Quicksand Fans

I saw a report on Yahoo! News that mandatory budget cuts due to sequestration mean the U.S. Air Force may retire their fleet of A-10s, which I understand is officially the "Thunderbolt II," but is often called the "Warthog" because of its ungainly appearance. The A-10 is the best ground attack/close support aircraft in the world. It's designed to blast to smithereens anything on the ground in support of ground forces. It is the ultimate tank buster.

The report said the Army liked the A-10, but the Air Force didn't, feeling they needed aircraft like the F-16 which could perform more than one role.

From what I read, the Air Force feels the A-10 is no longer needed, since there are other aircraft that could do its job, and there's no longer the threat of mass armor formations like those of the Soviet Union. They say the A-10 is obsolete.

Of course, I recall similar things have been said over the years about the B-52.

-Big Bad John

I feel a great disturbance in the Force. It's as if a thousand military historians suddenly cried out in anger, and were suddenly silent.

I have a very bad feeling about this. . .

This was reported a couple months back, but the blue sky pure oxygen types have been trying kill the hog since while the damn thing was being designed. Somehow CAS and blowing shit up in the dirt is unclean somehow. I suggested that the Army really piss on them, by demanding that they take them; they would be put to use properly and not dessicating in Arizona that way.......

Maybe it's just the Warthog's looks. The Russians would be glad to sell us these instead: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-25

kham wrote:This was reported a couple months back, but the blue sky pure oxygen types have been trying kill the hog since while the damn thing was being designed. Somehow CAS and blowing shit up in the dirt is unclean somehow. I suggested that the Army really piss on them, by demanding that they take them; they would be put to use properly and not dessicating in Arizona that way.......

kham wrote:This was reported a couple months back, but the blue sky pure oxygen types have been trying kill the hog since while the damn thing was being designed. Somehow CAS and blowing shit up in the dirt is unclean somehow. I suggested that the Army really piss on them, by demanding that they take them; they would be put to use properly and not dessicating in Arizona that way.......

I never understood how or why this was an Air Force plane to begin with. Should have belonged to the Army or Marines from the beginning.

I'll never forget the first sight I ever had of one. A Michigan Air National Guard pilot was knife-edging and weaving between trees. It was awesome.

The anticipation is the F-35 will fill the role of the A-10 as well as a few other roles. A-10's are single role aircraft. There is, however, a suggestion that the A-10 be taken out of service prior to the F-35 becoming operational due to budget constraints.

Many years ago a decision was made that the Army would not have fixed wing combat aircraft and the Air Force would not have attack helicopters. The policy still exists. Fighter bomber aircraft used by the Marines need to be capable of operating from carriers. The A-10 does not have that capability. In addition, the limited space on a carrier dictates aircraft be multirole capable.

The military also said the Iowa Class Battleships were absolute but they were repeatealy brought back into service to help the Navy duke it out.
True the Iowas are museum ships now but I read that they are in a state of readiness where they can be taken out of museum status should they be needed again.
So I wouldn't be surprised if the A-10s are around for a while longer like the B-52s.
Interesting the 30 mm gun in the A-10 fires 4,200 rounds a minutes, faster than the Navy's gatling guns abord the ships.

That budget deal negotiated last week is supposed to roll back some of the sequestration budget cuts and has already passed the House, it's suppose to pass the Senate this week (albeit in a much tighter vote than the House vote was), so who knows? The A-10 may yet survive sequestration.

Referring to the new National Defense Authorization Act:

The NDAA prohibits the Air Force from spending money to retire A-10s and Global Hawk block 30 aircraft in 2014, and it blocks any changes or reductions to a specific upgrade/modernization program for C-130s. The bill also directs that the MC-12 fleet will be transferred to the Army

For what it is worth, I am very close to the primary training base for pilots learning to fly the A-10 and the base has built 5 additional hangers in just the past year. It is rather unlikely they would be doing so if the primary aircraft flown there was on the doorstep of oblivion since it was already announced that the F-35 would not be coming here.