Its an effective weapon against people that have no AA capabilities. Even the first tests showed its limits (they are somewhere on YT search them). Not precise and short effective distance against armored targets. Less damage on not armored targets. And it leaves radioaktive debree for decades. Edit: Shilkas would erase A-10 in their first fly-by, they can not truston, that the enemy has no AA with their tank collons.
@@Wolfspaule U-238 has lower radioactivity than can be found normally in an environment. All this anti-DU noise came from people who simply did not know what they were talking about and were never interested in learning.
As a former pilot of the A-37, A-10, and F-16, I can say I like your video, but you failed to mention how the Hog has evolved over the years. I flew early versions that didn’t even had an INS. It was a great WWII plane, not much different from the original Thunderbolt. During Desert Storm the only precision weapon it had was the Maverick. The LASTE modification that included a radar altimeter and had CCIP capability was just entering service. All the video of targets destroyed was of F-111 and F-15Es using laser guided bombs. The Maverick is a launch and leave weapon. Once it leaves the rail, there is no video. One Hog driver used a second Maverick to video the first missile and got his ass chewed, but it made CNN, so mission successful. Now in Afghanistan we have the latest A-10C that has full precision capability with the Sniper pod. It can stay at high altitudes and drop laser and GPS guided bombs that it couldn’t during Desert Storm. Regarding the gun, it is a precise weapon to be used in a permissive environment, especially for troops in contact where the effects of other munitions could endanger friendly troops.
What the minimun safe seperation range between the OPFOR being engaged & friendly foot infantry, if the 30mm HE round is employed in a strafing run to support friendly infantry not dug in, in the open. 400 yards? 500 yards? 600 yards?
The question is: Could the F-15E or F-35A do the same thing? Does a 30mm really have a massive advantage over a 20mm or 25mm? More importantly: If it does, is it to point that were are willing to divest from other needed capabilities to retain A-10s?
@@howardblumenkopf7872 maybe the F-15 but the F-35 is too expensive per flight hour to use it for everything. Sure if money isnt an issue then the F-35 can be used in any role except for maybe in urban environments. Also to answer your question. 30mm vs 20mm on most ground targets will do the same thing. A 20mm cannon will disable or eliminate a MBT fighting capability by destroying optics and all of the fragile things on the outside of the tank.
@@soulsphere9242 Part of the equation that's missing here is that, yes, you can turn the A-10 into a very credible bomb truck for a permissive environment, but since the 1990s, it's really only been survivable in permissive environments. If, for some reason (Like the tensions that are heating up in Southeast Asia today, or, actually, with an opponent that has even a WW 2 level of AAA capability) we have to fight an opponent with more modern capabilities, then what we have are a great number of SAM magnets. In the Afghanistan/Iraq environment, a weaponized crop duster is a viable asset. (I've worked on them) But the fact is, there's a space between a helicopter hiding behind the terrain, and a fast mover with good sensors and smart weapons at altitude, that's pretty much become a No-Go zone.
@@ew3612 2 things to keep in mind is 1. if the argument is that you have to get to close - low with a 30 mm, how much closer - lower do you have to get with a 20mm system. Some of this can be gleaned from phalanx data. Where the 30mm goalkeeper can carry ammo that gives about 500 m more distance or 1/3 more range than the 20 mm phalanx. some of this is discarding sabot, but extra space allows that. 2. Rounds that are larger gain a notable amount more space for payload.
One unfortunate sidebar to all this: the US F-111 and RAF Tornado still don't get the respect they deserve, in some quarters anyway. Thanks for your informative videos
A lot of Aardvark fans....and they served with distinction and had several operational highlights. It was first operational swept wing plane. It first came out in 1964! So it served for a long time but it was time to retire. Other planes had replaced in including the also much maligned B1B bomber. The F111 in Vietnam had over 4000 combat missions and 6 loss. 1986 Libya missions were a success, and 1991 Gulf War (Desert Storm) the F111 proved it self. It left service in 1998. That is 34 years..... So respect is deserved. PS have you been in one. I sat in the cockpit and it was tiny (at the USAF museum)... As you know the whole cockpit ejected with both pilots and parachuted down in a capsule. You can get into a F111 at Wright Patterson USAF Museum near Dayton OH. Plan on a whole day. It is huge.
Once Desert Storm was over we had a big gathering at the NCO club Lakenheath where they showed unclassified videos taken from the Pave Tack pod. The F-111F had taken out a bunch of tanks and artilleries in Iraq and also dropped the bomb that stopped the oil flowing into the Persian Gulf. Most of the credit from F-111 kills went to the A-10 and the F-117. I suppose that this is par for the course for a weapons system that they were trying to get rid of and also to glorify stealth aircraft.
I used to sit on the verandah of my friend's house in Pine Mountain near Ipswich in Australia, and watch the F-111s pass by, below the horizon, and at high speed !!
Precision guided munition with near guaranteed kill & safety for pilot OR a 30mm gun that cant penetrate armor which you have to get very close and low enough for AA weapons?
"The A10 is a prime showcase how the Stuka effect remains strong and true in modern times." ...By being actually effective and capable of turning the tide against armor and ground forces - unlike the Stuka? I mean, it's not even a valid comparison to begin with. If anything, the Hs 129 or IL-2 would be a predecessor to the A-10 (and even that doesn't mesh properly) due to the Hs 129 being the first aircraft in history to, by itself, make an armored advance stop and fail without help from the ground. And the IL-2 because it was a flying armored bathtub. But that's about where the similarities stop. If "Hurr durr, pwane go vrrrrooom, blow up tings on batfeld" is all that is required to be compared to the A-10, then the A-36 Apache is the clear equivalent to the A-10. Somehow.
@@matchesburn There was a variant of the Stuka only armed with 37mm guns, these guys were famous for the annihilation of an entire Soviet tank company just through air power, I think this is what OP meant.
@@vietta6424 "these guys were famous for the annihilation of an entire Soviet tank company just through air power" Again: the first use of air power to stop a tank advance without help of ground units was the Hs 129. The Stukas, even with the BK 3.7, were woefully under-equipped to do much about armor columns. Not enough ammo, and the gun had difficulty with penetrating armor with about the max being 70mm of RHA equivalent. Meanwhile, the MK 108, which fired much faster and could be used more easily, could penetrate around 90mm of RHA equivalent armor depending on the ammunition. This is to say nothing of the Hs 129s with the PaK 40 variants on them. The Stuka is in no way the equivalent of the A-10 in any way. Not even in WWII terms. The IL-2 and Hs 129 are *_FAR_* more like the A-10 than the Stuka ever was. And even then they aren't anywhere close.
Remember that raising a Tank to full maturity is a big responsibility, with quite a high financial and personal commitment involved. There is nothing worse than seeing a poorly trained or mistreated Tank going wild in some RU-vid video. Be sure to consider carefully before you decide to adopt a Tank, and do your research to make sure you choose an appropriate model of Tank for your household and lifestyle.
Absolutely *brilliant* video Thoughtful, well researched, balanced and objective. One other aspect belongs in the mix 'tho Chris ....... Certainly will factor in the millitary / political assessments [tho will never be said in public] - *COST* The cheaper you can destroy a target the more it will be the solution of choice. Beyond that - Maverick missiles cost *how* *much* more than a pre-owned pickup truck?
I was TACP assigned to the 1st Cav during Desert Storm, I controlled lots of A-10's during missions. As far as the A-10's mission load out I had several check in at the IP with 8 mavericks apiece, very comforting. The gau-8 was always secondary and I only once requested it after a pilot refused to drop mk 82's on arty sight that he thought was out of action. He did a gun pass instead, problem solved.
Makes sense; Mavericks were/are stand-off and guided - why get close enough for a gun run if you don’t have to. Plus the accuracy simply has to be better.
I was not military, but worked in the middle east (oil field service) in the early 90's though 2000's, andwas close enough to hear the gun a few times. The soldiers I talked to said that the gun had a value outside the direct damage. When an a10 showed up, heads went down. The intimidation & stand off factor was something they loved. Edit: as far as its ability to kill tanks, I have no idea.
Hey Bourbon; I don't think people realize what elite badasses you guys and PJs are. This guy here is a Tier 2/1 operator ... perfectly suited to attaching with DevGru etc. That said, when I hear the USMC's F-35B has no gun whatsoever..? And of course, shorter loiter time bc it carries less fuel than either..? It's confusing. Bc the F-35C has to have compact wings also. And it does. They fold up. But their fold-up wings carry extra fuel. Obviously A-10s aren't optimal for contested air space ... but, the willingness of the USAF to consider the Super Tucano vs the AT-6 (looks like an A-29 Tucano) ... a very small, fixed-wing, prop craft (and 2-seater at that) ... used as a light attack aircraft. I'm just thrilled by this. The loiter time is high, it'll still easily get above 10-15k feet ... has precision weapons and is CHEAP! I have no idea why we'd use stealth aircraft to intercept 'bogeys' during a period in which we cannot engage anyone until we have visual confirmation of their identity. On top of the price -- we repeatedly give our enemies chances to learn to respond to the threat. In fact, we should deliberately use non-stealthy parts that are more easily repaired that lack the 'fitment' to provide the LO results ... and which drive the cost x hour so high. Keep your nice clothes for dates, and work ... play in your ratty clothes. Thanks again buddy.
True, but it's a matter of perspective and which faction you side with. If you are on the side that believes that one of the air force's primary duties is to support ground forces in combat operations, then the F-111 isn't the platform for the role. It's the A-10, and your evaluations regarding the F-111 would reflect that. If you're on the side that says that the primary role of the air force is to achieve air superiority over the combat space and to diminish and destroy the enemy's capacity to fight a war with strategic bombing, then you want to get rid of the A-10 and push multi-role fighters, or shoehorn a tactical bomber into a tank buster role with precision weapons. However, if you are a soldier on the ground, being overrun by enemy armor and infantry, I'm willing to bet that you'd rather see an A-10 flying directly over head, firing its missiles, rockets, and going "BRRRRRRRT! BRRRRRRRRT!! BRRRRRRRRT!!!", than (not seeing) a F-111 at 20,000 feet, dropping a couple of JDAMS. It's not the just amount of enemy armor that is destroyed. The F-111 definitely had the kill count. It's where and when the enemy armor is destroyed that also counts. A hundred tanks parked on a defensive line or retreating in a convoy doesn't matter as much to ground forces as three or four tanks, trying to steam roll an infantry squad or a couple of M2 Bradley IFVs caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
@@conroypawgmail the F111 was not a multi role aircraft. İ mean there are F111s that do many rolls but a F111 with guided bombs can provided better CAS than a A10. İt fast and carries a lot of bombs. A10 gun is over rated. The 30mm is not a threat to modern tanks and small gün could be as effective VS soft skin and infantry. The A10 was built to be a tank buster a job a lot of aircraft can do better.
