hello

The Harrier is the perfect target for IR missiles. Although, the A-10with its huge, plainly sticking out engines is too, it can take the hits and go on unaffected, while the harrier would go down. AH-64s and AH-1Zs have a better chance, but still cant take as much fire as the A-10, and are helicopters, which are more vulnerable. Now with the PE upgrade, the A-10C can now use the JDAM, WCMD, etc. as well.

Anon

And Paveway. Their favorite is still by far the LASTE upgraded 30mm gun.

Here's some pix of an A-10 that had a run-in with SAMs(as in more than one) and still made it back to base:

Port Stb. engine pod:



Fuselage damage:


Stab Damage:




Some other battledamaged A10s:



(there are literally dozens of such pix on the photos section of my website, www.a-10.org )

(There should be about a dozen BD'd A10s in this post, if they're not showing up now try back later or go right to the link i provided, for whatever reason they're not all displaying properly for me)

B.Smitty

The A-10s ability to taking battle damage is overrated, IMHO. Even if it does limp home, it's going to spand days or weeks or longer being repaired, and every day it sits out is two or more sorties lost.

It's far preferable to not get hit in the first place, meaning don't fly low - the A-10's bread-n-butter.

What happens when it's raining with low cloud cover? Does the A-10 have a radar with a high-res SAR mode? No. Terrain following radar? No. Radar? No.

Does the A-10s go deep to hit strategic targets? Can it perform SEAD? Can it carry a recc pod? Does it carry any cruise missiles? Can it carry and use a BVR AAM? Anti-ship missiles? Can it carry nukes?

All no.

Gr4s can carry up to 18 Brimstone anti-tank missiles, so they're no slouches when it comes to killing armor.

The A-10 takes almost twice as long to get to the target and back, meaning fewer daily sorties and thus fewer aimpoints hit.

The A-10 is a CAS bird with limited interdiction capabilities.

OTOH, the Gr4 can do it all.

Anon

Look at the pix above. LOL......A Tornado would've been toast. In fact, during ODS, the Tornado proved to be EXTREMELY vulnerable to ground fire, suffering the 2d highest loss rate of any type used in the war.

The hog is fully capable of medium-alt ops like every other US combat aircraft.

LOL. wow, i have hardly seen you be so wrong on so many things all at once.

Yes A10s perform SEAD. A10s have performed SEAD in COMBAT(used extensively in the role during ODS as a matter of fact).

Would you call "SCUD HUNTING" in W.Iraq 'going deep to hit a strategic target'? I would.

LASTE is a radar operated system. I bet you don't even know what it does though, lol. Because of LASTE the A-10 has the most accurate and most employable gun system of any fighter in the world.

Oh, btw....the A10 is(or at least was at one time) cleared for the B61 nuclear gravity bomb.

The Hog also performs FAC-A and CSAR too(and not just performs, but is almost TOTALLY ideal for those two roles). Should we hold it against the Tornado that it can't do either (anywhere near) as well as the Hog?

The topic is best strike aircraft. Shooting at ships is an entirely different kind of mission. Akin to saying the F15E is the better strike plane because it's a highly capable dual role A2A fighter as well.(BTW, in close and down low an A10 will outturn an F16C, and would run circles around a Tornado). I would not want to be on a ship shot full of A10 fired Mavericks and 30mm APDS rounds though. You?

If there's low cloud cover the A10 can simply fly under it. As you've seen, the A10 is fully capable of flying BELOW treetop level.

The A10C has all the latest passive sensor systems available.

There is simply no need for radar on a the Hog. The USAF operates the JSTARS, so if bad weather radar cueing is the order of the day, the A10 is still 100% mission capable even in zero visibility.

Trying to compare the CAS 'abilities'(cough, cough) of the Tornado IDS to the A-10 is LAUGHABLE.

The A-10 being low and slow has the ability to persist and put EYEBALLS on the actual target, making pass after pass to ensure that the target is destroyed or suppressed, even in the face of intense AAA and SAM fire.

As far as 'doing it all', perhaps you will point me to the Tornado IDS sqns with an air superiority misison. How about the Tornado Sqn with a FAC-A role. The Sqn with a CSAR role?

Oh......right.......they don't exist, becuase the Tornado can't 'do it all'.

