A-10 Warthog: Retire or Upgrade the BRRRT? - Future of A-10C Thunderbolt II
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The A-10 „Warthog“ Thunderbolt II is slotted for retirement by 2030. What was the overall state of the debate and what may we expect to see from the Hawg until then?
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USAF A-10C Thunderbolt II pilots practise MALD employment mission, Air Force Technology, 2022.
Bell, Trevor (2022) 66th WPS further modernizes A-10’s capabilities to sharpen competitive edge, Air Force Command
Jacques, David and Strouble, Dennis (2010) A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) Systems Engineering Case Study, Air Force Center for Systems Engineering
Joint Publication 3-09.3, Close Air Support, 2014/2019
FM 3-0, Operations, Oct. 2022
Hansen, Ralph (2002) The Effectiveness of the A-10 on the Battlefield of 2010
Roza, David (2021) The Air Force tried to kill the A-10 by clipping its wings and starving it of parts, Task & Purpose
Roza, David (2022) Old Air Force A-10 Warthog learns new trick: Covering fire for B-1B bombers
Task & Purpose
Keller, Jared (2023) The beloved A-10 Warthog has a brand new role: bomb truck, Task & Purpose
Losey, Stephen (2023) US Air Force wants to retire all A-10s by 2029, Defense News
Medium, An A-10 Pilot Could Hope to Last Two Weeks Against the Soviets, March 2013
Nasaw, Daniel (2023) Why Is America Still Flying the A-10 Warthog, a Cold War Relic?, Wall Street Journal
Neubeck, Ken (2019) A-10 Thunderbolt II - Fairchild Republic's Warthog at War, Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
Stephen, Rich (1994) "Fairchild A-10: Fighting Warthog" in World Air Power Journal Vol 16, Spring
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00:00 - A-10 Thunderbolt II
00:47 - Divided Opinions
02:27 - Mighty Wings: A-10 Capabilities
03:57 - No Hawg Zone: A-10 Criticism
06:22 - Upgrades
08:39 - Sponsored Segment
10:29 - Peer-to-Peer Conflict
11:57 - Future is now: A-10 Changes?
13:21 - Bomb Truck
14:00 - Missile Slugger
14:43 - Maritime Patrol
15:21 - Buddy Tanker
16:00 - Strike Support
17:32 - Threat Picture
20:17 - Long Live Hawg
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Surf under the radar horizon by getting *NordVPN's 2Y plan + 4 months free here* nordvpn.com/mahistory *It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee!* Correction: 16:31 - obviously B-52 not -25
Those A10 drones in Call of Duty Ghosts game were always cool
No bird can be kept in service indefinitely? Tell that to the B-52 and C-130.
oh lol, yea that B-25 bit confused me slightly
"No aircraft can stay in service forever." - B-52, C-130, CH-47: "We can"t hear you!"
I wish we had stayed with the Sopwith Camel, just develop it so that it's now on model ZZ Block 135
To be frank, those platforms are basically the equivalent of Theseus ship at this point. They are just cheaper to upgrade with new parts systems.
B-52: I will outlive you all!
@@Sneikki Yes, they're like Jennifer Aniston still having movies made for her at this age...they've paid for the massive publicity they've built up under her name over the decades so they don't want to start from scratch building up new starlets. They can patch things up by sticking to certain camera angles, lots of editing and CGI, not having pretty young actresses standing near her, plus of course all the plastic surgery.
@@bl8danjil It will retire when the last AFB has sunk under the ocean. Or the US Navy will have to build bigger carriers. 🤔
The new Brrrrrrt is the dreaded Buzzzzzz of the drone.
Underrated comment
Is that what you are going to say during a full scale war where cities are being bombed? You think drones are going to be available when Russia, Iran, North korea, and China start fighting? Remember COVID? How computer chips were hard to get? It will be 10 times worse than that because most of the chips are made in China.
@@GOD719Russia is already fighting flat out, and can't even make a lot of progress against a second rate power like Ukraine. Doesn't seem to have had much impact on the west so far. And while China provides a lot of the chips, it imports over half of its fuel and food. Given the number of unfriendly nations around it already, say Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, India, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, it will be pretty much locked into a blockade situation..... And no, Russia can't replace said supply, they already had periods when the rail link was severed...
No aircraft can remain in service indefinitely. B-52 has entered the chat.
The 52 is only effective against a competent enemy because it carries standoff weapons. It doesn't penetrate heavily-defended airspace.
@@charlesfaure1189 You mean incompetent?
Some B-52s will start falling from the sky. Worth mentioning that at least some of the replacement parts are from the scrapyard. Sure, they weren't used too much but they aren't new. When it will start falling they will retire it.
Reasoning by analogy. The A-10 is the modern Ju 87, which was also a deadly accurate weapon when used in an unchallenged air space. When used against the RAF it was wrecked in large numbers.
I think the biggest problem for this plane is not that the US military will not get total air superiority, but rather that the enemy will have large numbers of air defence missiles. And that every infantry platoon might carry a manpad. This plane can survive hits from AK-47s, machine guns and perhaps even small calibre anti-aircraft cannons. But I doubt it will do well against missiles.
True, very few a/c can successfully overcome strong, unimpeded anti-aircraft ground support or air interception. Even "Flying Fortresses" need "little friends". But, even when properly used, when has technology sufficiently advanced so that the "best by" date is an imperative? At some point, it was apparent to all that bodkin-proof plate armor had decisively been defeated by firearms. But, to this day, armor has a place. We'll see about the A-10...
Stuka was blown to bits in large numbers. Dive bombers went the way of the Do Do bird. Far too predictable.
@@gregoryschmitz2131 thing is with live or robot pilots, these platforms are far too predictable. hence why cheaper platforms being devoloped and those with large fleets of these, will if not forced to up/down/sidegrade, will be left behind.
@@gregoryschmitz2131 and "large numbers" (of losses) mean nothing if you have wave attacks of even cheaper platforms.
