![]() ![]() A graduate of UCLA, he also holds a Master of Public Policy and lives in Berlin. More sophisticated anti-air defenses and a pair of concerted peer enemies may ultimately doom the flying tank-buster.Ĭaleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and defense writer with the National Interest. Air Force chopping block several times before, it seems unlikely that it will be able to survive the axe for much longer. Maintaining the platform pulls resources that the Air Force could instead put into other aerial platforms like the F-35 or the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, a sixth generation aircraft that the Air Force currently has in development.Īlthough the A-10 has managed to scoot off the U.S. Air Force justifies pushing the A-10 out of service because of its low survivability. The Army loves that fucking plane because it is an ugly piece of crap that unleashes he’ll like nothing else, and the men and women who fly them are unlike anyone else flying planes.However, in contested airspace-the kind of airspace the Air Force could expect to encounter in a peer conflict against China or Russia-the A-10 would struggle. The A10 gets shit on by the Air Force because it isn’t a sexy fast plane that costs a ton of money. It also has this sinister screaming sound to it that just sounds unlike any other plane (yes you can hear the difference in aircraft) There have been entire squads, ODAs, SEAL teams who have walked out of valleys in Afghanistan because the A10 does CAS better than any other plane the Air Force has. They will (and have) talk a non-JTAC qualifies guy who’s scared shitless and about to die through their entire checklist, and then proceed to conduct strikes until the situation is resolved or they physically have no mutnitions remaining. They have a mentality much closer to helicopter pilots and to the infantry than the other pilots (fast mover pilots, I still love you guys but it’s not the same), and are super chill. The A10 will loiter there till it’s time to fight and then get down and dirty with the boys. Other pilots will drop bombs from well above AAA and MANPAD threat. They train to get down in the weeds and fight with the gun from day 1. The plane was designed from concept to be the ultimate CAS platform, and was until the Specter was designed). Had a long talk with some A10 pilots, and that was actually a re-purposing of the plane. ![]() The A10 exists to do Close Air Support (common misconception is that it was designed as a tank buster. On top of all this, the pilots have a much different mentality than the other pilots. misinformation from people who’ve never watched the live gunsight/pod feed from an orbiting plane in their lives.) And they have the best optics pod out there (there has been a lot of misinformation about that out there btw. They’ll go hit the tanker and come back till their wings are empty, and the amount of ordnance they carry exceeds just about everything aside from an F15. It’s massively versatile for what the army NEEDS done (sorry Air Force, you are a supporting effort TO the ground fight).Īdditionally the A10 is much more down in the fight than an F16, which might get you a couple bombs before they tag out or run out of gas. You also have to consider that the A10 can drop anything other planes can drop, drop more of it, and still have rounds in the gun to stay in the fight. When it comes to employing those weapons though, you have to consider minimum safe distances for those particular pieces of ordnance, which greatly exceed that of the gun. Not only does it have a gun, but it also carries the bombs and missiles you mention. The a-10 is the best protection out there aside from a Specter. That’s about the best way I could describe it. With an F-15 overhead I felt protected and felt like I had overwatch, but with an A-10 I felt like I had someone in the fight with me. They want to get down and dirty, and that attitude as opposed to the “fighter jockeys” or whatever you want to call them is just different. There is just a different mentality among A-10 pilots. “Ok I got you now.” The next pass he absolutely demolished the enemy position with 30mm. The pilot literally said “ah fuck it, give me a sec” over the radio and came in about 250 feet off the ground and banked right over us to where I could just about see the look on the pilot’s face. I had a bright orange VS-17 panel on my back. One of the times we had A-10 support and there was a pilot that was having a hard time identifying our position. It takes some work to identify friendlies vs enemies. My personal experience: The other planes I’ve been supported by like F-15’s, F/A-18’s, even B-1’s tend to orbit at 5000-10000 feet and identify targets on their FLIR to drop bombs on, which isn’t always super effective. ![]()
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