US to stage F-35-versus-Warthog bake-off in 2018 US brass-hats have decided when the F-35 “Joint Strike Fighter” will finally be ready to take on the ancient A10 “Warthog”: in another three years, give or take a little. In 2018, the Pentagon's Office of Operational Test and Evaluation plans to send formations of F-35s and A10s to compare their effectiveness in close air …
F-35 vs A10? Obviously not head on, as the F-35 does not have enough firepower to bring a hog down - you need the navy for this :)
yes, I know. Its just I am a tad sad to see the hogs finally leaving. But loitering above a battlefield to pick off tanks has become pretty dangerous these days. (really) last of the gunfighters[1].
[1] originally awarded to the Crusader.
ISIS an edge case? I guess this kind of enemy in the future will be much more common than a large war against China or Russia, the only two enemies that could force a very modern battlefield - and I won't rely then on worn out F-35 whose characteristics have been very well studied and understood while attacking lesser targets... after all the F-117 was "expended" soon, after having being used of Iraq and Serbia.
"ISIS an edge case? I guess this kind of enemy in the future will be much more common than a large war against China or Russia, the only two enemies that could force a very modern battlefield - and I won't rely then on worn out F-35 whose characteristics have been very well studied and understood while attacking lesser targets... after all the F-117 was "expended" soon, after having being used of Iraq and Serbia."
Lets hope it never comes to an all out war with Russia or China or anyone else. Wars like that will kill a load more people.
F117 did pretty well, 20 years of being pretty successful and effective. It certainly made a significant impact on the 1991 Gulf War. The one lost in Serbia was a blemish, caused mostly because they kept using the same air corridors for exit from the fighting zone. Sooner or later someone was bound to notice... But all in all, an awsome result from a first attempt.
I still find it amazing that Lockheed spent only $30million building the first two flying prototypes Have Blue. Even in 1970s money, $30million was a piddly, trifling amount for something that revolutionary. Just goes to show what engineers can really do if left alone to do their best.
Hope is not a plan. I think that attitude has made it more likely that we'll see that kind of all out war now than it was before the wall came down. Our side keeps hoping that, the other side keeps planning to win it. One of these days they're going to think they have such a substantial edge they'll be willing to risk it. We won't be able to stop it until we stop that kind of thinking. Because the edge they're going to think will give it to them, is that we aren't willing to fight that war.
> I think that attitude has made it more likely that we'll see that kind of all out war now than it was before the wall came down.
Funny here I thought a big reason why there was no all out war before and after the wall came down between major powers was because of nuclear weapons. It might be more likely but the only way I can see it happening at all is if some vital resource gets incredibly scarce. Fresh water perhaps but by the time that is the case war may very well be fought with drones anyway.
ISIS is pretty much an edge case.
... sorry if i missed something exciting but hasnt pretty much every large military action since August 1990 (outside peacekeeping in bosnia/kosovo) been
- based in north africa / middle east
- against relatively small mobile groups (admittedly, the iraqi army was not too mobile)
- with lower technology weapons (so far)
hasnt pretty much every large military action since August 1990 (outside peacekeeping in bosnia/kosovo) been
- based in north africa / middle east
Afghanistan is not in the Middle East. Yes, it borders Iran to the west, but it isn't part of the Middle East by any reasonable definition. It's outside the area as it's typically defined and has a very different history, ethnic base, culture, etc.
There are or have been a number of sub-Saharan African conflicts that are "large" by any sensible standard. There have been wars in former Soviet republics. The civil war in Nepal. The drug war in Mexico.
Actually the A10 is more likely to survive over a battlefield than any other type.
It's built with horrendous levels of redundancy and designed to fly home having been shot to shit. The only single point of failure is the pilot and he sits in a heavily armoured tub.
AFAIK it's the only aircraft where more than one of them has returned safely[1] after taking a SAM hit. Small arms, RPGs and conventional flak aren't much of an issue.
Anyone toting something that can knock down A10s is going to see a load of F35s as a sort of upmarket coconut shy.
[1] For a given value of "safely" that includes being shy of an engine, a wheel, much of the control systems and most of a wing.
TeeCee, quite a few aircraft have taken SAM hits and lived, the A-10 doesn't actually do very well in that regard (it was designed to withstand 23mm shells, not SAM warheads). It also, being lower and slower, gets hit a lot more often and is much less able to evade enemy fire.
During Desert Storm, the A-10s took four times the losses per sortie compared to the F-16 - 20 casualties in 8,640 sorties compared to seven in 11,698 for the Vipers. However, this is even worse than it looks, because while most of the A-10 missions were to the lightly defended front line "killboxes", the F-16s were ranging across all of Iraq (including downtown Baghdad and similar high-threat targets), and using the killboxes on the route home to expend any remaining weapons.
What isn't an edge case? What war is the US actually going to engage in nowadays against another nation which requires that kind of support? Any nation willing to fight is likely going to result in full scale nuclear war.
The only battles the US is fighting are exactly like ISIS/Al Qaeda. Traditional warfare between nations is done with, because the firepower available is too great.
As usual that depends on what kind of AA defense protects the ground vehicles. IMHO against not heavy protected forces (i.e. ISIS....) the firepower of an A-10 is much more effective than that of an F-35. It's also probably easier to be flown from advanced airfields than the more complex F-35.
