Declining Guard Fighter units…
 

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/ai...hter-shortage/

If they keep more fighters in the guard/RC they might actually be able to find guys to fly them, for a change of pace from airline monotony and the beer-money pension.

Exactly, there’s 0 shortage of fighter pilots who would fly for ANG or Reserves. 0, barring an outlandish base location (even then…).

It’s definitely an iron problem. F-15EX to Portland is great, but it’s a 1 for 1 swap with old fighter jets. Probably worse than 1 for 1 due to C’s being retired faster than EX purchased and delivered. Indiana is getting Vipers, but tapping out A-10s. Fighter units were converted to MQ units during GWOT, and the A-10 and F-15C are going away.

A-10 retiring a while ago probably would have helped save a lot of cash for more F-35s and EX, but that would have meant emotional damage to people who like BRRRRRT sound. Amazing aircraft, huge expense to future readiness.

can’t go back in time to solve this. A lot of people said this would happen.

You are an idiot if you think retiring the A-10 would have bought more "readiness". Even dumber if you think it would have saved "cash" to buy other aircraft. My brain hurts.

Resources are resources. The USAF has been trying to retire A-10s for years, with the stated purpose of using those resources (money included) elsewhere.
Resources that could include allocations for new purchases or upgrading other 4th Gen fighters, missiles, etc.

an article from a source self-admittedly biased towards the A-10:
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-...ers-reduction/

the USAF was blocked from retiring A-10s that it wanted to in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2021, and 2022
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-a-10-warthog-retirement/
“With its efforts to retire the A-10 fleet stymied by Congress, the Air Force has invested $880 million to keep the aircraft flying into the next decade.”

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, dean of The Mitchell Institute, praised lawmakers for allowing the Air Force to finally divest some A-10s, which will allow the service to train more maintainers for the F-35 and other newer aircraft.

“The fact of the matter is that the A-10 has been a magnificent airplane in the over 50 years that it’s been around,” Deptula told Task & Purpose on Monday. “But, when you look at the decline in the force structure of the Air Force and the demands of our National Security Strategy to increasing threats that are opposed against the United States, we need to move on beyond the old capabilities that have been useful in permissive airspace but will not be very useful in contested airspace.”

I’m wondering what makes me an idiot? I’m pretty sure that this has been the USAF’s argument for a decade or more.

You are an idiot if you believe those resources would ne used for their stated purpose. Not sure how long you have served, but don't fall for the shell game. It's sad, but a reality.

Let's try to share info without insulting one another.

For quite awhile the USAF has bought in to the force-multiplier philosophy - in part due to high personnel costs. Whether that will really work as a general case has yet to really be proven and may be entirely dependent on the situation at issue (See Kipling, Rudyard, Arithmetic on the Frontier) But there is no question the high end stuff is expensive. An F-35 HELMET costs $400k and a lot of personnel time tweaking it.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/ins...met-facts.html

Is it worth it - relative to cheaper but a larger quantity of less capable systems? I don't know, and like I said, very likely situation dependent. Does it eventually get to the point that things are too expensive and too few to risk in combat at all? Probably. Extremes on both ends of the spectrum tend to be less cost effective.

Honest question PickleRick (great episode btw), Per current USAF thought, what fills the CAS realm with the A-10 retirement?
No snark or illintent meant, just curious what the USAF thought process is WRT the CAS mission.

I'm not saying Picklerick IS an idiot. Im saying that only an idiot would believe GO talking points. Pick any category you want.

CAS isn't in the future plan....until it becomes forced in the next real world conflict.

The idea of the big wigs is that the USAF doesn’t really do CAS in future conflicts. Whether or not that’s correct is up for debate, especially since recent conflicts have a funny way of including a lot of CAS.

However, plenty of aircraft do CAS other than the A-10. F-35, F-16, F-15E, MQ-9, even B-1s. Nothing as good as the A-10 in most cases. IF CAS is required, my guess is that the USAF relies on those assets and others.

But as stated above, CAS is a low priority mission set when it comes to planning for future conflicts.

I really appriecate the response.

The USAF doesn't prioritize CAS as much as USA/USMC would like. IMO this is one of those niches where the Army probably should have been allowed to retain FW combat aircraft, but the USAF is jealous of their hard-earned union scope. They don't want to do it, but they don't want to let anyone else encroach either. Dog in the manger frankly. This is a gap in one of our joint seams.

Yes the USMC could operate A-10's, and that appeared to have almost happened the first time the USAF tried to get rid of them. Didn't happen to due to budget and also the land-based aspect IIRC. A-10's could have been designed for carrier ops with minimal tweaks, but they weren't and that's not something you can fix later.

From the perspective of a former groundpounder and FAC, who *really* relied on CAS nothing in the inventory can fully replace the A-10, and USAF is just fine with that.

The reality is that the A-10 is probably on borrowed time, and budgets don't allow for a modern, clean-sheet "A" only replacement. The letter "F" pretty subsumes the "A" in this day and age. We'll just have to live with that most likely.

Especially since the obvious peer conflict of this century is a naval and air-intensive fight on and over the high seas. Putin couldn't make it past the Dnepr, much less anywhere near the Rhine.

Which makes the decline of the defense industrial base supporting the Navy, the decline of Navy surface fleet sustainability, and the disastrous engineering and tech maturity mistakes accepted by Congress for Navy procurement all that much more important. The only thing more alarming than the Navy's recent procurement debacles (Zumwalt Class DDGs (a "class of only three ships because they became too damn expensive to buy? The whole LCS debacle, the HUGE maintenance backlog affecting even those ships that actually can get to sea) https://news.usni.org/2024/05/07/gao...diness-concern )

and given the small number of Navy ships and the fact their commanders are supposed to be the best and brightest, we certainly seem to be relieving a lot of them for some reason:

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy...relieved-2023/

That was post-cold war fallout. A generation of leaders had to do *something* to re-engineer the structure and operating philosophy of the Navy, and that was a bit outside of their wheel-house (pun intended). There was uncertainty as to who the opposition was, GWOT was a distraction, it was unclear what direction PRC would head, and RU seemed downright friendly friendly for a while (until vlad needed external bogeymen for all the usual reasons).

