A-10 Warthog: Retire or Upgrade the BRRRT? - Future of A-10C Thunderbolt II 

Surf under the radar horizon by getting *NordVPN's 2Y plan + 4 months free here* nordvpn.com/mahistory *It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee!* Correction: 16:31 - obviously B-52 not -25

"No aircraft can stay in service forever." - B-52, C-130, CH-47: "We can"t hear you!"

The new Brrrrrrt is the dreaded Buzzzzzz of the drone.

No aircraft can remain in service indefinitely. B-52 has entered the chat.

Reasoning by analogy. The A-10 is the modern Ju 87, which was also a deadly accurate weapon when used in an unchallenged air space. When used against the RAF it was wrecked in large numbers.

How will we keep the British on their toes without the A-10 "support" in the toolbox?

My understanding of the A-10 is that it's the most advanced specialist close attack plane... And was designed right as the concept was made obsolete by viable precision munitions, the sensors that aim those, and attack helicopters that can do everything the A-10 can do and stay in place to do more. Just as the greatest battleships were designed at the same time air-launched torpedoes and even rockets became capable of easily sinking them.

Circa 1981, while working in the US, I went to a county fair where the Air National Guard was showing off a Warthog. I could not believe I had never seen one. The info-plaque suggested that the A-10 was already being replaced by „better“ aircraft. Back home (Germany) while walking through the forest, one of these flew over me, made a tight turn and almost seemed to hover. I wondered if the „Ami’s“ had reinvented the Zeppelin. I was badly overweight at the time (I‘m 35 kg lighter now), but apparently did not look like a tank, so it just daintily flew over me and disappeared. I was shocked a few years back when I learned they were still in use. I guess ancient beings can still be useful. I hope so.

The A-10 is the Iowa class battleship of the Air Force: Big gun, armor, great PR with congress and the general public, and far too vulnerable to modern weapons to survive in anything like a peer fight.

It's not the F-35 that makes the A-10 redundant, but the AH-64. The Apache is cheaper to operate in the CAS role and we can still build new airframes as needed. It's been four decades since a new A-10 airframe was built.

16:31 B-25 with MLADs and tomahawks. I want to see that.

16:30 Good to see the good old piston engine bombers still being useful in modern electronic warfare! ;)

I think that FPV drones are taking over the cost-effective CAS role that the A-10 once occupied. However, it's difficult to put into perspective for regular folks the psychological effect of The Great Brrrrrt in actual combat. I'd love to see a fixed wing FPV carrying a 20mm Vulcan or 25mm Equalizer filling a similar role at a fraction of the cost.

Another excellent video, Chris! I can’t wait for the next one. Jim

It’s cool to see you’ve visited the New England Air Museum. It’s my local air museum and they have a very nice collection.

The best transition to an ad read in the game. Bravo.

Great video, Chris...👍

Hi Chris. I have been watching your vids for few years now.... I never addresed you and thanked you for the content you are creating. Well thank you, you are very much appreciated.

Thanks for the video! I think you're right that people talking about the A-10 aren't usually thinking about CBA, and I think your idea on expanding the roles of the A-10 is a good idea for how to keep the airframe viable until its retirement

both british and canadian forces in afghanistan requested that the A-10 be removed due to friendly fire deaths and injuries because the plane cant see what it is shooting at

Man, I'm 45 min from Windsor Locks. Went to that museum the better part of 30 years ago. Looks like I might need to pay it a visit.

Check out the “whiskey” compass @7:24. The vibration from the gun firing completely aerates the liquid in the compass turning it a milky white color for a few seconds…..kind of crazy 😮

A-10s for anti-shipping is an...interesting idea. Naval air defences are far more concentrated and extensive than land based air defences. Unless the A-10 can sling a ton of LRASMs, that's a pretty good way of getting them killed.

I think they should have upgraded the A-7. Cheap and effective.

SMA (so many acronyms)! Great video though. There used to be A10s down the road from me at Bentwaters (Suffolk, UK), fantastic aircraft.