How will we keep the British on their toes without the A-10 "support" in the toolbox?
Harsh, but not without merit.
Don’t forget the us marines too, they have a colourful history with A-10 support
English armor formation going southbound when everyone else was going northward. Not getting on the radio to let anyone else know why they're doing it. No IFF boxes on any of the vehicles at the times for visual and infrared identification on the ground and the air. Cherry on top is the USAF forward air controllers not personally seeing or identifying the incoming English armor formation heading toward U.S. ground forces before calling in the airstrike on it. A-10s were just the closest to get the call.
@@mislovrit Did you just... victim blame the victims of a military friendly fire incident? That's horrible. You should feel horrible.
@bob38028 Not blaming the victims but friendly fire incidents such as this requires a whole lot of people unknowingly making mistakes that ultimately leads up to such accidents. If anyone deserves the blame it will be on the U.S. foward air controllers themselves for not visually or by radio confirming who's coming toward them before calling in the airstrikes.
Circa 1981, while working in the US, I went to a county fair where the Air National Guard was showing off a Warthog. I could not believe I had never seen one. The info-plaque suggested that the A-10 was already being replaced by „better“ aircraft. Back home (Germany) while walking through the forest, one of these flew over me, made a tight turn and almost seemed to hover. I wondered if the „Ami’s“ had reinvented the Zeppelin. I was badly overweight at the time (I‘m 35 kg lighter now), but apparently did not look like a tank, so it just daintily flew over me and disappeared. I was shocked a few years back when I learned they were still in use. I guess ancient beings can still be useful. I hope so.
This aircraft is still in service because USAF needs, for Congressional purposes, something to point at and say "LOOK! WE CARE ABOUT CAS!" otherwise some of the funding and agreements that govern what type of aircraft USAF vs US Army can operate would start to break. It has nothing to do with the merit of the aircraft beyond it being so completely unusable for anything else that it fills the necessary political role to prevent US Army from buying something like A-29 or any other fixed wing attack aircraft of any kind.
My understanding of the A-10 is that it's the most advanced specialist close attack plane... And was designed right as the concept was made obsolete by viable precision munitions, the sensors that aim those, and attack helicopters that can do everything the A-10 can do and stay in place to do more. Just as the greatest battleships were designed at the same time air-launched torpedoes and even rockets became capable of easily sinking them.
The battleships at least had the excuse of night and bad weather operations,the A-10 has nothing.
@@naamadossantossilva4736As I said, the A-10 showed up just as its entire concept became obsolete. It was good for the 1950s and the 1960s, but the 1970s already had viable precision munitions and the first attack helicopters...
@@lordMartiya What the presenter forgot to mention, was the 30mm not the only ordinance The HOG can carry. There are many F-15s, and F-16s that have been retired because of high airframe hours. BuT the glorious hog goes on and on. BTW, Apaches don`t have the range of an A-10, thought you would have known that.
@@davidmartyn5044 The cannon has been proven less than effective against any MBT built since the 1960s, and it's the only thing it offers that everything else doesn't. As for any combat chopper, pretty sure that staying in place and shoot only the enemy rather than your own troops is a superior feature.
@@lordMartiya There`s been friendly fire in all wars, so you can`t only point to the A10 for that. So why was the A-10 cleared for service? I think it was FY77 when the first a/c entered service, and its still here in 2024. Now, if you had said there are fewer and fewer airframe in service than the attack heileos , and the maintenance cost per flight hour is going up and up, you may, only may have a point! I hope its still chugging around the skies n 2030. One last point, the US Military has had great Value for the money spent. it`s a true brawler of a plane, sometimes its all you need.
It's not the F-35 that makes the A-10 redundant, but the AH-64. The Apache is cheaper to operate in the CAS role and we can still build new airframes as needed. It's been four decades since a new A-10 airframe was built.
AH-64 is more vulnerable in a peer conflict. It also manages to be significantly slower with a shorter loiter time.
@@cptclemgmail No, it's not more vulnerable. A-10 even when flying "low" for a fixed-wing aircraft flies much higher than Apache, and has to make long turns while Apache can hover. Apache can stay under radar horizon, hide behind even small terrain features, and steer clear of vulnerable positions. They can possibly even get up to visual range to make their few seconds of pop-up with only their mast poking up above their cover. But it doesn't even have to reach visual range as it can stay further back and lob precision munitions, guided by guys on the ground. I'd also claim that there can always be more Apaches in the area as they are so useful in multiple roles, so they can "watch eachothers' backs" and provide cover for ground troops in many ways. They're so versatile that you can have many of them working in the area, keeping busy in other roles, and that then brings advantages when you need them to provide CAS.
I would argue that combining AH-64 and A-10 force, with UAV support, as single air formation has a lot of potential, where every component improves advantages of each platform and covers each others disadvantages.
That and... Y'know... Basic air defence technology, too.
@@pistonburner6448 How did that work out for KA-52s? Oh, they got plinked by everything from stingers to SACLOS ATGMs. You are way off base with your assumptions about what AH64s can and can't do.
I think that FPV drones are taking over the cost-effective CAS role that the A-10 once occupied. However, it's difficult to put into perspective for regular folks the psychological effect of The Great Brrrrrt in actual combat. I'd love to see a fixed wing FPV carrying a 20mm Vulcan or 25mm Equalizer filling a similar role at a fraction of the cost.
A drone in the A-10s weight class could carry the 30mm gau-8, a like for like replacement is definitely possible. The thing is, the USAF gets mad when the US army tries to provide it's own CAS
Rather than FPV drones, the switchblade is taking over the roles that have not already been moved over to larger drones and fast movers.
@@jameshodgson3656 Not true. It's called Fire Support or "I Can't Believe It's Not CAS". Provided by rotary wing.
But that begs two questions How much impact does it actually provide? How important is that impact really? In my impression, most of the impact actually seems to come from boosting the morale of frinedly forces after the war.