But for some reasons USAF always "hated" the A-10, it was already about to be retired when its success in the first Gulf War showed it was a very effective ground attack weapon system. But for some reason USAF never like this kind of planes, it's not a fighter, it's not a bomber... maybe all ground attack roles should be transferred to the Army and Marines.
But for some reasons USAF always "hated" the A-10, it was already about to be retired when its success in the first Gulf War showed it was a very effective ground attack weapon system.
You have to understand the AF's mentality. They're the fighter/glory guys and it's reflected in their culture and promotions. They don't like bombers, tankers, and cargo planes. Just below that on the "hate" list is nuke ICBM's.
One should note, though, that F-16 and other aircraft used against ground targets in the Gulf Wars were fighters first. So that's ok in the AF hivemind... a few fighter jocks doing ground attack not ground attacks as a primary job.
Don't be fooled by the mission symbol. The F-16 was designed to be a fighter/bomber because it had to replace the F-104, F-105, F-4 and A-7 (and, partially, the F-111) that were going to be retired. After all, the F-105, F-111 and F-117 despite the "F" were true tactical bombers, not fighters at all. Only McDonnell used the unusual F/A symbol for its F-18, which was designed to replace F-4s, A-6s and A-7s in the Navy/Marines ranks, to stress its attack capabilities also. The F-4 itself was designed in early stages of its development to be a fighter/bomber.
AFAIK, the Israeli Air Force always preferred to use the F-16 more in its tactical bomber role than in the fighter one, preferring the F-15 for air superiority.
It is true, anyway, that "exuberant" planes like the F-14 and F-15 displayed excellent attack capabilities, both as dedicated model like the F-15E, or upgrades like the "Bombcat". But their unit cost never justified large scale production.
Anyway, the USAF likes also bombers and cargos, as long as they are big and heavy - like the B-52, B-2, C-5, C-17... and it did whatever it could to manage the ICBMs too.
Don't be fooled by the mission symbol. The F-16 was designed to be a fighter/bomber because it had to replace the F-104, F-105, F-4 and A-7 (and, partially, the F-111) that were going to be retired.
The downside is that the F-16 is a single-engine aircraft. In a CAS environment, that's really not a good thing.
They may "like" the big birds, but their promotions into command positions are usually given to fighter guys.
The F-16 was an Aerial Demonstration Tactical Asset. It was engineered to be an high performance hot-dogger. Once they had to add weapons its ballerina abilities vanished. All the A,B,C,D, and E models have been trying to get back the agility of the demonstration protype.
Agree with general post but calling an F104 Widowmaker a fighter bomber is a stretch. F4, perhaps?
Isn't the F111 an example of a failed design-to-mission match, followed by role reassignment? I thought it was originally meant to be much more of a heavy standoff fighter than it ended up being - which is mainly a tactical/deep penetration attack/bomber. Ditto Tornado.
Hard to tell, most online resources focus way more on the current use than the intended use at program initiation time so I am going from memory.
Btw, you can tell this ain't a Canadian forum. Nobody's yet waxed lyrical about our cherished Avro Arrow. You'd have at least half a dozen posts about it here, even in an A-10 thread ;-)
I always wonder when that's the justification for killing a project:
Did the small run unit cost accurately reflect what a large scale unit cost would have been?
Regardless of the run size, you have to pay the capital costs for the production equipment. If you plan to run 1000 units that makes a $10,000 capital cost more palatable than if you're planning to run 100 units. We in the public never get to see the split between the labor costs and the capital costs, so we never know if that Congresscritter demanding we halve production numbers to save us money actually did.
>You have to understand the AF's mentality. They're the fighter/glory guys and it's reflected in their culture and promotions. They don't like bombers, tankers, and cargo planes. Just below that on the "hate" list is nuke ICBM's.
All the more reason they should be the Army Air Corp again now we don't need the AF to deliver strategic nukes.
All the more reason they should be the Army Air Corp again now we don't need the AF to deliver strategic nukes.
Ever wonder why much of the Marines air wings are for CAS? They know the AF can't be counted on. I know this first hand having been a USMC air wing type in Vietnam
>Ever wonder why much of the Marines air wings are for CAS?
Not at all. My understanding has always been that in the Marines everyone including the generals (Marine buddy told story of a 50+ year old Marine general leading him and 7000 other men under his command on a run one day) is expected to be a grunt and your specialty is extra on top of that to support that.
They hate it because it isn't sexy, cant go supersonic, the pilots want F16/15/22's to fly, its always been this way. Now the Marines could be badass in in an A10, but the limitations imposed on no USAF fixed wing aircraft make this doubtful. The A10 is loved by troops for the protection it affords, but it doesn't fit the USAF's stealthy sexy fast mantra.
"...it's a cannon with wings."
It's a weapon platform with a weapon. A tank is a gun with tracks, a submarine is a collection of torpedos with a delivery system wrapped around them.
The point about the A10 is that it is a very effective platform that gets a very effective weapon right where you want it.
The A-10 is not a plane...
...it's a cannon with wings.
True. During the first Gulf War, an Iraqi surface to air missile scored a lucky shot on the wing of an A-10. I remember watching the news and seeing an A-10 land with half of one wing missing - as it was designed to do.
Also, the A-10 has a stall speed so slow (officially 120 knots) that it looks scary at that speed, enabling it to easily engage tanks. With the F-35's wing formation a stall speed of below 200 knots is doubtful.
