Warbirds Thread
- Thread starter PsihoKekec
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Aaron Fox
Well-known member
The A-10 is built around its gun, not rockets, bombs, and missiles (and had to be extensively modified to be the missile truck that it is today). The Su-25 was designed around a massive bomb, rocket, and missile payload. Remember, it's the same group that would include Sparky that made the A-10, the same group that basically thinks anything past WW2 grade tech is evil/useless.
For the Su-25, the gun is an afterthought, for the A-10, everything that isn't supporting the gun is an afterthought. Might not sound like much but it is a definite difference.
When originally designed, the gun was for tanks, when the reality was that the 30mm wasn't capable of doing so even when designed. The USAF had to rework how the A-10 operated because of this.
bintananth
behind a desk
We again see Aaron being utterly clueless, a mindless promoter of the fast mover mafia, and endlessly arguing in bad faith.
Have you ever bothered to read the actual design specs, Aaron? The main weapon for the A-10 was always the Maverick missile, the GAU-8 was the secondary weapon system for when the missiles were all expended.
I get it, you love fast flashy jets that go whoosh and swoosh and look sexy. I get it.
You are still wrong.
Have you ever bothered to read the actual design specs, Aaron? The main weapon for the A-10 was always the Maverick missile, the GAU-8 was the secondary weapon system for when the missiles were all expended.
I get it, you love fast flashy jets that go whoosh and swoosh and look sexy. I get it.
You are still wrong.
bintananth
behind a desk
An improvised rack of bazookas in the hands of someone who is flying a Piper J-2 knows what to do can and take out an entire unit of Panzers.
Can you provide sources for the A10 being built with the gun being the primary armament?
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
I'll have to dig but my google fu is pretty weak, so I might not be able to find the source that I saw a while back.
BF110C4
Well-known member
It might or might not be designed for the gun to be the main weapon but there is no doubt that the fuselage of the plane itself was designed from the ground up to house the GAU-8, including armor designed to protect the ammunition and an offset front landing gear to position the gun in such way it fires from the centerline to prevent the recoil to throw the plane off course and of course the plane is designed with the weight of the gun in mind when it comes to balance and center of gravity.
All in all regardless of CAS doctrine back when the plane was proposed is obvious that the gun was the primary concern of the designers, far more than a secondary weapon would merit.
All in all regardless of CAS doctrine back when the plane was proposed is obvious that the gun was the primary concern of the designers, far more than a secondary weapon would merit.
The plane was designed around the gun yes, but as a means of providing accurate fire ontop of the already powerful arsenal it could carry
The degree to which the Air Force abuses the Key West Agreement is really unbelievable. Case in point, the C-27J Spartan program.
Around 2005, the U.S. Army determined that it very badly needed a replacement for the extremely old Short C-23 Sherpa in the short-range tactical cargo role and that a slightly larger replacement could also handle the missions of the C-26 Metroliner and the C-12 Huron. As a result, they started the Future Cargo Aircraft (FCA) program. The Air Force originally opposed the entire existence of this program, pretty much declaring that the Army should just make do with whatever the Air Force deigned to hand down to them, and tough shit if that wasn't good enough. However, the Air Force subsequently also decided that a small short-range tactical airlifter was actually a good idea, and in 2006 started its own rival program for one, the Light Cargo Aircraft. The Department of Defense, seeing that these two programs were essentially identical, merged them into a single program, the Joint Cargo Aircraft.
Long story short: the winner of this program was the C-27J Spartan, an upgrade of the existing Fiat G.222 medium transport (which had been previously adopted in small numbers as the C-27A Spartan) using technology borrowed from the C-130J Hercules. Essentially, the C-27J "copies" the upgrades of the C-130J onto the smaller twin-engine C-27A to fully modernize it at minimal cost with pretty much no development risk. It's a great little plane, albeit one with some industrial politics souring things -- it was originally a joint project between Fiat (renamed Aeritalia, then Alenia, then Alenia Aermacchi, then Leonardo-Finmeccanica, then just Leonardo) and Lockheed, but Lockheed withdrew from the partnership in order to submit the full-sized C-130J for the JCA proposal.
In any case, the Army received its first two Spartans in 2009. . . at which point the Air Force suddenly argued that since the C-27J was more capable than originally planned, it now fell under the "airlift, air transport and resupply" function allotted to the Air Force under the Key West Agreement, as opposed to the organic "aviation and water transport" which Army Aviation was allowed to retain. The Army was forced to relinquish full control of the program to the Air Force. . . which immediately cut the original order of 75 for the Army and 70 for the Air Force to just 38 aircraft. A few years later, the Air Force doubled down and declared that the brand new Spartans were surplus to the Air Force's needs and would be immediately retired, which literally meant that new aircraft would be delivered straight from the factory to the boneyard.
The Air Force subsequently went full Snideley Whiplash and declared that anyone except the Army could have the "surplus" Spartans; they were ultimately donated to the U.S. Coast Guard as search-and-rescue aircraft.
Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Thing is, in such a conflict high altitude bombardment won't work either - concealment, misdirection, GPS jamming, area defences (anti-artillery etc.) will all limit effectiveness of air power even against an opponent that has been forced to get out of foxholes by ground maneuver. And of course, if you don't have ground maneuver element to force the enemy into the open, you might as well throw water baloons at the enemy - it will be just as effective as lobbing AGMs, but far, far cheaper.
Gun was the primary weapon for the A-10 because designers expected that both sides will run out of guided weapons long before the enemy runs out of tanks and other vehicles, let alone troops. Therefore, you had to have something unguided to kill armoured vehicles - tanks included.
And yes, GAU-8 was fully capable of killing tanks back then. Look at this:
You have to see this hilarious A-10 training guide from the 70s
The A-10 Thunderbolt II is often lovingly referred to as the "grunt of the skies," referring to the nickname given to U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps infantry troops. If the A-10 is the Air Force's grunt, then its pilots are gonna need some thing…
www.wearethemighty.com
Note that the Wide-Area Anti-Armour Munitions program of the 70s proposed a broad array of compact, high-capacity autonomous and semi-autonomous guided weapons that would give the A-10 and other strike aircraft a longer-lasting smart payload. The jewel of that program was the AGM-124 Wasp anti-tank missile, which was deployed in twelve-round pods that the A-10 would have carried five of, collectively ripple-firing ten-Wasp salvos.
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stephen the barbarian
Well-known member
they classified the armies only post ww2 air to air kill because it made them look bad.
Per the article you cited, it's more that the Army classified it because they were afraid the Air Force would claim that the Mohawk was violating the Key West Agreement, even though it was blatantly a lucky kill with air-to-ground weapons.
stephen the barbarian
Well-known member
potato, potato
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
If I had been running the procurement committee in Congress after that debacle I'd have given the USAF a choice they can pick to ditch Key West or they don't get F-35s. Also when that damm thing happened I wonder why the hell the army didn't start calling in all the favors to nuke Key West since again it's not a law and if Congress passes legislation saying it's no longer valid....well sucks to be the chair force
paulobrito
Well-known member
Because the Chair Force has a better relationship with the political power.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
This, the USAF can simply say that it will close airbases across the country and tank economies that way, meaning politicians will get elected out that way. Think of it as the way that Walmart can pull all the shit it does aka 'nice economy you've got there, it would be horrible if something happened to it'.
From my understanding, Army bases aren't as good moneymakers as air or naval bases.
Which is hilarious b/c Army bases typically bring in MORE people to pay taxes and buy stuff from local business.