Perhaps you can show me the pix of Tornados operating from rough unprepared forward airstrips like A10s routinely do?

LOL...

Can a Tornado give close escort to air assault forces like this A10 is doing?

No.



OA-10A providing close escort and defense suppression for MH-60 Pavehawk

B.Smitty

The Tornado losses in ODS were due to bad tactics. Strap a JP-233 to an A-10 and have it overfly a heavily defended airfield at a wheezy 340kts and see how many of them survive. At least the Tornado could whiz past at Mach 1+.

Fully capable? It's only now getting targetting pods. It still doesn't have a radar.

Sure, it can kill the odd ZSU-23, but does it carry an ARM? No.

I'd call Scud hunting a job that could've been done by a biz jet.

How many airfields did A-10s hit? How many bridges? Command and control targets?

Oh please. Can LASTE generate a SAR image? Does it allow an A-10 to fly a terrain following profile in any weather? Can it even detect airborne targets? No. LASTE is only useful for gun runs and dropping dumb ordinance.

Hardly.

The Gr4 has greater range and swing wings, so my guess is it's competitive with the A-10 for loiter performance, and it can get to and from the CAS orbit twice as fast as the A-10.

Brimstone is better than Maverick for tank plinking. It's all weather, is designed to do mutiple shots per pass, and you can carry more per pylon. How many Mavericks does an A-10 typically carry? 4-6? The normal Brimstone loadout on a Gr4 is 12.

The only thing the A-10 has is the gun. And if MANPADS are a threat, the gun is just worthless extra weight.

Naked eyeballs on target is hugely overrated. Give me the second crewman and the targetting pod on the GR4, looking down from the safety of altitude any day.

There's nothing stopping a GR4 from being used for FAC-A or CSAR, they just aren't.

Anon

I would say that low altitude front line CAS with a gun is every bit as dangerous(if not moreseo) than attacking airfields. Yet the A10 had a fraction of the loss rate of the Tornado.

And the fact is that a lot of the hits that downed those Tornadoes would not have killed an A10.

If left to use tactics well suited to the A/C, an A-10 would be an extremely effective platform for shutting down airfield.

The problem with the IDS is the JP.233, which DEMANDED that attack profile be used. It wasn't a tactical issue at all, it was an EMPLOYMENT issue.

So the fact is that the weapon the IDS was DESIGNED AROUND leaves it very vulnerable to ground fire.(the old W.German MBB MW-1 had the same problem)

Yep, been doing it since before ODS. It is a standard USAF tactic.

The A10 does not need a radar, the USAF operates JSTARS and the A10 has a datalink.

Actually, the A10 is cleared for the AIM-122 Sidearm, but it is not employed. Typically the A10 uses cluster bombs for SEAD duty, and NO, i am NOT talking about the odd ZSU-23/4, i am talking about real SEAD on real SAM sites.
The A10 has been used extensively in the SEAD role in REAL COMBAT.

So is dropping nuke/firing cruise missiles at the old Soviet Union, what i would call the ultimate strategic bombing mission....

The A10s scud hunt ops were strategic deep strike missions by any reasonable definition of the term.

Command and control..who knows? Airfields are not the A10s tasking. I suspect it hit exactly as many of each as it was asked to.


Why would i want that? A10 has a datalink to JSTARs. What does it need it's own radar for?

Nothing that i can think of.

CAS sorties have almost nothing to do with having a radar anyway. They are visually cued/radio controlled missions.

The A10 can fly under(or above of course) nearly any weather with it's Sniper(or LANTIRN) pod FLIR and NVGs.
So again, no need for radar.(Though the cancelled LANTIRN NAV pod would have given that capability anyway).


And the A10 has far superior loiter and much more resilient to BD fixed straight wings, PERFECTLY optomized for it's mission, and completely interchangable L to R for quick battlefield turnarounds.

The A10 does not require as many man-hours of maintenance between sorties and operates much closer to the front because of it's rough field capabilities, so sortie rate actually HEAVILY favors the A10 over the Tornado.

The A10 can STAY in orbit about 5x longer than a tornado, and make about 4x the passes on a single tank of gas.

In what fantasy world is that?