>"a stall speed so slow (officially 120 knots) that it looks scary"
Too true, I can remember being stalked by A10s as I rode* around Suffolk on a TV175 and a Viper, back in the '70s. I guess they flew into the wind so that when they suddenly loomed over a hedge, they seemed to be hovering. They certainly scared the shit out of me, without using any ordnance. With those around, I can't imagine why anyone would join a tank regiment. You might as well run naked into a field with a target on your back.
* They ignored me on bicycles, I expect they targeted cages too, but then the occupants would never notice. (Well I never saw them stalking me when I was in my Land Rover, but then no matter how 'biker' you are, you're just not as aware of your environment in a cage. A tank is a very impressive cage with even more limited views of its environment.) Ironically, the A10 is really a flying tank!
"Too true, I can remember being stalked by A10s as I rode* around Suffolk on a TV175 and a Viper, back in the '70s"
Upvoted for being someone else on El Reg who once had a Viper. They were nice when they were going and you had the parts.
However, I think the thing with tanks is you don't zoom around while people are watching. You hide in silent watch hull down and you only move when either you have air superiority or conditions are awful. Ideally your Navy has blockaded the enemy so effectively they are out of aviation fuel. I believe that tank commander lifespan in battle conditions is typically a bit higher than that for pilots, but I don't have any up to date figures and the situation may have reversed.
And it can still fly without one third of a wing, one rudder/tail, one engine, and all 3 hydraulics. One lieutenant came back home, aboard her A-10, and it looked like swiss cheese.
I doubt a F-35 could survive that kind of punishment. And it WILL fly in the same position as an A-10 if they want it to fly CAS, and WILL be subject to the same hazards.
http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Stories1/001-100/0016_A-10-battle-damage/story0016.htm
Actually, the GAU is surprisingly ineffective against even 1970s-era tanks head-on. The pilots have always been told to go for the sides or rear because the attack profile makes it quite difficult to hit the (very thin) top of the tank. It may have a better attack angle than a mud-sucking armoured vehicle, but you are talking about frontal armour that can bounce a 120mm tungsten penetrator round. The GAU's a very impressive gun, but there's only so much a 30mm round can do. It's rated to 69mm of penetration at 500m.
"But loitering above a battlefield to pick off tanks has become pretty dangerous these days."
Well, that depends on what you're up against. Blokes on the ground armed with AK47s and RPGs are not a threat to any airborne aircraft more than 1/4 mile away. That's plenty close enough for the A10's gun to be totally devastating.
Up against a foe with a comprehensive anti-air capability? Well that's a different story.
So it really comes down to the question about any future war zone, "What's the other guy got?".
My guess is that right now, the answer to that question is "Not a lot". In which case the A10 will do very nicely, thank you.
Why F35?
There's a whole load of military/industrial politics and bullshit behind why F35 is happening at all. My view is that we need to be able to build aircraft using the technology developed for the F35, and we need to retain the industrial capacity to build a lot of them.
However, to put it all into a single aircraft like they're trying to do whilst adding on fairly pointless things like VSTOL is expensive and will not result in a best-at-everything aircraft. [VSTOL is simply a physical acknowledgement of not having bought the right ships to fly it from].
Why not B52?!?!
It will result in an aircraft that's maybe good-ish at one thing and underperforms at everything else. It might be a good air superiority platform but that will largely be down to its weapon system, not its stealth and flying qualities. At the moment you could probabaly put that weapon system on a B52 and have better air superiority than F35 will achieve (more missiles, better endurance, etc).
Politicians and Their Responsibilities
Most of it comes down to the politicians not being willing to read a few history books and acknowledge that they have a responsibility to take a long term view as well as considering their re-election in 4 or 5 years time. Having professional politicians is crazy - it guarantees that they need to keep the job to preserve their income, so they will never look beyond the next election. It takes a really honest politician to ask themselves why F35 is happening and what it is that has motivated its backers into pushing it as an idea. I've not seen such a politician recently...
Of course, people like Putin understand this weakness, and he's exploiting it to slowly creep across Europe and the Caucasus. If he does it slowly enough he'll get a long way without any of our politicians caring or noticing or, more importantly for them, taking the blame. It's really a case now of whether Russian bankruptcy will disrupt his ambitions before any more harm is done. Imminent bankruptcy might just force his hand...
So look at programs like F35 closely enough and you will start wondering how the next 20 or 30 years are going to pan out when we've got creeps like Putin running Russia.
Quote
However, to put it all into a single aircraft like they're trying to do whilst adding on fairly pointless things like VSTOL is expensive and will not result in a best-at-everything aircraft. [VSTOL is simply a physical acknowledgement of not having bought the right ships to fly it from].
Strange that the original AST for the Harrier was to operate in Germany against the Russians. not a lot of shops there (unless you count the rhine Barges). The ability to operate from small very dispersed and mobile airfields (viz Roads) was the original planned use for tha Harrier.
IMHO the F-35 is a total waste of space and money. Obviously designed by committee who dodn't have a clue about the subject.
AST = Air Staff Target. RAF speak. I'd love to see the one for the F-35.
In my opinion (having worked on the Harrier so I'm obviously biased) is that a lightweight modern version of the AV8-A is what is needed not the overblown F-35.
"Strange that the original AST for the Harrier was to operate in Germany against the Russians. not a lot of shops there (unless you count the rhine Barges). The ability to operate from small very dispersed and mobile airfields (viz Roads) was the original planned use for tha Harrier."
