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A-10 effectiveness during Desert Storm


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I would like to know their reasons for saying it wasn't effective.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/day-we-killed-23-tanks-180975619/

 

Destroying 900 tanks sounds effective to me.

 

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/appendix/whitepaper.html

 

Mission availability of 5% above peace time.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Alternative 4 said:

I would like to know their reasons for saying it wasn't effective.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/day-we-killed-23-tanks-180975619/

 

Destroying 900 tanks sounds effective to me.

 

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/appendix/whitepaper.html

 

Mission availability of 5% above peace time.

 

 

Nice work, what I was looking for.

Original issue was a youtube video that "the gun is overrated"

and while I will say it is more risky to use than a Mav. it is

a weapon no other aircraft has and when used,

most effective and efficient - Thanks!

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 "the gun is overrated" hahahahahahaha.  The plane was literally built around the gun.

 

I think that sinks any credibility of the u-tuber....

 

.

 

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9 hours ago, phasephantomphixer said:

Nice work, what I was looking for.

Original issue was a youtube video that "the gun is overrated"

and while I will say it is more risky to use than a Mav. it is

a weapon no other aircraft has and when used,

most effective and efficient - Thanks!

There is a book about A-10's in Desert Storm, I'll find the name for you.

A-10's had missions Waaaay north.  Farther then most know about.

 

FYI: Air University has a book A-10's over Kosovo, another good read.

 

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1 hour ago, Da SWO said:

There is a book about A-10's in Desert Storm, I'll find the name for you.

A-10's had missions Waaaay north.  Farther then most know about.

 

FYI: Air University has a book A-10's over Kosovo, another good read.

 

Yessir, it is "Flying the A-10 in the Gulf war" by William Smallwood and it does include

the two day destruction of Republican Guard that was located by recon North.

I replied they not respond until reading above links, doubt they would read the book.

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There is a guy on here that loves to run his mouth about anything anti-A-10.  There's no use in arguing with  uninformed people. 

 

Just like any other jet of its era, it serves a purpose, and does its job EXTREMELY well.  Furthermore, it's a certain breed of pilots that fly it and they live and breathe the CAS/CSAR mindset. 

 

Jake

 

 

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1 hour ago, jmel said:

There is a guy on here that loves to run his mouth about anything anti-A-10.  There's no use in arguing with  uninformed people. 

 

Just like any other jet of its era, it serves a purpose, and does its job EXTREMELY well.  Furthermore, it's a certain breed of pilots that fly it and they live and breathe the CAS/CSAR mindset. 

 

Jake

 

 

Right, or ask any groundpounding grunt or Marine that personally witnessed the burp of death.

BTW Jake, finally found replacement 1st issue Modern Hog Guide (thanks to Dave Roof selling) so have pretty much every Reid air book of yours.

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On 2/24/2022 at 7:04 AM, Alternative 4 said:

I would like to know their reasons for saying it wasn't effective.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/day-we-killed-23-tanks-180975619/

 

Destroying 900 tanks sounds effective to me.

 

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/appendix/whitepaper.html

 

Mission availability of 5% above peace time.

 

 

Remarkable article that.

 

The A-10A flew 8100 sorties and managed an impressive 900 tanks and with a total of 4100 pieces of military equipment, while the F-111F flew 4000 sorties and managed 1500 kills on military equipment...

 

 

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17 hours ago, ElectroSoldier said:

Remarkable article that.

 

The A-10A flew 8100 sorties and managed an impressive 900 tanks and with a total of 4100 pieces of military equipment, while the F-111F flew 4000 sorties and managed 1500 kills on military equipment...

 

 

A-10's were flying farther north then F-16's early in the war, less opportunities to gun tanks that way.

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At that point in the F-16 career it wasn't as versatile as the USAF wanted and limited to visual "dumb" bombing from medium altitude so it wasn't as effective as some of the other aircraft like the A-10 and F-111.  After DS it got all kinds of upgrades and capabilities.  LANTIRN and HARM to mention a couple.  These turned it into the aircraft the Air Force needed.  The A-10 had a field day on the Highway of Death as Iraq tried to vacate Kuwait.  The F-111F was by far the most effective performer in DS as noted above.  It was tasked with many and varied missions.  Unfortunately it was deemed too costly and technology outdated to keep in service after DS, same for the F-4Gs.  F-15Es were still relatively new only 1 squadron of the 4TFW being fully operational at the time and were somewhat limited in mission scope hunting down SCUD launchers.  While not really a vital threat, SCUDs were creating a lot of negative publicity so it needed to be dealt with.  Interesting thread.