Granted GBUs, and A-10s have been able to drop them for decades now too. But since you cite the gun, how many tanks did F-111's get with the gun? How many non-tank ground targets?
thanks for putting this video together! I want to say as an avid DCS, A-10, and Desert Storm junkie, this video fits very closely with my interests. I have collected a bunch of data from experimentation in DCS as well as searching the internet and reading accounts of A-10 pilots during ODS. The information I have gathered helps support your argument that the A-10 gun is pretty much obsolete in a modern combat scenario. A great quote regarding what would happen to the A-10 if an 1980's Cold War Europe went hot: "the flying branch predicted that, if the A-10s went into action, seven percent of the jets would be lost per 100 sorties. Since each pilot was expected to fly at most four missions per day, each base would in theory generate more than 250 sorties daily. At this pace, a seven-percent loss rate per 100 flights equaled at least 10 A-10s shot down at each FOL every 24 hours - and that’s being conservative. At that rate, in less than two weeks the entire A-10 force at the time - around 700 jets - would have been destroyed and the pilots killed, injured, captured or, at the least, very shook up." Some notes on your gun run, since you asked. In all my trails the best use of the gun, the most effective and safest gun run (Against Light/Medium Armor) will be made rolling in 3 miles from the target at 12,000 FT AGL. This usually works out to about 30 degrees nose down, which fits with some accounts of the gun being used in ODS. Begin firing when the piper starts winding down at 1.9 miles, break at 1.4 to avoid most AAA guns. Set a countermeasure program to help lessen the chance of an IR SAM hitting you on the way out. As you get more comfortable I would advise keeping the throttle at full during the run as "speed is life" in helping climb out of the range of these threats. This lack of speed is another factor that makes the A-10 and the GAU-8 dangerous, and I was surprised it wasn't touched on. A faster target is a safer target, and the A-10 will put you at more than 100 knots slower than any fast mover jet over the target area. You could go for a closer in attack to destroy armor, but you really don't want any sort of AAA presence below while using the GAU-8 at the 1.2-.5 mile range. Even with all of the skills I have picked up from flying DCS and shooting hundreds of targets with the gun, doing so would and should be absolutely terrifying against any sort of legit army from the 1960's to present. The US Army publication from 1991 FM 100-2-3 The Soviet Army Troops, Organization, and Equipment helps illustrate how going in on a gun run in the A-10 is a truly dangerous undertaking that could easily result in a lost or damaged aircraft. Just about every battalion of units, even paratroopers carry at least 9 SA-7 or SA-14 man portable IR SAMs. These missiles can reach out and touch targets up to around 10,000 FT AGL, putting you in the envelope for even the most perfect gun pass for far too long. And this is 30 year old tech. Newer MANDPAD systems reach out to 15,000 FT and are much smarter about flares. Large stores of flares, a design that hides the hottest engine exhaust and a missile warning system do help, but they are by no means an assurance that the missile won't find you. Better just to stay out of the WEZ (weapons employment zone) all together. And this doesn't even cover medium range SAM systems like the SA-8, SA-15, and SA-19 which there is very low chance an A-10 will be able to escape if they find themselves in their envelope. I am not even going to mention the S-200, 300, 400. Hogs in the Sand by Buck Wyndham was an incredible recourse that helped me better understand how the A-10 was actually employed during Desert Storm. I think it illustrates how the great organization, communication, and regulations for self perseverance of the US military allowed the A-10 to be effective in such a dangerous theater. Buk explains a hard floor of 10,000 FT AGL that is only to be broken momentarily during gun runs. Pilots always fly with a wingman who is on over watch during the run, spotting AAA and missiles. The CAS mission the A-10 was designed for took a back seat as more missions were focused on interdiction. A FAC (forward air controller) would often call A-10s in on a target where they would usually go in for a single pass each before a BDA and egress from the area. Often they would drop all of their bombs in a single run, lightening the aircraft for defensive maneuvers and a quick climb out. The element of surprise along with getting in and out quickly kept the pilots safer. Wow, this is getting long, just one final thing I wanted to touch on. IF a WWIII scenario played out today, and every asset of the armed forces was called into action, what role could the GAU-8 on the A-10 play? The only one I see is extremely risky, but extremely fun to experiment in with DCS. The A-10, being a very stable aircraft, is incredible at low level (200 Ft and below) flight. In theory, an A-10 could use terrain masking and its GPS navigation system to destroy strategic sort targets like radars, and pray that an SA-22 Pantsir doesn't see you. Give a go at fighting an SA-6 in DCS with the GAU-8, it is a fantastic fight! Thanks for reading if you made it down this far! Look forward to more content in the future, let me know if you want to fly sometime!
American pilots are very inventive male and female especially under extreme situations. Some procedures are not in the books that have been done in any aircraft. Data is data, humans in machine is a different story.
Another great video Chris, but I'm not sure that it addresses the issues that are most relevant to the A-10. Yes, the GAU-8 is a hot, sexy, uranium-spewing engine of death that I'd love to have for home defense...but I don't think that in itself is necessarily the most important reason why it's so popular which perhaps is mainly psychological--gun, bombs and everything. For troops on the ground in a delicate situation, knowing that you've got something in the air that can not only obliterate almost anything, but is going to be hanging around until you can be relieved or resolve the situation, is so incredibly powerful. It's a huge boost to morale, and you know what Napoleon said about that. While the gun may no longer be all that it was intended to be (probably not that effective against T-72s or T-80s...), the bombs, missiles and other hardware it carries definitely are. The loiter time is a really, really huge plus for morale. This goes at least as far back as Vietnam: Troops want CAS, but they don't want it to come and go immediately. It's really much better if it can stay in the area for a while, "just in case." Lastly, there's the fact that the A-10 really can take a lot of punishment. No, you don't want it to, but it's comforting not only to the crew but also the troops. It gives you warm fuzzy feeling that you probably don't get with an F-16 or F-15E; forget about the F-111. Having said all of this, I have a much better understanding of why the USAF wants to replace the A-10 with another platform. One that perhaps carries a ton of guided ordnance that can deal incredible damage while remaining out of range and relatively safe. I always thought the argument was politically motivated, i.e., had to do with the USAF brass never wanting the A-10, vs. the troops who did. You've really opened my eyes to the merits of the other side of the argument, and I probably would never have done that without this video. So, thanks very much!
Hey, thanks for the feedback! Yes, that is definitely something I want to delve in again - I sorta touch on it in the final chapter of this video but esp. when it comes to Afghanistan etc I will want to do that in a dedicated video
Not "just in case", from the start it was designed to use missiles and bombs because they knew the gun was circumstantial at best. Much to the hatred of the "military reformists" that claimed it was unnecessary weight... Along the radio... And most of the things that actually made it work. And yes btw that's the same reformists that claim to have designed the bloody thing, despite never being in the design team and constantly lobbying against ita creation.
I was a SLUF jockey off of the Midway sitting in the Tonkin Gulf.. It was a Bravo so we had dual 20 mm Cannon. Got to fly an Echo before my separation, what a weapons platform.. We used depleted uranium rounds for hard targets. Very effective. I could only imagine a 30 mm.. Well my days are numbered so I have to find something else to do besides watch RU-vid, (so I feel like I'm doing something). Take care, love watching Your Enthusiasm
@@sid2112 Thank you, I have realized one major thing about life in general.. The first twenty years of your life is preparing for the second twenty years.. The second twenty years you spend living your life.. The third 20 years is spent trying to recoup the second twenty years.. Your final twenty years are spent realizing that you cannot recoup your second 20 years.. It was a great honor to live in a country that gave me the opportunity to defend it.. God bless you and God bless our country.... I pray for it now more than ever
As a former grunt, the morale boost of an A-10 pass is something else. Further I think that the A-10 is a specialist aircraft that specialist need has passed into the history books. Well it might be coming back, but we aren't facing massive formations of Soviet tanks coming across the Fulda Gap anymore. That said I think where the A-10 would had really shined would had been in artillery busting not tank busting in a cold war gone hot time frame.
That's very true. The GAU-8 can't actually penetrate modern tank armor, even the top side, so all of the tank kills would have to come from the missiles it carries. The poor infantry and artillery crews, as well as the light vehicles they use to move around..... yeah there's gonna be pink fog in the A10s wake
Very true. My stepson has since told me something similar - the 'Hog is also a psychological weapon, with its near indestructibility and siren-like engine noise; and most things - not heavy armor or hardened installations, but most things - will damn near evaporate when a GAU-8 puts depleted U on target
I kind of agree with the top brass. The A-10s time has come and gone. It's an obsolete aircraft fulfilling an obsolete role. They're no match for modern Chinese and Russian air defenses. Even the modern man portable SAMs are a serious threat and we can't afford to be sending pilots home in flag-draped coffins just for the sake of nostalgia and the re-election funds of a few senators with long-standing ties to defense contractors.
Which is why it's being used as an insurgent hunter and not something that is being sent into Russia or China. It gets it job done well as an insurgent hunter; until an alternative far less expensive and huge than the F-35 can come along during the 2040s to serve as the new insurgent hunter.
@@tidepoolclipper8657 if they get anywhere near ground-level (which is required for using its gun), they get ripped apart, just like how 20 (to give you an idea, it would take _140_ F-16s to get the same percentage of aircraft losses, as even the Me-262 has a larger production run (every A-10 has _2_ Me-262s opposing it!) than the A-10). The Russian's Su-25 is designed more around its rockets and ATGMs than its gun. They're flying coffins, that's for certain.
The problem with all weapon systems is that their procurement is ultimately a political issue. The military branches must justify their weapon systems to the politicians who must justify them to the public. This means that real capability may be set aside for pet projects and vice versa. The hype that surrounds the A-10 comes, in part, from the attempt to justify it as a CAS aircraft and a tankbuster, where both roles meant that it had to compete with the Army’s attack helicopters and the Air Force’s F-16. While the A-10’s durability and loiter capabilities probably outclasses both the former and the latter competitors, respectively, it also has to justify its continued existence and modernization procurement, much like the B-52 continues to successfully do. The result is to spin battlefield performance into a sales pitch. That said, I am certain that in the back of the ever-competing U.S. Military Branches’ minds is the recognition that the next war will be fought with whatever is in the arsenal and nothing more. Thus, from their perspective it may make a certain sense to oversell a proven, yet obsolescent weapon system, than risk a capability gap.
The USAF wanted to get rid of the A-10 for decades, because it is pretty much useless and will not leave a capability gap if retired. The problem LIKE YOU SAID said is political. Politicians that represent constituencies where the A-10 is stationed and therefore where the A-10 brings a lot of money to that region, try to keep that platform flying for as long as possible, because it creates jobs and happy, employed constituents reelect these politicians as a reward. In the end of the day all western militaries are shaped in a way that they are militarily very inefficient, but they keep the people in power happy.
@@xyzaero The funny part of that is that the Air Force officers I know agreed with you. However, the Army officers I know disagreed, mostly on grounds that the F16 was too fast and too fragile for the role. The reality is that the Armed Forces compete for theater relevance, which means overlapping missions and sometimes taking on roles that they are not necessarily fit for. I imagine that the Air Force’s hatred and, yet, modernization of the A-10 is justified by both its obsolescence and the fact that without it their in-theater role may be reduced. And, I might add that all militaries are inefficient. They are in the best of circumstances deterrent forces, which by definition are inefficient, wasteful what-ifs. However, without maintaining the capability to supply and project a military force, it is virtually impossible to raise a military when needed. In effect, Armed Forces procurement is the ultimate Catch-22.
@@detritus23 Well I'm sure that the army officer forget that AC130 exist as well. A superior loitering time and heavier guns and is a good and proven CAS platform. Between them, fast jets, and multitude of military drones I'm sure the hole is sufficiently covered.
@@arinpoonpinrode1467 Unfortunately, AC130 probably deserves it's own over-rated video. And, it also serves a slightly different role, being more area denial than pinpoint CAS. Also, this was before drones were properly armed for ATG attack.
The real tragedy of the a10 is that it is so overhyped and has had its capabilities so over blown that it will never be able to meet these impossible expectations. It’s a great aircraft. And very interesting. But it’s worshipped as this god like death dealing machine that is nearly invulnerable while being able to destroy anything on the battlefield. The a10 is just one small piece in s very big puzzle. And it probably wouldn’t do well in a modern contested environment either. Air defenses now days are so lethal that you need to be fast and agile.
@@MilitaryAviationHistory I really look forward to more videos on the a10. It’s history and development are really interesting. And it is a very popular aircraft
@@t2av159 Well, I see your point. But the katana is a good sword. Lots of Europeans commented on the sword quality during the late Edo period. It’s like the a10 because it’s a good weapon, it’s just not nearly going to ever measure up to the legendary status it has. When people realize that the katana can’t cut through solid steel they will be disappointed. Just how when the a10s take losses preforming CAS, they become disappointed.
@@Rokaize uh, no, basically any long sword could destroy the thing, katanas we're only good against unprotected bodies, the moment that they meet another sword they break in half, same analogy can be applied to the A-10 tho
My father worked with a gentleman who had been a Colonel at Nellis AFB. He knew I wanted to be in the military so when I was 7 or so he gave my dad a dummy GAU-8 TP round to give to me. Still have it - was really nice of him.
One flaw I'm noticing about the stats for tank busting, would be the lack of inclusion of stats for all branches. Like stats for the AH-64 utilized by the Army.