The strafing capability is the most overrated part of the A-10. In practice, it does something like 80-90% of its job with things like rockets, smart bombs, and guided missiles, and combat drones can already carry this kind of stuff on a regular basis. A manned replacement is probably going to be more urgent for the FAC and CSAR coordination role instead, and that one could be made cheaper and simpler without a humongous gun.
16:30 Good to see the good old piston engine bombers still being useful in modern electronic warfare! ;)
Yeah, I noticed that too...😊
Haha, maybe a German-English mixup?
This would have been an excellent 8- minute video.
The A-10 is the Iowa class battleship of the Air Force: Big gun, armor, great PR with congress and the general public, and far too vulnerable to modern weapons to survive in anything like a peer fight.
Retarded comparison
I'd argue the Iowa is comparatively superior. Give it modern propulsion, electronics, and weapons and it would be an effective if expensive platform, unlike A10. A10 just can't perform a role on modern battlefields as stealth is necessary to survive peer on peer. I just can't see any upgrade package making the A10 useful in anything but maybe counterinsurgency.
@@fguocokgyloeu4817The cost of running an Iowa class BB makes it entirely unsuitable for modern warfare. It is no coincidence that the US mothballed all of battleships and battlecruisers and then heavy cruisers and now air warfare cruisers (Tikes) as budgets have shrunk over time. Sure an Iowa would be great for ground support and would be hellaciously hard to actually sink, but it would be just as easy to knock out as an Arleigh Burke. Electronics and weapon systems are not very tough and for the same running cost you could have either 3-4 Burkes or an America class LHA with F-35s.
@@rags417 Just as easy to knock out? Short of nuclear weapons at 4x the displacement with belt armor, there just is no way. Anyway, you are strawmanning. My point was that a modernized Iowa would be more useful as a missile truck than a modernized A10.
@@fguocokgyloeu4817 If relatively light anti ship missiles are kind enough to only hit the belt, a BB might be able to shrug off a few hits, but chances are the hits are going to knock out the squishy bits and mission kill the ship. A BB is going to be very vulnerable to submarines. So, like other ships, her best protection is use AAW and ASW assets to keep threats at a distance. Granted a 45,000+ ton hull can carry a lot of ordinance, but I would imagine that a fleet would be better off with a larger number of DDGs for the same investment.
Another excellent video, Chris! I can’t wait for the next one. Jim
The best transition to an ad read in the game. Bravo.
Great video, Chris...👍
It’s cool to see you’ve visited the New England Air Museum. It’s my local air museum and they have a very nice collection.
Hi Chris. I have been watching your vids for few years now.... I never addresed you and thanked you for the content you are creating. Well thank you, you are very much appreciated.
Thanks Stefan!
Thanks for the video! I think you're right that people talking about the A-10 aren't usually thinking about CBA, and I think your idea on expanding the roles of the A-10 is a good idea for how to keep the airframe viable until its retirement
SMA (so many acronyms)! Great video though. There used to be A10s down the road from me at Bentwaters (Suffolk, UK), fantastic aircraft.
Check out the “whiskey” compass @7:24. The vibration from the gun firing completely aerates the liquid in the compass turning it a milky white color for a few seconds…..kind of crazy 😮
A-10s for anti-shipping is an...interesting idea. Naval air defences are far more concentrated and extensive than land based air defences. Unless the A-10 can sling a ton of LRASMs, that's a pretty good way of getting them killed.
Given the amount of hardpoints on them, they very well could.
They would be focused more on attacking smaller vessels, like the Iranian fast boats in the Persian Gulf or pirates off the coast of East Africa.
@@killergames391 Highly unlikely due to the weight of the LRASM, as well as it's dimensions. I'd estimate 2 at a time would be the best case payload of LRASMs..
@@dumdumbinks2745 would be the right answer, same as the number of JASSMs it could carry.
@@thearisen7301 JASSM is smaller and significantly lighter.
The problem with the A10 is the same as with Battleships in my opinion. Sure do thick armor improve survivability. But on the modern battlefield do armor thickness correlate very badly with survivability. A battleship can easily be destroyed by torpedos and anti-ship missiles. Just like a A-10 or a SU-25 can easily be destroyed by manpads or other missiles. Those types of weapons are dinosaurs that do not belong on a modern battlefield, where survivability is more decided by stealth and speed. And if losses must be accepted, then it is better to sacrifice drones. Armor also comes with disadvantages such as slower speed, lower payload (because the armor use up much of the weight), the plane becomes heavier, having two engines means more ground maintainance. Having armor also drives up the production costs. This plane was built for the Vietnam war where the communists used much small calibre anti-aircraft guns. But todays battlefield is field with manpads instead. And modern armies do also have much more deadlier things than that. So this plane is outdated. A modern air strategists would rather wish to trade away all that armor for stealth instead. Just like modern warships rather rely on stealth than armor, and big guns is not that useful in an age of anti-ship missiles. A critique would of course say that dumb bombs still make up the majority of bombs dropped in a modern war. And that it true. However I still think that stealth is preferable to armor. And A-10 is still useful on a modern battlefield with its many hardpoints and ability to stay up in the air for hours and waiting for a moment when the troops on the ground desperatly need air support. However, while A-10 is still a good plane to that I am sure that Ukraine would happily take every single one of if USA offered all their hundreds of planes away to them... so am I also confident that many other planes are more useful overall as an attack aircraft. Like Gripen. Rafale with its enormous bombload and semi-stealth body could probably also make an at atleast as good job. Both Gripen and Rafale are good at many jobs. But A-10 is just a one trick pony.
Man, I'm 45 min from Windsor Locks. Went to that museum the better part of 30 years ago. Looks like I might need to pay it a visit.
0:35 “this bird has inched closer to that chopping block with each passing year” Congratulations that is how the linear passage of time works.
