Despite numerous attempts by the Air Force to kill it off, the Pentagon has found a new way for the A-10 Warthog to play a vital role, this time with the Navy. With its low and slow capabilities and its 30 mm Gatling-like gun, it turns out the 50-year-old airframe is just what the Navy ordered to cost-effectively hunt down and shred the fiberglass and light metal Iranian drones and fast attack boats in the Strait of Hormuz. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the A-10, long ago dismissed as irrelevant on the modern battlefield, is “in the fight.”
The unique circumstances of the strait are tailor made for the Warthog. More modern aircraft have destroyed Iran’s air defenses meaning the Warthog, which is anything but stealthy, is free to roam the strait with little opposition, leaving the F-22s and F-35s that previously took out the missile defense systems and aircraft to concentrate on other high-value targets. The six-inch shells and simple air-to-ground missiles are also far less expensive than the high-tech ordnance carried by the fifth-generation platforms. Despite aggressive attempts to retire the A-10s, there are still 160 in flying condition and hundreds more in storage in the desert.
Using a 30mm cannon against cheap drones is the literal definition of “overkill.” And yet the A-10 only carries ~1200 rounds.and fires at almost 4,000 rounds per minute. Barely sixteen seconds of firing time. Not going to shoot down a lot of drones on a mission, and if the drones are over friendly territory, there are some folks on the ground who are going to be MIGHTY displeased….
Not sure what they’re doing for targeting. The A-10 was designed to engage targets traveling ~20 miles per hour (e.g., Russian tanks in the Fulda Gap) and the drones are flying six times faster than that. Hopefully, the A-10 pilots have a 3D simulator to train on.
We’ve deployed A-10s because it’s all we have. But sounds to me that the OA-1K Skyraider II would have been a better pick.
The video said the AH-64 was going to be the drone defense. It fires about 600 rounds a minute, but that means a 10 second burst will send about 100 rounds out, more than enough to take out a drone. And the Apache can fly slow enough for this mission. A lot cheaper than a Patriot missile.
The pilot of an A-10C doesn’t shoot all his rounds at once, Ron. The bursts are short. Beyond that, using a missile is overkill. Using a 30mm out of a GAU-8A isn’t.
Never said a 30mm WOULDN’T kill a drone. But so will 20mm. If there’s a flood of drones coming in, I think you’ll be able to kill more drones with 30 seconds of 20mm fire vs 15 seconds of 30mm.
Missile might be a better approach than 30mm or even 20mm, depending on the warhead. A 30mm round punches a inch-and-a-quarter hole in the sky, while the proximity detonation of a missile will mess up a lot larger bit of airspace. Higher probability of kill.
Rumor has it that they’re firing Patriot missiles ($4 million each) to shoot down $200k drones. Now, this isn’t *quite* as bad as it sounds. If that $4million missile prevents a oil refinery from being destroyed, it might be worth it.
But, geeze…there’s been a had a highly-publicized hot war involving drones going on for the past three years. Shoot, the Russians have been BUYING Iranian drones for their attacks.
Plenty of lessons, there. Three years…and our solution is to scrape airframes out of Davis-Monthan to flight this threat?
No-one wants the A-10 during peacetime, but they are consistently deployed and well utilized when a war is on.
Yes, the 30mm is a bit overkill, and heavier targets could be attacked with other weapons. But I’m sure the crews would FAR prefer to be out there in an A-10 vs an OA-1K!
Aircrew preference be damned. We should deploy aircraft with the best chance of performing the mission, and not worry about pilots complaining about flying a (shudder) propeller-driven airplane.
The A-10 is being tasked with drone-killing not because it’s the best solution, but because it’s the best solution WE HAVE. There’s a considerable amount of difference. But it least it has a titanium shell around the pilot so that those drones can’t penetrate. Oh, yeah, and the A-10 is the only airplane that uses the TF34 engines. How’s that logistics tail working out? “Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.”
If I were Tehran Terry, planning my drone missions, I’d be launching them at night and having them fly as low as possible. Now, *that’s* a real problem. I can’t imagine the A-10 pilots fighting tiny drones using night vision goggles a hundred feet off the deck. What does the blast of that 30 mm cannon do to the NVGs?
And speaking of vision… why the bloody **** is Customs and Border Protection getting laser anti-drone systems before the US military? Did *no one* see this coming? Test your new toys in the middle east against actual threats, not party balloons over the American southwest.
Not saying the A-10 is ideal – it isn’t – but the existence of a prop on the front was the furthest from my mind. Rather, being a purpose-designed and built close-support aircraft rather than a converted crop duster has certain benefits.
You’d be surprised what the A-10 crews pulled off in severe environments in the past, such as Gulf-War 1. They’ve been a lot lower than 100ft in near zero vis before.
The trouble is, this ISN’T close air support. This is closely analogous to the British trying to stop the V-1s during WWII. The intercepting aircraft has to be vectored toward the target, has to visually acquire it, blow it out of the sky, then start looking for another one.
Again, the A-10 was not designed for this mission. It was designed to kill slow-moving tanks in hotly contested airspace, and was probably the best in the world for that mission
But it wasn’t designed for air-to-air combat, which is what this is. Tiny targets, probably at night, at the minimum you need a second set of eyeballs out there.
One of my sites quoted an article about what the Poles are looking at for anti-drone defense. They’re not looking at an A-10 clone. They are considering taking a small twin-engine transport and putting gun positions all over it like a B-17. Fly into the drone swarm and cut loose in all directions.