AH-64 has the same issues as the A-10, low, slow and actually quite easy to damage. In the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the US Army did a deep strike with a large force of AH-64's and they got a real beating. One AH-64 was shot down and most of the others got damaged.
@@HIMPDahak The engines had to. In early production the waste gas from the GAU-8/A would sometimes choke out the jet engines. This got urban-mythologized into "the GAU-8/A fires so fast and hard the recoil can stall the plane". In anycase the issue was resolved by turning on the engine igniters whenever the gun is fired in order to relight the engines once there's enough oxygen for it.
@@HIMPDahak We almost lost a Phantom at Moody due to a 4 barreled pod version of the GAU-8 . The muzzle blast from the pod was apparently right under door 22, a hydraulic inspection door. The blast broke the hydraulic lines in the area and the crew had to dump the pod in the swamp and land on his drop tanks.
@@ldobehardcore Yep, not just a 30mm problem. The vulcans exhaust used to mess up early installations of the gun. If you look closely, you can see the difference between an early F-4E and later ones by checking the gun muzzle cover. The early ones slant back sharply at the bottom of the port while the later covers were rounded and had ram air vents to help defuse the gases.
The Aardvark is finally vindicated! Always respected that plane but, like most weapons of war, thankfully didn't get to do what it was designed to do when fresh out of the box. Sounds like it had a good send off.
@@thethirdman225 glad to see the Australians being fond of it The plane is quite peculiar for being able to kill just as many tanks as the famous A-10 but with lower sorties and yet wasnt praised
@@fulcrum2951 To be completely truthful, I don't have that sort of attachment to it. It served us well from 1973 to 2010, when it was "replaced" with F/A-18F Superhornets. While the F is a much newer and more sophisticated jet, there are basic things the F-111 could do that it can't do. We didn't have a need for the jet in the anti-tank role. The biggest difference was power projection.
When I was a lad, A10s used to do practice gun runs on a small (about 2m square) brick sewer outlet in the field behind our house. Flying low and slow in pairs, they would take turns to line up on the target. At the time, treetop height was a defence against AAA - this was the 1980s - but you couldn't help but think that you could hit them with a brick, so they have to be vulnerable against MANPADs and anyone with a gun at all. True, they can take damage, but you'd have to inspect/repair every single hole to see if anything important had been hit before taking off again, which you don't really want in a warzone. In Afghanistan and Syria they've made great mobile artillery -see Ed Nash - but the USAF really need to replace it with a long-loiter time light attack plane for COIN work.
I see a A10 back in the 70's at Farnborough air show.They had a A10 and next to it was the complete gun for comparison, and a chunk of tank armour that had been penetrated by the 30mm round and a complete 30mm round.Very impressive to a 12 yr old boy.
@@britishamerican4321 That is precisely the problem. When an A-10 begins a gun run, its already within range of every shoulder fired AA missile available, to say nothing of vehicle mounted systems. Sure, it can try to tank the hit, but even if it manages to limp home, it will require substantial repairs or be written off entirely. The A-10 is built around a weapon that it cannot employ against even semi-competent enemies, and is more expensive than equally or even more effective craft in a counterinsurgency role.
@@jsn1252 I think we have never seen the A10 used in the way it was designed. It is a highly cost effective and efficient weapons platform. In a full wartime economy, it would be the Sherman tank of the air. Able to do a little bit of everything, but most importantly, help hold and advance on territory. It could be produced in vast numbers and even with the A variant avionics, it still has a highly effective gun on it. I think it was designed to be a throwaway plane built in numbers intended to equal the tanks it would be facing.
If you have air superiority, the AC130 is better than the A10. ( I see your 30mm and raise you a 105mm). If you DO NOT have air superiority, then anything that can fire a Maverick is not "better', just less risky. The A10 made sense when missiles were crap, and you knew you had to go into contested airspace, expecting to get hit. In the future, grunts will call upon swarms of expendable cheap ,unarmored UAV to deliver better/cheaper munitions in close quarters. There is nothing wrong or hyped about the gun, it is just that time waits for no one.
A UAV is absolutely not better for close air support with munitions. A few helfires cannot compete with a human who can hear you and see the enemy and make them go away with a very large cannon. I am always shocked by how many people who haven't ever had an A-10 above them just fail to understand why a flying tank is the best friend of anyone in the ground. Taking out tank formations and fighting interceptors aren't why the A-10 is still around. It is still around because when you are under attack by an enemy formation having an A-10 on your side is an irreplaceable amount of support and one that can get down and dirty unlike any other aircraft.
@@BeKindToBirds actually it’s very replaceable, and has been replaceable for the past 30 years. The F-18, F-16, and F-15E are better in every single way
@@eatenorpheus3087 except when they fly low, slow, and put lead on the target. Those aircraft are good at speed, dropping bombs, but that's it. The 20mm on those aircraft don't really do well against ground targets.
@@ricardokowalski1579 Not even remotely comparable. Battleships role was *supplanted* the A-10's has NOT BEEN. To put it bluntly, battleships were replaced (with the possible exception of inexpensive heavy shore bombardment) and as yet there hasn't been a fast mover that can actually *replace* the mission of the A-10, only suggestions that pretend it's role doesn't exist! Until drones are able to fit in the CAS niche as armoured gunships the A-10 is irreplaceable. Until helicopters are able to hit as hard and be hit as hard (which is likely to be even later than an armoured UAV gunship) it won't be replaced. What you and every other commenter seems to fail to understand is exactly what role in combat you are replacing by deleting the A-10. You cannot replace it without replacing it, shouldn't that be obvious? You can't just say "ground troops don't need that kind of fire support" and take it out of the inventory! Something that can loiter in the area, provide heavy fire support, and take enemy fire, and provide mission critical intelligence to the same degree just does not exist! 130 gunships, Apaches, Tanks, IFV's, Artillery, and UAV's all have differing areas of usefulness and different areas of exclusion And the A-10 fits in the middle of that venn diagram. No fast mover can come close to replacing the A-10 and helicopters have to get tougher and beefier before they can finally supplant it. (Which is on the way but not here yet.) And when it does get replaced ...it will have straight wings, a big cannon, and high bypass jets mounted above the fuselage ...see why the A-10 is sticking around? You can't replace a specialized piece of equipment without it ending up looking a lot like that piece of equipment. Even if they start from absolute scratch to replace it ...it will still look almost exactly the same! It will still have redundant hydraulics, it will still have engines designed to sit on either side ...it will have almost all the exact same features that we already have! You can't replace a bee without making a hummingbird and I really don't think you understand how the mission, the requirements, and the physics dictate that the A-10 is going to be around for a long time.
On the Iraqi forces not being that aggressive with their AAA.. They had their arcs of fire AAA going off a lot during initial nighttime bombing raids but didn't hit much and bombing runs didn't appear to be interrupted.. Once identified, they immediately became targets for bombs/missiles coming out of the night sky. For conscripts.. I can guess why they didn't fire that often ;). The republican guard were their hard-core soldiers who accepted the high risk of being identified. They also tended to have better equipment (=more confidence). A lot of the army regulars didn't really want to fight at all so the tone there sounds a little off. To me it sounded kind of like dissing the Iraqi Navy for not taking a more aggressive approach ;).
I remember those videos. To be clear, i have no clue what their training or doctrine was. But my little AAA experience i got from 6 months AAA training long ago, is that you don't waste ammo by trying to shoot into the night, hoping that someone by sheer luck will fly into your arc of fire. We were taught fast precise aiming, firing 1 salvo per target and after that, to change to the next target for the same procedure. (a salvo was between 0.8 and 1.6 seconds or 1100 rpm) No firing on leaving or turning aircraft, no firing without proper aiming, no wasting of ammo. So the complete opposite of what i remember seeing on TV back then. On one hand, i don't agree with your: "if i don't fire they won't know where i am" for AAA: Most proper AAA is detectable by IR even if it hasn't yet fired due to the generator running. Or the radar is targeted. Small "unplugged" AAA isn't effective against fast modern aircraft anyway (even less during the night), so that's probably why they stopped wasting ammo. No matter if you have been firing or not, AAA is usually one of the prime targets, as getting rid of them means freedom of movement. So all AAA personel have big virtual targets on their foreheads, not just those who fired. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that your take on standard iraqi soldiers reasoning back then is how they thought, as they probably didn't know/hadn't been taught all that. (They probably didn't even get as much training i got.)
@@nirfz This was around cities (the stuff we saw on CNN) and the idea was to create arcs of AAA fire that enemy planes would have to fly through. Obviously it didn't work well against what they were firing at (near? in the general vicinity?). Iirc they did manage to get a few planes with that strategy pre-invasion but I can't really recall. Out of curiosity I started reading an article that said the radar they used was outside Bagdad and provided (*tried to provide*) targeting data to missile batteries and Shilkas in the city. There were also 6000-7,500 traditional AAA guns 23mm, 57mm, 100mm, etc. I just remembered this was also when Stealth fighters were flying through without being detected so radar wasn't trustworthy and there was extensive jamming going on by other planes. This was also the first time I recall cruise missiles being a big factor and radar wouldn't help there, with them flying so close to the deck. In reading, those AAA gunners had already been a target for over a year so they probably did grit their teeth every time they let loose. So yeah, it's a mix. I guess a lot of it comes down to at what point was Iraqi AAA supposed to be more aggressive because it didn't work well around the cities early on despite massive ammunition expenditure and a lot of the time they didn't even have decent data on what to fire at :) The only way we would know would be to hear from an Iraqi AAA gunner. Reading the articles/testimony from Desert Storm I think they actually were very aggressive but were set up to fight the previous war..
"Aggressive" is a good description for me. It doesn't mean your soldiers should be more angry or fire more often. (That's be nonsense.) It means the Iraqi didn't manage to integrate their AA response in their operations, using the hardwares they had or could've readily acquired. In other words, they didn't develop the doctrine, or they didn't complete the trainings for a better AA response, or as we can best guess: both.
@@ecpgieicg Pretty much. A lot of the more well trained and experienced Iraqi forces were depleted in the Iran-Iraq War and then the Gulf War too, so I doubt that helped.
People look at the gun like it's the most devastating wünder weapon ever, but here's the real deal. It's cheap and it's fast. It's perfect for tearing up a bunch of trucks without expending $700,000 of smart weapons or making 8 LGB passes if you even had that many onboard. Maybe back in the day you'd use it on a full-blooded tank, but today it's the "mopping up" weapon. You have a lot of ammo to burn and can accurately take out multiple targets per pass. It's no replacement for precision warheads on foreheads in a WW3 scenario. Cheap and fast. I daresay there was no substitute, although now the APKWS guided rockets are also pretty good at that job. If you watch someone like Ralfidude fly the A-10 in DCS, typically the first order of business is to scope out the area from high altitude with the targeting pod and identity any AAA or SAM threats. These are taken out first with precision and standoff weapons. Next is to go after hard and high priority targets; accomplish the most important part of the mission and get the heavy stuff off the jet. Once all that's done, it's time for mopping up. One guy will go in with with unguided bombs or rockets or the gun, and lots of flares in case of MANPADS. His buddies stay high and watch like hawks for SAM launches or tracers. If more threats are identified, they're attacked. But if not, if the area is truly a permissive environment, then the guns come out and the soft targets are quickly melted and high-fives all around. A high priority is placed on determining and eliminating threats to aircraft. Going into an unknown threat environment with guns is how noobs get capped.
*People now knowing much about real life attack aircrafts* : "Oh man, if I was on an A-10 I would take out everything with the gun, the aircraft is so tough I could go against anything!" *2K22 Tunguska, 9K330 Tor and Pantsir* : "Allow us to introduce ourselves"
@@piotrd.4850 against cruise missiles, not a slow and low heavy plane with an overworked pilot having to fly the plane, see targets with his unreliable eyeballs
@@piotrd.4850 Well, if you were to go and do a gun pass on any of those, regardless which aircraft you have, you'd be turned into a mist 🤣 Obviously, no one did attack them with gun during Syria.