It was indeed the original requirement, back in the days when the Cold war was frightening enough to make the procurement guys and politicians think clearly. For CAS the Harrier or A10 is probably ideal.
Apart from all other disqualifications for F35 in a forward deployment role, in VSTOL mode it would probably set fire to tarmac. It's already been melting decks.
Re F35 AST: it either doesn't exist or is too heavy to lift. Either tactic is a good obscurant.
Part of the problem here falls on the military itself. In order to ensure programs get funded the military has worked to make sure that every national voting district has at least one part for any big system produced in it. Since the locals have a vested interest, it increases the odds their congress critter will vote to fund the program. Yes, it makes it easier to fund things, but it also makes it easier to kill them when they grow outdated, or it's just a bad idea. The multi-purpose military jet has always struck me as one of those bad ideas only a paper pusher can love. But they've got enough districts getting jobs from making parts so it is now almost impossible to stop.
The A-10 excels at 'low and slow'.
But the A-10 requires having someone overhead to fly cover and then you need to also take out AA radar guided missiles. (A-10s do have flares...)
The A-10 also can take a lot of damage that would take out other jets. Just like the original Thunderbolt.
(See P-47 vs P-51)
But when you talk about B-52s aka BUFFs, you can see them miles away. Only good if you control the air space, and then loiter with either GPS guided munitions, or laser illuminated targets.
The F-35 can do close air support. Loiter capabilities exist if you have a KC near by.
Personally, I'd say keep the A-10, but you will need to do something about the ammo for the GAU. Highly toxic.
There is really no comparison between the two. Look at the history of FAC/close air support and you'll have a hard time finding one fast jet that's really been up to the task. The A10 is the ultimate modern CAS aircraft; can carry truck loads of ordnance, has a high rate of fire and powerful gun, can loiter for extended periods, can fly slow enough to see what's going on and is the toughest CAS aircraft by far. The F35, on the other hand, is none of these things. No doubt the bean counters will win out over common sense, they'll retire the A10.
Next time someone needs air support they'll call in the F35s which will be in and out in a couple of minutes (since they don't have enough fuel to loiter) and won't be able to get low enough to do any good since they lack general survivability. End result is a bunch of dead grunts on the ground due to ineffective CAS. After that they'll stop calling the F35's and just call in choppers which makes a mockery of pretty much all the reasons for using F35's in the CAS role anyway.
People like to say that A-10s lack what it takes to survive on a modern battlefield, but the same thing can be said about our helos and none of them are as good at their jobs as the A-10 is at its.
As for the "modern battlefield," I think we've been seeing that in Bosnia, Albania, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the current troubles in the Levant. These are the types of conflicts experts have correctly said will occupy the Western powers post-Soviet Union. The A-10 is a perfect platform for these types of conflicts. Don't forget, it's not operating as the sole type of aircraft, but one of a mix. Leave the air superiority to the F-15s and F-16s, and leave the F-22s at home as they are unnecessary.
Also, when they compare the F-35 to the A-10 combat-wise they need to also keep cost and maintainability in mind.
The F-35 is the poster child for the phrase "Jack of all trades, master of none." We should cut our losses and cancel the program now. I really feel sorry for Britain and the other countries who have been suckered into this boondoggle the U.S. has perpetrated on its allies.
They tried a similar comparison with a gun pod equipped version of the F16 years ago and this failed too - for the same reasons you point out. Basically, in both the F16 and F35, these fly-offs were largely an attempt to shoe-horn in a different airframe into a role that they weren't designed for in order to keep the production lines open for a few more airframes.
To be honest, they'd be better off with either a new run of updated A10s or something small and cheap like a converted trainer (like the Tucano) - possibly even a drone, after all, this is rather a dangerous role.
COIN airplanes derived from trainers/small planes never went far. Too vulnerable, too little payload - you really need something designed from ground up for the task - especially if they have to scale up to full CAS capabilities.
There are very few successful planes in this category (CAS/COIN) - and there's a reason... just like adding some guns and missiles to an UH-1 doesn't make it a good attack chopper.
That was the whole point of developing the A-10 in the first place. In Vietnam the jets of the day, F-4, F-105, et al. were too fast and couldn't loiter for good accurate support. The choppers were ok on soft targets but aren't really equipped to take on heavy armor. That left shoehorning older prop planes left over from the '40s to do the job. By the time they finally got the A-10 in service the war in Vietnam was over.
The love/hate relationship the USAF has with the A-10 is really odd. They keep looking for a replacement but they also won't let it be sold to allies. My only thought is that they absolutely never want to run the risk of being on the receiving end on an A-10's wrath.
> absolutely never want to run the risk of being on the receiving end on an A-10's wrath.
Don't get me wrong the A-10 is great at its job but so is the F-22 (among others) which is why the A-10 wouldn't ever be a threat to our forces (not so friendly fire aside) except in some very limited circumstance even if we did sell them. Their resistance probably has more to do with protecting the margins of their defense contractor buddies.
@GitMeMyShootinIrons - every * F16 has a gun built in - an M61 #Vulcan cannon, probably a better gun for air to air combat than the GAU-8 in the A-10 (higher rate of fire) but not so good for ground attack (lighter shells).
The M61 is no pea shooter but the GUA-8 is a beast! It's over 19 ft long! That's just the gun!