I am not sure if there is snark intended here, so I'll treat it as a serious, but naive comment. I believe what that Chris's sentence intends to convey (and does to me), more than the simple consequence of a succession of moments, is that a lot of people have been trying really hard to get rid of the A-10, for quite a while. As time goes, the opposition fades. The movement to retire the plane, like the movement of continents, inches along, inexorable.
Thanks Kamala, for that thoughtful insight.
The sound of that cannon and the humming of those engines is the sounds of freedom coming for ya. Airborne.
More likely the sound of a friendly fire incident
both british and canadian forces in afghanistan requested that the A-10 be removed due to friendly fire deaths and injuries because the plane cant see what it is shooting at
I heard that the Swiss were also protesting, since they hold exclusive rights for producing Swiss Cheese.
Many of the friendly fire issues were with the A-10A rather than the upgraded C which can mount a LITENING targeting pod. The real issue is that while the C is pretty good at CAS over uncontested airspace, any aircraft can do that without incurring the costs of having a whole new platform (which are NOT offset by the somewhat lower operating costs of an A-10C). If you really want a cheap specialized aircraft to do COIN and such, you need to go to a turboprop which actually has minimum operating costs.
@@rare_kumiko C-130U, when you care enough to send the very best
And it’s not even good at CAS to begin even if you don’t include not killing your men part of the definition of CAS. The F-111 took out more armor with far fewer flights.
@@rare_kumikoOV-10 for the win !
16:31 B-25 with MLADs and tomahawks. I want to see that.
me too, meanwhile we got the B-52
Along with Task & Purpose's A-10 episode, one of the better pro/con presentations I have seen out there. Thanks for condensing to core arguments without, as you repeatedly state, resorting to merely sentiment. There were some specific future roles for the Hawg I had not heard of before, like the MALD package. I also appreciate your constant emphasis for how the Hawg must fit "organically" into the threats the USAF has to anticipate and therefore prepare for, all within its own budgetary constraints. That said, and at the risk of dipping into the sentiment you rightly warn about, I cannot from my own fairly extensive COIN experience over the last two decades, not emphasize the game-changing nature of a battle when an A-10 pops up and is in fact employed. It really IS the decisive factor between friend and foe alike. One role I have not heard you mention is the continuing, basically indefinite role of dominance that the '10 employs in a COIN or similarly permissive environment. I'm old enough to remember how unprepared the US was for a true COIN fight in the 90s (and, really, any conflict since the end of Vietnam). That is, whenever we get to the end of a COIN fight, we always, always say, "Well, that was nasty, brutish and short. Hey, let's re-focus on near-peer! That's the kind of fight we really like, anyway!" And thus we lose what COIN expertise and focus we had built up and are thus more stupid and vulnerable for the next, shall I say, inevitable, COIN or COIN-like fight. As far as I can tell, the US Army has recognized this issue (of losing COIN expertise within its non-SF elements) and has stood up the Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFABs) as a result. Kudos to them. What I am saying here is that I think the USAF should consider a similar retention capability as well. If history be any guide, COIN *will* happen again, it will happen unpredictably, and we darn well better retain the world's best CAS infrastructure (infrastructure--as you mentioned, not just the '10 itself, but the entire community of JTACs on up)...or we will be sorry. Very sorry. As the old saying, goes, how many people have to die until (fill in the blank)? I'm not arguing for indefinite deployment of the '10. As you said, all airframes are time-limited. But I am arguing for continued, yes, continued and specialized CAS capability. Every time we think we can just safely bomb or missile from a distance, we get it wrong, and we end up needing close-up, close-in, loitering, low-altitude CAS. Finally, you did not mention, although, smart guy as you are, how this even got to be an Air Force thing to begin with, and that has certainly framed the debate: the National Security Act of 1947, which among things split the Air Force away from the Army. My point is, in the Cold War, the Air Force found much success (meaning, funding) focusing on its strategic bomber and missile role. Its tactical forces found similar funding success in air superiority roles, with the F-15 being truly the best example. (One can argue about the benefits of the '22 and '35 platforms, but that is another debate.) But, if we want to excise sentiment here, has not CAS been the mission that the Air Force really didn't want, and therefore neglects? When I run into airmen, I usually end up saying something like, "Any time you want to drop the '10, we'll gladly take it off your hands?" (Though, due to 1947, we can't...legally...for now.) And of coure I'm referring to the entire CAS ecosystem. So here is what I am saying in this last paragraph in a nutshell: If the AF dropped the '10, how many airmen would die as a result? How many Air Force officers would appear before Congress to answer questions about bodybags filled on their watch? Drop mic.
I would love to see you cover CRAF and similar operations one day.
I think they should have upgraded the A-7. Cheap and effective.
And much faster, which would be helpful.
You had me at “BRrrrrrrt”.
Chris: No aircraft cen remain in service indefinitely. B-52: Oh you, sweet summer child.
'murican?
If aircraft is just using standoff weapons, it can stick around for a looooong time.
maybe I just have put an asterix there....and include some Lift a/c too hah
Come to think of it, one can approximate that "The expected lifetime of an airframe is directly proportional to its expected distance from combat." The airframes that are *expected* to get actually shot at in warfare (attack helicopters, low-altitude strike, maybe jammer/wild weasel) have to get replaced often; the aircraft that should (hopefully) never have a weapon aimed at them (transports, stand-off strike) can live as long as the spare parts hold out.