The A-10 seems to suffer from an underlying philosophical contradiction. On the one hand, it's really too much airplane just for doing COIN in uncontested airspace, where something like a Super Tucano (or a drone) can make itself just as useful at a much lower cost. But on the other hand, outside of that niche it's limited to lobbing PGMs from medium altitudes in airspace that's been "sanitized" by other platforms... just like every _other_ USAF aircraft that might be tasked with CAS, from F-16Cs to B-1Bs... except that unlike those other platforms, you can't really make use of the A-10 to do the sanitizing, so it's really too _little_ airplane for any mission _other_ than doing COIN in uncontested airspace. This isn't a particularly new thought, either. Back in the 80s the expectation was that the entire A-10 fleet would be gone in a couple of weeks if the Warsaw Pact came through the Fulda Gap. Not "all the A-10s stationed in Europe," either, but "all the A-10s _ever built."_
Was it ever expected to survive more than one, two attack runs ? The engagement range for it is basically the same as ZSU-23-4 range, and no matter how good cockpit armor it has, it can't fly purely on the will of the pilot.
@@IvanTre Assuming it carried a crap ton of Mavericks (which were already a thing in the 80s) and delivered them safely, sure. But yeah you're not going to survive more than a few gun runs.
First, to provide some insight into my perspective, I served in the Army as a MOS 19D, an armored reconnaissance specialist (aka Cavalry Scout). I have similar discussions on this. It boils down to changing technology has made the guns ineffective in teh armor killing roll. However, the A-10 serves a mission that no other aircraft in the Air Force inventory (at least up till 2010 or so). While other aircraft can fullfill the close air support role, they can not serve in the "danger close" close air support role. Danger close occurs when the enemy is so close that the normal means to calculate artillery support (and sometimes air support) is not accurate enough to avoid hitting ones own troops. When danger close is declared, the fire support team will use a more lengthy, but more accurate method of calculating where there rounds will land. Aircraft can potentially have a harder time with close air support, especially against infanty. Infantry often where camouflage so they are difficult to pick up with the naked eye. IR may not pick up infantry (or at least not clearly) against hot desert sands. Fast jets may fly too fast to pick up moving infantry with the naked eye, even when flying low. And unlike artillery, aircraft often do not have a dozen rounds to walk into the enemy. The A-10 can fly very low and slow (relative to fighters) and pick up enemy infantry visually. Helicopters can also fulfill this role. The problem is speed and range. The A-10 is a lot faster can can get to friendly troops in distress much faster and with potentially more ordnance. A-10 therefore has a uniquley niche mission. However, it is massively outdated. Are right about that. However, critics of the A-10 are wrong (in my opinion) that the fast jets or bombers can "fully" replace the A-10.We do need something new to serve in this "danger close" air support role.
that role might get even less valuable as missile gudance gets more accurate, or drones start becoming more common any aricraft lining up for a strafe its pretty much a sitting duck for AA, while a plane/heli can dodge freely after finring off a missile, and of course drones can be more disposable
@@zjanez2868 The problem with danger close, is that most missiles have a fairly substantial blast fragmentation warhead. Which could endanger your own men on the ground. Even the Hellfire II AGM-114M has a 20 warhead, which is a substantial explosive, and will produce fragments that are lethal out to a significant distance. It also costs somewhere north of $100k per missile. The AGM-176 Griffin is exclusively designed to have a lighter, 12 lb warhead, it also costs most than $100k per missile. Even the M151 Warhead of a Hydra 70, which weighs 8.7 lbs, and has only 2.3 lbs of explosive, has a lethal fragmentation range of ~50m or around 164 feet. Even using guidance from something like APKWS, or DAGR, there are danger close missions where your collateral damage radius could overlap your own men's position on the ground. A 30mm gun however, gives you the ability to lay down a line of fire, that covers a narrow area, with minimal collateral damage. In places like Afghanistan, or any other conflict where the presence of AA or MANPADs is almost nothing? CAS is a great, and valuable tool. I also am of the opinion that the A-10 is overkill for most of these CAS missions, and that extends to the fast movers by default. I really feel that there should be a dedicated LCAS turbo prop (twin engine preferably), that is armed with a single 30mm revolver cannon in 30x113mm. Lighter, cheaper, etc. Arm it with rockets/guided rockets, AGM 176 Griffins, Hellfires, and Mavericks, and use it. You'd save on fuel, and wouldn't be burning the wings off of your multi-million dollar multirole jets.
@@trentbyington5957 The military people I've talked to claim they don't want CAS to be drones... it's too easy to have problems that cause friendly fire.
That's why the air force wanted to retire the A-10 in favour of the F-35; it's great for _uncontested_ airspace like Afghanistan, but in _contested_ airspace they're vulnerable.
Great info! like that the HEI rounds look like candy corn. Look forward to more videos on the subject, like the A-9/frogfoot similarities, and other CAS jets around the world.
As always a very interesting and thought provoking video Chris. Especially in light of the replacing the A-10 with the F-35 debate (on the inter web). I think the grunts just love actually seeing a Hog firing at their problem. The morale factor cannot be ignored - despite the sound operational reasons for not using such a platform at all. It’s analogous to an MBT rolling up in an urban fight. The soldiers love it - the tank commanders hate it.
I'm sure the Infantry felt exactly the same way when the Field Artillery went to Indirect Fire and Forward Obervers, rather than standing wheel-to-wheel in the front lines, using direct fire over open sights.
A thought I just had, what the soldiers think or feel doesn't actually matter, the Afghanistan meta for the US was go out into the mountains get shot at, then call for air support on wherever you think they're shooting from. The guys on the ground just have to sit there and not get shot, what does it matter if they like the fireworks.
Why do people keep thinking the A10 is the.messiah to us ground pounders? Shit I never even saw any when I was in Afghanistan, we had Hornets and rotors provide all our CAS. Just get the aircraft in and drop ordinance. We don't give a shit what it is
I don’t blame the tank cmders, I may not be in the army, but playing MILSIM games like SQUAD, and running armor, I hate fighting in urban environments, to many AT in every damn corner.
@@shirghazaycowboys I’ve never served or even joined but after doing much research on the subject I’ve learned the A-10 almost never shows up. In fact the B-1B and B-52Hs(two strategic bombers) have actually done more CAS than A-10s have in the last decade. So really the main reason people say it’s what saves your lives is most likely because of the few videos on the internet of it going around flying, firing the gun at either demos, training, or live war. Meanwhile the other platforms such as you mentioned, the Hornets, have very little video to even showcase. So basically they follow what’s famous, which is what APPEARS to be working. I’m genuinely surprised someone who serves/served actually acknowledges this. Thank you for your service btw. May your life be filled with peace and ripe fruit.
What I am interested in, in regards to CAS going forwards into the future, is how long it will take for it to be considerably cheaper and easier logistics wise to field expendable drones as opposed to CAS airframes. In particular the last 2 years we've seen more direct use of combat drones by smaller nations and I'm really curious to see what the implications of such a low barrier of entry to military drones are for air support in combined arms warfare going forward.
This kind of gets into one aspect of remotely controlled drones in warfare that I've often wondered about. While you can give both a drone pilot (operator?) and a regular CAS/CAP the same level of training with their respective platforms, how well will that translate into real world scenarios against adversaries with modern anti-air capabilities? (i.e. - The ability to effectively down aircraft.) Obviously mission success and successful return of the aircraft are primary incentives for both pilots. At the same time, I think this might also be where we might see some divergence in terms of individual performance, how certain tasks may be performed, and their reactions to dynamic and developing situations. With an aircraft with a person physically in the cockpit, that individual has some actual skin in the game. Their very survival is dependent upon their ability to recognize and adapt to dynamic situations, as well as trying to achieve operational success in a given sortie. It's arguably one hell of an incentive to remain hypervigilant and adaptable to the situation around you. With a remotely operated aircraft though, we largely remove and depersonalize that risk. The performance between those two is what I'm curious about. There's an obvious pro involved in remote operation (the pilot is at zero risk if the aircraft is downed), but what will the cons be and to what extent? (Keep in mind that this is in reference to a more even matchup with an adversary, not so much situations like that in Afghanistan where pilots in fixed-wing CAS roles were largely impervious to their enemy.) Will they be as effective when their aircraft is under direct fire? Are they more likely or more willing to take risks that could notably increase the chance of losing the aircraft? Will removing that tactile feedback you'd have from physically being in the cockpit have an effect In terms of successful defensive maneuvering? (From A/A, AAA, SAM threats, etc.) Situational awareness would be a significant one, as being limited by a monitor looking through a lens doesn't hold a candle to being able to see and assess with your own two eyes. It'll be interesting to see where this continues to develop and in what ways. Hell, maybe there will be a push for cheaper aircraft looked at as semi-consumable rather than the more expensive fighters built with longevity and survivability in mind.
@@KennyTheB If you look at the recent War in Nagorno-Karabakh drones did impressively well in both suppression of air defense and the ground attack role. Mind you some of the drones should really be called missiles that some times fly back to base, but they fought and defeated a fairly modern anti defense system and had almost complete air supremacy with virtually no manned aircraft in the sky. I was watching videos saying it's unlikely that most European armies would do any better because of a lack of proper sensors and electronic jamming on a unit level.
@@ricardoospina5970 Jamming is pretty much the silver bullet against drones until they have good autonomous combat AI. The Armenians had crap jamming and basically no directional jamming. With a competent jamming system on the opponents' side, you basically have to send a controller forward with your combat unit and a powerful directional transceiver so they are close enough range to cut through the jamming and can direct the drone CAS from the front. The Iranians showed how easy it is to take down drones operating far from the hardware talking to them..
While use of drones as CAS platform always sounds great, in reality, biggest strength of drones comes from recon ability they bring which combined whit other ground units, specially artillery, improves there effectiveness on hole another level. Modern drones, like Baryaktar are more modern versions of old light observation aircraft like German Storch whit much stronger recon abilities while carrying limited munitions for some strikes.
@@aleksaradojicic8114 I am aware that that's how it is right now, but I'm curious to see if that's going to change a lot going forward with more advanced drone technology entering the world as well as becoming more affordable over the years. There has to be some critical point where the cost of an actual CAS aircraft & the logistics behind it is so exponentially more costly than to have a flight of drones, which in turn could make drones an equalizer for smaller forces in the world. As the other commenter said, jammers are obviously an issue however I wonder if jammers are truly that widespread and able to be fielded in large enough numbers to make a significant impact.
I'm glad you made this and everything you said makes sense ... I am glad that you will have more to say on the subject of CAS, loiter time and munition carrying capability is important , things that made the A-1 Skyraider so loved and effective
So speaking as a boots on ground, I think the troops like the A-10 for it's long overwatch time and apparently highly effective suppression of enemy combatants (not kills, but suppression). The U.S. doesn't have another aircraft at the moment that has the range and rapid response of a jet, but the linger time of a Helo. I think the Texan and others are trying to fill that gap, but they are far more susceptible to ground fire. The U.S. only has a few AC-130s so they don't really fill this niche either. Edit: just to be clear, I agree with everything you're saying about it's ineffectiveness against armor and symmetric warfare. However, the A-10 still fills a niche in assymetric warfare that I wish the USAF would hurry up and find a good replacement for.
Susceptibility to fire is also a factor of range and altitude. Most capabilities fielded by an insurgent/assymetric threat cannot reach even a Helo at several thousand ft let alone 10k. The texan or other similar aircraft are well outside small arms through hmg range. Giving them plenty of PGMs especially the smaller and cheaper ones will yeild a far more capable platform. On the other hand RPAs like the MQ9 or MQ1C can follow your entire foot patrol with 4 hellfires.
@@michaele1564 High powered cheapish commercial Lasers can quite possibly take out eyeballs/mayhaps electro optics or at least render a mission kill against lowish under 5,000 or 6,000 ft non fast mover targets less then 450kts, in daytime.
@@kevinyaucheekin1319 true enough. Even more of a reason to then lean heavily towards RPA or medium altitude aircraft between 10 to 15,000 ft with good loiter time and pgms. At least for COIN.