The Maverick is also all-weather, has double the range(at least- its probably closer to triple the range), and has a warhead 7-12x larger(165lb HEAT or 300lb Blast-Frag).

It's also faster.

The Brimstone is a superior anti-armor munition only in your obviously deluded mind.

And you may have not realized it, but the A10s gun can load can typically kill 10-12 tanks on one ammo load(typical 2sec burst per tank), PLUS the A10s mav loadout(normally 4, but as many as 12), PLUS the 2 CBUs and 2 Mk82s the A10 typically carries.

For raw armored killing power the A10 has no fixed wing peer, period.

Actually, there are about 20 A10 pilots on my site that would scoff at that comment, but hey, dont let reality get in your way....

The fact is that in actual combat the A10 has proven nearly invulnerable to MANPADs(and even heavy SAM) fire.

You base this on your extensive experience performing CAS, or your extensive experience in calling for CAS, or your extensive experience in watching CAS delievered on target?

Or is it based on nothing in particular besides the warm fuzzy the Tornado gives you when you look at it on a poster?

The FACT is that the Mk1 eyeball is the single most effective combat sensor ever devised.

Ask ANY military man on this board if you don't believe me.

You know you're the only guy i have ever run accross that has ever tried to even remotely compare the Tornado IDS to the A10 as a CAS asset.

LOL, i gotta say man, i'm pretty amazed you would go down this road. It's so obviously a dead end...

Think it has anything to do with the the fact that they're ill-suited for the role?

LOL...

B.Smitty

Hmm. I'd have to disagree with you there. In most cases, front-line CAS areas have already been worked over by a LOT more strike sorties than the airfields hit by Tornados. Plus, CAS means the enemy is in contact with friendly ground forces, so they're probably a wee-bit distracted.

When Tornados switched to medium altitude LGB strikes their losses went way down.

Maybe, maybe not. At 340kts, an A-10 would've been under fire for a LOT longer.

Except for the fact that it takes so freakin long to get there and back.

Yes, however the Brits recognized the foolishness of this approach and switched Tornados to med-altitude LGB strikes. It's a fault of the munition, not the aircraft.


Because it's ill-suited for the job.

For the same reason EVERY other significant strike aircraft has one, because JSTARS can't be everywhere. Because it can't generate high-res SAR images for every strike sortie. Because IR goggles and FLIR aren't good enough to safely fly a terrain following profile in real bad weather.

Yes, but this is the best STRIKE aircraft, not the best CAS aircraft. CAS is just one type of strike mission.

You don't always have forward airfields. And the A-10 actually requires a LONGER runway than an F-teen or Tornado.

Do you have a source to back that up?

Mavericks carried by A-10s are normally IIR right? IIR has issues in bad weather. Brimstone uses a MMW seeker, which doesn't.

Who cares? IIR Mavericks and Brimstones are fire-and-forget, so what does it matter if it takes a tad bit longer for the Brimstone to hit its target?

Can IIR Mavericks be launched indirectly, without the aircraft first seeing the target? No. Can an A-10 launch all of it's Mavericks in a single salvo? No. A Gr4 with Brimstones can do both. That's 12-18 shots in a single pass.

Sure, in a benign environment, the gun is a good thing. But add a significant MANPADs threat, and its value rapidly diminishes.

Invulnerable?

http://afhra.maxwell.af.mil/wwwroot/...s1990_2002.pdf

Table I: USAF Manned Aircraft Combat Losses 1990-2002

17 Jan 1991 F-15E AAA Night
19 Jan 1991 F-15E SA-2E Radar Night
19 Jan 1991 F-16C SA-6 Radar Day
19 Jan 1991 F-4G AAA Night
19 Jan 1991 F-16C SA-3 Radar Day
31 Jan 1991 AC-130H SA-16 Infrared Day
2 Feb 1991 A-10A SA-16 Infrared Day
13 Feb 1991 EF-111A (maneuver) Night
15 Feb 1991 A-10A SA-13 Infrared Day
15 Feb 1991 A-10A SA-13 Infrared Day
19 Feb 1991 OA-10 SA-9 Infrared Day
22 Feb 1991 A-10A SA-16 Infrared Day
27 Feb 1991 OA-10A SA-16 Infrared Day
27 Feb 1991 F-16C AAA Day
2 Jun 1995 F-16C SA-6 Radar Day
27 Mar 1999 F-117 SA-3 (Radar?) Night
2 May 1999 F-16CG SA-3 (Radar?) Night

So of the 17 USAF aircraft lost in that period, 6 were A-10s, all were downed by SAMs, half by MANPADS.

