Post amazingly cool pictures of aircraft (Volume 3)
Discussion
Scabutz said:
Nope can't see it.
All you'll know is the brrrtttt before you touch the face of God.
Followed by the woosh-boom as private conscriptovich blows it up with a MANPADS. Dreadful anachronism that deluded politicians have retained at great expense that would have paid for much more useful weapons systems.All you'll know is the brrrtttt before you touch the face of God.
hidetheelephants said:
Followed by the woosh-boom as private conscriptovich blows it up with a MANPADS. Dreadful anachronism that deluded politicians have retained at great expense that would have paid for much more useful weapons systems.
On a modern battlefield, very true.And yet (as I was told elsewhere) it's amazing how often armour still advances without infantry support.
It's also got a very useful payload and a decent loiter time, so I'd be tempted to have a pair armed with mixed loadout (ARMs, stand-off GPS bombs, maybe LGBs) loitering just behind our lines waiting for a call to support either from a FAC with some co-ordinates or from a Wild Weasel operation looking for some additional munitions to lob in the right direction. Use it in the same way as the USAF plans to pair the F15EX up with F35 "forward controllers" - as a weapons carrier to operate under direction - except in the ground-attack arena.
Also, the A10's IRCM are still effective against earlier-gen MANPADS, so given a lot of recent US military actions have been against 3rd world / terrorist actors, it is still very effective in COIN / low-intensity operations.
havoc said:
hidetheelephants said:
Followed by the woosh-boom as private conscriptovich blows it up with a MANPADS. Dreadful anachronism that deluded politicians have retained at great expense that would have paid for much more useful weapons systems.
On a modern battlefield, very true.And yet (as I was told elsewhere) it's amazing how often armour still advances without infantry support.
It's also got a very useful payload and a decent loiter time, so I'd be tempted to have a pair armed with mixed loadout (ARMs, stand-off GPS bombs, maybe LGBs) loitering just behind our lines waiting for a call to support either from a FAC with some co-ordinates or from a Wild Weasel operation looking for some additional munitions to lob in the right direction. Use it in the same way as the USAF plans to pair the F15EX up with F35 "forward controllers" - as a weapons carrier to operate under direction - except in the ground-attack arena.
Also, the A10's IRCM are still effective against earlier-gen MANPADS, so given a lot of recent US military actions have been against 3rd world / terrorist actors, it is still very effective in COIN / low-intensity operations.
Honestly, in a FAC/CAS environment all the stealth in the world is not going to be terribly useful. You pretty much have to be loitering right over the battlefield in order to affect the battlefield.
havoc said:
hidetheelephants said:
Followed by the woosh-boom as private conscriptovich blows it up with a MANPADS. Dreadful anachronism that deluded politicians have retained at great expense that would have paid for much more useful weapons systems.
On a modern battlefield, very true.And yet (as I was told elsewhere) it's amazing how often armour still advances without infantry support.
It's also got a very useful payload and a decent loiter time, so I'd be tempted to have a pair armed with mixed loadout (ARMs, stand-off GPS bombs, maybe LGBs) loitering just behind our lines waiting for a call to support either from a FAC with some co-ordinates or from a Wild Weasel operation looking for some additional munitions to lob in the right direction. Use it in the same way as the USAF plans to pair the F15EX up with F35 "forward controllers" - as a weapons carrier to operate under direction - except in the ground-attack arena.
Also, the A10's IRCM are still effective against earlier-gen MANPADS, so given a lot of recent US military actions have been against 3rd world / terrorist actors, it is still very effective in COIN / low-intensity operations.
Teddy Lop said:
My understanding is the A10 was devised to address the inability of multirole fighter platforms to provide effective CAS, and is still specifically requested by commanders.
The two main roles are "blow up a tank/bunker" and "blow up this unarmoured vehicle/building/group of soldiers"; the former can be done with ATGW and the latter with artillery far faster than waiting for an aircraft to appear, as long as there are adequate provision of these resources. Ukraine has Su25s which can do most of what the A10 can, yet they cannot range at will over the forward edge of the battlefield because they'll get blasted out of the sky like grouse on the 12th of August. They are mostly firing unguided rockets from behind the frontline as a form of artillery substitute. The A10 was devised as a result of experience from the Vietnam War. It was found that, in circumstances where you had pretty much Air Control, slower aircraft with a long loiter time were more suitable for ground support than faster jets. As a result, a number of obsolete types had been adapted for these types of missions, such as the Douglas A1D Skyraider and the Douglas B-26 Invader.
The A10's other major role would have been to attack the expected vast hordes of Eastern block armour that was expected to roll into West Germany if a Third World War had ever kicked off.
The A10's other major role would have been to attack the expected vast hordes of Eastern block armour that was expected to roll into West Germany if a Third World War had ever kicked off.
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