Another interesting video as always Chris, thank you 👍 My 2 cents on the A-10 is this: I don't have any particularly strong feelings about the A-10 and in the near term I'm sure there'd be a place for it in a near-peer conflict if/when the air superiority and SEAD ops are broadly successful so it would "only" face manpads and light AAA. But in the long term it's a dead plane flying, so at what point does the US cut its losses and invest in something(s) else? (that's a rhetorical question btw). Two things that I wish this vid had addressed are: 1) The A-10 airframes are wearing out, they racked up a lot of flight hours in the past 20 years, and refurbishing the airframes is expensive and subject to diminishing returns. At some point the USAF would be better off spending that money elsewhere. 2) Is the GAU-8 of much practical use outside of a very niche set of circumstances? It's a big and heavy weapon, but it can't kill modern MBTs yet is overkill for a lot other targets (e.g. buildings, soft skin vehicles etc.). Just my opinion but it seems to me that anything that can't be killed by a 20 or 25mm cannon is worth the expense of a guided munition. It seems to me that the US would be better off spending the money on something new to replace the A-10, and they'll have do do something about it at some point so they might as well get started rather than waiting until it's either too late and/or even more expensive. Reading other comments I see a lot of people mention the AC-130 and gunship helicopters but for all their pros they also have plenty of cons as well, so I feel there's a need for something to fill the A-10's role whether that be CAS in a near-peer conflict or a war-on-terror type COIN. I'm unsure though if such a replacement should be powered by turbofans or turboprops (there're pros and cons to both) but I believe it shouldn't be any bigger than the A-10 but certainly larger than the OV-10 and have rough field capability... oh and ditch the Avenger for a simpler and much less bulky 20/25mm internal cannon 😉. Edit: Here's a wild-card/'what if' idea for a replacement: if they were willing to drop the austere environment capability, the Airforce, Navy and Marines (plus foreign buyers) band together to buy new build A-7s as a relatively cheap CAS platform.
I empathize with the suggestion for a look at aircraft designers. Personally, I enjoy reading about the evolution of an aircraft's design, as various problems are discovered and fixed. I spent 12 years in aviation and saw various fixes being implemented. When I look at aircraft on display, the various little strakes or vortex generators that hint at some problem that needed to be fixed. There are stories waiting to be told, but perhaps not here.
3:23 says it all. As a former USAF CCT, there’s never been a support platform that ground units I was embedded with would prefer over the A-10.
Because Grunts know so much about specific aircraft types...
@@daseinzigwahremthank you for your military service. Your extensive combat experience has been a valuable contribution to the discussion.
Chris, when you were in the USA, did you get to the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio? It's worth a visit on its own. Four huge buildings with aircraft and spacecraft from the Wright Brothers to today. They also have a large number of model aircraft on site. Love your show and it's information on each aircraft or system which you cover. Thanks.
Ayyyyy Footage of the Black Snakes out of Fort Wayne in the Indiana National Guard
It could have been given to Ukraine two years ago to fight it's last war.
my grandpa used to fly one of these and he'd tell me so many stories about them. he also has a good number of medals that i always thought were pretty cool looking. he told me one story on the day he took out 5 tanks single handidly through heavy aa fire while his superiors were telling him to go back to base, he said he just couldn't leave those ground forces without cover. i think overall he had over 100 vehicles kills, many cas missions, and 3 air to air kills. i thank him for his service everyday
...grandpa used to fly"... an aircraft I read about as a kid when it was first introduced back in the day. Dad gum.
MANPADS you need the S (Man-Portable Air-Defence Systems). A small thing but it counts
A lot of people focus on the plane. What the plane itself is good or bad at. While that is certainly important I would argue the bigger factor is training. The A-10 is dedicated to a specialized set of missions, which means it has pilots and ground crew trained for those kinds of missions. This was touched upon in the video but I think it deserves a lot of attention. One of the push backs you get when talking about retiring the A-10 is where the pilots and their training goes. The answer for years has been the F35. Even if you think the F35 can do everything the A-10 can, the problem a lot of people see is that once the USAF puts those A-10 crew in F35s they will suddenly be training for multirole mission sets. This would inevitably lower proficiency in both CAS and CSAR(which was not mentioned in the video) roles which are currently the main mission sets for the A-10, because they would be putting SEAD ops, air to air interception tactics, etc in their training schedules. Great if you think the entire force should simply be a multitool in your toolbox, but I think you can make a case that it is still valuable to have specialized tools in that toolbox regardless if it looks like an A-10 or not.
Problem. The USAF F-35A pilots are not training for CAS, the published training hours has F-35A pilots are scheduled for zero CAS training flights.
Honestly the obvious approach to me seems to be that the A-10 should be replaced by a new/newer more modern design that does what the A-10 was designed to better with a better idea of what that role entails in the first place informed by the short comings of the A-10
We already largely did that by moving the F-16 into a multi-role position via extensive upgrades. Likewise. The F-15E and even some larger bombers ended up also doing a lot of CAS/COIN missions. Don't get me wrong. I am not one of those strangely emotional "The A-10 must go away for my emotional health!" types. It is just that while the A-10 has done well in the largely COIN based conflicts we have been fighting for the past few decades, it has reached a point where it is just not doing anything that other aircraft can't do. We don't really need to build a new replacement because we already replaced it a long time ago.
@@startrekmike the problem with that is the F16 and F15 cost more per flight hour and have lower loitering times. While I don't think this is quite the direction the US should go in for a variety of reasons, I do often think of how Brazil and Colombia have stopped using turbofan aircraft for the majority of their combat operations and switched to a design that's significantly cheaper both to buy and operate, that has much longer loitering time. I'm not saying the US should go out and start purchasing super tucanos for CAS, but I am saying that I respect the idea of filling that niche with cheaper aircraft that are better at filling that niche.
"What the role entailed" changed a fair bit after thr A-10 was already designed, if not built.
@@frankdamsy9715 Cost per flight hour is a flawed metric because the purchase of A-10s, upgrading of A-10s, maintenance of A-10s past their prime (older aircraft cost more to upkeep), the fact that man hours have to be diverted into A-10s, etc are all opportunity costs that had to be incurred. In the end, you could easily afford more than enough F-16 flight hours if the A-10 budget had not gone down the drain. Boeing scored two 1 billion contracts to make wings for the A-10. 2 billion is a lot of flight hours.
