USMCFLYR

True - the book states that they STARTED down there - but after a few of those losses you mention - they were eventually moved up. I remember the book specifically talking about incorporating the Mavericks too - and the challenges of targeting through a soda straw. I read that book I mentioned back in '95 and it was quite good. I would recommend it. A few of the guy's that I went to college with were mentioned in the book - which made it even more interesting!

USMCFLYR

Hacker15e

Definitely not true. The A-X competition was a 100% USAF affair designed to replace the Skyraider.

At the same time, however is when the Army and USAF were going through the "roles and missions" fight at the Pentagon level. As was mentioned, the AF was staking the claim that any and all fixed-wing aircraft that contributed kinetic fires to the battlefield would be exclusively owned and operated by the USAF.

So, the statement from your CO seems to be a blending of the two -separate- things that were occurring at the time.

There was never any danger of the A-X becoming an Army owned and operated aircraft if the roles-and-missions argument had gone another way. It was a pure USAF program.

There was a minor push, post Desert Storm during the last USAF drawdown, to make the A-10 an Army aircraft. Don't know how serious that ever got, but I remember the Army ROTC unit making a presentation to a bunch of AF ROTC cadets at the time to entice us to "cross over" into the Army for a 'guaranteed' seat in an Army-run Hog.

UAL T38 Phlyer

In 1989/early 90, rumors started floating at my base in Europe that the F-4G and Hog were going to be scrapped. Either the Air Force or General Dynamics painted an F-16 (at Hill AFB) green camoflauge and started calling it an "A-16." Congress asked "What's the difference between an F-16 and an A-16?" Air Force: "The A-16 is optimized for CAS." "How?" "It has green paint."

(A similar thing happened post-war: Congress limited the total number of A-10s authorized for combat-coded squadrons, so the Air Force "hid" some by calling them "OA-10s." "What's the difference between an A-10 and OA-10?" "The OA-10 is optimized for Forward Air Control." "How?" "The letter O.")

I am 99.999% certain F-16s did not drop LGBs during Desert Storm..only F-15Es, F-111s, and F-117s did that.

The result of the war extended the life of the F-4G by 6 years, kept the Hog from being turned into bacon, kept the EF-111 for another 10 years, and forced the Air Force to mod B-52Hs for conventional bomb-dropping (the war was flown with B-52Gs, which were subsequently scrapped, and my understanding is the Hs had no/limited conventional bomb capability until 1992/3).

And Vipers eventually got Sniper and/or LANTRN.

atpcliff

Hi!

I also heard that the Army was VERY close to getting the whole A-10 program...which makes tonnes of sense!

I think they should do away with the Air Force, and give their missions to the Army/Navy/Marines/Coast Guard.

cliff
LFW

Grumble

Absolutely not. As much as it pains me to admit it, the USN can't compete with the strategic air defense role that the F-15's and Raptors play. Trying to "carrierize" the platform would incur sever performance capabilities. Their ability take and maintain air superiority in theaters like Bosnia, the GW, and OIF could not have been maintained by the Navy, at least not for the same cost. There are F-15's out there still ripping around at 9G's that are 10-15 years older than the oldest F-18 still pranging into the ship. Carrier ops cost a lot in terms of service life to an air frame. It just couldn't be done without EXTREME cost. We'd be going through jets and nuke carriers like candy.

Forward deployed areas like Asia and Europe would cost trillions more, and the Navy is not in the business of moving inland and maintaining a forward presence in a place like Germany.

The only real argument is in a place like Afghanistan. It costs exponentially more to maintain and run the F-15E's that are forward deployed there, than it is to maintain a few boats south of Pakistan. Purely based on the logistics and cost of getting fuel, bombs and bullets in there, whereas the carrier can supply at sea from supply ships that sail from places in the Persian Gulf. However their on-call cability to deck launch and respond immediatley offsets the cost because the Navy is required to stay airborn. Our fastest response time from the ship would be at best an hour and a half.

rickair7777

Realistically, I agree up to a point.

I don't think we need three services doing FW CAS and strike...

Give the strike-fighter mission to the usmc (and the army if they want to go there). That would be most Hornets and JSF's, except the navy gets to keep enough pointy nose to do fleet defense. The navy/usmc is all NATOPS anyway, so pretty interchangeable.

The navy keeps blue water stuff and the growlers (just because they already operate the type).

The usaf keeps ICBM's and bombers...it will be up to them to figure out how to design one which is relevant going forward. They also keep strategic tankers and airlift.

All theater airlift goes to the services who require it (the army can either get into the C-130 bidness or let the usaf do it for them).

They can keep special operations as long as SOCOM is OK with that...tampa more or less owns it anyway.

The usaf keeps cyber and space...and any new dimensions they can think up and justify. I would let them have all DoD SATCOM, but that's too important to drop the ball on.

They also get air superiority, but they will have to sell that one.

The usaf has always had an identity crisis...there is no justification for them to own something just because it flies, especially if it is critical to another service's inherent mission. The only justification for the af is to do something which armies and navies did not know how to do in 1945...strategic air.

Tac-air applied in large scale can have a strategic aspect...the AF could be the lead for coordinating massive joint strategic air campaigns in the beginning of a conflict. Once that effect is achieved, the strike fighters revert to doing CAS for their parent services.

Deuce130

Fixed for you.

Grumble

Whose going to provide the entertainment at sea? Sheep bite you know.

1Seat 1Engine

F-16's were not blanket restricted to above 10000MSL during WW Iraq I. I dropped many a weapon below that altitude. As the war progressed, it appeared that release altitudes got lower and lower. We did get some wing-level guidance on altitudes and strafing in particular, but it wasn't black and white.

In fact, towards the end of the war, as the ground war was commencing, ALL Altitude limits were expressly removed by Centaf, in case wing leadership was trying to be more restrictive. I clearly remember reading the guidance: flight leads were responsible for the tactical conduct of their flights. Imagine that!

Earlier in the war, A-10's were not just restricticted in altitude but were also geographically limited from some of the heavier defended areas in northern Kuwait and SE Iraq. I even think that they were restricted from strafing for a while.

To my knowledge, F-16's did not drop a single LGB during the first gulf war. All Lantirn TGP's were given to the F-15E's.

From the lower altitudes that F-16's employed from we were quite accurate. I've personally seen several bridges dropped by dumb Mk84's. I saw a moving APC shacked with a Mk84 once, one of the better bombs I ever saw.

Some F-16 units did employ Maverick. I think this was mostly the Hill squadrons.

AZFlyer

Question from a civvie: How is it decided what aircraft type will employ which weapon when there are multiple aircraft types capable of deploying it?

I find it interesting that only the Strike Eagles (or whoever else) would utilize a particular bomb, but not F-16's.

Also, forgive me if I misread some of the posts, but is this to say that the F-16 is lacking some sort of defensive capability the other types have?