After that they'll stop calling the F35's and just call in choppers
The closest equivalent to A10 which is still being produced is this.
Similar desigh - a 30mm cannon with a set of propellers (instead of wings). Slightly lower survivability, but still stupidly high compared to most other choppers and most fighter aircraft. It is manufactured by the "enemy" though
Here's hoping it gives a good account of itself and shows the F35 how things should be done. Be sad to see it go, such a unique and legendary combination of firepower and robustness.
Shame it's a done deal no matter what the outcome. As notowenwilson says let's hope the choppers are up to the job 'cause I doubt that the F35 will be.
The big changes have been in the weapons, otherwise we could pitch an F-35 against a Spitfire and it wouldn't be a foregone conclusion.
But that means something like the A-10, with a soldier on the ground picked out target with a laser marker, could be flying high over the battlefield and dropping more bombs or missiles than the F-35 can carry. Though if the enemy has long-range air-defence the A-10 would be far too visible.
The F-35 could do that job, but the constraints set by the aircraft on weapon-size and weight are a problem. Somebody is getting paid more to make smaller bombs: not useless bombs, but the accuracy they need is expensive.
In CAS roles you're pretty visible because of the mission profiles, if you just perform some fast precision bombing it's not exactly CAS, for the matter the F-16 could do it for a long time, but it was never a replacement for the A-10 capabilities. It looks the USAF is trying again to assign too many roles and missions to a single aircraft type which has really not the exuberant power to fulfill them - I also wonder how much a single-engine plane is good at CAS....
Except that if your enemy has long anti-air capability, the F-35 in its CAS role is just as vulnerable. What you need then is good ol' Wild weasel and general SEAD missions. The F-35's stealth if it works is a disadvantage in these missions and besides, drones can do it better.
Send up some drones to circle a battlefield at moderate altitude. Equip them with a mix of laser or optically guided and anti-radiation missiles. Shoot anything with a radar and anything that launches missiles in their direction.
Keep that up for a few days and now you can fly your A-10s again as the enemy either no longer has SAMs or is too scared to use them effectively.
How could being stealth and with a very modern electronics be a disadvantage in SEAD missions? Actually, that's the only role the F-35 could be a good weapon for - "first shoot" (especially at night) missions when you have to evade modern air defenses and hurt them enough to let more vulnerable planes enter the combat area and finish the job.
Actual drones have very little survival chances in a well defended scenario, sure, they're more expendable, but you'd need a lot of them to suppress enemy air and ground defenses. For the matter, drones could be good decoys to let F-35 spot enemy targets...
Stealth is a disadvantage in Wild Weasel as the enemy has to see you to shoot at you and they have to think they have a shot at you in order for them activate their SAMs and give you a target to shoot at. Most of the modern electronics of the F-35 are designed for air to air work. A decent radar warning system is all a drone would need and those aren't that expensive, especially when you want to build hundreds if not thousands of them.
Shoot first missions are done more and more by cruise missiles and drones because we don't want to risk pilot's lives by flying them into heavy air defense. The F-35 is insufficiently stealthy to pull this off reliably anyways so you'd have to turn to B-2s.
The reason we worry about survival chances in SEAD missions is because they're flown by pilots and pilots are worth a lot more than their aircraft to us. Drones are unmanned, nobody cares if a few million dollars worth of drones gets shot down to kill tens of millions worth of SAM sites. Using drones in SEAD is a simple numbers game, can I afford to throw drones at your defenses, even when I'm losing multiple drones per site I kill? Do I have enough drones to saturate your defenses and force you to shut down or lose them all?
If it comes to that kind of numbers game, Western powers vs the kind of threat we've been fighting, insurgents and Middle eastern dictators, the bad guys don't stand a chance. And that tactic isn't limited just to them, it works just as well against the Russians and the Chinese, the only difference is that if you want to use this against the Russians and the Chinese, you'll need to either go all out and bring drones equipped for air to air missions and shoot everything that's not yours or you'll need to bring your own air superiority planes to keep the enemy from using their planes to hunt your drones.
And if you're using drones as decoys, then you'll want something that can carry lots of ordnance to back them up. F-18s or F-16s, perhaps after another modernization program, are perfectly capable of the job, can carry more ordnance further and longer than the F-35 and can outfight it up close where it matters.
No, in a SEAD mission you want the enemy to see you (or your decoy) only when you want it to see you, not when you're enough far away it has time to be fully alerted and ready to shoot you down, or hide. You want to be sure that when you fire, the target has little chances to hide and react/avoid. You want to be in the best position to fire.
The F-35 radar and electronics is not designed for AA tasks only - the F-35 has been designed for ground attack and electronic warfare also as a primary mission, it's not the F-22.
Cruise missiles (which are a kind of expendable drone) can only hit static targets they know the coordinates of. They can't target mobile ones, although latest models have better final targeting capabilities). They are slow, though, and thereby vulnerable. That's why a lot of researches are towards stealth and hypersonic ones. Yet, while cruise missiles are the most performant drones because they don't have to get back, and can be carried closer to the target by submarines and bombers, they're not enough.
