Air Force Says F-35 Glitches Mean the A-10 Will Keep Flying 'Indefinitely' (jalopnik.com) 325
The A-10 aircraft "is just too effective to get rid of," wrote one defense blogger -- especially in light of ongoing issues with the F-35.
schwit1 quotes Jalopnik:
Strategists have feared that the jet will be axed in favor of funding the F-35, but the U.S. Air Force recently confirmed that it plans to keep the A-10 flying "indefinitely." While the Air Force is theoretically supposed to be diverting the A-10's operating expenses to feed the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the people in charge are now planning to keep the plane running...
Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski told AviationWeek in a interview, "Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely." While the beancounters and product planners are trying to push the A-10 off the board, Materiel Command is going to keep on keeping the planes in peak condition, which will give the A-10 it's best chance of proving its worth over and over again. And it seems to be working -- the A-10 posted a 5% increase in its availability rate from 2014 to 2015, and the Air Force seems to keep postponing its demise.
In Congress one representative has even suggested an operational testing "fly-off" between the two aircraft -- a jet-vs-jet competition to determine whether any more A-10s get retired.
Air Force Materiel Command chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski told AviationWeek in a interview, "Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely." While the beancounters and product planners are trying to push the A-10 off the board, Materiel Command is going to keep on keeping the planes in peak condition, which will give the A-10 it's best chance of proving its worth over and over again. And it seems to be working -- the A-10 posted a 5% increase in its availability rate from 2014 to 2015, and the Air Force seems to keep postponing its demise.
In Congress one representative has even suggested an operational testing "fly-off" between the two aircraft -- a jet-vs-jet competition to determine whether any more A-10s get retired.
Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:3, Informative)
And spend the money on something useful instead.
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The F-35 is useful! It was supposed to be a pork barrel project and it fulfills this role absolutely perfectly, what the hell is your problem?
Re:Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:5, Insightful)
No. A lot of money has been spent but a lot more will still be spent in future.
On one hand one should not count the sunk cost when thinking of what is the best strategy to go forward, but on the other hand one should remember that in a complex project things often seem very broken just before they are fixed and it is very hard to say from outside how close to being fixed things are.
As example the f-16 was plagued by huge problems with it's fly by wire system early on (they even made a movie about one of the accidents) and there were also claimed to be a failed project, but then the things were fixed and it has been fairly reliable since then and served very well for 40 years or so now.
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This maxim certainly applies to private enterprise with your own capital on the line. Im not so sure it should be so readily applied when you are spending someone else's money.
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It is the same thing regardless of whose money you spend.
First you define what you want to accomplish and then you select the way to get that that costs least amount of money from now onward.
Of course things like when you want the thing to be ready and such play a role too.
You should never consider what has been spent on something up to this point except as part of the future cost, as often use of existing equipment from spent money means a lower future cost, but not always by any means.
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Re:Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:5, Interesting)
The F-16 is a lawn dart and the F-35 is the new lawn dart. The 16 has a horrible safety record. Look at this year alone! Hell, 5 bit the dust in the month of July! Single engine war planes are idiocy at it's supremacy. When you lose an engine in an F-15 or F-18 you go home. When you lose one in an F-16 or F-35 you grab the ejection handle. With all the complicated software and fly by wire systems software glitches are a killer in a war plane which are inherently dangerous due to extreme performance and it doesn't help that most of the pilots are young and cocky but relying on a single engine insures a high rate of loss. I think it's past time to scrap the F-35 and quit throwing good money after bad. We're to the point now anyway where the pilot is holding the weapon system back. They've got autonomous systems working up now and they are the future. Let's quit wasting money of yesterdays technology especially when it's yesterdays bad technology.
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Single engine is airbags.
In the event of a road hazard, antilock brakes avoid the hard and write off the nothing while airbags lead to the write-off of everything. So manufacturers continue to grow the number of airbags, while insurance companies pay you to have ABS.
Imagine how many engines the jet manufacturer wants...
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When you lose one in an F-16 or F-35 you grab the ejection handle.
Not always: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Twin-engined fighters can also have weird stall conditions, for example, the first female carrier-based fighter pilot Kara Spears Hultgren crashed and died due to a where the nose also affected over the wing over one of the engine intakes leading to a compressor stall.