The problem with the A10 is the same as with Battleships in my opinion. Sure do thick armor improve survivability. But on the modern battlefield do armor thickness correlate very badly with survivability. A battleship can easily be destroyed by torpedos and anti-ship missiles. Just like a A-10 or a SU-25 can easily be destroyed by manpads or other missiles. Those types of weapons are dinosaurs that do not belong on a modern battlefield, where survivability is more decided by stealth and speed. And if losses must be accepted, then it is better to sacrifice drones. Armor also comes with disadvantages such as slower speed, lower payload (because the armor use up much of the weight), the plane becomes heavier, having two engines means more ground maintainance. Having armor also drives up the production costs. This plane was built for the Vietnam war where the communists used much small calibre anti-aircraft guns. But todays battlefield is field with manpads instead. And modern armies do also have much more deadlier things than that. So this plane is outdated. A modern air strategists would rather wish to trade away all that armor for stealth instead. Just like modern warships rather rely on stealth than armor, and big guns is not that useful in an age of anti-ship missiles. A critique would of course say that dumb bombs still make up the majority of bombs dropped in a modern war. And that it true. However I still think that stealth is preferable to armor. And A-10 is still useful on a modern battlefield with its many hardpoints and ability to stay up in the air for hours and waiting for a moment when the troops on the ground desperatly need air support. However, while A-10 is still a good plane to that I am sure that Ukraine would happily take every single one of if USA offered all their hundreds of planes away to them... so am I also confident that many other planes are more useful overall as an attack aircraft. Like Gripen. Rafale with its enormous bombload and semi-stealth body could probably also make an at atleast as good job. Both Gripen and Rafale are good at many jobs. But A-10 is just a one trick pony.

You had me at “BRrrrrrrt”.

It could have been given to Ukraine two years ago to fight it's last war.

My, admittedly unpopular, view is that if you're looking at repurposing A10 to another role that there's not really anything at it can do that another plane can't. Take away the big cannon and you have a subsonic ground-support airframe that can carry missiles and bombs but is expensive to maintain and is vulnerable to groundfire. I can swap you for a turboprop that can carry missiles and bombs, is subsonic and vulnerable to groundfire but is very, very cheap and can operate from unprepared strips. It's unpopular because a single or twin-engined turboprop isn't cool. But I would argue that, sans BRRRRR, the profile is very similar.

Along with Task & Purpose's A-10 episode, one of the better pro/con presentations I have seen out there. Thanks for condensing to core arguments without, as you repeatedly state, resorting to merely sentiment. There were some specific future roles for the Hawg I had not heard of before, like the MALD package. I also appreciate your constant emphasis for how the Hawg must fit "organically" into the threats the USAF has to anticipate and therefore prepare for, all within its own budgetary constraints. That said, and at the risk of dipping into the sentiment you rightly warn about, I cannot from my own fairly extensive COIN experience over the last two decades, not emphasize the game-changing nature of a battle when an A-10 pops up and is in fact employed. It really IS the decisive factor between friend and foe alike. One role I have not heard you mention is the continuing, basically indefinite role of dominance that the '10 employs in a COIN or similarly permissive environment. I'm old enough to remember how unprepared the US was for a true COIN fight in the 90s (and, really, any conflict since the end of Vietnam). That is, whenever we get to the end of a COIN fight, we always, always say, "Well, that was nasty, brutish and short. Hey, let's re-focus on near-peer! That's the kind of fight we really like, anyway!" And thus we lose what COIN expertise and focus we had built up and are thus more stupid and vulnerable for the next, shall I say, inevitable, COIN or COIN-like fight. As far as I can tell, the US Army has recognized this issue (of losing COIN expertise within its non-SF elements) and has stood up the Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) as a result. Kudos to them. What I am saying here is that I think the USAF should consider a similar retention capability as well. If history be any guide, COIN *will* happen again, it will happen unpredictably, and we darn well better retain the world's best CAS infrastructure (infrastructure--as you mentioned, not just the '10 itself, but the entire community of JTACs on up)...or we will be sorry. Very sorry. As the old saying, goes, how many people have to die until (fill in the blank)? I'm not arguing for indefinite deployment of the '10. As you said, all airframes are time-limited. But I am arguing for continued, yes, continued and specialized CAS capability. Every time we think we can just safely bomb or missile from a distance, we get it wrong, and we end up needing close-up, close-in, loitering, low-altitude CAS. Finally, you did not mention, although, smart guy as you are, how this even got to be an Air Force thing to begin with, and that has certainly framed the debate: the National Security Act of 1947, which among things split the Air Force away from the Army. My point is, in the Cold War, the Air Force found much success (meaning, funding) focusing on its strategic bomber and missile role. Its tactical forces found similar funding success in air superiority roles, with the F-15 being truly the best example. (One can argue about the benefits of the '22 and '35 platforms, but that is another debate.) But, if we want to excise sentiment here, has not CAS been the mission that the Air Force really didn't want, and therefore neglects? When I run into airmen, I usually end up saying something like, "Any time you want to drop the '10, we'll gladly take it off your hands?" (Though, due to 1947, we can't...legally...for now.) And of coure I'm referring to the entire CAS ecosystem. So here is what I am saying in this last paragraph in a nutshell: If the AF dropped the '10, how many airmen would die as a result? How many Air Force officers would appear before Congress to answer questions about bodybags filled on their watch? Drop mic.