As someone who's had the pleasure of being supported by A10s during my little stint in Afghanistan and having logged 1500+ hours on the A10 in DCS, what you said in the video is spot on. Abu Hajaar and his friends in Toyota Hiluxes are no problem for the A10 and it's because of that, that it has gained such fame in popular culture. But once the enemy has something like S-300s-500s, SA15s, and even the newer more modern MANPADs, the A10 becomes obsolete. What the A10 employs against these modern systems, the Harrier, F-35, F-16, and F-18 can do better. The F-16, for example, can provide its own suppression of enemy air defenses, the A10 cannot and needs to rely on someone else to do it. And considering the capabilities of something like the S-500s, stealth, and speed is the key to survival. I love the A10, I have models of it and as I am typing this I am literally wearing a cap with an A10 on it.
The Harrier really isn't going to handle those threats better than the A-10, they both are pretty similar in the regard. It might be faster than the A-10 but not enough to make a massive difference.
@@startrekmike True the Harrier might not have the speed advantage but it has the ability to resupply at FARPs using its VTOL capabilities. And like Chris said, sortie rates are one of the most important factors. So in the case of the Harrier, it can basically resupply constantly as the front moves forward instead of either sortiying from far away airfields or needing to wait for the capture of forward makeshift airfields.
@@lunatic_nebula9542 Well. They both carry pretty similar sets of weapons, both have datalink capability, both are sub-sonic, low/mid-altitude, and both share roughly similar attack profiles. So let's talk about the differences because I think I know where you are going to go with this. The A-10 obviously isn't VTOL or STOVL. Much noise is made about how cool the Harrier's VTOL capability is but when you actually start looking at how they have been operated for many, many years now, you start realizing that the VTOL capability isn't really utilized nearly as much as pop culture would have one believe. For all intents and purposes, a operational Harrier squadron would generally be deployed to a airbase. This is pretty much how it has been done for a long time and renders the whole VTOL romanticism thing kinda moot. The other major difference is payload. The Harrier is pretty hard on fuel so it needs to carry external tanks pretty much all the time. As such, that only leaves you a few hardpoints to really work with. This isn't a huge deal since they simply adapted doctrine to deal with that but it is something the A-10 doesn't really deal with nearly to the same degree. Along the same lines, fuel is also a big concern. The Harrier needs to pretty much live near a tanker if it is operating on-station. The A-10 isn't as hard on its fuel so while it will still need to tank, it won't need to do so nearly as often. All of this isn't to say that the A-10 is better than the Harrier. The USMC found ways around the Harrier's limitations in the same way the USAF found ways around the A-10's. Still. When you really look at how both aircraft were operated, it is hard to find a true "advantage" for the Harrier.
@@IowanLawman I am aware that the Harrier CAN use its VTOL capability to resupply at FARP's but how often has that been used in practice? That is the big thing here. People get really enthusiastic about the VTOL capability of the Harrier but only because there isn't a lot of mainstream discussion of the real-life, practical usage of such a feature and certainly not a lot of discussion of why VTOL isn't a major factor in actual conflict. Whenever you read about Harrier usage by the USMC, it almost always revolves around moving them via boat to a established airbase. There is this pop-culture notion that these things are flying missions off the boat or are constantly flying from FARP's to the target and back again but in practice, they really just get sent to airbases where they operate like A-10's. There is a reason for this. It is far, far, far easier to get a combat loaded Harrier into the air if it can take off from a runway. They might still do short take-offs but even then, they are still able to carry more fuel into the mission and more ordinance on the wings. Operationally speaking, VTOL is kinda a novelty when you have access to bases in pretty much any given potential conflict zone. There may come a point where VTOL becomes a thing again but the Harrier as a platform will never see it. When you really look at how they actually are used and have been used for a long time, it is pretty clear that the A-10 and Harrier are pretty similar in the grand scheme of things. What's more. It becomes clear that VTOL isn't exactly as useful as the USMC establishment would like it to seem. I suspect this has more to do with service rivalry and politics than actual practical use-cases.
Chris - in case nobody has mentioned it. "Plinking" is a term used by recreational target shooters. Typically plinking, in my experience, occurs not on a designated target shooting range, but out in the woods, on the "back 40 acres" of the farm, or similar informal target shooting location. Typical targets are empty tin / soda / beer cans set up on a fence post, on a stump, or on a dirt bank. Typically you're doing the shooting with a 22 rifle (22 Long Rifle, 22 Short) from 20 to 50 yards away while standing (vs off a bench or prone). Implicit, IMO, therefore in the term "tank plinking" is that shooting / bombing those tanks was about as hard as hitting a soda can off the fence post from 20 yards away - trivially easy for even a modestly skilled shot, and not too hard for a youth learning how to shoot. There is also the "fun factor" in that when you hit the target can while plinking, it typically goes flying through the air (as I suspect a tank turret would do after a GBU or Maverick hit.) And now on to the main meat: A nuanced discussion on the topic. I more or less agree with the hypothesis of this video. Let the numbers tell the story - kills vs losses, relative effectiveness, etc. True for Iraq and 'Stan. One observation to consider, which seems to be on your monologue list - if I recall when the A-10 was conceived, high altitude was considered the "death zone" due to the relative effectiveness of radar SAMs (vs the then EW / jammer / SEAD capability) and that survivability required you to get "down and dirty" at low altitude - AAA and SA-7's being net a lower threat. Also that in the concept for a central Europe war, that EO missiles (pre imaging IR Maverick) wouldn't be terribly effective, at least at extended range, due to smoke, fog, rain, haze, etc. Ditto the then dominant laser guided Paveway - they needed a clear LOS from the marker spot to the weapon. Therefore, the dominant sensor was the Mk 1 eyeball and the engagement range was to be "knife fight" distance. With that, the gun was to be A, not necessarily THE, but A major factor in delivering firepower. As it turned out, at least in ODS - high altitude was safer (better EW / jammers / SEAD / sub-optimal enemy tactics or weapon mix - pick your combinations of reasons) and low altitude was relatively more dangerous. So from that, at least in ODS and how the threat environment developed, I can see where the gun may have been over hyped. I also see how the original concept didn't pan out. The offensive vs defensive cycles certainly played out in favor of high altitude at the time of ODS. Anyways - great vid as always.
Great video Chris. The hype and fetishizing around the GAU-8 in the age of SDBs, JDAM, UCAVs, Sensor Fused Weapons etc needs to be brought down several pegs. Everything has its own utility, specialization and niche, but this “GAU-8 uber alles” cult has been out of hand for a long time.
@@paaron603 i would prefer a gbu deployed on enemy positions, not vauge and difficult to aim 30mm fire with only 1/6 being HE rounds worth a damn, an F-16 with a LANTIRN pod could identify the enemy at altitude, tell me where they are and than destroy them precisely and quickly
@@paaron603 1.) How do you know what my military experiences have been or where I served? Because you don’t know where and when I served. So you literally have no idea what you’re talking about here. 2.) Did I say the GAU-8 isn’t an awesome weapon? Did I say it’s useless? Did I say it has no place in modern close air support? No, I didn’t say that. Quite the opposite if you actually read my comment. “Everything has its own utility, specialization and niche.” 3.) Your knee-jerk reaction to anyone suggesting that the GAU-8 might not be the best tool for every combat situation is a perfect example of the “GAU-8 uber alles” fetish-cult that I was talking about.
@@paaron603 As if being in the military is a requirement to actually know the facts Where do you think all these myths come from? Is it from civilians or those who served in the military and either might be misremembering things or lying?
The fact that the B-1B heavy bomber was the number one CAS platform during the past 20 years in Afghanistan tells, that the A-10 and it's gun are best to be retired.
Yea tell that to the Infantry who rely on the A-10 for support. Also if memory serves me right Congress, and the Armed forces committee ripped into the Air Force for using the B1B in such a manner.
@@paaron603 By congress and the armed forces committee you're probably referring to what John McCain started talking about using the B1B for CAS didn't compute Dude was the plane version of a FUDD, when he was flying strat bombers were carpet bombing with hundreds of bombs, not slinging guided weapons while being able to pick out friend from foe
Been saying it for years, as cool as the A-10 is, there's very little an A-10 does that an F-15E SE or any other 4th Generation US aircraft couldn't already do.
The only advantages of the Hog over the Strike Eagle are: More Mavericks (the F-15E can only can 6 of them for some reason) Price Armor and gun are getting incerasingly useless, since going close is getting pretty suicidal.
@@angrybirder9983 F-15E in reality in USAF never carried operationally the AGM-65s. Yes, you can see that on brochures and drawings but they did not use them.
There is one additional thing that differentiates the A-10 from all other US Aircraft, it is not multirole. AFAIK A-10s are doing only CAS and CSAR missions, so the crews have much more training and experience in this regard.
It's hard to find a balanced view on the A-10 these days. One is either removing its mythological aura and point out its deficiencies when considering more modern threats or nuancing its often hyped performance in certain campaigns, or one is a fanboy who simply reveres the machine and its crews and won't listen to any counter argument. For me personally, the A-10 was the machine that saved the life of someone I hold dear in a time when UAV's like the Reaper and Predator weren't as prolific as they are now. A-10 crews over Afghanistan could loiter further and longer than attack helicopters and fast jet fighter with minimal or no tanker support, providing an overwatch and provided close air support - most of the times by employing AGM-65 Mavericks, LGBs or dumb mk.82 bombs, only going in low and slow, firing the GAU-8A Avenger if the underwing ordnance was expended and kinetic action or show of force was required urgently. The A-10 was a useful platform to operate as an AFAC and overwatch in many situations. Not the Swiss Army knife some made of it, but still a good piece of weaponry to have around. Certainly, cheaper turboprops could perform CAS. But they do not carry as much, nor can they loiter as long and far away from base as the A-10 does. And they are equally or probably less survivable against advanced air defence artillery, since the A-10 can also carry more ECM and fly higher (due to its turbofans), safely out of range of MANPADS and triple A while employing stand off weapons. And there's something else that's fairly unique to the old hog: its capability to operate from austere fields with minimal advanced ground equipment available. Its engines are pretty solid against dust and sand, its landing gear is very sturdy and its large wings provide STOL-like performance. The last aspect I like to point out, is that the A-10 doesn't require satellite infrastructure to do what current UAVs do. When looking at UAVs one often looks only at the immediate cost of the aircraft itself and that the vast and costly C4I infrastructure for telemetry is overlooked. That infrastructure is vulnerable. Modern ASAT weapons, powerful all bandwith jammers, EMP and cyberwarfare could render drones inoperable. The A-10 could still fly though. In short, is it the wonderweapon in any kind of scenario? Certainly not. Could it still be useful in this century on modern battlefields against near peer enemies? Possibly - if kept to a current technological level of advancement (sensors, datalinks, ECM) and in specific circumstances (for example SEAD and DEAD platforms having taken care of advanced GBADS). Should a number of A-10s be preserved just in case and at against what cost? That's a hard one for which I have no answer. I'm not an hysterical fan, but I do have to admit I like looking at the ugly duckling for sentimental reasons, that much is for sure.
This comment deserves more likes. I wanted to add to "Could it still be useful... against near peer enemies? Possible..." They're currently working on giving the A-10C software updates that will allow it to launch JASSMs, meaning that - worst case - A-10s would be about as relevant as B-52s in that sort of scenario (assuming no nukes, of course).
@@jeffbenton6183 Exactly! Apart from the vast operational range B-52s have that is of course; the Hog may be long legged but not that much. Imagine squadrons of A-10Cs operating from dirt strips in the second island chain waiting to scramble on target cues by USN assets. They would be nearer and able to react faster than bombers that have to start from far away (Barksdale for example) or from bases that are very likely to come under sustained attack (Guam, Diego Garcia). The A-10s would be able to disperse and operate from various locations with little ground facilities, so making a less obvious footprint. And most if not all equipment could be flown in by C-130s. Despite how the F-35B was intended, I cannot imagine the STOVLs doing that - at least not with so little support. To my mind the F-35B is too much of a high tech wonder that needs to much specialized support crew and equipment. The A-10 is an old Buick that needs less love.
@@Pincer88 There is the whole thing about the A-10....it just works. That's kind of important. It doesn't need 15 computers to keep it in the air because...you know....designing a plane that is capable of flying is kind of important.
I don't know of any other plane specifically designed to fly with a wing AND engine blown off and can still be operated if it loses both of its hydraulic systems. Mind you, it only needs one of those systems to be functional for the hydraulics to operate the whole plane. This is no myth, there are countless examples of the plane doing this. Clearly the weapons designed all the way back in the 60's aren't much of a match for current day armament. The GAU can still rip a tank apart, and that is what it was there for.