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But fly-by-wire was new tech that takes time to tune. The F-35 is plagued by trying to be too many different kinds of planes. It's not based on one or few revolutionary ideas; it's based on trying to satisfy too many diff requirements via compromises and bloat. You can fix new tech, but you cannot fix a bag of bad design trade-offs.
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On one hand one should not count the sunk cost when thinking of what is the best strategy to go forward, but on the other hand one should remember that in a complex project things often seem very broken just before they are fixed and it is very hard to say from outside how close to being fixed things are.
The real problem is often that the revised estimate is just as much bullshit as the original estimate. There's a saying that the first 90% of the project take the first 90% of the time, then the last 10% take the other 90% of the time. So you approve a $100M project, $60M is sunk but the revised estimate is now $130M. Well -30 is better than -60 to scrap and write it off. But when you get to 100 million the estimate is 150, when you get to 130 it's 170 and the project finally lands at 180. Guess what you've
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Optimist.
90% of remaining project will take 90% of budgeted time/money. Learn to live with imperfection.
Re:Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:5, Insightful)
Sunk cost is sunk cost. How much you spent on a project in the past is irrelevant at this point in time.
What matters is finding the most advantageous way to proceed, given where you are at now. That may mean following through on a big, bloated sunk expenditure, or it may mean completely scrapping it. But it's got nothing to do with the money which has been spent already.
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Sunk cost is sunk cost. How much you spent on a project in the past is irrelevant at this point in time.
With all due respect, that's just not true. Any competent financial analyst or project manager will agree that what you've spent on a project in the past is entirely relevant moving forward, especially when the project's overall viability is in question.
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That's a point that I've seen some otherwise very smart economic/business analysts misunderstand. If you're $2 billion into a project and your analysis determines that the best course of action is to terminate it, then doing so is optimal. But unless you also file for bankruptcy your organization is still on the hook to repay the $2 billion of bonds that you issued to finance the project.
sPh
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Yes, the fact that you still owe on the bonds does not change the forward-looking analysis which ignores sunk cost. So if the forward-looking decision is to abandon, you abandon. Then you figure out how to make your bond payments. For example, I'm paying taxes to pay off bonds for a project that a number of municipal electric utilities bought into that failed; its been 7 years and we only have 23 more years of taxes to go.
sPh
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I find nothing wrong with forcing yourself to use what you have after the sunken cost. You already paid for it then use it even if you might not like it as you will lose more money if you provide a 0 return on investment.
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That may not even be feasible. If you have a billion in sunk costs and it will cost another 3 to make it at all useful but you can also choose plan B for a forward going cost of 2 billion (it doesn't matter how much, if any, you've spent on plan B so far), then take plan B and come out a billion dollars better off. If you can part plan A out and use the more successful parts, fine and dandy.
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Uhh, wrong. You should ABSOLUTELY factor in the sunk cost, especially if it reveals the fact that you've spent waaaaay too much and should scrap the project and start over.
That won't give your money back.
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Uhh, wrong. You should ABSOLUTELY factor in the sunk cost, especially if it reveals the fact that you've spent waaaaay too much and should scrap the project and start over.
That won't give your money back.
Correct, but it may prevent you from flushing more money down a rat hole.
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There's really no question that the 35 does some things very well. The problem is it doesn't do everything very well, and they were promising it would replace many things that did several specific things very well. Gains HAVE been made.
The question is one of cost/benefit. Not "is there a benefit" - there is.
As an Army Vet (Score:5, Interesting)
The F35 does not, nor will it, top the A-10. Fast movers are fine for hit and run jobs, but close air support requires lingering time. The A-10 has plenty of linger and scares the F*$^ out of enemies. If you are ever in combat you want 2 things on the battlefield with you. A-10s and Apaches.
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Maybe they could scrap the variations which don't perform well and just produce those which are effective.
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The A-10 isn't in production, the last airframe came off the production line in 1984, over thirty years ago.
There's a porky programme ongoing for Boeing to re-wing some of them since they're falling apart, having been built cheaply to fly and die over the West German countryside against Soviet armour and air defences in an all-out war. Luckily they've not had to face a real air defence network for the past ten years or so but even against the Iraqis severely degraded systems a bunch of them were lost in 20
Re:Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Pork wing program or falling apart? If they are 'falling apart' then I do not think a program to remediate that would be considered pork.