@@ChucksSEADnDEADYeah, but none of those issues would exist with a new design that’s specifically there to do the same role as the A-10 with the same benefits and all the problems addressed, since they’d be brand new aircraft. Either way, I’m in agreement that a specialized successor to the A-10 is better than a multi-role aircraft that’s mediocre at everything. We saw that happen with the M14 in US small arms trying to replace 4 other guns in US service and failing miserably.
My, admittedly unpopular, view is that if you're looking at repurposing A10 to another role that there's not really anything at it can do that another plane can't. Take away the big cannon and you have a subsonic ground-support airframe that can carry missiles and bombs but is expensive to maintain and is vulnerable to groundfire. I can swap you for a turboprop that can carry missiles and bombs, is subsonic and vulnerable to groundfire but is very, very cheap and can operate from unprepared strips. It's unpopular because a single or twin-engined turboprop isn't cool. But I would argue that, sans BRRRRR, the profile is very similar.
The tanker variant of the A-6 Intruder, the KA-6D, came into being in the early 1970s to replace the KA-3B variant of the A-3 Skywarrior. It served for an awful long time. Serving for several decades is hardly an indication of "a final step from being cut from the block". The A-6 wasn't retired until 1997.
I'd like to see the 30mm either replaced with a radar, integrated jammer, IRST & maybe a smaller gun like GAU-22/A. I would note it can use a jammer pod right now. I think a combo of the roles you discussed do justify the A-10 as one example it can carry as many MALDs as a B-52. A-10 has a lot of stations so it's able to carry a lot of ornance like 16 SDBs. For ASW it could carry 10+ HAAWCs along with sonobuoys.
If only the A-10 have NordVPN installed, they wouldn't get shot in the first place. Classic Department of Defense budget cuts.
That the A-10 is still flying even after 1991 remains a great mysterie to me.
It was a good fit for the GWOT
WOW, that is A LOT of commercials!
I can see the A-10 being useful as part of a SEAD/DEAD hunter killer team. As they are able to fly along very low since they're designed to be slow and low CAS aircraft, they could hug the ground with dedicated SEAD or EW aircraft above acting as bait essentially to pinpoint S300/S400 sites. Some stealthy folks above watching for threats. The A-10s then could either lob munitions onto the radar directed by the eyeballs, or wait for the HARMs to hit the radars and take out the remaining system components. This is fairly high risk to MANPADS and plain old AAA, war is war and war is risky so why not? Wouldn't want to risk any expensive fancy new fast movers down that low to stay under the horizon after all.
Considering they had the highest amount of losses of any airframe in the gulf war, and mostly to IR SAMS, that's a poor idea.
@@ShortArmOfGodOh yes. A whopping SIX losses. GTFO of here. I acknowledged in my comment that they would lose some. That's part or warfare numbnuts.
That plant in the background loves you
it's very touchy, yes. I'll have a word with it
I agree that the A-10 is vulnerable in a 1st line role with an active air to air missile threat, however, the A-10, B-52,F15, F-16 etc. are just a tool in a tool kit basically. you pick the one you need for the job at hand. not every job at hand is a 1st world, or peer to peer conflict in an active war zone. IMHO the capability of the A-10 for many other missions than the primary one it may have been designed for is extensive. you did a good job pointing some of them out. there are many more if creativity is used. the F-14 Tomcat is another example. we will be sorry to get rid of it. and how much will that cost to develop and produce a replacement for the A-10. and I don't consider drones a replacement for many reasons.
You don't keep useless tools in your kit because you like the sound they make. The A10 is dead weight. There isn't a single job it does that other platforms can't do better--except make a noise that makes people say "Wheeeee!"
Imo it should become a drone mothership. it could use drones to extend its Tpod or munitions wile being close enough to also interact with the field and gather better visual and ewar data than a remote located drone pilot.
Wouldn't they need a second seat for that?
Hmmm Maritime strike and patrol. Haven't heard that one before but it does make sense and if they could integrate a semi automated sonobuoy package plus torpedo's onto the aircraft it could do anti-sub. Easier said than done but still a thought.
Clear, succinct overview of the issues facing the potential continued deployment of the A-10. As you noted in your last video, the A-10 possesses a set of capabilities that can be very effective for CAS missions, but it is dependent on the environment in which it is operating. Even when you made that video, its continued survival and effectiveness were in question in a peer based conflict. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, I think we are all questioning (or should be) the continued effectiveness of this platform in its traditional CAS role, especially in the an environment with high deployment of MANPADS. I agree that the path toward continued deployment of this platform would be to identify additional missions that would contribute to the strategic mission within a theater (e.g., drone deployment, ECM, maritime, etc.), but I believe in most cases the sun is setting on the active operating life of the A-10, and the time is past due to consider what combination of platforms and tactics can best replace it in the CAS mission, and focus on producing/maintaining more capable platforms. I would like to note that there is one important capability you did not examine in depth which I would argue is important to its and to supporting deployed ground forces, which is its loitering time. This is NOT an issue of sentiment; for any current or former infantry, the knowledge that there is always someone nearby to provide rapid response support to enemy offensive activities is an enormous morale booster. You cannot over-exaggerate the importance of this capability. It appears that the offensive capability of the A-10 can be matched by other platforms--but how will the loiter time be addressed? Anyway, another thought-provoking video. Thanks for all your great content over the past six months in particular; you've really come a long way since you first created this channel, and I'm very pleased to be one of your supporters!
Thanks so much for your kind words !
Chris, You omitted the Hawg's FAC role.Myself, I believe the Super Tucano is better in the FAC role, but what do I know?
2:10 I have never seen the Big Stick shooting from the point of view of the pilot (for obvious reasons, I might add xD) and, as much as that is *exactly* what it would make sense for it to look like, for some odd, unusual reason it's not what I was expecting...
When were you in New England? I’m not that far from the air museum
When was the last time one was used in combat?
They just announced A-10D (D is mine) upgrade package not so long ago. With EWAR and AI things.
