A-10 Warthogs Being Sent to the Boneyard Again

Husky_Khan

Husky_Khan

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The first of 21 A-10C Warthogs Being Retired to the Boneyard, the National Guard unit receiving lower-time F-16C/D Jets as replacements. These Warthogs are the first consigned to this fate since 2014.

www.thedrive.com

A-10 Warthogs Sent To Boneyard For The First Time In Years

Last year, Congress ended its long opposition to Air Force requests to retire more of the iconic Warthog ground attack jets.
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About 260 Warthogs remain in active service with the Air Force asking Congress to grant them the authority to retire the remaining planes by 2030.
 
UberIguana said:
No small part of me wants to see this so we can finally settle the argument of whether or not they'd work against a modern opponent.

Granted, modern is a bit of a stretch given the current condition of Russia's armed forces, but it's close enough.
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Even then, it's not a very solid comparison.

The A-10 is supposed to operate in an environment where friendly air-power has wiped out the enemy airforce, and it only really needs to worry about ground fire.
 
Why boneyard and not simply scrapped?
Or, with the USA having lots of open spaces in "rain light" areas, it is cheaper to leave them there?

Sending them to Ukraine looks a good idea - until one considers the logistics. Then again - good garage clearout exercise - getting rid of both planes and spare parts.
Would there be issues with the fancy-shmancy ammo for the boner inducing thirty-milimetre?
 
Buba said:
Why boneyard and not simply scrapped?
Or, with the USA having lots of open spaces in "rain light" areas, it is cheaper to leave them there?

Sending them to Ukraine looks a good idea - until one considers the logistics. Then again - good garage clearout exercise - getting rid of both planes and spare parts.
Would there be issues with the fancy-shmancy ammo for the boner inducing thirty-milimetre?
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They are made mostly from titanium IIRC, you can't scrap that.

Anyways, inb4 everyone in the US army riots and they give them an extension, again.

Maybe they can convert them into drones.
 
Agent23 said:
Anyways, inb4 everyone in the US army riots and they give them an extension, again.
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I doubt an extension will happen this time. The F-35 is finally entering service in numbers, and it's a far more capable aircraft, especially when it comes to precision strikes. The only redeeming quality of the A-10 in the CAS role were its loiter time and versatile bomb load, and it was still terrible enough at target acquisition and identification to be causing more friendly fire incidents per mission than any other aircraft in service since WW2. And it's not the army that will riot. Every time the Army bounces around the idea that they don't need the air force for CAS and could get CAS done with helicopters in the Army chain of command, it's the USAF that gets an aneurysm and feels compelled to do something stupid and wasteful to prove they can still do CAS twice as good and ten times more expensive than Army gunships.
 
Captain X said:
Give 'em to Ukraine so they can do what they were designed to do by killing Russian tanks.
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First give them F-16s, then give them A-10s

But A-10s would look good in Ukrainian colors.

FRlPfrpXsAEY5hA
 
Martenzo said:
I doubt an extension will happen this time. The F-35 is finally entering service in numbers, and it's a far more capable aircraft, especially when it comes to precision strikes. The only redeeming quality of the A-10 in the CAS role were its loiter time and versatile bomb load, and it was still terrible enough at target acquisition and identification to be causing more friendly fire incidents per mission than any other aircraft in service since WW2. And it's not the army that will riot. Every time the Army bounces around the idea that they don't need the air force for CAS and could get CAS done with helicopters in the Army chain of command, it's the USAF that gets an aneurysm and feels compelled to do something stupid and wasteful to prove they can still do CAS twice as good and ten times more expensive than Army gunships.
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I think the war in Ukraine has proven once and for all that doing cast with just Helos is not exactly a sure thing. Both sides don't even try that because both sides will get their helos shot out of the air. I like the A-10 I have seen their utility in assisting Navy and Marine Corps units in Amphibous invasions. Which they do shine in doing.
 
LordsFire said:
Even then, it's not a very solid comparison.

The A-10 is supposed to operate in an environment where friendly air-power has wiped out the enemy airforce, and it only really needs to worry about ground fire.
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Thinks about the skies of Europe in a WWIII scenario in the 80s......not sure that would count. Albeit the A-10 fleet was planed on likely taking frickin horrific losses
 
Scottty said:
They would have been fighting in a context where it didn't matter whether they survived the mission, because there would be no home to return to.
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That was even in a conventional conflict. The USAF sort of figured the A-10 fleet would be mostly gone within a couple weeks. Albeit they also figured about half the f-111s would also have been gone along with a lot of the rest of the tactical airforce of both themselves and NATO period
 
Agent23 said:
They are made mostly from titanium IIRC, you can't scrap that.
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Only the armored segments of the plane are titanium, basically the cockpit, maybe an area or two elsewhere. The rest is pretty standard plane materials, aluminum, steel, composites, etc.
But yeah, scrapping titanium is a big no-no, stuff is hard to get.
 
ThatZenoGuy said:
But yeah, scrapping titanium is a big no-no, stuff is hard to get.
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No, titanium is nearly impossible to recycle IIRC.
chemistry.stackexchange.com

Why is it hard to reduce titanium dioxide?

Titanium is expensive, although it is not rare and titanium dioxide is a ubiquitous component, it's part of such mundane articles as toothpaste, paper or plastics. The reason for that is that the
chemistry.stackexchange.com chemistry.stackexchange.com
 
Agent23 said:
No, titanium is nearly impossible to recycle IIRC.
chemistry.stackexchange.com

Why is it hard to reduce titanium dioxide?

Titanium is expensive, although it is not rare and titanium dioxide is a ubiquitous component, it's part of such mundane articles as toothpaste, paper or plastics. The reason for that is that the
chemistry.stackexchange.com chemistry.stackexchange.com
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Learn something new every day!
Would still be such a waste to get rid of so much good quality armor plate as well though. Titanium is great stuff for tank armor due to it's light weight.
 
ThatZenoGuy said:
Learn something new every day!
Would still be such a waste to get rid of so much good quality armor plate as well though. Titanium is great stuff for tank armor due to it's light weight.
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Well as I said, maybe they could turn them into drones, then transfer them to the land forces.

@Zachowon you are infantry, how pissed are the other grunts about losing their flying pile of guns and armor support?
 
Agent23 said:
Well as I said, maybe they could turn them into drones, then transfer them to the land forces.

@Zachowon you are infantry, how pissed are the other grunts about losing their flying pile of guns and armor support?
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Nah, I'm Intel, but none of us are happy about them getting rid of it
 
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