3. A bunch were lost in 2003? Please enumerate. I know of only one combat loss of an A-10 in Iraq since 2003.
4. The A-10 has a slightly lower rate of blue-on-blue incidents than other aircraft performing close air support. In any case, the numbers of friendly fire incidents by aircraft of any type are astonishingly low compared to the number of sorties flown. Statistically minimal.
5. What WWII CAS aircraft exceeded the A-10 in speed? The big CAS birds of that war, Junkers 87 and the II-2 were both a couple hundred miles per hour slower. The P-47 was at least in the same ball park as the A-10.
6. How often is a CAS mission called for and time from base is a factor? Fine, in that case send a Strike Eagle. For all the other times, that loitering plane is ready to go no matter if it is sub or supersonic.
7. A-10 was designed to not need full size airbases. Strong gear. High engines. Soft tires. They are made to work from short, damaged and improvised fields.
So what are the really capable CAS aircraft existing today?
Why do grunts and marines commonly differ with you?
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They were built cheap to be flown by ANG pilots over West Germany to get shot down by self-propelled AA guns and short-range missiles deployed with Soviet spearpoint armour brigades. The Big Stupid Gun was designed to chew up personnel carriers and trucks and other targets of opportunity and maybe damage/kill tanks but to use it the pilot had to get within a kilometre or so of the opposition and then fly straight toward them, not a good thing to do against anyone who can shoot back en masse. Times have chan
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There are, however, a number of other aircraft that are suitable for close support. If you look at this this table [aviationweek.com], the venerable B-52 can drop more close support weaponry at lower cost than anything else in the inventory and the F-16 is a close second. Several turboprop [military.com] planes are also being used.
And of course there are helicopters and perhaps eventually UAVs.
The F35 is really a stupid concept for CAS. Expensive to own and maintain. Not particularly well armored.
The whole premise of 'one plane to rul
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Your comment would carry more weight if you looked at the record of losses in Iraq. Only a single A-10 was lost in the entire eight years of the Iraq war. It was lost in 2003, but that is as far as your post is relevant. In that same period 129 helicopters and 23 other fixed-wing aircraft were lost, for various reasons. Seems lika a good record for the A-10.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I think some of it's already been spent.
There, fixed that for you. If it had all been spent then the program would be history.
IIRC as of the beginning of this year we'd purchased about 171 F35s out of a planned.2443, leaving 2,272 to go. At a hundred million dollars apiece that's a lot of simolians left to shovel into the furnace. Then there's a trillion dollars in operation and maintenance costs coming down the pike too.
So going ahead with the F35 is going to be gawdawfully expensive. But it turns out extricating ourselves would probably be
Please cite your source? (Score:2)
Re: Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:5, Interesting)
As background, here's how to avoid the sunk cost fallacy. In accounting one should evaluate the cost/benefits by weighing both choices going forward. Money spent in the past should be ignored in the calculations because that cannot be changed.
Human nature has a tendency to favor options that one has invested a lot of time or money in. But that's often a mistake, kind of like grading on effort instead of merit.
Thus, the question is, if we scrapped the F-35 now, would we get a better military for the same money than if we kept it. The fact that lots has been invested in the past should be ignored.
Re: Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that lots has been invested in the past should be ignored.
Yes, it should be ignored for accounting, but it should not be ignored for accountability. The F-35 program has been a disaster, for mostly predictable, and predicted, reasons. It was a "kitchen sink" boondoggle, designed to be everything for everyone. It is even designed to take off vertically, like a helicopter, which inflated the cost and compromises its ability to do almost everything else. It was designed to fight "yesterday's war", while the future is obviously unmanned drones. But the USAF top brass are pilots, so they simply put on their blinders and ignore the future, so they can get the new toys and wear those snazzy leather flight jackets.
A lot of people should lose their jobs for this fiasco. But more importantly, we need to learn some lessons about project management and strategic planning, so things like this don't continue to recur.
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A lot of people should lose their jobs for this fiasco.
You can thank Donald Rumsfeld for that. Yes, another fiasco that leads directly back to that genius.
And military courses on acquisition are already using it as a case-study.
Re: Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you suggesting that Donald Rumsfeld was the architect of a program that was initiated in 1996? I'll grant that his administration chose the X-35 over the X-32, but I don't know why you think the outcome would have been significantly different.
