If you believe Close Air Support is better served by the A-10 than other platforms, contact your Senator and Congressman. Ask them to support S.1764 and HR.3657.

They actually have a significant number of signatories to it; about 20. More is better. This will go before Congress in the next month. Congress will debate and want to know why retiring the A-10 is the best path forward.

The Air Force plan is to replace the A-10 units with Block 40 F-16s. A good airplane, but not as good for danger-close CAS as the A-10.

I have knowledge of a firefight last year (Afghanistan) from two of my former T-38 students. They saved an entire convoy, and killed 18 combatants, in a danger-close scenario.

How close? Hand-grenade range. They expended 2200 rounds of 30mm, and three Mk-82s.

Two F-16s and a Predator were orbiting overhead. They were unable to expend, as the 20mm in the F-16 has too wide a dispersal pattern, and the Pred could not employ Hellfires for the same reason.

Every American in the convoy lived. Not so for the bad guys.

If you believe that Close Air Support will not be necessary in future conflicts, then carry on. If you believe a viable CAS alternative should be tested and fielded before the A-10 is retired, I urge you to write your elected officials.

 

Only way to save the Hawg is to fire the AF and DoD leadership.

 

If the DoD has their way the only place you'll be seeing A-10 is firefighting air tankers.

 

PBS has a video with transcript on the A-10 cut. Here is a direct quote from a very recent USAF Chief of Staff:

GEN. NORTON SCHWARTZ: "The dilemma is, what else in the Air Force do we stop doing in order to keep the A-10? So what child care center do we not keep open? What base do we compromise security?"

I guess he considers child care a (the?) prime mission of the USAF, and that it trumps, well, actually having an air force.

Maybe his quote would fit better under "Tool of the Day".

How the A-10 Warthog became 'the most survivable plane ever built' | Updates | PBS NewsHour | PBS

transcript here: Budget cuts could ground unstoppable A-10 Warthog aircraft

 

Major TOTD material there. It survived even me and I jumped out of one after a mid-air.

GF

 

If it was legal, I am sure the Army would find a way to find room in its budget for the A-10. The A-10 is like the C-130 & B-52, old but have not outlived their usefulness. You can not build a better CAS platform than the A-10, although it could use some stronger engines. When the A-10 goes, it will not be replaced by a more capable asset.

 

Wasn't the LAARS (light attack armed recon) supposed to be a direct replacement for the A-10? (Pardon if I am missing something). I can see why if F-16 is a poor replacement for the A-10 but I thought they had some other ideas in mind.

 

From my understanding the LAAR was never going to be a replacement for the Hog. Yes, the do have a replacement in mind, the F-35...

 

The A-10 will be grouped with the likes of the SR-71 and the RB-57. After they have "parked" them in the desert, they will come to the realization, once again, that the supposed replacement for said aircraft will not cut the mustard.

 

It is legal. The Army may not be able to acquire the A-10, but they can certainly fund the AF's sustainment of them. They won't, though, they have their own priorities. From my recent experience, the majority of them (outside of the JTACs, etc) consider FW CAS a nice-to-have anyway, perhaps because they don't like to count on what their own service can't provide. There are other entities that could provide funding as well, again it's a matter of priorities.

Regardless, the reality is that the decision-makers don't look at the tactical level, and they apparently feel that the incremental loss of capability by replacing the A-10 with the F-16 (while retaining CAS as a mission set) is worth the price to save some other mission set, initiative, etc. The vignette about the TIC mentioned above would get zero traction, the assumption is that the mission set or capability that would be sacrificed to save the A-10 would have an equivalent vignette. It was depressing when I realized how little tactical implications have on strategic decisions, but it is what it is.

I'm not saying I agree, I'm just laying out the cold facts of what anyone who has served on a staff already knows..