carry 16 MALD per aircraft, provides combatant commanders the ability to create multi-axis problems, target saturation, and horizontal escalation options for adversaries,” wrote Maj. Maurice “SPAWN” Grosso.
It’s worth considering that the A-10 is capable of operating from austere airstrips closer to the fight than runway queen bombers like the B-52 or even the light and nimble F-16. That means these aircraft could fly shorter duration sorties, launching JASSMs and MALDs into contested airspace from just outside it, and flying back to re-arm and do it all over again. And while the JASSM would require software integration that would represent a financial investment, MALDs wouldn’t even require that. As Spawn puts it, “Carriage and separation testing is the only cost to consider.”
“Hopefully, the effort will gain the support of Air Combat Command (ACC) and Headquarters Air Force (HAF),” Spawn wrote. “With their support, the MALD can go through separation testing and complete its integration on the A-10 in the next few months.”
Read more from Sandboxx News
- Why do some A-10s rock that fearsome shark teeth war paint?
- Believe it or not, the A-10 can hold its own in a dogfight
- How do the world’s stealth fighters really stack up?
- Silent Eagle: Boeing’s plan to make the F-15 a ‘stealth’ fighter
- What kind of fighter could the latest military tech really build?
Actually the Air Force did a live fire test using 2 x A-10c against 2 modern tanks with Reactive Armor and found that both tanks were inoperable after the being engaged. Test was Feb of 2022 in Nevada. Obviously, the Air Force didn’t publicly state the total amount of damage.
Many other countries don’t plan their aircraft missions the same way we do, which increase threats to the aircraft.
You are accepting the bull that this arthur and the air force/navy are pushing because all the higher up’s in the service are jet jockeys and have no use for anything but a useless F35. As for gun not effective, gee how is it that the A10 accounted for almost
two thirds of all tanks destroyed in Iraq? Also we are putting all our eggs in one basket when we built a handful of 100 million dollar stealth planes when it is very likely that radar technology will eliminate that fact and then you have clunky planes with nothing
going for then. Having been there, it is not hearing the gun growl that guys are gun love, it is that the A10 pilot is moving slow enough and low enough that they can actually see the threat you are asking then to take out. Not very reasuring to see a tiny spot in sky at 10,000 feet trying to help you.
My whole family has served in every branch of the military and in every War and police action the US has been involved in for the last 80 years. I’ve never heard ANYONE complain about the A 10. What I HAVE heard is how much everyone LOVES the sight of that Bird and the sound of that Gun. Why? Because “When THAT Bird is around, the people who are trying to kill you are DEAD!”
Reality, as stated, is that the 30mm isn’t effective against modern armored vehicles…and it’s not optimum against ground targets either. Once you’ve eliminated that requirement, it doesn’t need the heavy and large GAU-8. A modern ground support aircraft would probably be better armed with a pair of 20mm cannons. Less weight, more rounds, better coverage/larger impact footprint. Or even a 30mm Bushmaster chaingun carrying twice the rounds as the GAU-8.
I guess the a10 did not destroy 75% of all tank kills in Iraq. Strange huh.
Air Force did a live fire study to test the GAU-8 against modern armor with upgrades and the A-10 was still effective.
The primary mission in Ukraine now counter-attacking against Russia is taking on Russian *ARTILLERY* and not an entire Tank Force that has been wholly annihilated by anti-tank rockets and now even saturated $10 us dollar bomblet runs by $5000 us dollar drones that Russia can’t seem to locate, find or shoot down/all of the above. Just today the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet was forced to exit the Port of Sevastapol from an attack by a single drone that with absolute precision slammed into the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters doing who knows what kind of damage. A-10 strikes would be directed at near similar targets currently namely logistical, command and control in theater and the still awesome power of Russian Mortars and towed artillery…all nuclear capable. Simply put the Ukraine Battle Space in the Air is *NOT* contested. Also needs noting that A-10 is in fact both surprisingly stealthy in flight as is because of how far back the engine intakes are but also the machine is a very nimble flier with great attack profiles not at all presented here. The Frogfoot flies straight at the enemy this is not true at all of the A-10 and why it needs new wings to fly. Because it is so slow relative to all the hyper jets out there the A-10 has incredible ability to manouver and behaves more like a helicopter with fixed wings which i can attest to seeing first hand in combat exercises back in the late 1990s.