If you remove (or just downsize) the gun that space could go to more fuel and sensors
The entire aircraft was built around the gun.
I’d love to see a Mitchel with MALDs 😂
Enjoyed. Keeping in mind that situations are constantly in flux and the Warthog is not as useful as it was and might have been. That being said, I saw my first A-10 during REFORGER 1977, then as an AF Maintence officer, the 510th Buzzards. I love the complex simplicity of the A-10, yet like me, now long in the tooth.
At 16:30, "the same number as a B-25...". I knew the B-25 was a good plane. 😃
Glad you picked up on that as well.
I think he meant 52 but read the script as 25
Did the German thing. It’s B-52 ofc
The "middle ground" is quite literally looking at the price vs capability gap. Which simply means the A-10 is a relic and has no place in any modern air force. I don't even care about all the hoopla whether it was good or bad. Because no matter what was the answer 40 years ago, right now the answer is "it's bad and super expensive".
Whoa whoa whoa, read the sign pal. No rational takes permitted in the A-10 debate club.
@@Iceman259 yeah, yeah, I'll see myself out...
Honestly I don't even think it was the answer 40 years ago, *maybe* 70 years ago but it didn't exist then. They've tested the cannon under perfect circumstances and it's at best marginally effective for the supposed tank busting gun run missions it was supposed to perform.
_Is it_ super expensive? (Honest question; I really don't know.) Because a truck that can carry lots of MALD and missiles (kinda like a tactical B-52) seems pretty darned useful.
@@RonJohn63 yes, it is. Last I heard the latest updates bring it to a cost above the F35. And all the updates make it only fractionally as good at CAS as any other aircraft on a dollar to warheads on foreheads basis.
I feel like the best they can do when it comes to peer to peer combat, is give standoff weapons
I'm surprised you didn't bring up the idea of keeping it around for the next counter insurgency conflict, since as seen many times the militaries of the world shift focus completely and then are presented with an old problem that due to new focus they are no longer prepared for. Maybe unmanned is the solution there, but it would be good to have more insight on this topic.
I think it's a huge mistake to take the A-10 being "good at CAS" at face value.
Very good "Germanic" emotionless assesment. My best friend was German and emotionaly he was a wimp. Great flyer, motorcycle racer, welder, academic, polylinguist, and support for friends' grief. Yeah very "Germanic". Great line Chris. Cool looking plane, but who wants to ride the deck for every operation. Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
"No aircraft can be kept in service indefinitely". B-52 says, "Hold my beer..." Steve
This seems like an aircraft that gets replaced by... you might have guessed it, a Gripen style aircraft. Something thats good at flying from marginal airstrips while keeping modern lessons in strike aircraft and missions.
Drones should have both lower cost and higher precision.
As long as the enemy have not figured out how to jam the drone's communications.
It seems like that if you can use an A-10 without placing it in an area where it's going to be in a significant amount of danger then you probably don't need it since you're already done a lot of damage to the enemie's ability to fight. If you do operate it in an area where the enemy hasn't been reduced much it can be very useful but you're going to lose some of them. A gigantic plus though is the fact that we've already got them (I'm a stupid American if you didn't already guess that), we've already got trained pilots for them and we're worked out any bugs that it may possessed. We know exactly what they can and can't do and how to effectively deploy them.
I loved the nord vpn ad! Gave me a good chuckle
we're not gonna miss A-10 for its CAS role, we're gonna miss it for it's CSAR support role
I've never flown a plane of any variety, but I do love the A-10.
Rather phasing them out, they would make an interesting drone carrier system if converted (Reapers with a big gun :))
16:31 B-25?
I noticed that as well. Maybe B52?
@@Silverhks Well, there are a few still flying 🙂
@@dallesamllhals9161 true but none operationally. AFAIK
B-52 ofc :)
@@MilitaryAviationHistory Oh! Also "Out of date" Sjov tysker +1
Assuming you can justify it within the current and "short term" future threat environment we should be looking at an A-10 bis. A redisign. Just brainstorming here; if a small "light" module could be added to the airframe where it could shoot down manpad missiles coming at it (e.g. the Swedish one that follows a laser that eyes on the ground are using to track the target). Then a close air support plane has a chance of surviving (along with the pilot). Right now, planes like the A-10 can only survive in small edges cases of wars - while very useful, hard to justify the budget to develop and train for. I also think the Army should be doing its' own fixed wing support like when it had the OV-10. The Air Force seems to have different priorities.
The Air Force,Marines and Navy flew the OV-10 but never the US Army. They had the OV-1 Mohawk.
@@calvinlee1813 Thanks for the correction. Learned something!
Replace ? with WHAT 🤷♂️
The issue is that in full scale conventional warfare platforms are going to get destroyed and people are going to die, and in large numbers. Combined with munitions shortfalls which will see an eventual reliance on unguided Mk.8x munitions, the value of an aircraft that is more survivable when getting into the close fight will become apparent. Add to that the sheer volume of hard points and range, particularly when in reference to the Indo-Pacific, the platform is going to prove far more valuable than many think. CAS and BAI are not going to be just zooming around at 20,000ft casually dropping JDAMs or LGBs, even with F-35s. As always love your work!
One aspect possibly missed by the analysis of the warthog in it's counterinsurgency/"punching down" role it had in the likes of desert storm is the fact that the multi-role fighter systems at the time were at times much less capable / had a lot less of the precision strike systems that the most modern multi-role jets do today. Rather than focus only on the Warthog's capability and niche, it's important to look at the surrounding capabilities that have been greatly enhanced since the late 90's and early 2000's in multi-role strike fighters. Funnily, another plane which was funded by the likes of SOCOM to the tune of 3 Billion USD is the OA-1K Sky Warden, which is a propeller driven aircraft intended to fulfill the COIN role that is potentially being left out by the A-10 honestly i think it was pretty redundant to procure a new fleet of crop dusting planes to drop bombs on terrorists when the same could be done with a long range UAV or an upgraded version of the A-10, but what do i know i guess
The A-10 doesn't make much sense in a near peer conflict, fortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be, the US has been in a lot of not-peer conflicts in the last 20 years. Against a foe on foot with turbans and RPG's, the A-10 can be very effective at dealing with small arms conflicts, where you can throw in unlimited power in the air, to protect your boots on the ground.