 

Geoff M

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Yes I think it was ODS that changed the minds of the brass in the USAF and in the minds of the public as the the usefulness of the A-10A as its use was both extremely effective at its job of killing vehicles and in the minds of the public because of its ability to bring back its pilots no matter the damage it suffered.

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On 2/26/2022 at 9:25 PM, ElectroSoldier said:

Yes I think it was ODS that changed the minds of the brass in the USAF and in the minds of the public as the the usefulness of the A-10A as its use was both extremely effective at its job of killing vehicles and in the minds of the public because of its ability to bring back its pilots no matter the damage it suffered.

OK, I'll be "That Guy :)" From what I've heard, ODS actually had somewhat the opposite effect on the USAF brass.  From what I could tell, they lost more A-10s than any other airframe, and thought it might be too vulnerable in certain situations.  I remember seeing a show where they talked with USAF Gen. Horner regarding that, and went looking for the video of it but couldn't find it.  I did find this article, though, where he references that: https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0691horner/

 

The part where it's discussed is A-10s vs F-16s, but here are some excerpts:

 

We had a lot of A-10s take a lot of ground fire hits. Quite frankly, we pulled the A-10s back from going up around the Republican Guard and kept them on Iraq’s [less formidable] front-line units. That’s line if you have a force that allows you to do that. In this case, we had F-16s to go after the Republican Guard.

 

I think I had fourteen airplanes sitting on the ramp having battle damage repaired, and I lost two A- 10s in one day [February 15], and I said, “I’ve had enough of this.” It was when we really started to go after the Republican Guard.

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1 hour ago, ElectroSoldier said:

Interesting.

If the A-10 was no good, at least from the point of view of bad optics when it gets damaged what was it that saved it from being scrapped?

First of all, I'd like to say that I'm not an A-10 foe, I really like them, and have since I saw them at an air show at Elmendorf AFB back in the '70s, so any info I am providing is just in the interest of being accurate.

 

As to your question, I'm not an expert, but from what I've seen, there are a few reasons why it's still around, with much of it being political.  Senator McCain was a big supporter, so when the first plans were announced for its cancellation, he rallied support to keep it.  And it does have some strengths, especially in scenarios where  you don't have a strong AA environment, which turns out to be exactly the situations the US has been fighting in since the early 2000s.  They have good loiter time, carry a lot of ordinance, and are cheap to fly, relatively speaking.

 

In trying to find a video from Gen. Horner (which was on one of the old Discovery Wings episodes, I think), I found the videos below.  This person says a few things incorrectly, and doesn't seem to want to get into the technical details of the equipment, but does provide a fair amount of information regarding the history of the A-10 and why it's viewed as it is by many. They're long, difficult videos to watch, but they might answer some questions (or just make you think he doesn't know what he's talking about).

 

https://youtu.be/WWfsz5R6irs

 

https://youtu.be/gq1ac2CALeE

 

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50 minutes ago, habu2 said:

A battle damaged jet on the ramp is a battle damaged jet that brought it's pilot home.

As I mentioned before, I'm not an A-10 hater, but that statement doesn't really support the A-10. Sure, those damaged jets got their pilots back, but there were other aircraft that were sitting on the ramp UNdamaged that also got their pilots back.  More A-10s were lost and more were damaged than any other type in the conflict, so you were safer flying another aircraft and landing undamaged than flying an A-10 and possibly getting shot down or landing with damage.

 

Elsewhere in the Gen. Horner article, he states that most of the kills by the A-10 were with Mavericks, and that they were really the standout weapon, and they worked just as well from F-16s as they did from A-10s.

 

Here's his quote from that article, and it's the text that led into the quote I posted earlier:

 

It shows that the gun has a lot of utility, which we always knew, but it isn’t the principal tank-killer on the A-IO. The [Imaging Infrared] Maverick is the big hero there. That was used by the A-10s and the F-16s very, very effectively in places like Khafji.