A-10s also exist to support the movement of US armor or any other armor for that matter…much of what is currently in use absolutely obliterating Russian armor is more than match one on one.
But again the problem becomes one of Russian Artillery and huge Mortars. Provided the “drone space” and “stug buggy” keeps working for Ukraine the more dangerous an A-10 becomes as suddenly the environment it is operating in is *NOT* contested in the least.
As for a Super A-10 and a US Navy that can’t get out of it’s own way going on forever now first and foremost is the new Boeing Training Aircraft which is showcasing a revolutionary way of *PRODUCING* Aircraft and one that will have an immediate impact upon the Battle Space as what is in demand at the moment are for trained pilots for *EVERY* Allied Air Force.
A 60 Year old could still be considered combat worthy behind the stick of an A-10 but not so obviously a high performance F-16 or F-15 or hyper-complex F-35.
Indeed one is forced to wonder at the moment given how wholly incompetent the Russian Military is whether the TA-18 Trainer is not in fact too powerful an airframe at the moment give the ability to produce upwards of thousands if not more at a fraction of the cost of anything that anyone has in their arsenal at the moment.
The purpose of a Super A-10 therefore would be to operate in a potentially nuclear -ized Russian Civil War as it would be hardened against EMP attacks and other WMD type situations in confronting a Russia in wholesale collapse.
One big problem I see with the A-14 concept pics: the Marines can’t use it. The engine location would cause compressor stall when the aircraft’s attitude is set for a carrier landing. This is the same reason the Marines never procured the A-10, and for that matter, why the Navy and Marines never procured the F-117 Nighthawk.
The concept is a good one. A subsonic platform is going to be light years more economical than a supersonic platform. For a good discussion on this, read Bill Gunston’s “Attack Aircraft of the West”. especially the chapter on the A-7 Corsair II. (Unfortunately, the book is probably out of print by now, but it’s an excellent source for the state of the art on military aircraft procurement in the 1960s and 1970s.)
The “mature precision strike regime” is making guns of any type obsolete including the A-10’s GAU-8 30mm. Guided gun rounds like the Excalibur 155mm give some extended life to Howitzers, but why bother when the range is so limited. Rocket systems have at least 3 times the range (75km), and can deliver pin point accuracy. Drones armed with Hellfire missiles are the weapon of choice for most scenarios.
Rockets/missiles are expensive, comparatively speaking, even Excalibur rounds are cheap. There comes a point where you’re exquisitely arming yourself out of the ability to wage war. Good example is the USNs ZUMWALT class DDs. $800,000 per rocket for their rocket guns, thus turning the ships into unarmed white elephants.
Sometimes, you don’t need pinpoint accuracy, you need volume of fires…Russians and Ukrainians are firing thousands of artillery rounds every single day.
Drones large enough to carry Hellfires aren’t extremely survivable in contested airspace in almost every scenario. What are they, but large, slow, noisy, but (hopefully) recoverable cruise missiles?
Extending the A-10 as long as we did was a huge waste of money. We are spending far to much money keeping this old plane flying just because there are some people who are nostalgic for it.
Yes the A-10 was an awesome piece of weaponry decades ago & I am one of those people who love it but it’s not worth keeping around anymore.
It is far too expensive for what little it can do. It’s way to slow & we have other planes that can do the exact same thing but for a lot less & with a much higher survivability chance with today’s modern air defenses.
Yet, they’re still the most requested aircraft by war fighters, always among the first to deploy, can operate from austere fields with minimal support, and are the cheapest combat aircraft to operate. Look at the cost difference per flight hour. What we don’t have, is an appropriate hi/low mix of combat aircraft.
