Warbirds Thread

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Marduk

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Knowledgeispower said:
honestly I can see why the USAF wants to axe the A-10 given the fearsome losses seen in the SU-25 in the last couple wars said bird was involved in. that and the damm thing has been out of production for so long spares or any serious upgrades will be hard. also the fact that they very very much are not designed for use in the pacific and really against peer threats. great for wacking insurgents but we're not really doing that nearly as much anymore.

loath as I am to admit this though
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That was what i thought always. The point being that whacking some insurgent or third world military is not really outside of the realm of possibility as far as USAF is concerned. May not be done now, but who knows what will be the next failed state with local islamists attempting to take over in 3 years.
Meanwhile, even though both sides took major Su-25 losses, they still didn't lose all of them and keep using them after a year of fighting opponents with some of higher end air defense in the world.
 
Knowledgeispower

Knowledgeispower

Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Marduk said:
That was what i thought always. The point being that whacking some insurgent or third world military is not really outside of the realm of possibility as far as USAF is concerned. May not be done now, but who knows what will be the next failed state with local islamists attempting to take over in 3 years.
Meanwhile, even though both sides took major Su-25 losses, they still didn't lose all of them and keep using them after a year of fighting opponents with some of higher end air defense in the world.
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True but even so you can only fly a bird for so long and the A-10s haven’t been given the near ship of thesus level of care the B-52 has and it been out of production for a good long while to boot as previously mentioned
 
Aaron Fox

Aaron Fox

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ShadowArxxy said:
To be fair, even in its heyday the A-10 was expected to take heavy casualties whenever employed.
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Which is a no-go in the environment after the 1960s (when everyone and their brother were mounting radar sets to aircraft that could handle them). The thing with aircraft now is that they require a lot of training, specifically electronics, instead of avionics. In addition, the old adage in GURPS/Traveller rings true in real life: steel is cheap, but silicon is expensive (and no, it's not for the production of the electronics either, debugging is a major expense with electronics... they're useless if they can't talk to each other correctly).
ShadowArxxy said:
Oh, if y'all want to keep arguing about this silly thing, here's an actual one to look at....



🎶 What is it good for, absolutely nothing!🎶
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I mean, the Johnny Quest (original series) flying platforms were pretty loud things, too, though they're far more fantastical even for the time.

Every time they were on screen, they had this very loud high-pitched hum like jet turbines powered them. A neat little nod to the RL experiments.
 
S

ShadowArxxy

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Comrade
Aaron Fox said:
Which is a no-go in the environment after the 1960s (when everyone and their brother were mounting radar sets to aircraft that could handle them). The thing with aircraft now is that they require a lot of training, specifically electronics, instead of avionics. In addition, the old adage in GURPS/Traveller rings true in real life: steel is cheap, but silicon is expensive (and no, it's not for the production of the electronics either, debugging is a major expense with electronics... they're useless if they can't talk to each other correctly).
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To be fair, the A-10 proved incredibly effective during the Gulf War, and didn't take heavy casualties despite considerable enemy AA. And the A-10C updates do give it a fair share of up-to-date electronics.
 
Aaron Fox

Aaron Fox

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ShadowArxxy said:
To be fair, the A-10 proved incredibly effective during the Gulf War, and didn't take heavy casualties despite considerable enemy AA. And the A-10C updates do give it a fair share of up-to-date electronics.
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No, it wasn't. It was considered ineffective during Gulf 1 and 2; the F-111 (the 'vark) was better than the A-10 in that role. It has the most Blue-on-Blue incidents of any US aircraft, even with the 'cheat' that the USAF did with only tracking after the worst incidents happened.

You heard that right; the USAF cheated to keep the A-10 and the US Army at their feet... and it still made the A-10 look horrible.


You may not like Lazerpig, but the guy spits out facts. He even cites his sources (check the video description).

Sparky and his gang pulled the engineering equivalent of stolen honor with the A-10...
 
LordSunhawk

LordSunhawk

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Lazerpig is generally an idiot, and so are you in this case. The A-10 was considered exceptionally effective, so much so that the Fighter Mafia panicked and tried to suppress all reports about it in their eternal quest to kill it off.

Frankly, you've had the data about the A-10 thrown at you so many times in this very thread that I will not bother repeating myself yet again in the face of your invincible ignorance.
 