The sound of that cannon and the humming of those engines is the sounds of freedom coming for ya. Airborne.

Another interesting video as always Chris, thank you 👍 My 2 cents on the A-10 is this: I don't have any particularly strong feelings about the A-10 and in the near term I'm sure there'd be a place for it in a near-peer conflict if/when the air superiority and SEAD ops are broadly successful so it would "only" face manpads and light AAA. But in the long term it's a dead plane flying, so at what point does the US cut its losses and invest in something(s) else? (that's a rhetorical question btw). Two things that I wish this vid had addressed are: 1) The A-10 airframes are wearing out, they racked up a lot of flight hours in the past 20 years, and refurbishing the airframes is expensive and subject to diminishing returns. At some point the USAF would be better off spending that money elsewhere. 2) Is the GAU-8 of much practical use outside of a very niche set of circumstances? It's a big and heavy weapon, but it can't kill modern MBTs yet is overkill for a lot other targets (e.g. buildings, soft skin vehicles etc.). Just my opinion but it seems to me that anything that can't be killed by a 20 or 25mm cannon is worth the expense of a guided munition. It seems to me that the US would be better off spending the money on something new to replace the A-10, and they'll have do do something about it at some point so they might as well get started rather than waiting until it's either too late and/or even more expensive. Reading other comments I see a lot of people mention the AC-130 and gunship helicopters but for all their pros they also have plenty of cons as well, so I feel there's a need for something to fill the A-10's role whether that be CAS in a near-peer conflict or a war-on-terror type COIN. I'm unsure though if such a replacement should be powered by turbofans or turboprops (there're pros and cons to both) but I believe it shouldn't be any bigger than the A-10 but certainly larger than the OV-10 and have rough field capability... oh and ditch the Avenger for a simpler and much less bulky 20/25mm internal cannon 😉. Edit: Here's a wild-card/'what if' idea for a replacement: if they were willing to drop the austere environment capability, the Airforce, Navy and Marines (plus foreign buyers) band together to buy new build A-7s as a relatively cheap CAS platform.

I would love to see you cover CRAF and similar operations one day.

MANPADS you need the S (Man-Portable Air-Defence Systems). A small thing but it counts

Chris, when you were in the USA, did you get to the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio? It's worth a visit on its own. Four huge buildings with aircraft and spacecraft from the Wright Brothers to today. They also have a large number of model aircraft on site. Love your show and it's information on each aircraft or system which you cover. Thanks.

WOW, that is A LOT of commercials!

Ayyyyy Footage of the Black Snakes out of Fort Wayne in the Indiana National Guard

3:23 says it all. As a former USAF CCT, there’s never been a support platform that ground units I was embedded with would prefer over the A-10.

If only the A-10 have NordVPN installed, they wouldn't get shot in the first place. Classic Department of Defense budget cuts.

I think it's a huge mistake to take the A-10 being "good at CAS" at face value.

I empathize with the suggestion for a look at aircraft designers. Personally, I enjoy reading about the evolution of an aircraft's design, as various problems are discovered and fixed. I spent 12 years in aviation and saw various fixes being implemented. When I look at aircraft on display, the various little strakes or vortex generators that hint at some problem that needed to be fixed. There are stories waiting to be told, but perhaps not here.