You know, the funny part is that he was widely criticized for killing a multibillion dollar "last war" defense program (the Crusader artillery vehicle).
I'm not the world's biggest fan of Donald Rumsfeld, but the blind hate you're spewing is exactly the reason that we have people lined up behind the worst two candidates for president in recent memory (arguable, in the history of the republic).
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Re: Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:4, Insightful)
[citation needed].
You're blaming Rumsfeld for something that began in the 90s. The program was called the Joint Strike Fighter, and the conventional and STOVL requirements were there from day one.
As I noted above, Rumsfeld killed the Crusader, and he also killed Comanche and tried (and failed) to kill the F-22. You can argue that he could have killed it, but laying the blame for this at his feet is, as I said, just partisan hate.
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It was designed to fight "yesterday's war", while the future is obviously unmanned drones.
Yes, airframes last a long time, but unmanned drones replacing all armed air roles, even all single-pilot planes, is decades away. We can do some fairly minimal stuff now with drones against low-tech opponents with no EW capability at all, and even then it's not much cheaper.
There are plenty of problems with the F-35, but we certainly need new manned planes, both fighter and bomber, for at least another generation. The inherent disadvantages to a remote-control plane are quite large, and truly autonomous
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There hasn't been a dogfight in like 50 years. Dude.
You seem confused about the definition of "dogfight". Firing missiles at max range is sort of the opposite of a dogfight. Just so you know.
Do you seriously foresee WWIII breaking out soon?
Large powers haven't fought in a while. But the world isn't stable, and America's military dominance is fading fast. Won't be long before the end of the Pax Americana. We'll see large powers at it again one day, unless human nature magically changes (and heck, if human nature magically changes, maybe communism would work). I could certainly see us fighting Russia o
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I could certainly see us fighting Russia or China in a proxy fight in my lifetime, much like Vietnam was
Were you born yesterday? All major powers have been fighting proxy wars since the end of WW2.
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I could certainly see us fighting Russia or China in a proxy fight in my lifetime, much like Vietnam was
Were you born yesterday? All major powers have been fighting proxy wars since the end of WW2.
Nothing of the scale seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. I grew up in the cold war, right in the middle of one of those proxy wars. There has been nothing approaching any of that shit since 1989.
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As background, here's how to avoid the sunk cost fallacy. In accounting one should evaluate the cost/benefits by weighing both choices going forward. Money spent in the past should be ignored in the calculations because that cannot be changed.
Human nature has a tendency to favor options that one has invested a lot of time or money in. But that's often a mistake, kind of like grading on effort instead of merit.
Thus, the question is, if we scrapped the F-35 now, would we get a better military for the same money than if we kept it. The fact that lots has been invested in the past should be ignored.
What's wrong with geting at least some ROI even if it is not ideal? That is lost money that people worked hard for and it may not be ideal but, at least that option should be weighed.
Also, the emotional/logical argument is excessive spending on the latest go gadgets got you into this mess with the sunken cost right? Perhaps, that is not the solution but the problem!
If the sunken costs were dumped chasing the latest and greatest then the answer is stop doing the very things with greater sunken costs later bu
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Generally agreed. However, past expenditures on a project like the F-35 have some relevance to the extent they have reduced the number of unknowns with continuing the partially completed program vs. scrapping it and starting a brand new one which has not been designed, let alone implemented, yet. A much larger risk adjustment factor should, of course, be added for accounting purposes to the projected cost of the of the "new" program than to the cost of completing the established program -- however, we are n
Re: Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:5, Funny)
The F-35 has known unknowns, but a new project will have unknown unknowns.
Re: Good, then we can scrap that stupid f-35 (Score:4, Insightful)
One A10 is worth five F35s in current operational practice.
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It would be funny to watch a competition between the two on the A-10s role as close support. I wonder how many of their F35s would even complete the test.
Let me be the first to say (Score:3, Insightful)
BRRRRRRRT!
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Maybe both have their place. (Score:2)
The Warhog is so different that I can't imaging that they really can share the same mission profile. So, when they do get the F-35 up to specs, we'll have two very different high performance tools.
In the short run, a problem. In the long run we'll do well.
