A10's to be sold on?

[melmothtw]

pr00ne,

There's more to an aircraft's gun than just its calibre. Your comparing the A-10's to "other 30 and 25/27mm cannon equipped aircraft" shows you don't understand that.

It's boneheaded comments like those that have fed the USAF's myth that the A-10 can be replaced by the F-35 in the CAS role.

obsolete slow non radar equipped heaps that the only Air Force that ever bought them has been desperately trying to junk for years

Thankfully, more informed heads than your own have prevailed every time they have tried.

[Danny42C]

Pr00ne,

Point taken, but sometimes slow is an asset and all that titanium cockpit armour sounds nice to me !

Eyeball works as well as radar when hunting moored rust-buckets along a shoreline in broad daylight (the dog must see the rabbit). And we should be able to get the A-10s at a good price (perhaps Uncle Sam might even donate them to such a Good Cause).

Stiil, just an idle thought !....D


Brian W May,

How did you guess my political affiliation ?.......D.

[pr00ne]

uffington sb,

Really? I think I'd want something that could get to me before I was dead and when it did arrive was all weather capable and could maybe just survive in a non permissive air environment.
Quite WHO delivered the PGM wouldn't really bother me, manually aimed 30mm cannon fire being sprayed about certainly would!


melmothw,

Well, those misinformed boneheads are the two- winged Generals that run the USAF!

Danny42C,
And not a bad idle thought at that! Though slow can be done by the likes of Apache, and the armoured cockpit is not to be sneezed at!

[barit1]

Congress needs to mandate the A-10 be transferred to a force dedicated to protecting the infantry. If the USAF won't do it, then USMC, or else the Army itself. USAF brass has always hated supporting ground troops, going right back to the DHC Buffalo debacle in the 60s.

Incidentally, the flavor of this goes right back to early 1940s. The early P-51s were built on "soft" tooling, slow and inefficient. USAAF wanted to upgrade NAA's tooling but had no budget for it. Congress found money in the "marching Army" budget, but couldn't spend it on a fighter. Thus NAA drew a couple more lines on the plans, called it an A-36 ground attack plane, and won a contract for 500. Of course, that funded the new tooling set, making mass production of the P-51 possible.

[barnstormer1968]

Proone
If we get past your comment on what you think you would like to arrive (indicating you haven't been in that position yet) and that it differs massively than those who call for CAS on a daily basis and who are the customer here, what aircraft do you think has a chance of surviving in a non permissive air environment?

Even 20 years ago stealth aircraft were brought down with relatively cheap systems and anything at low level is fair game for dumb bullets.

As a starter, Apache is out of the frame as it's slower than the A10. RAF harriers are out as they were sold. tornado isn't much use as its 27mm gun is no match for the A10s Gatling gun against things like compound walls. F15 doesn't have the accuracy of the A10 for close strafing.

The A10 can operate both day and night, much like many other aircraft, but can't see through cloud just like the other assets available. Radar is no help in deciding if a chap is about to fire an AK or is a friendly local carrying a shovel.

[typerated]

" F15 doesn't have the accuracy of the A10 for close strafing."


I have seen many A-10's miss with the gun and lots of F-15E's hit.

[melmothtw]

I have seen many A-10's miss with the gun and lots of F-15E's hit.

F-15 gun is optimised for air-to-air (shells fired with an upwards trajectory), meaning it has to take a nose-down attitude when firing at close ranges - not ideal when flying at high speed and low level.

Everything about the A-10 is optimised for air-to-ground - no compromises.

[typerated]

Yes I knew that about the F-15/A-10 guns.


But that does not guarantee accuracy on the day for the A-10!


For none armoured targets I imagine there is little to chose in the effectiveness of a strafe pass from either machine

[melmothtw]

I take what you're saying typerated, but the point is that with a magazine of 1,700 rounds (compared to 500 rounds for the F-15E and just 250 for the F-35A) the A-10 won't have to declare itself to be 'Winchester' after only one or two strafing runs.

I'm not a soldier myself, but I'd imagine it is the A-10's ability to loiter long over the battlefield, as much as anything else, that makes it such an effective and popular CAS platform.