That plant in the background loves you

Honestly the obvious approach to me seems to be that the A-10 should be replaced by a new/newer more modern design that does what the A-10 was designed to better with a better idea of what that role entails in the first place informed by the short comings of the A-10

Enjoyed. Keeping in mind that situations are constantly in flux and the Warthog is not as useful as it was and might have been. That being said, I saw my first A-10 during REFORGER 1977, then as an AF Maintence officer, the 510th Buzzards. I love the complex simplicity of the A-10, yet like me, now long in the tooth.

I’d love to see a Mitchel with MALDs 😂

When were you in New England? I’m not that far from the air museum

I'd like to see the 30mm either replaced with a radar, integrated jammer, IRST & maybe a smaller gun like GAU-22/A. I would note it can use a jammer pod right now. I think a combo of the roles you discussed do justify the A-10 as one example it can carry as many MALDs as a B-52. A-10 has a lot of stations so it's able to carry a lot of ornance like 16 SDBs. For ASW it could carry 10+ HAAWCs along with sonobuoys.

The tanker variant of the A-6 Intruder, the KA-6D, came into being in the early 1970s to replace the KA-3B variant of the A-3 Skywarrior. It served for an awful long time. Serving for several decades is hardly an indication of "a final step from being cut from the block". The A-6 wasn't retired until 1997.

It seems like that if you can use an A-10 without placing it in an area where it's going to be in a significant amount of danger then you probably don't need it since you're already done a lot of damage to the enemie's ability to fight. If you do operate it in an area where the enemy hasn't been reduced much it can be very useful but you're going to lose some of them. A gigantic plus though is the fact that we've already got them (I'm a stupid American if you didn't already guess that), we've already got trained pilots for them and we're worked out any bugs that it may possessed. We know exactly what they can and can't do and how to effectively deploy them.

we're not gonna miss A-10 for its CAS role, we're gonna miss it for it's CSAR support role

They just announced A-10D (D is mine) upgrade package not so long ago. With EWAR and AI things.

my grandpa used to fly one of these and he'd tell me so many stories about them. he also has a good number of medals that i always thought were pretty cool looking. he told me one story on the day he took out 5 tanks single handidly through heavy aa fire while his superiors were telling him to go back to base, he said he just couldn't leave those ground forces without cover. i think overall he had over 100 vehicles kills, many cas missions, and 3 air to air kills. i thank him for his service everyday

I've never flown a plane of any variety, but I do love the A-10.

I agree that the A-10 is vulnerable in a 1st line role with an active air to air missile threat, however, the A-10, B-52,F15, F-16 etc. are just a tool in a tool kit basically. you pick the one you need for the job at hand. not every job at hand is a 1st world, or peer to peer conflict in an active war zone. IMHO the capability of the A-10 for many other missions than the primary one it may have been designed for is extensive. you did a good job pointing some of them out. there are many more if creativity is used. the F-14 Tomcat is another example. we will be sorry to get rid of it. and how much will that cost to develop and produce a replacement for the A-10. and I don't consider drones a replacement for many reasons.

The B-25 Mitchell can carry MALDs?

If you remove (or just downsize) the gun that space could go to more fuel and sensors

I can see the A-10 being useful as part of a SEAD/DEAD hunter killer team. As they are able to fly along very low since they're designed to be slow and low CAS aircraft, they could hug the ground with dedicated SEAD or EW aircraft above acting as bait essentially to pinpoint S300/S400 sites. Some stealthy folks above watching for threats. The A-10s then could either lob munitions onto the radar directed by the eyeballs, or wait for the HARMs to hit the radars and take out the remaining system components. This is fairly high risk to MANPADS and plain old AAA, war is war and war is risky so why not? Wouldn't want to risk any expensive fancy new fast movers down that low to stay under the horizon after all.