Zachowon

Zachowon

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Lazerpig is generally knowledgeable on things
I disagree with his take on the A10 as well as NCDs.
The A10 works with how the role it was supposed to play is.
A SHILKA isn't gonna do enough damage before it gets destroyed by the A10.
What makes the A10 good is in a CAS roll where you can fly up abide the trees, launch your bombs, and go below.
With Air Dominance by fighters they basically run uncontested and even then AD systems have to be careful ad ELINT is the target.
So A10 is viable
 
Blasterbot

Blasterbot

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A10 is made to do a role and is good for it. if people want to replace it they need to either make the role obsolete or build a better plane. If they are capable of that I am sure the military is very interested in buying the idea off them.
 
paulobrito

paulobrito

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Remember that the Shilka - aka ZSU-23x4 is 23mm. Modern SPAAGs are 30 to 35mm (and even 40mm and even bigger). They do a lot more damage.
Even, while the A10 survived encounters with the venerable Shilka, they get a lot of damage.
 
Zachowon

Zachowon

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paulobrito said:
Remember that the Shilka - aka ZSU-23x4 is 23mm. Modern SPAAGs are 30 to 35mm (and even 40mm and even bigger). They do a lot more damage.
Even, while the A10 survived encounters with the venerable Shilka, they get a lot of damage.
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And Modern SPAAGs are still nit the best.
Just look at how many in Ukraine used by Russians have been destroyed or things that should have been destroyed by said SPAAGs
 
M

Marduk

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If modern AA is where it needs to be working properly, CAS planes die, period, we are at this tech level now. Whether it's A-10, Su-25, Scorpion, L-39, increasingly even attack helicopters too. But that's an if. But in situations where that *if* isn't met, A-10 can still work fine while carrying a huge payload, and the modern versions can revert to over the horizon fighting with guided missiles and JDAM tossing like Ukranians are doing now, though pretty much any tac jet can do that.
 
Zachowon

Zachowon

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Marduk said:
If modern AA is where it needs to be working properly, CAS planes die, period, we are at this tech level now. Whether it's A-10, Su-25, Scorpion, L-39, increasingly even attack helicopters too. But that's an if. But in situations where that *if* isn't met, A-10 can still work fine while carrying a huge payload, and the modern versions can revert to over the horizon fighting with guided missiles and JDAM tossing like Ukranians are doing now, though pretty much any tac jet can do that.
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The US also has Jammers and more we can use
 
M

Marduk

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Doomsought said:
The A-10 replies "There is a hill over there and look at my turn radius"

Low altitude flight is an entirely different beast than high altitude flight because terrain matters.
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That implies the terrain is exactly where you need it to be and doesn't have a dude with a tube on it. For how terrain works both ways vs CAS aircraft, see the story of Frogfoots and Hinds vs Stingers in Afghanistan.
 
Aaron Fox

Aaron Fox

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Marduk said:
Jammers don't help against the low level AA with IR and electro-optical homing.
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Or the eventual refinement and proliferation of Q-Radar systems, which laugh at pesky jamming that isn't "lol, no one gets to use any radar".
Doomsought said:
The A-10 replies "There is a hill over there and look at my turn radius"

Low altitude flight is an entirely different beast than high altitude flight because terrain matters.
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[gets shot down because the AD battery's radar picked up the A-10 well enough away, the battery commander gets the MANPAD team into position, and then the MANPAD team is literally sitting on that hill, waiting for the pilot to show up]

Face it; high and fast is the only way CAS can be done. You can't go low because you'll get ripped to pieces, you'll need serious altitude to stay away from MANPADS and high-maneuverability SAMs, and you'll need the altitude to maximize your chances against high-range SAMs.

Hell, helicopter doctrine is now going from the original doctrines to "hide behind something radar opaque, hope to whomever I worship a MANPAD team isn't around, and fling indirect fire missiles at whatever someone else sees".
LordSunhawk said:
Lazerpig is generally an idiot, and so are you in this case. The A-10 was considered exceptionally effective, so much so that the Fighter Mafia panicked and tried to suppress all reports about it in their eternal quest to kill it off.

Frankly, you've had the data about the A-10 thrown at you so many times in this very thread that I will not bother repeating myself yet again in the face of your invincible ignorance.
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He's surprisingly on point, surprisingly enough... although I disagree with his 'you've got to be drunk to understand the A-10' bit, though I can see why he says that. He actually goes and gets the data.
 
M

Marduk

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Aaron Fox said:
Face it; high and fast is the only way CAS can be done. You can't go low because you'll get ripped to pieces, you'll need serious altitude to stay away from MANPADS and high-maneuverability SAMs, and you'll need the altitude to maximize your chances against high-range SAMs.
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At this point it's not CAS, it's just exactly the same fire support that something like HIMARS would do except with better kinetics and rapid delivery if not in range already.
Aaron Fox said:
Hell, helicopter doctrine is now going from the original doctrines to "hide behind something radar opaque, hope to whomever I worship a MANPAD team isn't around, and fling indirect fire missiles at whatever someone else sees".
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As above.
 
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