U.S. House panel defeats bid to save A-10 'Warthog' aircraft

The infamous A-10 warthog (also known as tank buster) won't be in service for much longer.
Many people might have seen it in various movies, including the new Superman Man of Steel movie (three A-10 were used to attack the aliens from Superman's home planet), and the Terminator Salvation (multiple A-10 were seen to attack a Skynet base, and later two A-10 were shot down over a valley by a HK drone after they downed a drone first), and the first Transformer movie (where two A-10 attacked a scroption shaped decepticon in the desert).

In reality,
A-10 is the best close air support for ground troops with its 30mm Gatling guns and over a dozen anti-tank missiles it can carry under its wings. It is a slow jet, which makes it ideal for dealing with ground targets, and its armor can take many hits without being affected. The ground troops love it. Yet the air force wants to ditch it in favor of F-35.

Make no mistake, A-10 is old technology with three decades of history behind it. It is still the best close air support today. It has proven track of records on the battlefields. Why would the government want to replace it with F-35 which isn't even meant for this close support role? Just a few days ago in Afghanistan a F-16 dropped two bombs and caused friendly casualty. It just to show how unreliable it is to use super sonic jets for close air support.

You can see the source news here:
http://news.yahoo.com/u-house-panel-defeats-bid-save-10-warthog-165333506--finance.html

 

Yes, the A-10 is slow, but sometimes "slow" is better. I had the priviledge of watching a pair fly aerobatics back in the 80s, and I was emotionally moved.

I think the AF wants to kill the A-10 programme because they can not control it. It is GROUND support platform, as has been pointed out, not an Air-combat platform.

 

When bean counters make decisions for the military it always ends up being a mistake. Some of those older birds have served our interest well, like the B-52, yet choosing the F-35 over the A-10 is a classic case of not allowing the military to be flexible, or being realistic about the various roles that need to be fulfilled during war.

 

Isn't the F35 an air superiority fighter? Isn't it slightly nonsensical to remove something tried and tested for something unsuited to the role? And unless I am mistaken, isn't the F35 pricier than the A-10?

 

Yes to all three questions.

 

That is sad, really sad. I am sure it will only backfire in the long run.

 

Sometimes ago I have heard that the army wanted to take the A-10 under their command as the air force wanted to ditch them. The proposal was denied because somehow it was against the rule of ground troops not allowed to have fixed wing aircraft... If what I heard was true, it's beyond lame lol.

F-35 is an air superior super sonic stealth jet. It won't be good for close air support for the ground troops as it is
1. too fast
2. too soft
3. can't carry many missiles or it will compromise its "stealth" capability

In my first post, I forgot to mention another more recent movie with A-10 in it. In World War Z, up to eight A-10 were seen in the sky of Philadelphia when the zombies were about to overrun the city. No movie had that many A-10 in one scene.

 

I think I now recall why Congress can-ed the A-10: the other plane will create more profit in key congressional districts. Manufacturer's profits equals campaign bribes, err, contributions.

 

It makes sense... any new large project will create more loopholes for "contribution".

The whole official excuse for going for F-35 was due to "F-22 is too expensive". Now with the price tag of F-35 keeps climbing on the top of the R&D money, they could have built thousands F-22 already with the same amount of money. It just doesn't make sense from both economical reasons and military sense either.

 

I hope that a proper replacement for the a-10 warthog is made, a flying close support aircraft that is heavily armored is a very nice thing to have. I doubt that that will happen though, because all the money will be funneled into the f-35, and it is a sad day now that the warthog has been retired.

 

The only way I see this happening is if the Army proposes to take over the A-10 project and place it under their command. It only makes sense that ground support aircraft be in the command structure of the folks that are utilizing it, rather than under the command of different command structure.

 

Yeah, that would make much more sense, having a nice close support aircraft to support ground forces is a good thing, but that kind of thing might be being replaced by helicopters like the Apache and others.

 

The only problem with rotary wing aircraft (helicopters) is that they still give themselves away due to the sound, they can only be silenced so much, yet the warthogs design makes it more silent and I have experienced this, when you hear it, it is too late, especially if it was coming at you with intent to unload its ordinance.

 

That is something I have never thought of with aircraft. I didn't know that the helicopters were louder than the a-10 warthog. The warthog is so big, and uses multiple jet engines, you would never think that a a-10 is much quieter than a helicopter.