35% of USAF combat losses were A-10s.

Toss in another A-10 lost to a MANPADS in OIF.

I'd HARDLY call that invulnerable.

I'm saying the Tornado has SIGNIFICANT CAS capabilities. OTOH, the A-10 is wanting as a general-purpose strike aircraft. The USAF recognizes this, and uses F-15Es and F-16s for these jobs instead.

In the same way the A-10 is ill-suited to perform non-CAS strike roles that don't involve wandering around the empty desert looking for Scuds.

Simullacrum

lol yeah but one problem.....its flown by american pilots wouldnt trust them to have 'fixed eyes' as u put it on me..! lol
bad enough enemy trying to kill me....let alon having blue on blue by the yanks..! lol

leib10

As if friendly fire is a foreign concept to you guys too...

__________________
"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." G-Man

Anon

Not neccisarily. In many cases(such as on the defensive or in a meeting engagement) the enemy force may not have been hit at all.

I do not know your background but i suspect you have serious misunderstandings wrt the actual usage of CAS. It is rarely employed once you're in close contact in a direct fire fight. This does occur sometimes, but it's uncommon. CAS is generally instigated at the initiation of enemy contact, while there is still as much distance as possible between the two forces(artillery too). As the target gets closer to your forces progressively fewer systems are still safe to employ.

The reason i bring that up is to illustrate the point that when a CAS aircraft begins attacking ground targets the vast majority of the time it will be the enemy ground forces main focus of fire.

I guess so, it's a much safer mission profile. A-10s are also fully capable of med altitude JDAM and LGB drops.

Not neccesarily. The A10 can turn around and put its nose on target between runs much faster. At low altitude an A10 can outturn any fixed wing bird in the US/NATO inventory but the F22.

For pointy nosed jets they take such a huge turning radius to get back on target that it obviously is going to take more time per run. The A10 is also FAR better suited to taking advantadge of terrain masking than the Tornado.

That is more than balanced by the fact that it takes a lot less time to turn an A-10 around, and it is generally going to be a lot closer to the front.

I seem to recall saying exactly that in my previous post. Point is/was, it was not a tactics problem, it was an employment problem. Just be thankful the IDS never had to operate over Europe against the WP and employ the JP.233. The entire IDS force might've been wiped out in a matter of a couple days were that the case. The JP.233 is really a terrible execution of a good idea.

Actually, JSTARS is too new to have influenced ANY of the aircraft in current use, even the F22. So your suggested rationale actually has nothing to do with anything. The A-10 didnt have a radar for the same reason the SU-25, YA-9, A-1, and A-7 didn't have one. None of them have a radar by design.

Because radars are irrelevant to CAS, and the A-10 was specifically designed to fill that(as well as the battlefield interdiction) role.

One simply does not make a radar-only drop in close proximity to friendly forces. It is just not done.

In the rationale of the USAF a radar would've simply been waste of valuable internal space, as well as greatly complicating the design(ie $$$$$). For CAS i agree, but for tactical battlefield interdiction i did not.

However, now that JSTARs(and Longbow Apache) is on the scene, a radar is absolutely unneccesary for the A10.(And i have to point out that JSTARs actually does cover a massive area of the battlefield)

Who cares? With a 10 digit grid and JDAM or WCM/CBU(wind corrected dispenser cluster bomb, i cant remember the actual acronym, sorry) it doesn't even need to see the target anymore. And truth be told with JTIDS an A-10 can get a hi-res SAR image from a U-2R flying at 80k feet and over 100 miles from the target.

They're not good enough for roadmarching tanks in really bad weather either.
If the weather is that bad that a Sniper pod A-10 can't function(and that is BAD), then there isn't going to be anything in the way of ground combat ops going on either in almost all cases.

Yep, and we have to look at how each is fought, and how it is used as part of a team. With the full support of the USAF(JSTARs, EA-6, U-2, F-15C, etc, etc) an A-10 in USAF service is simply a more effective overall performer than a Tornado operating as part of a UK only force.