As an M1A1 tank commander during a Reforger in the late 1980s, I had an A10 rollover and come in to attack my tank. Definitely a sinking feeling. I'll never for get it. Cheap UAV/UAS seem to be dominating in Ukraine.
Something to be considered is the manufacturer lobbying groups influence on politicians where jobs are at stake in their districts.
In my sincere opinion, the best option the GDI has against stubborn NOD ground targets 🤘
How told you it is going to be decommissioned ?
The B-25 Mitchell can carry MALDs?
I am sceptical of the A-10 having a place in today's warzones. It's a dedicated close air support that's costly to operate, and looking at videos from Ukraine it seems like loitering munitions and drones fill that role today. Flying in enemy territory at slow speed risking a pilot's life is a risk you can eliminate with unmanned drones.
I've got an idea for an A-10 replacement, that isn't the F-35 or F-16, is a new craft that has a gun, a 57mm auto cannon that could be used in the style of an artillery piece. Alongside a large number of ordnance, it'll be subsonic, but could produce a sonic boom in a dive to launch at the ground, like what the F-16 has done.
The A10 squadron at Gowen Field in Boise ID will be replaced by F-16's in the spring of 2027.
I find myself thinking along the lines of a wider EW application. All the talk of the new pods, systems that have been mounted to it. Why not dial that up even more? Make it a nearly pure ECM/ECCM asset. It stays in the back goes out hunting things which put out too much radiation. Flying low? Low enough to get under RADAR, if not under the RADAR, low enough that there's confusion around what the signature is. Force people back to Mark 1 Eyeball. Sure you're going to have to repair it, but if that's three units down for maintenance at the cost of a kilometre wide gap, hole in enemy air defence? Enemy signal projection? Is that worth it? Maybe. Thing is I also don't think rotary wing could ever fully replace fixed wing. They're different vehicles, different trade offs, different natures. Don't get me wrong, I like the -64 a lot. A whole heap, perhaps too much and when they mounted that RADAR dome on top? Perfection. But in saying that, if I understand it, you can't achieve the same loiter time that you can with rotary wing. A locally available, short response time back up on the radio? That can be done in a variety of ways. It's not minutes that matter, it's seconds. Getting rid of the A-10 seems to remove that capability. Entirely. Not a reduction, but a total removal. I think that's the bigger issue here. Can this be adapted into something else? Can it be relocated? Can it be refined into a similar, different yet similar ability? I think that question also needs answering.
It's already starved for thrust and you're gonna pull more power from the driveshaft to run a generator.
I think the better question is whether its cost effective to refit an airframe that is rapidly approaching the end of its service life for the second time to perform a new role in its twilight years or if its a better investment to procure a new airframe that can perform that role for potentially decades to come?
@@StacheMan26 This is a large component of my follow questions. If not the A-10, then what? How do you keep this capability? Do you want to keep that capability?
Giving them to US and NATO Coast Guards sounds good. Good loiter time, good setup for attacking boats. Excellent for warning shots across the bow BRRRRT!! Particularly for countries that have an F-35 to escort them if enemy fighters show up or feed them targeting information. In particular I think an A-10 could escort Coast Guard helicopters in areas with known armed cartel activity, etc. An F-16 or F-35 doesn't quite have the same ability to hang around a helicopter search and rescue mission looking menacing.
I wonder if the A-10 could be converted for uses in civilian applications. In California we've adapted OV-10 for use in directing forces against wildfires, and there's been proposals to adapt the A-10 to be a firebomber. I'm curious whether there's any validity to this concept or it's just pie-in-the-sky thinking?
Maybe it could be good as a close air support for the firemen on the ground. But otherwise am I more in favor of using other planes for that role. In todays world economy are there not much use for old jumbo jets. So there are lots of such old aircrafts sitting around that I think could be converted. Their bombload with water and flame retardents are huge. They are like the B-52 strike of fire fighting. And their operating cost per flight hour are lower than many of the shitty helicopters that we have in the Swedish military that only can carry 1 or 2 tonnes of payload compared to 60 tonnes of water that a jumbo jet can drop. However I imagine my main concern against Jumbo jet would not be the lack of maneuverability and precision bombing, but rather that it is not suitable for all kinds of wildfires. I guess it takes hours to pump in 60 tonnes of water into a plane and make a 4 engined plane ready for a mission. And 60 tonnes of water is perhaps overkill for some minor wildfires, and therefore could a smaller plane be more suitable for those kinds of missions. A smaller plane that could fly many sorties, that is cheap to operate and can deliever precision bombings instead of causing enviromental problems by dropping too much water and flame retardant over a small area could be preferable. I do not think that A-10 is the best option for this role, even if it is better than a jumbo jet in that regard. I believe that cheap propeller aircrafts might be a better option.
"No aircraft can be kept in service indefinitely" Boeing laughs in money spent keeping the B-52 and F-15 up to date.
Or A-4 in Argentina and Brasil F-5 , too.
@@ldkbudda4176Hey,we are replacing them with Gripens.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 Good choice! :)
Turkish F4s aswell
@@ldkbudda4176argentina will replace these with danish F-16s
16:31 "B-25"....is that supposed to be B-52?
We just updated the wings to keep bad idea
I do know that British forces in Afghanistan loved the A-10. It was probably their favorite close air support platform. However, the Taliban had basically no AA to contend with.
Except for that one time...
How about we put a freezer and a loudspeaker on it and make it an ice cream truck.
Did you take up boxing or something or are the bruises something more serious? I guess that sort of thing can be sensitive.