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Article about the A-10 Witch Hunt


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I am envious of your ability to avoid the kind of internets comments I'm seeing about the greatest warplane ever designed by Zeus and Athena and flown by Hercules, single handedly winning the war on terror if only those stuff shirted careerist peacocks we call "the air force" would let it, proving them fools and exposing their arrogance and pride.

Oh, you'll see. Any free time I think I have is now spent watching these three shows over and over and over again.....

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Edited by fulcrum1
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SERE requal already?

That reminds me. Did anyone else see the list of music the CIA had on loop as part of their psychological tactics portion of "enhanced interrogation" of detainees? I was surprised to find this on the CIA's torture mix:

Three takeaways from this discovery:

  1. I tortured myself a lot during the 90s.
  2. I think I'll torture myself again some this morning.
  3. The CIA is a bunch of amateurs. If they really wanted to torture people, they should have played something from "St. Anger."

Edited by Trigger
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That reminds me. Did anyone else see the list of music the CIA had on loop as part of their psychological tactics portion of "enhanced interrogation" of detainees? I was surprised to find this on the CIA's torture mix:

Three takeaways from this discovery:

  1. I tortured myself a lot during the 90s.
  2. I think I'll torture myself again some this morning.
  3. The CIA is a bunch of amateurs. If they really wanted to torture people, they should have played something from "St. Anger."

Better yet Yoko Ono

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Exactly. And if we're dealing with an enemy in uncontested airspace, then what do we need such a heavily armored aircraft for? For a guy with an AK, an A-10 is expensive overkill in itself. Why not retire the A-10 now and divert those funds to something that's truly suited for a low-threat COIN environment like the A-29 or OV-10X?* Either of those platforms takes care of the CSAR escort requirement as well. The cost argument goes completely out the window when you start talking about the millions every year it takes to maintain a fleet of aircraft in order to "save money" to kill a guy in a Toyota Hilux with an AK, especially when we have so many other assets to do it with.

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Nice taxi job. Right dead on the centerline. Funny how I look for CFI stuff whenever I see a plane on the ground.

Also, that is a very nice looking aircraft...light but totally military looking.

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Just stumbled upon this article - apparently back in the day, the AF seriously considered arming the Hog with nukes, despite the fact that it was too slow to escape the blast radius!

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-a-10-might-have-become-a-nuclear-strike-plane-8f065b09afe0

The plan was quickly scrapped when the AF realized that the Hog was so awesome in it's existing form, that it didn't even need a nuke in the first place. It's gun was more powerful than any other weapon mankind could devise.

I personally think they should have gone forward with the plan. I highly doubt that a mere B-61 would be sufficient to take down a Hog anyway.

I'm gonna model an A-10 with nukes on every pylon and SAC markings. The AF could have replaced it's entire fleet of B-52's with A-10's. What a lost opportunity...

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Just stumbled upon this article - apparently back in the day, the AF seriously considered arming the Hog with nukes, despite the fact that it was too slow to escape the blast radius!

Terrible article. The headline is misleading, and the author is either a dunce or has some trouble with the truth. The actual article makes plain that the Air Force did not take the concept seriously enough to study it in any depth. Then the author goes on a rant about dropping strategic yield weapons from 30,000 feet set for air burst fuzing. I assume he missed the evolution of weapons and delivery methods post Enola Gay or else he has no interest in presenting actual facts. According to Wikipedia the tactical versions of the B61 had yields as low 0.3kt and could be used in a laydown method, with delayed fuzing, so even something as slow as the A-10 could escape the blast. I notice also that no mention is made of the fact that the Navy had no problem assigning the strike role to the A-1 Skyraider with the Mk-7 (which did not have a laydown option) nor that the pilots of the various "fast jets" assigned the role often did not consider the mission survivable even with their extra speed.

Deke

Edited by Deke
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Terrible article. The headline is misleading, and the author is either a dunce or has some trouble with the truth. The actual article makes plain that the Air Force did not take the concept seriously enough to study it in any depth. Then the author goes on a rant about dropping strategic yield weapons from 30,000 feet set for air burst fuzing. I assume he missed the evolution of weapons and delivery methods post Enola Gay or else he has no interest in presenting actual facts. According to Wikipedia the tactical versions of the B61 had yields as low 0.3kt and could be used in a laydown method, with delayed fuzing, so even something as slow as the A-10 could escape the blast. I notice also that no mention is made of the fact that the Navy had no problem assigning the strike role to the A-1 Skyraider with the Mk-7 (which did not have a laydown option) nor that the pilots of the various "fast jets" assigned the role often did not consider the mission survivable even with their extra speed.

Deke

LOL I saw medium.com and didn't bother to click. Its a bunch of kissless virgins talking about sex.

Lost it at triggers post.

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Come at me bro

Edited by TaiidanTomcat
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