Clear, succinct overview of the issues facing the potential continued deployment of the A-10. As you noted in your last video, the A-10 possesses a set of capabilities that can be very effective for CAS missions, but it is dependent on the environment in which it is operating. Even when you made that video, its continued survival and effectiveness were in question in a peer based conflict. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, I think we are all questioning (or should be) the continued effectiveness of this platform in its traditional CAS role, especially in the an environment with high deployment of MANPADS. I agree that the path toward continued deployment of this platform would be to identify additional missions that would contribute to the strategic mission within a theater (e.g., drone deployment, ECM, maritime, etc.), but I believe in most cases the sun is setting on the active operating life of the A-10, and the time is past due to consider what combination of platforms and tactics can best replace it in the CAS mission, and focus on producing/maintaining more capable platforms. I would like to note that there is one important capability you did not examine in depth which I would argue is important to its and to supporting deployed ground forces, which is its loitering time. This is NOT an issue of sentiment; for any current or former infantry, the knowledge that there is always someone nearby to provide rapid response support to enemy offensive activities is an enormous morale booster. You cannot over-exaggerate the importance of this capability. It appears that the offensive capability of the A-10 can be matched by other platforms--but how will the loiter time be addressed? Anyway, another thought-provoking video. Thanks for all your great content over the past six months in particular; you've really come a long way since you first created this channel, and I'm very pleased to be one of your supporters!

At 16:30, "the same number as a B-25...". I knew the B-25 was a good plane. 😃

Chris, You omitted the Hawg's FAC role.Myself, I believe the Super Tucano is better in the FAC role, but what do I know?

Chris: No aircraft cen remain in service indefinitely. B-52: Oh you, sweet summer child.

"No aircraft can be kept in service indefinitely". B-52 says, "Hold my beer..." Steve

Very good "Germanic" emotionless assesment. My best friend was German and emotionaly he was a wimp. Great flyer, motorcycle racer, welder, academic, polylinguist, and support for friends' grief. Yeah very "Germanic". Great line Chris. Cool looking plane, but who wants to ride the deck for every operation. Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.

Drones should have both lower cost and higher precision.

The "middle ground" is quite literally looking at the price vs capability gap. Which simply means the A-10 is a relic and has no place in any modern air force. I don't even care about all the hoopla whether it was good or bad. Because no matter what was the answer 40 years ago, right now the answer is "it's bad and super expensive".

2:10 I have never seen the Big Stick shooting from the point of view of the pilot (for obvious reasons, I might add xD) and, as much as that is *exactly* what it would make sense for it to look like, for some odd, unusual reason it's not what I was expecting...

That the A-10 is still flying even after 1991 remains a great mysterie to me.

The A-10 doesn't make much sense in a near peer conflict, fortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be, the US has been in a lot of not-peer conflicts in the last 20 years. Against a foe on foot with turbans and RPG's, the A-10 can be very effective at dealing with small arms conflicts, where you can throw in unlimited power in the air, to protect your boots on the ground.

I love the A-10, but your analysis is convincing that it’s difficult to justify keeping it.

The issue is that in full scale conventional warfare platforms are going to get destroyed and people are going to die, and in large numbers. Combined with munitions shortfalls which will see an eventual reliance on unguided Mk.8x munitions, the value of an aircraft that is more survivable when getting into the close fight will become apparent. Add to that the sheer volume of hard points and range, particularly when in reference to the Indo-Pacific, the platform is going to prove far more valuable than many think. CAS and BAI are not going to be just zooming around at 20,000ft casually dropping JDAMs or LGBs, even with F-35s. As always love your work!

I loved the nord vpn ad! Gave me a good chuckle

Rather phasing them out, they would make an interesting drone carrier system if converted (Reapers with a big gun :))

Imo it should become a drone mothership. it could use drones to extend its Tpod or munitions wile being close enough to also interact with the field and gather better visual and ewar data than a remote located drone pilot.

Hmmm Maritime strike and patrol. Haven't heard that one before but it does make sense and if they could integrate a semi automated sonobuoy package plus torpedo's onto the aircraft it could do anti-sub. Easier said than done but still a thought.

I feel like the best they can do when it comes to peer to peer combat, is give standoff weapons

0:35 “this bird has inched closer to that chopping block with each passing year” Congratulations that is how the linear passage of time works.

I am sceptical of the A-10 having a place in today's warzones. It's a dedicated close air support that's costly to operate, and looking at videos from Ukraine it seems like loitering munitions and drones fill that role today. Flying in enemy territory at slow speed risking a pilot's life is a risk you can eliminate with unmanned drones.

When was the last time one was used in combat?