In the last five military campaigns the US has fought the early siezure of FOBs has been a key campaign goal in all of them.(OSF, OJC, ODS, OEF, OIF).

Only at max weights. With a full gun load and 2k lb bombload the A-10 can take off and land in a mere 1500feet.

You mean besides a board full of A-10 pilots and crewdogs?
Feel free to take it up with the real experts:
http://forum.a-10.org/

It can employ all three types(EO, IIR, SALH), but typically IIR is preferred.

A MMW radar which can be jammed AND tracked.

And let me ask you a question you've obviously put no thought into.

What does a Tornado armed with all those radar guided brimstones do when the target is a grid square(which is the vast majority of the time), not a vehicle? I would call that a MAJOR drawback of the radar guided brimstone(and longbow hellfire).

You see, it's always a matter of compromises with these things.

I would of course add that intergrating longbow hellifre(and even a longbow radar pod such as that used on the AH-1Z) into the Hog would be no real feat if someone wanted to. Apparently no one in power thinks it's worth the effort.

Did you not bring up antishipping missions? The faster the missile, the more likely it is to get through. Also, many modern land based systems are capable of taking out missiles nowadays, even ATGMs. The Russian Arena system, USMC HUMRAAM, and the new US Army land based Phalanx system(cant remember the name of it, sorry) are three examples off the top of my head. So again, the faster the missile, the more likekly it is to get through. And even if you kill a big Maverick with an Arena it's likely to still mission kill the tank because it's so big.

Nope. But then, an IIR mav can't be jammed either, and an IIR mav doesnt tell the enemy you're coming either.

On a single pass, yes. An A-10 can certainly salvo off 4 mavs at 4 targets in one attack run(particulalry a medium alt dive-attack)

If it's not being jammed you mean. And if the target is something you can actually lock onto with a radar you mean.

Dont believe the hype. Manufacturers sales brochure claims like that rarely live up to the test of reality. I am sure that in a perfect test environment a Tornado can do exactly what they claim, just as i am equally sure that in real combat the opportunity to do so will almost NEVER occur.


I suggest you go over and let the pilots on my board smack some sense into you.


I seem to recall using a qualifer. Ie, "Virtually invulnerable".

Any objective study of the a-10s combat record will bear out that statement.

First, the SA-13 is not a manpads. Second, the actual combat mission loss rate of A-10s is well below 0.1%, third, two of those A-10s were lost in direct attacks on said SAM sites while acting in the SEAD role(one of whom was interviewed for discovery channel in a documentary that has been aired literally hundreds of times since), fourth, because of the A-10s tremendous pilot protection and ejection friendly flight envelope all but one of those pilots lived(and all were recoverd with OA-10As providing tremendously effective combat escort and CSAR for our rescue helos), fifth, no other US Aircraft in the inventory could've managed that low a loss rate and still provided as highly effective fire(which any honest Eagle or Viper pilot would readily admit), and finally, while six were shot down, literally dozens were heavily hit by all manner of AAA, MANPADS, and even heavier SAM systems. The vast majority of those made it back to base saving the precious pilot, and of those, the majority of them were back in combat within 72 hours.

CAS is an extremely dangerous mission for combat pilots. Probably more dangerous than any other. And SEAD is right behind it. The A-10 did both extensively.

I didn't. I said it was virtually invulnerable, a statement which the statistics clearly supports. If you compare the total combat sortie total with the loss rate it is shockingly low, and lower than the F-16, F-15, or Tornado IDS.

That is just a fact.

The Tornado has credible CAS capabilities. Btw, Anti-armor and CAS are two different missions entirely. Brimstone is typically for the latter, not the former.

The USAF has literally used the A10 for just about everything but Air superiority, and it's done it in combat.

Every role that's been thrust upon it has been handled quite nicely by the Hog.

- CAS
- Anti-Armor
- Precision Strike
- FAC-A
- CSAR
- Gunship Escort
- SEAD
- Tactical battlefield interdiction(which btw is the Tornado IDS's real strength)
- Counterbattery

The A-10 has done ALL of those missions in combat, and done them all quite well.

Your statement is therefore completely erroneous. The A-10 is an excellent all around strike aircraft.

It's also d