As I said earlier, the calibre of the gun is only part of the story.

[rh200]

Everything about the A-10 is optimised for air-to-ground - no compromises.

And thats the point, the powers to be have decided that the compromises are worth it. Another words their battle strategy is such, they are prepared to suuffer the consequences for percieved other advantages.

[melmothtw]

Of course, just because it was built with no compromises doesn't mean it can't fulfil other mission sets

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/a-1...e-a2299445b2a4

"Single-purpose? Single-mission? My ass."

I don't think anyone believes (probably not even the USAF top brass themselves) that the A-10 is being axed for any reason other than for financial savings. It has nothing to do with 'battle strategy' or 'perceived advantages' of other platforms.

[megan]

The early P-51s were built on "soft" tooling, slow and inefficient. USAAF wanted to upgrade NAA's tooling but had no budget for it. Congress found money in the "marching Army" budget, but couldn't spend it on a fighter. Thus NAA drew a couple more lines on the plans, called it an A-36 ground attack plane, and won a contract for 500. Of course, that funded the new tooling set, making mass production of the P-51 possible

The NAA held orders from the British for 770 aircraft (620 paid for by the Brits plus 150 to be supplied under lend lease) prior to the USAAF placing any orders. The Pursuit Board held meetings between 11 and 30 October 1941 and produced a document "Future Development of Pursuit Aircraft" which examined 18 experimental and 8 production aircraft - the Mustang was not among them.

With the reputation of the Stuka in the background, the USAAF planned on using the Vengeance in the dive bombing role. On 4 February 1942, Col. K. B. Wolfe, Chief of the Production Engineering Section wrote, "We will not have a useful dive bomber before March 1943". He recommended cancelling the Vengeance and obtain "a suitable dive bomber, low altitude attack fighter in its place".

NAA was approached and work began on the project 16 April 1942 and testing of the A-36 began 30 May. The USAAF issued contract AC-27396 on 21 August for 500 A-36.

NAA used "soft" tooling throughout, as it enabled them to make rapid modifications, and was a feature of all NAA production at the time. The Harvard NAA built had 2,500 modifications over 25 variants of the first 1,000 aircraft for example.

[barit1]

Having worked extensively in configuration control, I can only express great pity for the maintainers of early Mustangs. One would be lucky to find two identical airplanes, and spare parts must be a nightmare.

[Danny42C]

Giant Warthog.

megan,

Your: "With the reputation of the Stuka in the background, the USAAF planned on using the Vengeance in the dive bombing role. On 4 February 1942, Col. K. B. Wolfe, Chief of the Production Engineering Section wrote, "We will not have a useful dive bomber before March 1943". He recommended cancelling the Vengeance and obtain "a suitable dive bomber, low altitude attack fighter in its place".

This interests me greatly, for Col (soon to be Brigadier) Wolfe's letter (and much else from him) is quoted at length from p.40 onward in Peter C. Smith's 1986 "Vengeance" (which is the nearest thing to a Vultee Vengeance "bible" I've found).

As one of the very few people left who flew VVs operationally, I know a little about their capabilities. Col Wolfe may no doubt have been an excellent production man, but he is confusing two entirely different tactical requirements here.

A dive bomber needs a long dive, as near vertical as possible, to give the accuracy which you buy it for in the first place. It is not - and cannot be - "a low altitude attack fighter". If they wanted a dive bomber, they had one already - the Douglas SBD "Dauntless", which had destroyed all the four Jap big fleet carriers at Midway in two days in June '42 (the first three in 20 mins). The US Army got some, called it the A-24, but did not do much with them AFAIK.

We got the VVs in India/Burma (basically as no one else wanted them). Any ground attacking (which is what Col Wolfe seems to mean by "low altitude attack fighter") was done by (first) the "Hurricane" IIC and "Beaufighter" (4x20mm each), and later the Thunderbolt (6x0.50) and Mosquito (4x20mm), plus 250 and 500-pounders to taste. The A-10 would have been useful, too.