Re:Maybe both have their place. (Score:5, Informative)
That's the problem - the F-35 was supposed to do *everything* - air superiority, close air support, attack, amphibious assault - and it wound up doing nothing particularly well. So, yeah, it has a different operational envelope than the A-10, and that's the problem. It isn't as good as an A-10 for ground attack, it isn't as good as an F-16 for air superiority, and it isn't as good as an F/A 18 in STOL situations.
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This. (and compared to f-22 the air superiority deficit is even more pronounced)
And combine it with the fact that it's big selling point the stealth capability is problematic in field repair conditions so would likely be compromised in field use.
Re:Maybe both have their place. (Score:5, Interesting)
The F-22 clears the skies of everything that flies. There isn't another jet even on the drawing board that competes with it in the air, but it also costs a fortune to fly it and since we screwed ourselves out of production (it'd take years to restart production on them), you don't want to risk them any longer than you have to. So against most adversaries with marginally effective air forces, you send F-15s all day. Against China or Russia, you send F-22s, force them to ground everything they care about keeping, and then fill the skies with F-15s to clear out everything they don't care as much about. After that, you just need effective ground attack and/or close-in air support options (depending on your decision to send ground troops).
This obsession with the F-35 is remarkably foolish. Remarkable for the fact that nobody with a decision capacity seems to comprehend the simple premise of using a mixture of high-end and low-end, role-specific equipment to do all the jobs that need doing as effectively as possible. Nothing beats the A-10 at doing what the A-10 does and it's cheap as Hell. Nothing beats the F-22 at doing what the F-22 does, but it's expensive as Hell. Once the expensive stuff has made operations reasonably safe by clearing the greatest threats, you pull it and start pumping the cheap-but-hugely-effective alternatives into the field. The only gap I see in the US Air Force's existing lineup is a long range, high-stealth, high speed ground strike aircraft capable of flying right into downtown Moscow and dropping a JDAM down Putin's chimney (or more likely, into hardened C&C centers).
Put that in development and start churning out more A-10s, F-15s, and other similarly effective tools. Nobody will be able to match the top-end tech and nobody will be able to overwhelm it with sheer numbers (e.g. WWII).
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"There isn't another jet even on the drawing board that competes with it in the air,"
What are you basing this on?
I thought the Russian Su-35 [wikipedia.org] was perfectly comparable to the F22. It's also in production and being marketed to other countries. Of course it's hard to compare on specifications alone, but this comparison [nationalinterest.org] discusses various aspects, though being a US site ultimately states that the F22 would come out on top.
Now please don't misunderstand me, the very last thing we need is an actual showdown over Sy
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That article is pretty bad - a lot of hype and self-contradiction.
What matters today, where the F-22 dominates, is the range you can get missile lock-on vs your opponent (assuming you have modern performance in general). The F-22 is excellent in that narrow aspect of stealth - it can get missiles off and turn away before anything else can get close enough to lunch missiles. It's very very good at that one goal.
The Su-35 is a more-modern F-15 or F/A-18 with better performance. It doesn't outperform the F-
Re:Maybe both have their place. (Score:5, Insightful)
A-10 works with corrdinated ground and air attack. Most other air support is mutually exclusive with ground support (except on massive fields of engagement we haven't seen in 50 years).
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The thing is, the US airforce has been trying to get rid of the role that Warthog was designed to fill because ground support is not glamorous.
So over the years they have tried to say that a fighter is as good as a dedicated ground attack craft in ground attack and the ground attack craft role should be scrapped and further that no new ground attack aircraft should be designed. Thus they are trying to push the f-35 into that role now as "It is as good as a dedicated aircraft"
This has resulted in the Warthog
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And 40 of them won't be invisible. Maybe radar won't see them but citizens with smartphones certainly will.
And our current fleet of slow-moving loud B-52s still strike fear into the popul
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>(And we already have attack helicopters so what's with the military's VTOL fetish?)
It is mostly the marines that want VTOL so they can fly off their helicopter carriers and possible improvised bases.
The marines managed to buy Harriers earlier on despite everyone else saying "No no no!!!".
So the f-35 planners decided that they could also fill the marine tick box in their "This is why you should buy this plane" checklist by creating the monster known as F-35B.