 

The other problem is that the A-10 is vulnerable to hits because its speed is limited. It’s a function of thrust, it’s not a function of anything else. We had a lot of A-10s take a lot of ground fire hits.

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1 hour ago, Ken Cartwright said:

As I mentioned before, I'm not an A-10 hater, but that statement doesn't really support the A-10. Sure, those damaged jets got their pilots back, but there were other aircraft that were sitting on the ramp UNdamaged that also got their pilots back.  More A-10s were lost and more were damaged than any other type in the conflict, so you were safer flying another aircraft and landing undamaged than flying an A-10 and possibly getting shot down or landing with damage.

 

Elsewhere in the Gen. Horner article, he states that most of the kills by the A-10 were with Mavericks, and that they were really the standout weapon, and they worked just as well from F-16s as they did from A-10s.

 

Here's his quote from that article, and it's the text that led into the quote I posted earlier:

 

It shows that the gun has a lot of utility, which we always knew, but it isn’t the principal tank-killer on the A-IO. The [Imaging Infrared] Maverick is the big hero there. That was used by the A-10s and the F-16s very, very effectively in places like Khafji.

 

The other problem is that the A-10 is vulnerable to hits because its speed is limited. It’s a function of thrust, it’s not a function of anything else. We had a lot of A-10s take a lot of ground fire hits.

I also have the Gen. Horner interview on an old VHS stashed, and yes A-10 has a higher attrition rate naturally

from exposure, but it's kill numbers or effect are also more from same exposure. Redundant design brings pilot

home, then I apply my ABDR skill. Hope there are more A-10's at station to cover next mission until repairs are done.

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Youtube recommended this video to me, I found the comments as interesting as the video. Personally I think talking about the gun in isolation doesn't really highlight the A-10's good points, but that wasn't the point of the video!

 

 

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If the A-10 was just the "Gun", why'd the put all those hard points on the bottom ?

As I said on the other forum discussion, " Its better to have it and not need it than to not have it and need it ."

Its another tool in the box ...

 

-Gregg

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10 hours ago, habu2 said:

A battle damaged jet on the ramp is a battle damaged jet that brought it's pilot home.

Yeah of course.

But the USAF brass and the political types dont like to see that side of fighting at all, they much prefer it when you return home pristine like nothing happened.

 

It also looked like they didnt have any kind off upgrade program in mind for the A-10 so no reason for a budget to get off congress.

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How's the possibility of Tactics and Altitudes probably playing into the majority of damaged aircraft (A-10s in this case). 
I read the book "Hogs in the Sand" and it talks allot about the altitudes they flew at to either combat the weather or just to see targets. It was a shock from the green fields of Europe to the vast emptiness of desert. 

In an uncontested air space, with little to no MANPAD or AAA threats, the A-10 wreaks havoc and is the CAS platform of choice by the ground dudes. Add a significant threat and they cant get low like we've seen in recent theaters. Effectiveness is by PGM. 

Cool topic.

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2 hours ago, ST0RM said:

How's the possibility of Tactics and Altitudes probably playing into the majority of damaged aircraft (A-10s in this case). 
I read the book "Hogs in the Sand" and it talks allot about the altitudes they flew at to either combat the weather or just to see targets. It was a shock from the green fields of Europe to the vast emptiness of desert. 

In an uncontested air space, with little to no MANPAD or AAA threats, the A-10 wreaks havoc and is the CAS platform of choice by the ground dudes. Add a significant threat and they cant get low like we've seen in recent theaters. Effectiveness is by PGM. 

Cool topic.

Yes, interesting discussion.  By adding greater PGM and TGP capabilities to the A-10C, they have made it easier for the A-10 to work from higher altitudes, but at that point I don't know that it's very different from an F-16, F-15E, or even a B-52 or B-1.  And the A-10C is still relatively slow, making it more vulnerable.

 

As you say, in certain environments, it brings some good stuff to the table - longer loiter time, good payload capacity, and a large gun when it can be used - but as soon as there is much of an anti-air threat, it is probably not the best choice.

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