How many drones can you deploy - and still control them ? How fast they can reach the combat zone from your airfields? How fast they can combat? And how long you can sustain to "burn" them? What if the satellites or relays they depends on are destroyed or communicationos interrupted? What drones are actually capable of air-to-air combat? You can't rely on a remote operator, the lag will be inacceptable, it would need to have a full combat capable AI - maybe one day, but not tomorrow. And a drone with those capabilites will be probably expensive enough you can't build nor lose much of them.
And nobody said F-16s and F-18s can't partecipate in SEAD missions togethers the F-35s...
Ah, but the American way is to outspend everyone else by using their credit to buy/develop the weapons they have. Hence trillions in debt, but no-one's brave enough to foreclose.
If I buy all your guns, I can then take your money. If I buy all your guns on credit, then I need never re-pay the debts.
I think right now the RAF would be better off with their retired Harriers too. They're using Tornado (which isn't as good and is getting incredibly long in the tooth), and they're trying to get Typhoon involved (which is even less capable in the ground attack role).
Can anyone think of an aircraft since the de Havilland Mosquito that has been really good at a range of multiple combat roles?
The English Electric Canberra was pretty good, it was the jet equivalent of the Mosquito. Of course, it's no where quick enough by todays standards, but back in its day it was pretty awsome.
Its first showing at the Farnborough airshow stunned a lot of people. Roland Beaumont made it look like a fighter for agility, speed, etc. but was it was clearly a hell of a lot bigger than a fighter.
EE were pretty good at iconic aircraft; they went on to do the frightening Lightning!
Re: Canberra - you know it's good when the Americans see it and say "we'd like to build those under licence" and even keep the name.
Other interesting stuff the Canberra was used for:
* Air route planning for civil aviation at the start of the passenger jet age.
* High-altitude reconnaissance
* Hurricane tracking
* Particle collection following nuclear tests
F16 comes pretty close. Decent air to air, ground attack, platform for Wild Weasel SAM suppression missions.
Daddy of F16 rags on F35: http://sploid.gizmodo.com/the-designer-of-the-f-16-explains-why-the-f-35-is-such-1591828468. See rebuttal link as well.
Biased, for sure, but F35 has already failed on 3 metrics: timely availability (which is pushing up average age of Air Force planes), its original promised low unit cost and projected deployment volumes.
Laughable, really, that it needs 3 more years to go against the A10. Looks like metric #4, doing what it's supposed to do, is also outta reach.
We've had design by committee, multi-master fighter planes before. We've had mis-designed planes. When they've failed, they've usually managed to eke out a living in a secondary peripheral role for one nation. We've never had a case where they've been the only dice roll available, the only plane for way too many Western countries is likely to be fatally flawed and it's absorbed so much $ as to be irreplaceable.
That's precisely what the one size fits all, low cost premise of the F35 combined with Air Force nostalgia and political support for the military industrial complex (i.e. job for the boys over effective weapons) has led us.
Putin and China couldn't have designed it better for us.
Putin and China couldn't have designed it better for us.
They have. Su-34/35 with all upgrades (and their respective Chinese copies) will give it a good run for the money at a fraction of its cost.
PAK-FA is likely to hand back its arse on a plate. Sukhoi decision to limit stealth to predominantly the frontal hemisphere compared to F22/35 gives it significantly better maneuverability and agility in the air - its control surfaces and thrust vectoring do not need to be crippled. So if they meet "close and personal" the F35 is as good as dead.
I quite like the A-10. And in some edge cases (IE, vs. ISIS), it is unequalled and unlikely to be equalled any time soon.
But having the capacity to deliver lots of bombs counts for very little if the plane cannot get to the battlefield in one piece. Or, for that matter, if it cannot get back out.
The kind of long-term loitering on the battlefield earlier comments seem to speak of is now, I believe, relegated to drones. Which can be deployed in larger numbers, can stay in the air longer and are, most importantly, much more disposable than an expensive fighter and its irreplaceable pilot.
As to the F-35 vs. A-10 trial, I think simply deploying AA in realistic numbers and varieties would well and truly bake the good old Warthog's goose. I can see no real need to artificially skew things, looking at things from the F-35's proponents' PoV.
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@RIBrsiq
"Edge cases?" You mean like Iraq I, Iraq II, Afghanistan, Libya, and the current trouble in the Levant? Name one post-Vietnam conflict the West has been in that the F-35's stealth and electronics would have been useful. These are the types of conflicts theoreticians expect us to be engaged in the foreseeable future. Not a modern Soviet Union, which the F-35 is aimed at. So, by all means, include the type of air defenses that were seen in these conflicts.
I'm not against the capabilities the F-35 is supposed to bring to the table, minus the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none bullshit of trying to build a single aircraft to satisfy all niches of not just the U.S. Air Force and Navy, the needs of every other possible purchaser. Having a stealthy aircraft capable of delivering on-target in a peer environment is useful, but not in the same numbers we need a robust system like the A-10. Plus, no one says we can't do another upgrade block on the A-10, or build new airframes. We needn't have only one tool in our kit, we need the proper tool for the job and the correct number of each.
Perhaps the world changed a bit since the early 70's. The A10 may be the perfect successor of planes like Stuka, A1 skyraider and the UH, soon remote controlled drones could become more widely available turning an A10 into a sitting duck.
Not understanding myself why the planned fleet of 2400 F35's USA wants to deploy would be better then a combined fleet of 4000 F16/F18/A10 costing considerably less, it could well be that older planes go the same fate like the Iowa class battleships. Yes they have unprecedented firepower, are unbeatable in naval firepower support, can take a hit or two. But in the end, the risks induced by effective and cheap guided weapon technology makes these older weapon systems a liability instead of an asset.