The “real” reason we keep extending the A-10 is because the USAF steadfastly refuses to procure/operate light attack turbo prop aircraft to take their place in the types of wars we’ve been fighting. Instead, we keep paying to keep the A-10 (begrudgingly) flying, while also flying the wings off of our first line combat aircraft, at huge expense, to shoot ragheads in pickup trucks. Complete with keeping CVN groups on station at millions per day, along with tanker support.
DoD could upgrade the retired F-117A with a titanium tub for the pilot and add a semi-stealthy newer gatling gun. These venerable jets are still flying, why not use them?
Strip the GAU8A gun and build a Boeing Wingman around it. Don’t bother with wasting the money with stealth. The point of the A-10 is CAS that’s survivable after taking hits. 1 round to a “stealthy” plane makes it way less stealthy, no more perfect surface anyway. Keep the idea of hardened CAS long loiter tank killer, lose the human and forget the stealth. Let the F-35 direct it without taking the risk.
They already built a nearly-ideal “Stealth A-10.” It was the F-16XL.
So, quick answer is no.
I’m not going to be holding my breath.
It seems disingenuous to suggest that the A-10 gun is ineffective against tanks. Sure, if you attack aiming directly at the front of the tank. you score few penetrations. Why would you?
Don’t forget that the A-10 is a maneuverable airplane, with much greater ability than a ground system to fly in from different angles (or above). To quote the same study:
“Many projectiles, which did not perforate armor, severely damaged exterior suspension components of the tanks. The pilots attacked two of the tanks directly from the front with negligible weapon effects… The pilots attacked five of the tanks from more favorable side
and rear aspects and achieved all of the perforations at those attack aspects.”
Where does the idea that the A-10 was designed to “fly into uncontested airspace” come from? Wasn’t the A-10 , both plane and tactics, designed to break the back of the Warsaw Pact armored formations coming across the plains of Germany? It would hardly be expected that such space would be uncontested.
Air defense systems & fighter planes have come a longgggggg way since then. Perhaps it goals have lasted longer then, but today the odds are not very likely & the exorbitant amount of money it costs to keep such a old play flying is not worth.
The 30 mm cannon would do fine against any Russian IFV, that’s a certainty based on what we’ve seen. And we’ve also seen plenty of visual evidence that Ukrainian IFVs are routinely engaging T-72s with 30 mm cannons, so I’m not sure the part about the avenger cannon is accurate.
The only thing that is going to “save the A-10” is to start firing every AF General / Colonel / Captain who proposes cutting it from the fleet!
All these analysis are starting from the wrong point.
The Ukrainians are not using drones to kill tanks (and other ACV) with missiles or guns.
They are using drones to WATCH tanks and ACV’s in order to kill them with 1) Artillery and 2) light infantry forces with ATGM’s
Before we decide we need a new/better/improved A-10, first look to see if we still need the mission the way we think we do.
I know the “brrrrrt” is comforting for grunts.
But let’s look at Ukraine.
If we were in the position of the Ukrainians, would we need A-10’s? NEED, not want.
Would our drones/artillery/infantry, combined with stand-off aircraft and precision munitions, not be able to stop Russian armor even better than the Ukrainians have?
OK, now imagine we are in Russia’s shoes, attacking against a force like Ukraine, or even a better one.
My point is, the lethality of man-portable systems has already changed the nature of mechanized warfare, faster than most are realizing.
The A-10 exists (primarily) for a target set that won’t exist anytime soon on a modern battlefield – massed enemy armor in a target area accessible by a non-stealth fixed-wing platform.
We might like using it on insurgents rather than getting close, and it might be cool to see that happen, but that doesn’t make it the right weapon.
If Ukraine had A-10’s (and trained pilots) they would no-doubt make a difference, but they would also likely pay a terrible price to do it.
That money is better spent on Javelins and NLAW’s and RAP 155mm ammo.
We should keep some A-10’s for those environments that are suitable, but don’t pretend this plane is appropriate for the modern peer-level battlefield.
Clearly the face of war is changing. That doesn’t mean something to replace the A-10 would not be very valuable in the battlefield. Man portable systems are very limited in weight – if you have a squad of infantry advancing on your position, something heavy might be wonderful. Stationary artillery are becoming vulnerable to anti-artillery fire. So, something like a mud Eagle sensor networked with forward drones could allow laying down really big anti-personnel ordinance from a distance.