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That kind of just blew my mind a bit to realize where we are with tech. Completely ubiquitous computer penetration. If a human is present, odds are good that they have a computer, a camera and a means to transmit, or at least store. Not to mention the ability to edit in-the-field on even the cheapest pocket computers. Livin in the future.
Re: Maybe both have their place. (Score:2)
Cost matters (Score:5, Interesting)
Cost of an A-10: ~$18.8 million
Cost of an F-35: ~109 million
Cost of an F-35 not being able to support ground troops adequately: $1,000,000,000,000,000,000
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Cost of an A-10: ~$18.8 million
Cost of an F-35: ~109 million
Cost of an F-35 not being able to support ground troops adequately: $1,000,000,000,000,000,000
Ah, I see you are a graduate of the RIAA/MPAA school of cost estimation ;-)
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He certainly places too much value on human life.
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Cost of an A-10: ~$18.8 million
Cost of an F-35: ~109 million
Cost of an F-35 not being able to support ground troops adequately: $1,000,000,000,000,000,000
The problem is that the A10 is simply a much better plane than the F35. I doubt that the one size fits all aspect of the 35 will allow it to ever have competency in any of it's planned missions.
http://www.motherjones.com/moj... [motherjones.com]
Weirdly enough, they admit that the A10 cannot be touched by the F35 in close support roles. So soldiers, no more proficient close support for you. Collateral damage I suppose. Since when do we march forward into a brave new future purposely giving up in a area that is exactly w
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The problem is that the A10 is simply a much better plane than the F35. I doubt that the one size fits all aspect of the 35 will allow it to ever have competency in any of it's planned missions.
Exactly. The F-35 is a jack-of-all-trades, and apparently a master of none.
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Acquisition cost of an A10: ~ zero. They aren't building any more. Yes, there will be upgrades, but even the upgrades are not going to cost as much as the cost to build a new jet.
What about running costs? The cost to fly an F35 for one hour is much, much higher than that of an A10.
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Acquisition cost of an A10: ~ zero. They aren't building any more. Yes, there will be upgrades, but even the upgrades are not going to cost as much as the cost to build a new jet.
What about running costs? The cost to fly an F35 for one hour is much, much higher than that of an A10.
I agree completely, and you're making my point for me. Did you perhaps misread what I wrote?
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Or just buy some Rafales [wikipedia.org] off the rack. Very capable, and very cheap. Heck, the USAF development component would be to buya fleet of them and make them all autonomous. Not just cheap, but would allow the development effort to focus on one thing (automation, AI, secure comms) rather than struggling to make the plane also fly and shoot.
The F-35 might end up being a great fighter... (Score:2)
...but, for my life, i can't figure how they want to replace the A-10 with it. There's simply no way a F-35 can fill in for CAS roles.
If the airforce wants a cheap close air support aircraft, they should really evaluate the Super Tucano. At $10 milion a pop they can write an entire fleet off as losses in the F-35 program.
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A weapon platform only has greater than zero value if it actually shows up for the battle.
The Super Tucano is not expected to compete on a per sortie basis. The big advantage is that its runway requirements are so trivial that there are 20X as many existing airports that can service it, and it would be easy to build a new air strip right where you need it with a mere couple weeks of effort. A supersonic jet that has to fly 300 miles is not usefully faster than a turboprop flying 20 miles. Furthermore, th
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And (Score:3)
The 35 is trying to be too many things at once, which means it won't be good at any of them.
Most F-35 hit pieces are garbage (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the F-35 stories are moderately garbage, usually able to be traced back to someone with an axe to grind. See: any of the stuff about dogfighting tests. Then read a bit more and find out what conditions they were held under, how many OTHER tests are left out (4v4, etc), and check out who wrote the original thing, and which pieces they cherry picked.
The A-10 complaints, however, are not like this. The A-10 is beloved by many whose lives depend on it, and seems to have capabilities that the F-35 does not, at least according to the fiery defenders you find on the net (who I don't see reason to doubt). I will not be surprised if some of the A-10 missions are rightfully replaced by F-35s. I would be surprised if they ALL were, however. The original desire for scrapping the A-10 came from excellent F-35 performance on some air force tests (and a desire to save money long term), but that seems unlikely to apply to every A-10 mission.
When you have a bunch of infantry bitching about something, it is probably worth listening to the bitching. And they seem to love the A-10. I mean, that seems pretty compelling.