Numbers matter. If you have a small number of high-tech, expensive A/C, and you're fighting a large number of low-cost A/C, who wins the war of attrition? It won't be the high-tech/high-dollar A/C. Back in the bad old days of the Cold War, they army looked at tanks and at the Russians and Chinese. They decided (rightly) that while a cadre of heavy, expensive armor is needed, they also needed the numbers of relatively inexpensive tank killers. Yes, they would have lost a lot of them, but by destroying the other guys MBT's, you win by attrition.
Sadly, I think the value of this thinking is fading. The Russian/Chinese have large numbers of tank killers compared to MBT's. We have "less" in the ratio department and numbers. At some point, push may come to shove and everything will be put to the test and it doesn't look good for the high-dollar/high-tech philosophy.
Depends on the kill ratio. Good aircrafts are able to dictate the terms of a fight, or break if needed. Pilots are precious, because good pilots takes a lot of time to be trained, sending them to just be "killed in action" by the sackful is rarely a good strategy. Maybe it could work with "expendable" low-skill and highly fanatic personnel, but in most situations it's not something that could last long.
Anyway, Arab-Israeli wars have shown how better aircrafts and better pilots, even if in inferior number, can win against bigger forces with more planes, and destroy lots of them.
"As to the F-35 vs. A-10 trial, I think simply deploying AA in realistic numbers and varieties would well and truly bake the good old Warthog's goose."
According to the original specs: "The aircraft is designed to fly with one engine, one tail, one elevator, and half of one wing missing.", and with both of its dually redundant hydraulic systems out of action.
Not to mention the half-a-ton of titanium armour...
I think I'd back the A10 against the F35 in the survivability stakes myself...
"According to the original specs: 'The aircraft is designed to fly with one engine, one tail, one elevator, and half of one wing missing.', and with both of its dually redundant hydraulic systems out of action.
"Not to mention the half-a-ton of titanium armour..."
Oh, believe me, I know about the A-10. And I do love it. One favorite story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Campbell_(pilot)
It's good to be able to survive being shot half-way to hell. But on the other hand, it is better not to be shot at in the first place.
If you think about it, it is exactly against adversaries with limited and outdated resources that the F-35 would shine: A modern army probably already has, or can come up with, ways to counter the F-35. On the other hand, someone with half-a-brain and lots of MANPADs but nothing else wouldn't be able to begin to touch something like the F-35, while they might at least be able to shoot at the A-10. And how many times would they have to get lucky before public opinion forces a pull-out...?
Well, the A-10 could not match an F-15 in a dogfight too :-)
Anyway, the F-14 and the F-15 were the last US planes designed with the "no compromises" philosophy (although the F-14A had to use the ill-fated engines designed for the aborted naval F-111...). Then came the stealth fashion and all the related compromises. But Pentagon is very well known for stubbornly relying on some new fashion and requesting airplanes that on the battlefield result far less adequate than originally thought, and become obsolete very quickly.
The F-35 IMHO relies a bit too much on it stealth capability and electronics. The risk is that any advance that makes one of them useless, turns it into a plane with very little left - just like the F-117 that once it stealth technology became obsolete, made the whole plane useless.
It was an F-16, actually, in a dogfighting contest.
I think they want to be able to print a report which states the F-35 "competes with purpose-built fighters in all roles" and be able to point to tests which prove it.
Unfortunately all they will have is evidence the F-35 provides close air support as well as an F-16 and dogfights like an A-10.
Maybe it's just that the A10 doesn't generate enough income for those defence suppliers?
It's old tech and not all that high tech. Engines are basic and durable, the airframe is very tough. So it probably doesn't generate as much income from spares as the shiny shiny new stuff.
And as said it's just a big boom stick with wings and some hellfire missiles for decoration.
I'm sure those cannon rounds are expensive (especially the DU ones) but they're still probably cheap compared to the exotic missiles the F35 will carry.
Can#t help but think the A10 is probably a lot more useful in a low tech, fight such as that against ISIS than the F35.
Against the Russians ok there is probably a point in using the new stuff but even then..
I recall reading an article on the A10 decades ago that stated it could survive the loss of one engine, and reasonable portions of the wing and/or tail surfaces and remain flyable, possibly even partially combat effective. Also that the pilot was protected by a bathtub of heavy metal (perhaps not in the nuclear sense) and the flight controls had redundancy built in, which was also pretty simple to fix in the field.
If this is true, how "delicate" is the F35 by comparison, insofar as we civilians are able to reliably know?
Compared to the A10? Made of wafer-thin china... Mind, compared to what the A10 can take and still function, just about anything airborne looks fragile.
But the tests against the F15 shows the F35 is dramatically bad, mostly as a result of wanting-to-put-everything-in-one-package. As it stands, and as far as my insignificant opinion goes, it's a prime case of a prototype system. It does have individual systems/concepts that work, and work well. Spin those off into mission/function specific airframe designs, and you might get somewhere. Tossing them all together and hoping the enemy will oblige you by , welll... basically sucking.. Looks like me the chairwarmerrmmm "well-esteemed superior officers" that came up with this stuff, should have had their backsides parked in a more hands-on, head-down environment before they acquired those stars and bars.
very, actually..