As a successor to the A-1 Skyraider it arrived in service too late to fly its designed mission so it was given something to do even though it wasn't likely to do it well. Air Force estimates for using A-10s to stop something like a Soviet breakout from the Fulda Gap predicted that the entire fleet of 700 aircraft would be lucky to last 2 weeks.
I saw an A-10 gun run....and it was quite a show of force, as it forced a number of 30mm rounds through an APC, and splash damage on an adjacent technical. I think the A-10, and its weapon packages, have tremendous utility...when employed properly.
Really intersting points made! From AAA perspective i was shocked about the aiming time it cost you in DCS to hit the target. Now, given that you tried to be precise, were not in danger, and most important: haven't got years of training, still i drastically misjudged the window AAA could get on an A-10 preparing to fire it seems. I thought it would be much smaller, even with a rooki on the stick. (The time we got in our official AAA simulators for ground attacking aircraft was way shorter which means they were much harder to neutralize) To be honest, in your very visual example of showcasing the difficulty of using the gun, with well trained AAA you would have been shredded to pieces before even hitting your trigger. So you really prooved your point there i'd say! But to counter that i would have imagined that before going for tanks CAS would try to get rid of AAA anyway. I fully agree, that AGMs like the Maverick are way safer and more efficient than a gun. If i didn't misread, the Maverick has an effective range of 16km. Thats safely out of AAA range. And to the notion about the people claiming the A-10 can take it. The picture you showed showed mostly light damage by small arms fire. But for example 35mm SAPHEI and HEI rounds at 1100 rpms take a different toll, and i doubt A-10 pilots would want to test how many hit's they can take of them. Lastely: i was a fan of the A-10 and it's gun long before the internet became a common thing. (and i still kind of am) I got the fascination from books and magazines. Yes i am that old ;-)
The AAA (and various guided missiles for Sam sites) in DCS has 4 levels of difficulty, ranging from "miss most of the time" to pretty much "headshot out the moving cockpit". I like to play the next setting up, if you jink about plenty and stay outside a mile or so, most of the time it will miss, but get too close or unlucky, you'll hear the rounds going in... Everytime I count a handful of rounds go in to my hawg, as soon as I'm out of the line of fire, I'm looking at the engine instruments for any sign of trouble. 9/10 in the a10c in DCS, if there's bother, then that's where the bother is gonna be. I know plenty of DCS pilots fly the furthest range and fire the longest most precise weapons, but I find this very boring as it's often 100% safe.
I've done "stare-down" shots on moving and stationary Shilka's in DCS with the A-10 with the cannon, killing it at short range before it could kill me. I've taken my share of hits from guns and missile frags. I've spoofed five missiles off a MiG-29 and managed to kill it. It's still a crap-shoot to go guns on medium armor and a "clear airspace" job killing heavy armor. The modern battlefield is definitely getting tougher for the A-10. The F-35 is NOT the perfect answer to replace the A-10. CAS is important and dynamic, and the longer you can stay on-station with payload, the better. Doctrine supports air superiority before ground assault, so the worst offenders are going to be manpads and IR SAMs which are hard to detect and easy to set up. I'd rather face one in an A-10 than an F-35. But I'm not a real pilot. I just play one online.
@@magdovus There is no Soviet / Russian 35 mm AAA system . Tunguska has 30 mm. But I have to say nobody cares. A ZSU-23-4 just as good shred the rest of the plane except the bathtub.
The plane was designed in the late 1960's. They didn't have "Proven" precision ground attack weapons back then. They had to put the big gun on it, as they literally had no choice. Guided weapons are clearly more effective and safer to use, but they had no way to know that back then. Cost was also a factor. A-10's are relatively cheap in comparison with the F-16 (which was double the price) So having something that could take a few hits and come home and be repaired offered some advantages over a plane taking a hit (That's double the price) and being shot down. Great video! I really enjoyed it!
A-10 is cheaper per hour for the bombs put on target than other jets. Longer loiter time, slower and lower on target (smart munitions are making their mark now though). The gun may not work as well against certain targets, but not all targets are heavy main battle tanks either. The gun works for troops, bunkers, etc too. The psychological effect of the A-10 and its gun on the enemy should not be overlooked. I've been in Combat and gotten support from Kiowas, Apaches, Cobras, Predators, and A-10s, B-1, etc. Seeing those A-10s coming in low making danger close gun runs has a huge effect on friendly troops, and enemy troops, good for us, bad for them. Since the 30mm isn't good enough, then the 20mm of other jets is even less effective. and why should infantry and helicopters have 50cal and 20mm if they are worthless? guns are guns, and they work. The gun is also objectively better than the gun on the Su-25, but i don't hear anyone complaining about that. Bullet holes are hard to count from the air, and bombs falling afterwards can mask gun kills. Just look at the over estimated impact of CAS on tanks in WW2, such as by the Typhoon.
As for the helicopter gunships, they usually work under a different system (CCS) and have characteristics that make their "smaller" guns effective in close support missions. It is not an "apples to apples" comparison. Fixed wing aircraft have a harder time acquiring and maintaining visual targets, hence the need for an effective observer on the ground.
Guns, and especially autocannons, are inherently designed primarily to engage soft topics - unarmored vehicles, light armored vehicles, improvised defensive positions, etc. It's not a surprise if a gun isn't effective against hard targets. But at the same time, there seems to be little need to fire a $1,000,000 missile at a $50,000 truck.
@@rdablock Yet the USAF just spent money upgrading all the A-10s, putting brand new wings on them, even had to retool some parts, and the USAF never had more than a handful of Tucanos, most of which now belong to the Taliban.
@@CptFugu yes, helicopters do different missions. But I've also been in combat and had a Kiowa, 2 AH-64s and an A-10 taking turns making the same gun passes on the same group of taliban. A-10 was more effective. And in good weather, A-10 pilots can see targets on the ground with their own eyes too. The Kiowas with no sophisticated targeting, 50 cal and unguided rockets had to be guided on target by ground personnel that day too. Same with the Apaches. Troops in contact in a pitched fight, close quarters. Was a rough day for some of the guys. UH-60 dust off got shot full of holes too.
Another point for keeping A-10 on higher altitudes is that you have a necessity to deconflict your airborne assets with ground troops fires above a high- intensity battlefield anyway. If your troops are in contact there is a lot of stuff flying through air, artillery shells, mortar rounds, high velocity tank gun shells etc. And you really need to keep your aircrafts out of the way of all of this stuff and stay high even if your enemy has no AA capabilities whatsoever.
How low do you think planes fly? Even CAS like the A-10 fly well above the threat of stray artillery or mortar rounds. If anything low fliers like the A-10 are in the most danger than something like a F-16 or F-35 high up. Dedicated heavy anti-air artillery was rendered obsolete due to fast high flying jets. Big cumbersome artillery never intended to target planes... that isn't trying to target planes won't magically hit a plane in a million years.
It is important to see why the 30mm gun doesn't necessarily have to completely destroy an MBT to be effective . MBTs have lots of sensors, optics, and things they rely on to be combat effective, typically stored on top of the turret. Tops of turrets are also much thinner in armor than the sides and especially the front. If the MBT is strafed and damaged, the MBT may be significantly less effective in its role. I see your point though. Standoff weapons are the way of the future, as they do not expose the aircraft to danger as often. The 30mm is more a backup for more effective standoff weapons. Its effective only when modern air defenses are completely removed.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD I don't think they can change the gun. The entire aircraft was based around that heavy gun and the offset weight. If you took it out for maintenance the plane would be tail heavy. Might as well retire and replace the aircraft itself with a light attack aircraft like the AT-6B Wolverine or the A-29 Super Tucano.
@@petem6755 Muzzle velocity is comparable, the amount of ammo is driven by the size of the feed system, fewer but accurate hits are just as good as spraying at higher rof.
The feeling that the GAU-8 is overrated IS because of PR as the GAU-8 was never primarily meant to take out tanks, it was always meant for softer targets like BMP's, BTR's, and other low armored vehicles that were expected to be encountered in numbers far larger than tanks. But the PR machine decided the opposite.
Designed from ground up to destroy tanks due to reformist influence. Can’t do that Reformers proceed to say it wasn’t actually meant to do that That statements gets accepted as fact...
Interestingly I actually a few days ago covered the A-10's gun on Bo's Discord. The report I went through, which you have as well as I can see, noted that there was a high risk of the A-10 being shot down or badly damaged by SPAA if the targets were in open terrain with no terrain to use as cover.
@N Fels I love the Cannon on the A10 but the AH56Cheyenne (experimental) would do the C.A.S. roll better than the AH64 with a higher top speed and loitering abilities with air to air refueling abilities. It did both job's better than the two airframes chosen, instead of continuing with the AH56 program. What is the common opinion on the AH56?...from Wyoming USA 🇺🇸 🤠
When I was in the Bundeswehr we had a bit of an AA training afternoon, went out of the base to a little clearing overlooking a town, set up our AA mounts and got talked through the use of the MG3's AA sights. Was quite interesting, with the various fields for different estimated speeds and what not. On that day there was also a pair of A10's flying over our base for some reason. We laughed and actually aimed at them just to get some practice (all without any ammo), and then pondered about the usefulness of manually aimed 7.62 NATO against an A10 and its retaliation... Yeah, was fun in theory, but if it had been real we'd be dead. One of the many deaths I theoretically had during my time in the Bundeswehr.
Instead of wasting your ammo, and "dying", you just get on the radio and call for a fighter jet. The A-10 is only useful in uncontested airspace. It cannot survive even a single sortie against advanced anti-aircraft or a military with modern day fighter aircraft. It's an antiquated platform that's only useful in a third-world environment. In fact, it doesn't even require "modern day" aircraft to defeat it... any fighter jet built after about 1960 will blow it clean out of the sky.
@@thebonesaw..4634 If we had radio, if we had uncontested airspace, if we had the time, if we weren't ambushed, if our entire group of 10+ vehicles wasn't in a dense forest, then yes, calling for air support would've been an option.
@@thebonesaw..4634 yes but it’s not designed for a attack on advanced armies it’s whole design was too attack Gorilla forces who didn’t have the luxury of a airforce which is why it was deployed in places like Afghanistan. Plus a A10 pilot could call on his air support for a allied fighter jet to protect him, whilst he takes out ground forces.
@@matty6848 if it’s only designed to fight guerrilla forces and can’t take on anything else effectively, then it’s an inflexible and generally not very useful aircraft
@@abunchoftvs4018 but not to forget that active protection systems and a plethora of ways to distract missiles exist. You can't jam or intercept a bullet. I think the A10 has its place but only as backup at this point, letting electronic warfare do most of the work, accounting for all its vulnerabilities.
13:02 i talked to a few of my A-10 pilot buddies and they told me that it can survive up to something around 25mm autocannon shots but missiles are a nope, even something like an igla can take them down.
Well technical document rate it as resistant to 23 mm for direct hit and 57 mm for Flak, that's close 25 mm. Sadly mordern computer controlled and radar assisted SPAAG tend to pack 30 mm or 35 mm.
@@Zlonk7 nah it's going to be dismantled from 23mm auto cannon. There's a myth that it was armored when it only had armored tub cockpit rather than it's entire airframe.
@@sys3248 At the very least the pilot will want to nope the hell out, disabled or destroyed in the current battle means the same thing. The engines are a pretty big target for shrapnel that hits anywhere near it and anything over 12.7 mm carries a decent amount of explosive mass. It is a cool plane but the notion that it is the best CAS plane ever really frustrates me to be honest. I would much rather be flying an F-35 than an A-10 if I must do CAS. Maybe A-10 if I'm fighting 3rd world countries that only have Igla as their best SAM. Reality is after 1980s A-10 will get shot down pretty easily against any modern military unless air superiority is achieved and all SAM sites have been destroyed.