The VV was of limited value in the first Arakan campaign, as the advancing Japs were mobile, widely spaced out, and you could only find them "static" in Akyab. But in the second ('43/'44 "Dry Season"), the 14th Army were pushing them back; the Jap reverted to his standard tactic: dig in deep in a strong point carefully chosen to hinder our advance, and fight to the death (the US Marines knew this all to well, as they had to reduce these redoubts on the Pacific islands by frontal attack, and that was expensive).

Our VVs came into their own. Flying always in "box-of-six", the Army would mark for us, with mortar smoke bomb, such a place which was troubling them. In 30 seconds we would unload on it 12x500 and 12x250s (a total of some 4 tons) of HE, which would go deep into the moist jungle soil and simply excavate the entire site and everything in it.

Up around Imphal/Kohima it was not so simple, as in the ferocious close combat in the last battles, we dare not go for troops as they were so closely intermingled, but helped by destroying roads and bridges which the Jap needed to get up his supplies.

Hope this is of interest.

Danny42C.

[Robert Cooper]

One of the reasons the A-10 was and is so successful, is that it was designed with the help of the greatest ground attack pilot in history: Hans Ulrich Rudel, famed as the "Stuka Pilot". The most decorated German serviceman of the second world war, he was credited with destroying no less than 519 Soviet tanks, a Russian battleship, and they just plain lost count of the gun emplacements, vehicles, barges, and various whatnot that he blew up in 2530 operational sorties.

Rudel was engaged as a special consultant by Fairchild/Republic when the A-10 was being designed in 1972 against the expected Soviet offensive through Germany. And who knew more about stopping Russian tanks than Rudel? His wartime memoirs were required reading for the design team.

Funny how it always comes back to basics.

Bob C

[megan]

Hope this is of interest

Your posts are always of the very greatest of interest Danny.

A dive bomber needs a long dive, as near vertical as possible, to give the accuracy which you buy it for in the first place. It is not - and cannot be - "a low altitude attack fighter"

I think the Colonel had in mind, what in modern day speak would be called, a "multi role" aircraft. The A-36 did in fact perform in all three roles - bomber escort, dive bombing and ground attack. It also had some 100 "kills".

The US Army got some, called it the A-24, but did not do much with them AFAIK

They considered them too slow, lacking defensive armament, and unable to operate without fighter escort, so looked at the Vengeance instead. Did you ever come across either of the A-36 squadrons in India Danny?

Having worked extensively in configuration control, I can only express great pity for the maintainers of early Mustangs. One would be lucky to find two identical airplanes, and spare parts must be a nightmare.

NAA Chief Engineer Lee Atwood had the following to say about production, “Dutch had put a lot of effort and talent into increasing the efficiency of airplane production. Even at high wartime rates of production, parts were made in batches, and it was most unusual to have a machine tool dedicated to making one part, or even to one operation. Many tools, especially for sheet metal parts, were ‘soft’ tooling-using Masonite, plywood, or low-temperature casting materials, rather than tool steel, and were much cheaper if not as durable. However, for the purpose, they were adequate and were made much more quickly and were adaptable to the inevitable changes that came along. Dutch made many contributions to the cutting, forming, and stretch—fitting techniques, but his greatest improvement came from rationalization of assembly and installation processes.

“It was common practice to finish the structural elements, wing, fuselage, etc., and then begin installation of equipment-electrical, hydraulic, armament, instruments, and other items—in the nearly completed structure. In large airplanes, with plenty of access room, this worked reasonably well with few bottlenecks, but in smaller planes, such as fighters and trainers, the final assembly stage was crowded, hectic, and inefficient. Starting with the T-6 series, Dutch required that fuselage and wing structures remain open in sort of half-shell condition until all wiring, tubing, and permanent equipment installations were made and that they be inspected and tested before joining into complete structures. This naturally required that the engineering design provide for this construction process—so it became part of house practice in all models."

This somewhat revolutionary view of production would go a long way toward speeding production of the first Mustangs. In comparison, the Supermarine Spitfire was a very complex fighter to build, and was not really suited for the style of mass—production techniques envisioned by Henry Ford——the creator of the concept. In some ways, the Mustang went together was like a very large model airplane kit, making the type ideally suited for construction in very large numbers.