You're not dealing with the Military, but with Militia.. Not unlike the Resistance during WW II you do not need high-tech stuff ( or large and complicated armaments) to be a constant threat and a general embuggerance. To counter guerilla warfare, you need top-notch intelligence, and very-fast-response weapon systems and personnel. Especially when the "Bad Guys" are next-to-indistinguishable from the local civilian population, and the Official Local Military is only slightly more Official than the guys you're trying to combat, like in most current scenarios.
"you do not need high-tech stuff"
Indeed.
The Poles used cavalry against Blitzkrieg, it was a disaster. The Russians used cavalry against German supply lines, they were highly effective. Men on little horses towing small guns appear out of nowhere, shoot you up and then descend on the survivors while they are still shocked, swinging sabres. Then they depart as fast as they came down tracks too narrow for a motor vehicle.
Unless you can destroy all the trees and block all the caves, this kind of warfare is very hard to counteract.
what would worry more as a grunt , the A10 or F35
The A10,
I cant shoot the dammed thing down, it can see me, it carries a large range of stuff that can give me a bad day,
The F35,
cant shoot the thing down, its so fast and far away it can't see me, it can't carry much to carpet an area, A few sam around and its going to be skipping all over the place that it wont be able to target.
Now if we had air supremacy, a puff the magic dragon would really worry me.
...would be 5 F-35 competing against 30 or 40 A-10C, accounting for the cost of purchasing and maintaining those numbers of aircraft.
Reported on the BBC today: the UK is reducing the F-35 B orders from 36 per carrier (72) to the two carriers "sharing 12" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34077719). I'd hate to be going to the Falklands in 1982 with 12 jets. Two Harriers were lost in a mid-air collision in that conflict. That would be 1/6th of your F-35 jets wiped out.
... I hope to come to one of these forums and here folks say "enough with this killing and war machine business"....in the mean time I get to read "sad day", etc....You win zero respect from me. And the last flight of these death machines can't come quick enough, at least in a killing capacity. I'd really like a ride though :)
Shall we send you to some hotspots and let you give them a good talking to? Come out of the dream world and into the reality. Yeah, reality sucks. Ask anyone who's ever been in combat. But, until the entire population is peace-loving and flower-hugging, it ain't going to happen.
Disclaimer: I too wish for what you do. As a combat vetern, I've seen the horror of what man can do to others. But there is the reality... and it really does suck. Big time.
Modern radar works like weather radar and finds the wing turbulence, not the reflection off the primary. This can be done with the wifi chips that have been sold by the hundreds of millions world wide and are mostly made in China.
As far as the advanced electronics, they could be put in a Cessna prop plane and can be retrofited to everything else in every world wide Air Force inventory except some of those flying antquies that the Kiwi's AF fly.
There will be a great deal of pushback from field operators if you attempt to retire this aircraft. It can fly low and slow, it's relatively simple, can land and take off pretty much anywhere and is probably the most survivable fixed wing aircraft flying today. Best of all the A-10 is a twin engine, which is kind of important in a CAS roll.
The A-10 took 5 years from first flight to service, the F-35 is 15 years and counting. I know what plane I'd rather have backing me up.
The F-35 was originally intended for one purpose - first-day stealthed accurate attack on C3I sites, clearing the way for subsequent waves of more heavily armed conventional aircraft.
Everything else is the imagination of some clueless politicians or salesmans wet dream.
As for COIN / SEAD duties - what is the point of sending a stealthed aircraft into a close-proximity environment where (1) the stealth is useless (2) stealth is potentially compromised by the ability of the opposition to monitor the aircraft.
As for the aircraft itself, in a COIN role, a single engined plastic aricraft is going to have a survival probability of close to zero
.... an A-10 literally bounce off the ground under some powerlines and fly back to Davis AFB for paint repair.
.... a pair of A-10's destroy (via lasertag gear) an entire company of 15 M1 Abrams tanks (yeah mine too) in two passes - I never even got a ping on one, scary as hell from a mobile foxhole, whereas I have 'killed' Apache gunships many times.
I mean really, that F35 POS couldn't even take out Bruce Willis in a tractor-trailer rig and destroyed itself trying.... sheesh ;)
Unless the idiots in charge put a heap of stipulations on the A-10 to tip the balance towards the F-35, in which case they should be charged with corruption and have the A-10 take a run at them.
As the picture says http://cdn.funnyisms.com/bd503336-1038-4179-8e5d-e1c2f77583e4.jpg
The main reason the USAF has always hated the A-10 is because it is an Air Force aircraft that was designed for only one type of mission - close ground support - meaning it is on call by the Army and Marines. Thus USAF A-10 generals have to defer to generals wearing other-color uniforms in what it does.
its unfortunate that the A-10 was never made carrier capable. With its slow stall speed and strength it would seem to have been extremely suitable for conversion. Marines would have loved it, though it may have reduced the demand for the Harrier
Also a dual seat version would have made a battle-resistant forward air controllers mount - far safer than a lightweight helo
PS "Warthog"? Best name I ever heard for the A-10 was "Thunderpig"
I expect that the USN and Marines did ask for a Navy version of the A-10 originally, but probably politics within the Pentagon stopped it. Turf wars among Flag Officers can be really nasty. I imagine the Corps wishes it did have its own version of the Stuka or Sturmovik, but the down side would have been that a Navy A-10 could not have flown CAP over the carriers.
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