Your points are really well researched and definitely draw a different picture. However, I do believe that the A-10 only really found its peak-role in the asymetrical warfare seen in Afghanistan. The upgrades to the sensors and the weapons, together with the very long loiter time and the gun just make it such an effective package for exactly the roles it has been fullfilling **since** desert storm. I cant think of any other aircraft that can do this. And thus retiring the A-10 would create a gap in exactly those capabilities, that "boots on the ground" need and ask for in todays theaters.
@@Zoddom the A-10 barely have the sensors or even radar to detect targets, moreso than light attack planes And they cost a lot more to operate than light attack aircraft just to destroy what's basically groups of men armed with hodgepots of rifles and beliefs For example, the Tucano is equipped with radar and FLIR, whilst only the A-10c is and cost just as much as a multirole from those upgrades And fact remains that the A-10 have performed the least CAS in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sources shared by Chris shows that
@@fulcrum2951 fair points, but how are A-G radars gonna help with detecting a few insurgents on a motorcycle? The sensor suite of the A-10C II is enough for that job, and they have the endurance and payload to stay around for much longer than any modern multi role fighter or light attack aircraft.
Daily reminder that CAS is not flying low and slow to the ground to engage enemies, its engaging enemies in close proximty to friendly forces. Cause you know thats going to get brought up as a selling point for the gun in the comments and its probably the biggest misunderstanding ever told about the plane.
No matter how many times i stated about CAS meaning to attack enemy forces that are close to friendlies and it never stated the plane has to be close to the enemy, people still wont understand it
I have always been skeptical about the A-10 in a REAL equal war. Shooting at bandits in the desert is way different to fighting a country loaded with sams and spaa.
I believe the most important criticism of the A-10 is that it has not been tested in a near peer conflict, only against irregular forces without effective ground to air or air to air capabilities.
My father was once assigned to a target range in Sough Korea when he was in the USAF. They had plywood targets of tank and vehicle silhouettes to shoot at, which were attached to telephone poles buried in the ground. He said that the F-15/F-16 20mm guns would cause some splintering of the telephone poles, but the GAU-8 rounds would uproot the telephone poles. And these were training rounds.
Not physically possible, sorry to tell you but your father was telling a story, not the truth, inert training rounds will punch through wood too quickly to impart enough force to uproot it, to compare try stapling paper to a stick and burying the stick so a paper target sticks out, now shoot it, the paper will be penetrated and the stick will have little/no energy transfered to it
@@gaiamission7200 I have a couple of spent rounds, and they have hollow points and the main part of the round itself has a flat nose. If the point were to disintegrate fast enough the flat portion would just push the telephone pole instead of penetrate deeply. My father had no reason to lie to me about this.
@@gtv6chuck at these energies shell shape wont matter for one, and two, no cannon ammunition has been manufactured with hollow points, three, he pictures a training round in the video, it has a pointed nose
No Pilot is ever going to have the time to decide if the GAU-8 can kill a target. Does it have tracks? Then it gets a missile, period. Wheeled Vehicle? gun it, whether that is the GAU-8, or the GAU-12 or even the vulcan becomes academic. It is a great gun and an incredible engineering feat, but realistically speaking everything that is even remotely dangerous to the A-10 gets a standoff weapon to the face. Maybe the A-10 without that 2 tons of gun would be even better, because it would have even more endurance and or payload.
This is the point that says it all. In DCS using the gun against these kinda targets is fun, but dangerous, that's what makes it so... But in real life, you can't just reload the mission, so you're gonna do exactly as you said, stand off weapons and the guns gonna maybe be used with HEI rounds against some enemy troops hiding in a tree line for example
One thing I would love to add: In a modern combat environment, even in an asymmetrical conflict, the surface to air weapons are a lot more lethal. ZSU-23-2s and 4s fired 23mm rounds at up to 4,000 rounds per minute. Systems like Tunguska fire 30mm rounds at a higher rate and the same muzzle velocity. Pantsir fires larger 30mm rounds at 5,000 rounds per minute. Just from a battle damage perspective it is worse now since the A-10 is going to be getting hit with rounds that are much more powerful than their predecessors in both kinetic energy and explosive power. Pretty much any SPAAG now carries SAMs that can fire from several miles away, and as a matter of fact the guns are usually considered secondary armament. Older short range SAMs could carry 2-6 missiles, which meant that the system could engage 1-3 targets if it is firing two missiles at each one. Pantsir can carry 8, 12, or 18 missiles depending on varient. Tor now carries 16 missiles. MANPADS are a lot better as well, the latest able to engage planes at over 10,000 ft. In a peer level conflict, the situation is even worse. At this point, we are keeping the A-10 around purely for nostalgia's sake, as it does not have a unique role anymore.
The A-10 was only designed with the ZSU-23-2 in mind. Where it might take one or two 23mm hits every once and awhile. The radar guided ZSU-23-4 meant that the A-10 was obsolete as a frontline aircraft before it was even introduced. Even an A-10 is not going to survive dozen of 23mm shells that a ZSU-23-4 would deliver. Even if it did, the plane would be out of action for weeks or scrapped altogether.
Spot on The problem with the loss of the A-10 is not the loss of the platform but a loss of the culture of those who fly it, something that is sorely missing from a large portion of the USAF. Here is some observations from someone has spent the my entire military career doing fire support from the company to the MAGTF level and was a division JTAC manager. Most people attempt to sell the A-10 based on its 30mm gun, which is its least effective weapon; the simple fact is forward firing gun runs may look cool but probably are best as only a suppressive fire system because they hardly ever kill the enemy. If you want to kill people, the best way to do it is put HE on the DMPI. An additional factor in the GAU-8 was it was designed to kill T62 era tanks, testing done in the 90s on modern Russian armor acquired on the grey market showed with the era of armor fielded 20 or more years ago the 30mm would probably only be able to disable and not kill modern armor. Most people think of CAS as only type 1 controls (there are 3 types of controls); most CAS these days are type II controls and the standard TTP is to receive the 9 (or 6) line and attack from the overhead. Most of what is done today is not really CAS because it does not involved the detailed integration of aerial fires and maneuver forces but instead involves strike in relatively close proximity to friendly forces. Most people sell the A-10's survivability as a selling factor. However in ODS A-10s (and other attack Aircraft) initially flew the low level attack profile per their TTP from operating in Europe, shortly the shifted to a medium to high flight profile to bring them outside of the envelope of light to medium ADA. Because although it can survive a few hits, they were receive significant numbers of hits and in an armor versus weapons fight, normally the weapons always evolved beyond the protection of the armor. This has been re-enforced recently in the Ukraine, the Russian SU-25 flying tanks have been readily shot down by the plethora of MPADs somewhat replicating the US 1991 experience. A-10s have been involved in numerous fratricide incidents both in training and in combat and have killed numerous US Marines (and British forces) since 1991. Off the top of my head I can remember cases in which A-10s have put Mavs, LBGs and 30 mm to LAV-25s, AMTRACKs, OPs and British Warrior IFVs because of loss of SA and faulty ID of what they are shooting at.
Combat mix for much of the GWOT did not involve DU API rounds because of lack of armor targets and concern with DU contamination, additional HEI was not a good choice because mud brick walls could not be penetrated by them.
It would be nice if you had also compared the A10 in both success rates and losses to the Army's gunship, the AH64 Apache... isn't that also a dedicated tank killer doing combined missions with ground forces?
Going back to WWII, I would love discussions of the aircraft of the "lesser" nations: France, Italy, Finland, Hungary, Romania, Brazil, China, Australia/New Zealand, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Greece, etc.
Here's another take on what was said and why it was said, regarding the A-10's 30mm cannon performance: Since the early 1980s, factions of the USAF have been trying to get rid of the A-10, believing it to have no place in the air force or on the modern battlefield. Money spend on maintaining the platform and training pilots could be used elsewhere in more "sexier" high-tech fighters and bombers. The A-10 represented a compromised decision to support the US Army and other ground force operations. That faction of the air forced wanted little to do with Close Air Support missions, believing that once air superiority had been achieved, ground support missions should fall under the responsibility of dedicated Army and Marine Corp attack helicopters. They would have no qualms about putting the GAU-8 Avenger and other systems of the A-10 in a bad light, and downplaying their effectiveness. This has been going on for over 40 years and hasn't changed. Dating back to when the A-10 was introduced to service, the GAU-8's 30mm ammunition was already proven to be limited in its effectiveness against the frontal armor of Soviet Main Battle Tanks of the late 70s and 80s and marginal in side armor penetration. However, that is not how the GAU-8 is supposed to be used to kill tanks. The 30mm ammunitions is quite effective in penetrating the top and rear armor over the engine compartment and turret. It is very effective in destroying road wheels, drive sprockets, and treads. It is also exceptional against personnel, and softer skinned vehicles, in which employing an AGM-65 would be expensive and wasteful. Saying that the GAU-8 is overrated isn't quite true or false, but a matter of perspective and proper usage. The A-10 was designed and built around the gun system, not because the gun is so awesome and cool, but out of necessity due to its size and shape. The gun is as capable as it needs to be and give the A-10 platform the flexibility needed on the battlefield. Once all of the missiles, rockets, and bombs have been spent, the A-10 can still be effective in the CAS role, although with reduced capability, until other planes arrive. The A-10 / GAU-8 is an effective weapon system, not just because of its combat performance and flexibility, but also due to its efficient economic performance in usage, maintainability, and upgradability.
Would love to hear more about how COIN/CAS is evolving, especially the increasingly widespread use of drones. Are they really more cost-effective vs. "low-tech" manned aircraft like the A-10?
They're certainly safer for the operator, which alone might justify their use. But are they better at attacking stuff? Not really. You have latency between the operator and the drone, and in spite of what the military says, it's pretty clear that it can be hard making out enemy platoons versus rowdy house parties via the drone's cameras. Drones also can't carry much; the A-10 carries about 4 times the payload. BUT, drones are super good at just kind of hanging out. The reaper outranges the A-10 by 200 nautical miles and can fly continuously for 16 hours, meaning you can just kind of dump a few of them in the sky and wait around until there's something to shoot. This makes them pretty cool for our increasingly weird war conditions, in which assassinating individual enemy commanders or blowing up compounds only once they're occupied is a higher priority than leveling everything everywhere. So I guess the answer is that Drones make a great case for themselves in the war on terror, but in a total war against a well-equipped nation, being able to shoot missiles and cannons everywhere like you're in Macross would be a lot more cost-effective than deploying a whole robot for every two or three enemy tanks you want to shoot at.
There is nothing less cost effective than something that cannot fulfill it's missions. Drones and COIN aircraft are vastly less capable than aircraft that are more expensive and have been designed to operate in more hostile environments. For the Drones - you can send them into high threat environments - because you don't care if you lose them. COIN aircraft are fine for beating up on people trying to hide in the jungle - who do not have sophisticated Anti-Aircraft Defenses - but - if you sent them against a real army - they will be instantly shot out of the sky. There are different types of aircraft with different abilities and different costs - for a reason. .
As always your efforts to dig underneath the assumed realities. Thank you so much for your hours of research and educate us as to fundamental realities of air craft in war. It has always been glamorous to be in the air under power. And has always Allie Wed for self agrandmizment. War in operation is serious life and death business. Having real & clear data is critical to wining battle. Thanks again to your digging and presentation
I consider one thing to be probably the most damning part of the verdict against the A-10. Soviets (or Russians later) never registered it as any special threat. PGM revolution fascinated Soviet-Russian military thought for decades. A-10 gun was never really considered as anything special.
Only becasue they never encountered it first hand. If they had invaded Europe, and had an mechanized column jammed bumper to bumper on the Autobahn, they would have learned real quick what the A-10 could to do.
@@blank557 they never encountered PGMs either. It didn't stop them from understanding its importance. Mechanized column of the time period when A-10 was operational would be covered by at least two Tunguskas with a dozen MANPADs in support. And this no-sells any sort of gun-runs by A-10.
@@CruelDwarf The A-10 is a close air support plane. In any and all close air support missions, regardless of what plane it is, or what helicopter it is, you do not run close air support unless you already have air superiority. If Russia ever faces the A-10, it's because they already lost the battle for the sky.
@@PotatoeJoe69 so what is the point of having an aircraft that can be used only after you already won the war? It is conundrum of the A-10. It cannot be used for its intended purpose. The plane was good maybe in the 50s.