Dutch Kindelberger put the matter into more perspective when during late 1942 he wrote, “At no time prior to the late 1930s did the quantity of planes in a single contract justify even moderately high tooling costs. Even when the first orders exceeding 500 planes were placed by the British and French in 1939, and by our own government under the National Defense program in 1940, tooling costs had to be held down, simply because it proved necessary to make changes in design to meet changing needs. When NAA passed the 1,000 mark on Harvard trainers for the British and Empire air forces in March 1941, it did not mean that we had produced 1,000 identical planes. Actually, there were 2,500 change drawings made after the first Harvard was produced, and among those 1,000 trainers there were actually more than 25 different models, each varying from the others in some major or minor detail of construction. Yet, NAA shattered every then—existing production record in providing these 1,000 Harvard trainers, emphasizing the fact that we were geared to handle changes without disrupting production. The reason, of course, was flexible tooling.

“When the American aircraft industry was finally given the green light for all—out aircraft production, there was much cost for freezing designs. Then, if ever, existed an opportunity for real production tooling in the aircraft industry. Enthusiasm was high for an air war in which America could utilize its mass production techniques. Many ardent, if misinformed, prophets counted the days until the war would be won.

“Fortunately for the nation’s ultimate welfare, the high commands of our Army and Navy were not stampeded by the popular cry for mass production of frozen designs. Instead, through their respective procurement groups, the Army and Navy called upon the aircraft industry to increase production as rapidly as possible without disrupting the tooling flexibility, which is today paying dividends on the fighting fronts.

“If you have 50,000 parts to make, you can spend $45,000 (90 percent) on tooling, $4,500 (9 percent) on labor, and $500 (1 percent) on material waste and come up with a cost per part of only $1. However, reduce the quantity of parts to 500, and your cost per part becomes $100. Under this condition, it is wise to spend $100 (20 percent) on tooling, $395 (79 percent) on labor, and $5 (1 percent) on material waste. Efficiency suffers, but the cost is down to normal, and tooling and production time are reduced to only a fraction of the time required to build a $45,000 tool and knock out 500 parts.

“In wartime, this formula becomes more complicated. Among the additional factors which must be considered are: Allowable production time in the light of war needs, tooling time, production time, space required by tool, skill required with tool, and adaptability of tool to wartime allocation and flow of materials.

“Even assuming that 10,000 planes of a frozen design could be built, it would be of little wartime utility to be engaged in tooling for the duration. The war is being fought today and can be won or lost with the equipment we shipped to the fighting fronts yesterday. Ask any military leader to choose between 100 combat airplanes in the air today and 10,000 combat planes corroding on the ground when the war is over!"

The Mustang was produced in 11 main variants, with 29 sub types. The B-5-NA sub variant introduced some 67 changes for example.

[barnstormer1968]

Typerated
With ref to post #26
If you were in an armoured vehicle or hiding behind a compound wall which aircraft would you prefer to have safe you, an F15 or an A10?

Bearing in mind one of the above uses depleted uranium rounds I'd also suggest that even if an A10 strafed you and missed you would still be better leaving the area. I know the use of DU is a double edged sword but the 30mm DU round will come inside the compound and kill you whereas the rounds from the F15 will just make a mess of the walls.
It's been a wake up call for NATO that mud walls are proof against 30mm rounds from things like the main armament on AFVs but some 30mm rounds are more equal than others

I'm clearly not saying the F15 isn't a good CAS platform, but the chaps on the ground know what they prefer to help them out.

I'm sure the USAF top brass will kill the A10 sooner or later using the 'one mission' argument. The fact there are other single mission aircraft on the books never seems to get a mention though

[Tinman74]

Slow response speed, need to be on station to be effective, don't get me wrong the sound of that 30mm is reassuring but give me a tonka, F18 or mirage any day.

[typerated]

BS I don't disagree.
I'd retire some other platforms before the A-10
I just didn't understand the comment on gun accuracy (not effectiveness)

[melmothtw]

Slow response speed, need to be on station to be effective,

You could just as easily say that about attack helicopters, or light attack aircraft such as the Scorpion or AT-6 (both of which the USAF is touting as possible future replacements for the A-10).