Zumwalt was like the F-22 and SSN-21... cold war super-weapons which were no longer affordable. But in all three cases the technology developed was rolled into less costly versions which could be procured in quantity. Well the surface navy is still hashing that out but I think they'll get there now that the priority opponent and the mission are crystal clear.

In addition to the usual organic DOD dysfunction, you also have to allow for the injection of massive pork into the process.


It's always been that way (as long as I've been paying attention which is about four decades), and always surprised me that they relieve so many. My gut feel is that it's such a long and hard (and nerve-wracking) road to command at sea that some CO's are bit warped in their outlook by the time they get there. I knew one such, although he was warped all along and just managed to hide it long enough to get command (which lasted exactly four months). I've also know many great CO's... recall the Navy has many hundreds of command-at-sea jobs and even more ashore.

Also there's always been a consistent base-line of reliefs for operational reasons, which almost always amounts to hitting something with the ship. That's just the nature of naval warfare, and they try to encourage CO's to avoid such expensive evolutions by relieving those who do as a matter of course.

The recent uptick seems to be on the personal behavior front... DUI, affairs, being mean to the new generation of sensitive JO's, verbal harrassment, etc. That's why I think the issue is more of an emotional/personality one.

Oh well, at least the system seems to catch them on the back end so that's good.

The USAF’s primary concern in future, near-peer conflict (ie the worst case scenario short of a nuke exchange) is winning the Counterair fight. Counterland missions like CAS and Interdiction don’t happen unless you can gain and maintain some semblance of air superiority (at least locally and temporarily). I’m not saying that CAS isn’t an important mission or that the USAF shouldn’t invest in it, but it doesn’t mean much if you can’t dominate your primary reason for existing (fly, fight, and win the air domain anywhere on the planet).

The Hawg is an amazing jet and the absolute best at what it does. Its downfall is that it’s a one-trick pony. The same can be said about the Eagle and the Raptor honestly, both of which have had to adapt over time to fill more niche’s. Sad to see the A-10 go, but it’s time. I’d personally like to see the Army field a new, modern attack helicopter to replace the Apache before the Air Force thinks about investing in a new, dedicated CAS platform again. My two cents 🍻

Interesting points but the Army once again turned off the spigot when they Cnxl'd the FARA. Interesting times indeed.
There needs to be a new 'Howze Board', imho.

USAF of course has their parochial interests. But they're also doctrinally responsible for providing the joint enterprise with support from the air domain, and CAS is one of those. Fair to say they've been striving for a Gentlemen's C- on that.

But counterair will reasonably be more important than CAS in the obvious PRC scenarios. Unless things go horribly wrong and really drag out...

Well, they are rebuilding the North Airfield at Tinian. Guam and Tinian are a lot more unsinkable than a CVN. And Tinian is experienced at launching nuclear strikes if it comes to that, albeit it's been 80 years.

How much cheaper is a Block 70 Viper or Super Hornet compared to a 15EX or F35?

Yeah 5th gen are the bees knees, but quantity has its own quality...especially if involved in a CAS mission.

I don't see Fat Amy doing anything for troops in contact other than dropping JDAMs from above 10k.

Runways can still be bombed/missiled. Islands are a lot less stealthy and manueverable compared to a CVN. And the Marianas are long way from the fight. Tradeoffs.

Very true, but I'm reasonably sure if you did a statistical analysis of islands versus carriers sunk in WWII the islands would win. And rapid runway repair teams can do a pretty good job of getting it back operational quickly. And while the Navy FINALLY has a drydocks capable of holding a Ford class CVN the East Coast is a heck of a long ways from the Western Pacific.


I'll give you that one, but they are certainly less fragile and generally have a lot longer runways. Torpedos seldom do noticeable damage certainly.




Which is why we gave Boeing that contract for the KC-46 way back in 2011. DOD procurement, impossible to adequately revile.

Block 70 Vipers and Super Hornets come in at ~$65M each, while an EX and a Panther are about the same ~$85-90M each. I think your comments above are right on… we need quality and quantity, with a healthy mix of both 4th and 5th Gen to cover the full spectrum of warfare. The F-35 does a lot of things very well, and couldn’t agree more that CAS (at least low threat, COIN style CAS) isn’t one of them. I hope we buy a bunch of Block 70’s and EX’s personably… basically 5th Gen bells and whistles in 4th Gen body.

Yeah the best solution is probably a carefully balanced mix of several available options. The trick is getting the balance right (math).

Battle of Kasham had zero A-10's. Air dominance allowed B-1's, B-52's, C-130 gunships, etc, to provide CAS.

The last 30 years of conflict the U.S. has operated in a air superiority to air dominance arena. A near peer conflict will be nothing like that.

Ukraine war has showed the exploding value of drone warfare.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khasham

one needs to keep SOME lower end stuff around if only for intercepting drones. Taking out a $15k - $20k drone lumbering along at 110 knots with pretty much any missile in the inventory is a seriously money losing proposition. Can an F-35 shoot them down? Sure. I think they finally have the gun on it working.

https://www.twz.com/air/f-35as-belea...ally-effective

Of course, you only have about three seconds worth of ammo so it probably won't take many drones out of a swarm unless you have a lot of wingmen.

A whole squadron of Super Tucanos with a couple of dedicated radar controllers to vector them in woukd be a whole lot cheaper and likely just as effective.