@@CruelDwarf Do you have any concept of how war works? Any idea at all? Do you honestly not realize that a war does not advance unless you have air superiority? Aircraft are the biggest threat on the battlefield today, without dominating the air space, you're going too lose. If the enemy controls the skys, they're free to bomb your supply lines, forward operating bases, encampments, any kind of strategic positions, and they deny your ability to get planes or helicopters in. I hope this isn't lost in you. Surely you have too understand how one must control the air space too win a war.
No, I think Chris is (rightly) putting high value on pilot lives at risk while (wrongly) putting no value on ground troops' lives. It's incorrect, rude, and kind of stupid an to assume the US military doesn't know AAA can cause damage and fatalities and "need to relearn" this every generation. I'm sure that if you drilled down onto these missions you'd find that the danger of AAA was offset by another danger if the mission wasn't carried out.
@@lqr824 Incorrect possibly. But low level AAA caused massive losses in WWII, most losses in Vietnam and, along with short range IR SAMs, most losses in Desert Storm. No one is saying helping the troops is wrong - it's essential - but maybe, just for example, artillery - and naval shore bombardment where available - are less costly ways of doing it.
The ability to perform long loiter time in a general battle area may be the attribute of the A-10. But then, there is already the A-29 (EMB-314) "Super Tucano", which can also fire Paveway 2 and F/A-50 "Golden Eagle" that can also fire Maverick.
@@Nyx_2142, will you please be more precise and coherent in stating your opinion, rather than give blanket statements. A-29B shall work perfectly in low-intensity conflicts that U.S. forces also engaged in. FA-50 is workable against more well-equipped ground targets. These two aircraft complement each other. Your COHERENT criticism is MUCH WELCOME. Variey of types adds resiliency and flexibility to the air assets on hand, you SHOULD know that, even if you have REMOTE knowledge how REAL COMBAT WORKS.
I'm not an A10 pilot, but I fly the A-10 in DCS, and I can say that you nailed in it in this video. In the complex DCS missions where the enemy has even the basic air defenses, my preferred method is to allow the multi-role fighters like the F-16 and F-18 to take out the SAM with HARMS, and when that is done, I use AGM - 65, the IR version to take out the armor from the distance. Also, I like to point out that if the DCS missions have to newest Russian tank deployed, such as the T90, the A-10 gun is mostly useless.
I'll agree on the HARM's for anything with the range of an SA15 or greater, but once gone, the A-10C II with Mav's, and 47 APKWS plus Clusters or GBU 38's clean up anything in the AO. I'll spend 1.5hrs just circling a location and destroy it in one sortie. Get 2 - 4 of us together and you just move from airfield to airfield without needing to land, refuel or rearm. Once AFV's etc are gone, GU-8 for troops and trucks. Every platform has its purpose.
On loiter time, one interesting thing to consider is one mission type the A-10 has had a lot of success with but usually isn't talked about is Combat Search and Rescue(such as in Kosovo) where that loiter time can be very useful. In fact, feeding back into the gun topic, from what I recall one of the main people to work on the A-10 project specifically talked to A-1 Skyraider pilots who did CAS and CSAR in Vietnam and said their 20mm were their most used weapon. I believe one of the recent upgrades in the A-10 was also integrating a CSAR specific radio system into the plane and continue to train pilots for that mission type.
@@chickenfishhybrid44 There were quite a few even wars in the last ~70 years and I don't know of a lot of CSAR being flown, in let's say Iraq-Iran war.
The A-10 became my favorite back in the very early 80's , when my dad was aircraft maintenance foreman on them . I got a personal tour of one , like I did of most aircraft that came through the base . I also would go to the firing range and sit by the tower and watch the A-10's and other jets fire as they got even with the tower ( and not very far away ) ( and drop practice bombs ) ... I think at that time A-7's wear a close second ...
34:13 "at the end of the day, if a tank was destroyed by a maverick, does it matter if A-10 fired it, or another aircraft fired it" does it matter if that other aircraft costs more to procure and maintain?
yes, but it also matters whether the aircraft is actually competent in a situation with actual anti-air threats, keeping a whole fleet of extra planes that are objectively worse just for when you want to kill people in a country with a poor military is a net increase in cost, not a decrease. Cost saving is one of the reasons multi-role aircraft are used over dedicated fighters, attackers and interceptors.
A-10 fanboys are like the people who complain that the F-35 can't be any good for air combat if it doesn't have a gun. If you asked them when was the last time a US combat jet killed another jet with its gun I doubt they'd know it was 1972 in Vietnam and the last jet-on-jet guns kill anywhere was in 1988. They're the same ones who trot out the old nonsense about Air Force Phantoms in Vietnam not being effective due to their lack of gun (which was later remedied), while ignoring or more likely not knowing that Navy Phantoms were much more successful still and never had guns and it was primarily training that made USAF ones better, not armament.
That would be great but no current system can stay out of harms way and provide effective CAS. Also more distance make identifying friendlies from targets difficult. How much money saved from maintenance and repairs is worth the life of the 18 year old on the ground?
@@texasforever7887 the F-16 has provided effective CAS and stayed out of harms way as per the sources provided by Chris, or do you not read them? Or do you ignore the DOD definition of CAS which states any aircraft attacking targets in close proximity to friendly units? You do realized we have the sensors and technology to identify targets with ease and more reliable than the mk1 eyeball right? The A-10 lacked those equipment and caused the most blue on blue in history compared to any NATO aircraft in existence. Do you ever checked the history of the A-10? If i were to ask you who is the man that designed the plane, you will either have a hard time answering or answered wrongly
@@fulcrum2951 Problem is, the USAF considers other airframes as friendly units so they can call the strike a CAS mission and bleed into the A-10 numbers.
Y'know, this reminds me of an A-10 game my friends and I picked up for the computer many many years ago. The gun was fun, but definitely not safe.... Pretty much we'd only use it as a last resort if we screwed up and were low on other ordinance with the objective not complete. So it does make sense, it's fun, it's intimidating, but not the go to weapon. Thinking back about that game even, the points you bring up make total sense.
Excellent video. The mythologization of the avenger makes sense to me, but even a cursory knowledge of modern warfare and military hardware brings it into question. I don't hate the A-10 or want to see it retired but its one unique feature, the gun, is ultimately superfluous to its operation most of the time. Considering alternatives that are cheaper and simpler is perfectly logical in the modern age.
What cheaper alternative? Guns are cheaper than missiles or smart bombs. A ten or twenty round burst of 30 mm, delivered on target. costs less than a Maverick.
@@johncasteel1780 i believe i worded my comment a bit confusingly. I meant alternatives to the A-10 for simple anti ground operations. There are many alternative platform that can adequately deliver the same payload as the A-10 (minus the gun), for a much cheaper price.
The problem with using the First Gulf War as a guide is that in an effort to avoid friendly casualties, the Air Force forced the A-10 into action at much higher altitudes for which it was designed and in ways for which the pilots had not trained. This was especially true for use of the gun, which was always intended as a close-in, nap of the Earth weapon. (most of that damn desert is *really* flat with nothing to mask your approach or egress) Also, for real frontline CAS work there is still no more effective solution than an attack helicopter.
First great video. Really like how you broke down the A-10's use of the GAU-8. I'd be interested to how much of the USMC's use of aircraft in the CAS role differs than the USAF's in the sense that Marine aviators are essentially there solely to support for the Marines on the ground. Possibly a video of the development of USMC CAS during WW2?
Great video! A little about me, I am a former danish soldier who has deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan several times, and have had the A-10 support my unit a couple of times in Afghanistan. The A-10 is an impressive aircraft, but I simply don't see it being effective (or being able to survive) on the modern battlefield. I see it more as a modern Stuka. If you do not own the airspace the A-10 is going to be in a fight for survival. Against a modern enemy the aircraft will never get down and dirty where the Gau-8 can be effective, SAM technology has simply made that impossible as I see it.
@@trolleriffic It was really a mixed bag to be honest. Most used weapons were 500 lb precision bombs or gun runs. My unit was supported by Harriers, a B1, some french aircraft (not sure if it was a Mirage, I think it was), Apaches and the A-10. Basicly, when we needed CAS, we got what was available. And they were all much appreciated.
Ah yes I remember that now. Didn’t he do a victory role after the attack? How the Hell a American pilot mistook British tanks for Russian T72s is just beyond bad??
I think most troops would rather have SDBs that can penetrate contested airspace on like an F-35 , than a 30mm that will die against russian or chinese IADS. Day one, minute one, the f-35 can get in there and keep the 18 year old with the rifle alive, and the a-10 can't.
@@IntrusiveThot420 But in that war where A-10's are all useless, there will still be that one dude that comes through somehow and blasts some enemy position with all the drama and 30mm fireworks, and that's what they'll remember.
@@materialdialectics i don't think throwing your extremely expensive and very well trained pilots into a meat grinder is a good military strategy, when you have the option to not do that and still blow up enemy positions.
@@IntrusiveThot420 When was the last time the US fought a war where contested airspace was even a thing? The A-10 is the plane you send in when you've already cleaned out the enemy air force and reduced the heavy duty anti aircraft stuff to a relatively low level. Yes, it has a very niche role, but it excels at it.
I really enjoyed the video however I think maybe a part 2 could be made. I see a lot of arguments here in the comments section about the A-10s ability to do complete CAS. I think people aren’t fully grasping the context of this video. This video is only talking about the efficiency of the GAU-8, not the overall ability for the A-10 to be categorized as a “best of the best CAS aircraft.” -> that ability in of itself is an entirely different discussion.
New A-10 pilots when they realise they don't have froend or for their A variant and see orange on the "trucks" they just shot without abyone asking the British if it was them in a British zone *supprised pikachu*
Hey, Not only did the F-111 score more kills in a fewer missions than A-10, but they were fighting in a more dangerous space, while flying across third of the globe. Further, in reality A-10's don't even use the BRRRT in Iraq against the armor, they just spent the AGM's and left ASAP.
Great topic very well presented. My comment is not nearly as well researched and prepared but here goes. CAS, C is of course Close. With your discussion one conclusion could be that there is no longer a need to get in close, down and dirty. Your arguments about serviceable aircraft continuing missions opposed to aircraft sitting on the apron awaiting repairs and service is obviously a good one. However the clip you showed of the A10 doing the down and dirty and the reaction of the troops on the ground demonstrates why C may still be very important. We continually talk about force multipliers and there importance. As a former US Marine, US Army and British Army soldier I can promise you that just knowing that the A10 was available to support your mission was indeed a multiplier, even better when you can hear them loitering above. That knowledge gives the grunt that extra confidence in the outcome of the coming action. Not every mission involves tanks, indeed quite the opposite other than the early weeks in Iraq in either campaign. Quite the opposite is true for enemy forces, they know what that gun can and will do if employed against them and that may be enough to ensure a victory on the ground with minimal risk to the ground troops and that’s what CAS is about, Close Air Support of troops in contact. The A10 s ability to loiter is only matched by B52 I believe and I don’t see them coming down to 4000 ft to do that gun run in the mountains and valleys of Afghanistan or somewhere similar. There are other platforms that can perform similar functions such as the 130 gunships, great to hear them overhead also, but another aspect not talked about is cost. Nothing is out there performing this mission as effectively for the price. The air force itself is continually trying to kill off this aircraft but on it goes, perhaps the AF should give the aircraft etc to the USA. The mission of attacking large scale armored formations can easily be shifted to just about anything capable of lifting weapons and equipment necessary to employ them in a stand-off style format but that true low, down and dirty CLOSE air support of troops in contact is still being done by the old platforms of A10, helicopter gunships and the 130 gunships and doing it very well. I believe the 111 is either out of service or will be soon, all other platforms are using levels of sophistication that cost more and don’t perform the close part of the mission as well as A10. I don’t believe the A10 program is broken in the least. Maybe it’s not the frontline answer to massed armored formations anymore but troops on the ground in trouble will never complain if you tell them there’s an A10 coming to help, they’ll tough it out and hold their ground until the A10 has prepped the ground for them to advance. Nobody wins the war until the grunt holds the land, everybody else is there to support that. CAS is part of that and the C is not dispensable. Thanks for a great topic.
