Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
why waste 30mm or a $1,000,000 missile against soft targets? 20mm works nicely as anti personal weapons, especially if you are shooting up a a flight line full of people and aircraft. save the 30mm for tanks and other heavily armored targets.
Difference in cost is negligible. Besides, the accuracy of the 30mm internally-mounted gun is excellent. Gun pods have historically poor accuracy. During Desert Storm the Syracuse ANG F-16 unit took their 30mm GPU-5 gun pods down on Day 2 because the gun pod's vibration during firing on a pylon causes the gun to wobble. And that's with a 30mm GAU-13, a four-barrel derivative of the GAU-8. Further back, the SUU-23 20mm gun pod on the F-4C and D models in Vietnam proved to be inaccurate as well, due to the same problems of pylon mounting. Putting a gun pod on an A-10 would be more problematic, since the ejector racks are longer than most due to the cambered airfoil.
I would think that with computing power getting better and better that the small, portable SAMs would just be getting cheaper and more accurate with every passing year making any sort of more sophisticated engagement tougher and tougher for some of those planes.
part of the load out for the A-10 can include the aden 20mm cannon pod. that is a very effective weapon for CAS. and the A-10 has enough hard points to mount up to six of them if you are so inclined, and you can still have a few maverick missiles as well.
Yes but you are still hauling around the monstrous 30mm gun and wasting a pylon on a weapon that could be mounted internally
It was designed to withstand gun fire, not surface threats that include surface to air missiles. You take the assumption that any aircraft that gets hit by a SAM is out of action.
It was designed to withstand groundfire but the engine placement was also designed to minimize the IR signature to protect it from SAMs.
Quote:
The 30mm isn't used very often anyway, these days the A-10 is primarily a bomb truck for PGMs.
That is part of my point the 30mm takes up weight and space that could be used for other purposes. I saw Sluggos comment about the better ballistics of the 30mm round. and appreciate that. (I always appreciate his input and defer to his experience) My concern is that given the size of the 30mm gun and ammo would it be better for the current range of missions (Sandy missions come immediately to mind) would it be better to have a lighter (smaller) gun with a higher ammo capacity that would allow the aircraft to remain on station longer.
PGMs have changed ground support completely. In many cases it makes a B-52 the ultimate ground support weapon with its long time on station and huge capacity. But there is a need to get down and close and that is where the A-10 works well (if you can wait for it to get to the target area)
Last edited by MidValleyDad; 05-26-2017 at 08:16 AM..
Look, I don't doubt any of that, but "astronomical costs" seems to be a common thing when it comes to the US military and its new toys. Some of what might make that high cost unpalatable is because the big players might not necessarily profit from it like they would want to from a ground up design that they completely own.
How much can't be replaced? When they are damaged in combat, is the whole plane scrapped? Some one is making replacement parts to keep them flying. Would it seriously be that hard to build new frames or even outsource it to a strategic partner for cheaper labor and development costs?
New airframes have to be assembled and need fixtures, tooling, etc to do that. None of this exists any longer. In fact the plant where they were built no longer exists (The building has been repurposed and reconfigured).
On top of that a key feature of the A-10 was the 'Titanium bathtub' that surrounded the cockpit. Even when the A-10 was in production it was the limiting factor. Production of the airframe could not be increased because the bathtub could not be built any faster. It also later came out that much of the Titanium actually came from Russia through devious channels because they were the largest producer of Titanium in the world.
Well, yes it does. F-35 (or F-16) can do multiple roles so you're buying a ****-ton of them anyway, why wouldn't you use them for CAS as well? CAS is a mission (not a platform) and the overwhelming majority of it is just dropping JDAMs and Paveways, it doesn't matter if it is from a A-10 or a B-1.
I'm going to disagree with you, it isn't that an F-35 or F-16 can't fill that role, but the cost to fly an A-10 vs a fighter makes more sense financially, How much it costs to fly America's military planes for an hour - Business Insider. Tactically, I would imagine slow and precise is a better choice in cities against threats with non combatants nearby. Unfortunately, wars against religious ideology are protracted and costly, especially in the mid east, there isn't going to be a decisive battle or defining turning point, it's going to be a long term mission to enable nation states to overcome warlords and fanatics. So strategically, we're not up against a military force, where technology gives you an advantage, older weapons systems are good enough to accomplish the mission.
New airframes have to be assembled and need fixtures, tooling, etc to do that. None of this exists any longer. In fact the plant where they were built no longer exists (The building has been repurposed and reconfigured).
For the third time, I get that. I get that it would all have to be redone. However we have overseas strategic partners that do stuff cheaper than we can - we all live in that reality. The plane does exist though. And so do its schematics, that's all that matters.
Quote:
On top of that a key feature of the A-10 was the 'Titanium bathtub' that surrounded the cockpit. Even when the A-10 was in production it was the limiting factor. Production of the airframe could not be increased because the bathtub could not be built any faster. It also later came out that much of the Titanium actually came from Russia through devious channels because they were the largest producer of Titanium in the world.
I'm going to disagree with you, it isn't that an F-35 or F-16 can't fill that role, but the cost to fly an A-10 vs a fighter makes more sense financially, How much it costs to fly America's military planes for an hour - Business Insider. Tactically, I would imagine slow and precise is a better choice in cities against threats with non combatants nearby. Unfortunately, wars against religious ideology are protracted and costly, especially in the mid east, there isn't going to be a decisive battle or defining turning point, it's going to be a long term mission to enable nation states to overcome warlords and fanatics. So strategically, we're not up against a military force, where technology gives you an advantage, older weapons systems are good enough to accomplish the mission.
It goes beyond cost per flight hour because of the logistics and training involved in supporting a completely different aircraft that is highly specialized.
On today's battlefield precision is more a function of weapons and sensors, not speed.
Technology always gives you an advantage. For example an F-16 with a better targeting pod can more easily pick out insurgents and more accurately target them with a smaller CEP weapon that is less likely to cause casualties because of smaller blast radius.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