In my sincere opinion, the best option the GDI has against stubborn NOD ground targets 🤘

Giving them to US and NATO Coast Guards sounds good. Good loiter time, good setup for attacking boats. Excellent for warning shots across the bow BRRRRT!! Particularly for countries that have an F-35 to escort them if enemy fighters show up or feed them targeting information. In particular I think an A-10 could escort Coast Guard helicopters in areas with known armed cartel activity, etc. An F-16 or F-35 doesn't quite have the same ability to hang around a helicopter search and rescue mission looking menacing.

A lot of people focus on the plane. What the plane itself is good or bad at. While that is certainly important I would argue the bigger factor is training. The A-10 is dedicated to a specialized set of missions, which means it has pilots and ground crew trained for those kinds of missions. This was touched upon in the video but I think it deserves a lot of attention. One of the push backs you get when talking about retiring the A-10 is where the pilots and their training goes. The answer for years has been the F35. Even if you think the F35 can do everything the A-10 can, the problem a lot of people see is that once the USAF puts those A-10 crew in F35s they will suddenly be training for multirole mission sets. This would inevitably lower proficiency in both CAS and CSAR(which was not mentioned in the video) roles which are currently the main mission sets for the A-10, because they would be putting SEAD ops, air to air interception tactics, etc in their training schedules. Great if you think the entire force should simply be a multitool in your toolbox, but I think you can make a case that it is still valuable to have specialized tools in that toolbox regardless if it looks like an A-10 or not.

I'm surprised you didn't bring up the idea of keeping it around for the next counter insurgency conflict, since as seen many times the militaries of the world shift focus completely and then are presented with an old problem that due to new focus they are no longer prepared for. Maybe unmanned is the solution there, but it would be good to have more insight on this topic.

One aspect possibly missed by the analysis of the warthog in it's counterinsurgency/"punching down" role it had in the likes of desert storm is the fact that the multi-role fighter systems at the time were at times much less capable / had a lot less of the precision strike systems that the most modern multi-role jets do today. Rather than focus only on the Warthog's capability and niche, it's important to look at the surrounding capabilities that have been greatly enhanced since the late 90's and early 2000's in multi-role strike fighters. Funnily, another plane which was funded by the likes of SOCOM to the tune of 3 Billion USD is the OA-1K Sky Warden, which is a propeller driven aircraft intended to fulfill the COIN role that is potentially being left out by the A-10 honestly i think it was pretty redundant to procure a new fleet of crop dusting planes to drop bombs on terrorists when the same could be done with a long range UAV or an upgraded version of the A-10, but what do i know i guess

I love the A-10...I worked avionics on the A-10....USAF VET IN QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA

As an M1A1 tank commander during a Reforger in the late 1980s, I had an A10 rollover and come in to attack my tank. Definitely a sinking feeling. I'll never for get it. Cheap UAV/UAS seem to be dominating in Ukraine.

Haven't they just recently put new wings on them?

This seems like an aircraft that gets replaced by... you might have guessed it, a Gripen style aircraft. Something thats good at flying from marginal airstrips while keeping modern lessons in strike aircraft and missions.

I've got an idea for an A-10 replacement, that isn't the F-35 or F-16, is a new craft that has a gun, a 57mm auto cannon that could be used in the style of an artillery piece. Alongside a large number of ordnance, it'll be subsonic, but could produce a sonic boom in a dive to launch at the ground, like what the F-16 has done.

Something to be considered is the manufacturer lobbying groups influence on politicians where jobs are at stake in their districts.

Now I get it. The A10 can, is, replaced by new missiles and other manpad and ground launched ordnance !

That thing will be around longer than the B52.....

We just updated the wings to keep bad idea

I wonder if the A-10 could be converted for uses in civilian applications. In California we've adapted OV-10 for use in directing forces against wildfires, and there's been proposals to adapt the A-10 to be a firebomber. I'm curious whether there's any validity to this concept or it's just pie-in-the-sky thinking?

Hopefully its future doesn't involve any British armored vehicle's....

How about we put a freezer and a loudspeaker on it and make it an ice cream truck.

ive been to the new england air museum

Former Infantry Platoon Sergeant here. I love the A10. If it were up to me, A10 pilots would be eligible for the Combat Infantryman’s Badge lol

Replace ? with WHAT 🤷‍♂️

Ask the friends and families if they want to keep it in the air.

As drones will be the best vehicle destroyers,the warthog must have its missions restructured but I don’t know how.