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The A-10 is a pickup truck (Score:3, Insightful)
It ain't pretty. It ain't fast. It ain't a lot of things. What it *is*, though, is a mechanically-simple, easy-to-maintain aircraft that does exactly what it means to do, does it well, and is not inconvenienced in the slightest.
It can absorb a ridiculous amount of abuse from bad guys, it can loiter on-scene longer than any comparable aircraft, it can get low enough and slow enough to see exactly who to kill (not the good guys, not the civilians), and it does all this with lower operational costs than most other aircraft out there.
I drive a pickup truck. An Audi R8 is much sexier, but for daily operation, not worrying if I get dinged in the parking lot, and getting ish done, I'll stick with the truck.
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The R8 is a bit excessive, but the A8 will get up a severely sketchy driveway. (Or if the ZF slushbox blows, it will back up it... don't ask)
Count yourselves lucky (Score:2)
We got rid of our harriers, at least you've still got your A-10s
The Future! (Score:2)
The A-10 needs to be retired. (Score:3)
The thing is nearly half a century old....it needs to be retired.
But we need a replacement. And we need to do it the same as the first one. A good solid design, without enormous costs.
Frankly though, I think the replacement should feature the following.
a) be built around the same cannon round.
b) maintain protective armor
c) incorporate vectored thrust/limited VTOL or slow flight options (akin to the quinjets) to enable the craft to focus it's cannon for prolonged engagement)
d) have a small storage compartment for supply drops. Not large, but it should allow the A-10 replacement to drop supplies to units on the ground ranging from medical supplies, ammo, ordinance weapons, etc.
A-10 supported indefinately (Score:3)
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That'll really hurt us when we go to war with the Soviet Union rather than the people we've been fighting for the last 35 years.
Anyway, if the other side still has an air force, you can't exactly have an effective armored ground campaign.
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That'll really hurt us when we go to war with the Soviet Union rather than the people we've been fighting for the last 35 years.
Anyway, if the other side still has an air force, you can't exactly have an effective armored ground campaign.
Hmmm I would say that the next war won't be hitting storage silos in some middle eastern country with bombs with a country with little SAM defenses, but rather Russia itself!
You all have been watching the news? If we went to war or had a skirmish with China in the south seas over those islands how would these A-10's handle Russian/Chinese SAM and Mig jets? I would guess very very bad and would be a great exercise in target practice for the enemy.
The F35 or a modern plane could evade the radars for Russian S
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If conflict with Russia ever gets to the point where A-10s are necessary on Russian soil, we're already glowing and the suitability of the A-10 would not be a significant problem.
Since A-10s need a forward base, the presumption is that you have the enemy air force taken care of before they even enter the air. They wouldn't do well at all against a Mig of any variety. If there are Migs flying around, you aren't setting up a forward air base. F35s are important for that initial phase of setting up air superio
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You can't go to war with Russia. Everyone gets nuked, and both sides know it.
Instead you go to war with the latest in a line of smalltime dictators, who Russia then covertly funds and supplies with weapons, while you do exactly the same to some local militia groups and declare them freedom fighters.
Wrong. (Score:5, Interesting)
It was designed to strafe tanks, but modern tanks will survive its shitty popgun, and it's vulnerable to SAM. IOW it can't be used against an enemy with an air force and it can't fly low enough to use its gun.
It's "shitty popgun" as you call it is just about the most powerful fully automatic firearm on the planet and has been ever since. At least as far as airbourne fully-automatics go. It might be that some soviet tank with active armour can survive a first attack run or a fully armoured Leo2 can surfive even a little longer, but thats not the point.
Todays enemies are ISIS troupers in modified Toyota Trucks and Bulldozers, they don't have Leo2s. For that type of enemy the A10 is more than a perfect match. And the most important thing: It's actually finished. We have quite a few of those sitting there and ready to fly and kill stuff. Can't say that of the F35 or the Jaeger90, ... errrrm sorry, "Eurofighter" it's now called.
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So they have claimed.
Re: A-10 is an overhyped obsolete POS (Score:2)
Re:A-10 is an overhyped obsolete POS (Score:5, Informative)
The A-10 has weapons other than its 30 mm gun. Hellfire and Maverick missiles do wonders against every tank on today's battlefield.