It still irks me that we never built the F-16XL. It would have filled this bill, and many others, brilliantly at half the cost per hour to operate of the Strike Eagle; 1/3 the cost of the F-35. We have a whole new arsenal of stand-off smart weapons designed for every type of target. With 27 hardpoints, the XL could have come “dressed for every occasion.”
With the exception of drones, hasn’t changed that much. All the Russians have proved, is that combined arms works…and that sending tanks in unsupported against precision artillery with direct observation, and infantry armed with effective anti-tank weapons is idiocy. Which we’ve known since the very first time tanks were used in battle, lo these many years ago. The Russians have also proven, with hundreds of combat aircraft/helos lost, that sending ground support aircraft aircraft where you do not have air superiority, nor have suppressed air defenses, is a losing proposition. Which we’ve also known for years.
What has changed, is that A-10s were designed, and doctrine formulated, back when we were all squatting in the Fulda Gap waiting for the Russian horde to attack, and our life expectancy (to include A-10 pilots) was being measured in minutes. Today, we’re not quite so cavalier about casualties…that has changed.
“If we were in the position of the Ukrainians, would we need A-10’s? NEED, not want.”
If the Ukrainians had had a squadron of A-10’s ready to engage, they could have basically destroyed the supply lines and advanced troops. Send a couple in from the front to get their attention, and the rest from the rear. Just the sound of them coming is a morale buster.
In 1996, while driving across I-10 on the way to CA in a big rig, a couple of them flew over at about 50′ off the ground. The sound was deafening, and actually shook the truck. It was the first time I’d seen one “in the wild”, and to say the least I was awe struck. An amazing “warbird” if there ever was one. I can imagine the fear it would create in enemy troops knowing what was coming. God love those guys in their magnificent flying machines.
That 40 mile convoy would have beed scrap metal.
Do you see the Ukrainians or Russians either one doing much ground support from the air? Even small-ish drones are being shot down in large numbers, by both sides. Airspace over a modern battlefield without air superiority and suppression of air defense systems just isn’t very survivable. Russia, has SAM coverage over most of Ukraine from deep within Russian territory, let alone forward deployed/short ranged ADA or MANPADS. “If the Ukrainians had a squadron of A-10s ready to engage”…they’d be dead.
I haven’t seen a thoughtful analysis suggesting stealth will help survivability. A starting point would be something I’ve never seen — an analysis of A-10 losses due to ground fire, air-to-air missiles, etc. If they’re being lost, that’s news to me. I they aren’t being shot down, what’s the problem?
If they are being shot down, given their mission of low-level ground support missions, how will stealth help other than being a surprise when they first arrive. At low level, they’re vulnerable no matter how stealthy.
Sounds like yet another example of the love affair with stealth, requiring more $billions in lucrative contracts.
But also, all perceptions of A-10 survivability are based on it flying into areas where some Goat herders have some left-over Stingers from 1988, or the Iraqi’s with 20 year old soviet-era systems and pathetic training.
Flying into contested airspace over a Russian formation, or worse yet, a Chinese formation, would be an entirely different proposition.
And while pilot survival would be high, airframe survival would not. Most aircraft that made it back from a successful sortie would be far too damaged to fly again, many would be shot down (with pilot survival, and some without)
And the enemy would not make the mistake of clustering armor more than a few times.
The Ukrainians have shown that well trained, small, light infantry forces can kill just as many, if not more, armored vehicles than airpower, and are much harder to target in return
My father was a project manager for the design of the A-10 back in the 70s at Wright Patt AFB. I grew up with the dummy bullets and plastic models all around , and still have a plaque showing the design of the ammo hanging on my wall.
I can see where the GAU-8 are becoming obsolete and hope the plane still has a future. I was bequeathed an Air Force legacy of being born on a B-52 base and growing up an A-10 fan, and those are pretty good and durable aircraft to champion!
I’ll bet the Ukrainians could make good use of these planes right about now.