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Darth Fluffy

Comic for Friday July 01, 2022

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It's an almost 50 year old design.  Unless they are planing on doing a B-52 "We plan on using this for 100 years" thing it's time to replace it.  The Avenger isn't really all that great against modern armor and that's what people mainly think about when they talk about A10s.  Almost anything, including heavy bombers can drop precision guided munitions  now, so needing a dedicated CAS design isn't really all that important.   What it can do, that no other current aircraft can do is stand up to anti-aircraft artillery.  Not so much against SAM however.

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2 hours ago, mlooney said:

It's an almost 50 year old design.  Unless they are planing on doing a B-52 "We plan on using this for 100 years" thing it's time to replace it.  The Avenger isn't really all that great against modern armor and that's what people mainly think about when they talk about A10s.  Almost anything, including heavy bombers can drop precision guided munitions  now, so needing a dedicated CAS design isn't really all that important.   What it can do, that no other current aircraft can do is stand up to anti-aircraft artillery.  Not so much against SAM however.

"It's an almost 50 year old design". - not as much of an issue as it might seem. Where have the advances been since it was fielded? Stealth - yes, it is hardly stealthy, some air frame characteristics like vectored thrust - it is slow and nor a fighter jet, materials - the materials in the A-10 are still pretty much the state of the art. I'm not a fan of aluminum, but it is difficult to justify the cost of titanium everywhere. (Aluminum begins failing from the moment it is used. This is why aluminum wings have a stated design lifetime. Titanium, like iron and steel, is resilient.)

Electronics cover more functions than they did fifty years ago, but in many instances are the easiest part of an upgrade.

The B-52 is a good example of 'It's adequate, and we'll keep using it.'

So is the A-10 good in it's role or at least adequate?

"Avenger isn't really all that great against modern armor and that's what people mainly think about when they talk about A10s." - I'm not agreeing with this so much. Very modern designs address the weaknesses that the A-10 exploits. But what is actually in the filed is much older; case in point, what the Russians are field in the Ukraine. (They may be holding back newer designs to counter the possibility of facing the A-10.)

"Almost anything, including heavy bombers can drop precision guided munitions  now, so needing a dedicated CAS design isn't really all that important." - Amazing. That is the USAF argument for phasing it out. I beg to differ; an attack AC can drop a handful of precision guided munitions, and take out as many vehicles. A heavy bomber could drop a shitload, but who is going to designate the targets? And A-10, a single A-10, can tear up a column. And even if the tanks can more or less survive, the bulk of the support vehicles and launchers will not, they are not as hardened. The cannon spits out rounds at an unreasonably fast rate, and they will pierce engine blocks, equipment, carried missiles, and pretty much anything else.

"What it can do, that no other current aircraft can do is stand up to anti-aircraft artillery.  Not so much against SAM however." - it has a decent chance of returning home and keeping the pilot alive if shot up, but the airplane is at best out of commission until repaired. Against a SAM site, it has a decent chance of taking it out, but yeah, if the SAM site gets a lock and gets one off, the A-10 is not going to stand up to that. OTOH, it can approach fairly low. A lot of SAM focus is on high speed, high altitude jets, not optimized for an A-10 flight profile. I would speculate that the weak point is hand held Stinger type devices, which can reach it quickly and whose launch point is far less highlighted.

Re: old hardware, the Browning 50 cal is about 100 years old. Some updates over the years, the bulk of them during WW II.

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Reading detailed of the F-35 program, I am impressed. 'One size fits all' rarely works out well, the product usually does not fit anybody. I'm pointing my finger at your F-4, Robert McNamara.

The F-35 rolls out three variants of the same basic air frame, but with significant differences. The A, B, and C are by no means swappable; while that may sound like a weakness, it is actually the strength of the program. Instead of 'one size fits all', you are getting a plane tailored to the role it will play. The Air Force gets a long range air superiority fighter (F-35A), the Navy gets a similar plane with a takeoff and landing profile more suited to a carrier (F-35C), and the Marines get a VSTOL replacement for the Harrier for attack roles (F35-B).

It is comparable with but not better than previous gen fighters as a flyer, but it is stealthy, which gives it a clear edge in actual engagements. It seems that for Air CAP the F-22 is still the better bird. This would be the USAF F-35A variant. The A has a gun, which I like; Vietnam should have taught us  to not do without. 

The B & C do no have an integral gun, rely on a gun pod.

The B is the only one with the central fan.

The program is horribly over budget, in part due to numerous issues that have emerged and been dealt with. Many problems remain yet unsolved. In the long run, it looks viable, albeit much more expensive than anticipated. The plane is in demand world-wide.

Stated goals are to replace aging aircraft including the Harrier, F-16, F/A-18, A-10, and F-117. Case by case, yes, the F-35B seems to do the role of the Harrier, a design from the 1960s. Yes, the F-35C seems to be capable of the F-18 roles. The F-35B seems capable of the A-18 roles, perhaps the F-35C for some roles. The F-35A does not seem equivalent to the A-10, I'll get back to that. The F-35A (or F-35C) seems capable of the F-117 role. It is nice to have that capability in the Navy. The F-22 already fills this role for the USAF, so the F-35A is just more of the same.

The  F-16 is a harder one to call, but I'll say, 'no', for this reason; the F-16 was a cheaper fallout of the F-15 development. It is not intended to be the premiere plane, it is intended to be the affordable alternative. Any decent modern fighter can fly its missions; the F-16 does it more cost effectively. And that is not a thing the F-35A does. Can it replace it? Yeah, sure, but so what?

The A-10 ... the USAF is enamored with stand off weapons that can shoot miles away and take out a tank. Less risk to the plane and pilot. The payload and turn around time are such that you aren't going to stop an entire column that way. The A-10, at greater risk, can engage said column.

What does the F-35A (or the others) bring to the table? Nothing new. It can sneak up and pop a few tanks it could have killed form far away.

In an effort to justify the use of the F-35A as a replacement for the A-10, the USAF named the munition of choice a fragmenting warhead rocket "that would release more projectiles than an entire strafing run". Let's accept that statement at face value. does the mere multitude of warhead fragments flying willy-nilly downrange matter, or does the properly shaped and directed penetrator rounds, though fewer in absolute number carry the day? ... and if this was such a great idea, why was it not used on an earlier generation of air frame? I don't see the F-35A pulling this one off. Then again, as has been pointed out, the USAF has been hot to get rid of the A-10 for ages.

Summary, I see this as an expensive, but useful upgrade to a broad swath of weapon systems, but not the panacea for all.

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