This article [straightdope.com] from 5 years ago is a long discussion from people who appear to know what they are talking about regarding this subject. The overall consensus: while the A-10 may not be able to destroy a MBT with only its gun, that gun can render a tank inoperable (track hits), sufficiently damage components and cause other havoc which will make any tanker nervous. When combined with its under wing stores, tanks and their supporting vehicles and infantry would be toast.
Further, this article [quora.com] goes into a deeper discussion about penetration capability of the 30 mm gun vs armor, what tank (specifically the T-90) has what armor as well as factual incidents of tanks being hit by such rounds or other tanks.
Again, depending on where you hit a tank, the A-10 can immobilize it, damage it to the point it's essentially useless or, if lucky, can destroy it with only its gun.
The other thing to consider is loiter time. The Warthog can stay over a battle area substantially longer (up to 3 hours) than any other aircraft, especially the F-35. That is great for seeking out targets of opportunity or even acting as a spotter for ground troops/tanks.
IOW it can't be used against an enemy with an air force and it can't fly low enough to use its gun.
A) that is why we achieve air superiority. However, how that is supposed to be done with the F-35 is still unclear since that is the role the F-15 and F-16 are designed and used for. Technically the F-14 as well but its role can vary.
B) the warthog is designed to fly low. Yes, it can dive if necessary but its primary course of attack is at a low, shallow angle. You don't want a slow(er) flying aircraft to be high in the air. You want it to swoop in, lay waste to its target then get out. By flying low you present a very small window of opportunity for opposing troops on the ground to target it as well as make it more difficult for radar to pick it up and track.
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There's no reason for people to think so digitally about this. Systems degradation can be important.
They: Cover tank in reactive armor to defeat or diminish missiles.
You: 1 second hose tank with 30mm DU, the wingman 5 seconds behind you takes the missile shot. Your burst rips all the crap off the outside of their tank, the missile penetrates and destroys it. A few thousand dollars worth of ballistic ammo defeats or diminishes their half million dollar deterrence system, allowing your $70,000 Hellfire m
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A "shitty popgun" firing 200 kilojoules rounds. You won't find a lot of tanks surviving a strafe of those.
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Keep in mind armors in modern tanks are mostly intended to ensure the survival of the crew. You might now be able to make a tank go boom (a.k.a "k-kill") with a GAU-8 run, but you can sure as hell end up disabling it.
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My first thought in rebuttal was that they could attach a few JDAMs to the thing; but as usual the question has been raised and discussed elsewhere [quora.com]. Long story short, if they can't take it out with the gun, they'll put some missiles on 'er.
IMHO, it seems like an awful lot of modern warfare these days is just a matter of getting the missiles close enough and then releasing them. F-35 is a boondoggle, an anachronism before it even got off the drawing board. The replacement for the A-10 *and* the F-35 is
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That's a good point. There's the arms vs. armor race where it looks like arms are winning. In the signal vs. jamming race, I don't know if it looks like there's a clear winner yet. It seems like spread-spectrum would help defeat jammers, followed by the fact that any single-point jammer creates a signal that you just home in on and blow up. So then let's say you distribute jammers everywhere (including hospitals and places of worship, bastards!) and jam all frequencies. Bummer. It does seem like some
Re:A-10 is an overhyped obsolete POS (Score:4, Insightful)
The A-10 is perfect for the current kind of wars we're fighting for one single reason: It's cheap and cheap to maintain.
Can't be used against modern tanks? No problem, terrorists have obsolete equipment. Vulnerable to SAM fire? No problem, all they have is shoulder mounted and it can deal with this. Can't be used against an enemy with an air force? No problem either, terrorists have no air force.
Yes, this is going to be a problem when facing an enemy of equal size. But for spanking towelheads? Perfect tool.
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Just think, Tomahawk cruise missiles are over a million dollars a pop. Fire 400 of them and that's 400 million dollars that's just going to explode and destroy about a billion dollars worth of infrastructure. It's so easy to tear shit up and so hard to build stuff. You're right, what a waste. Imagine if we just quit all this stupid shit and left each other alone how much better off we'd all be. Nah! We're human and being human is to fuck up over and over and over ever since Cain killed Abel.
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Respect. Australia is still getting shafted... [abc.net.au]