(From Global Defense News)
If the ONLY thing the A-10s were doing was hunting drones, I’d agree with you.
Well, we’re in violent agreement, then. 🙂
Actually, re-reading Russ’ article, since the Navy is the involved, it might be that they’re going after drone BOATS.
That’s closer to the A-10s original mission. The boat drones would be traveling faster than a T-72, but still slower than any airborne object. Plus, any surface vessel will be drawing a wake, making its presence more obvious and simplifying targeting, even at night.
Now, 30mm is still overkill, even for a drone boat, and 30 seconds of firepower is still better than 15 seconds, but it is a lot closer to what the aircrews have been training for.
But “When all you got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Seems to me that a helicopter with a couple of doorgunners on M62s would be a bit more cost-effective. More eyes to spot the target, capability to engage more than one at the same time, could even match speeds with the drone boat and simplify the jobs of the gunners.
Might be that the Navy doesn’t have enough of these, and thus the Air Force has to step in. Could be, too, that they need to operate immediately offshore of Iran, and the A-10s would have a survivability advantage.
Wow! What a Bravo Sierra video of wishful, propaganda! Where are the F-22’s, F-35’s, A-10’s, and Apache’s flying from? Cyprus or Crete? Certainly not from Kuwaiti, Iraq, Bahrain, Quatar, or Saudia Arabia. Gerald Ford is in Crete licking its wounds. Abraham Lincoln is way out at sea staying out of range of Iran’s wide array of hypersonic missles. If the US has air supremacy, why is Israel’s Iron Dome defenseless? No F-22’s at Ovda. Dimona’s nuclear research center is now history. Why has all US forces evacuated Iraq? The US Embassy in Baghdad is empty. Victoria airbase empty. Why is the Strait of Hormuz closed to US/Israel ship traffic but Chinese, Russian, and any other country not supporting the United States or Israel freely allowed to leave with their loads of oil? Check the price recently of a barrel of oil? No, not the paper price on Kitco… you cannot fill up your car on printed paper of promises. If Iran is obliterated with no aerial defenses, no government, no Navy, no Air Force… just who is doing all the damage with what to Israel, all of the Persian Gulf vassals hosting the US bases are taking a beating, the Fifth Fleet Headquarters destroyed, and why the need for South Korea’s Patriots/THAAD’s, plus 5,000 Marines being sent on a suicide mission? And why has my local gas cost rising a dollar a gallon within a week if Iran is essentially defeated? If Iran is so throughly defeated, why are we at war? Is sending A-10’s and Apache’s some sort of victory lap celebration?
Given many of the answers you are looking for are readily found in history, your username is quite ironic.
Retorical questions. There was a very popular Harley T-shirt that said… “If I have to explain it, you wouldn’t understand.”
It does not save the A-10, but it does make retirement harder to justify.
The A-10 Warthog, the F-100 pickup of fighting machines. It ain’t pretty, and it doesn’t do anything spectacularly, but sometimes you just need a big gun you can take anywhere.
It is so nice, finally, to get the real truth from the real experts.
I did not know that the Navy trained on A10s.
Geezus !! How many of you know it all commenters served in the USAF on the A-10? I’d venture not many? I was on the original A-10A Test Team. The A-10 is perfect for this mission.
If you were being robbed … would you want a .44 magnum or a .22 peashooter.
I’d prefer a machine gun with a hundred .22 rounds in a drum instead of a six-shooter in .44 magnum.
This is not a one-on-one engagement; there are clouds of drones coming by. One A-10 sortie, one kill is NOT helping.
On that note…how many drone kills have the A-10s achieved?
Larry,
History shows the United States choosing the right airplanes at the right time, using the right tactics, with the right maintenance, backed by the right logistics, flown by the right pilots, trained by the right instructors, with the right leadership, investigating, agreeing on a battle plan including an exit strategy, going to war for the right reasons, approved by Congress who made that war decision with public knowledge and public consent by the majority of the US public… can win a just war. The last time all of the above conditions were met was 1945.
Since then we have been bringing “the chrome Magnum .44 with the pearl grips”… yeah, including the A-10’s, starting “conflicts” while spreading our love of democracy, and have not won anything since 1945. However we have won the grand prize of spending the most dough on Defence/Offensive/military budget on the planet, for the biggest, badest , most complicated, over-priced, war toys, and with all of this hubris killed millions of people all over this blue orb, while continuing destabilizing the global economy including our own, and promoting regime change on most governments. Plus, we seem to have a memory lapse or two of all the American’s who have died, been wounded, including those physically and mentally injured in our losing record of mayhem.
Me thinks the world has had enough of this post 1945 behavior, especially Iran… and all of the A-10’s available will not help “put Humpty Dumpty together again”. Me thinks our military is also had enough of this post 1945 behavior. Me thinks the US public has had enough of this post 1945 behavior. Sadly, it looks like our current collective leadership is very happy, almost giddy, certainly immensely proud about our present post 1945 killing, maiming, chaotic, destabilizing, malevolent, and ultimately consistently losing behavior. War… what is it good for?…absolutely nothing!
I sure wish the Epic Fury Commander knew about you, History. He’da won the current skirmish two weeks ago with all your imagined knowledge. I’ll be blunt. You’re armed with SOME information but overall don’t know what you’re talking about.
I spent nearly 30 years of my life involved with military flight test. Half of it in uniform at Edwards AFB involved in flight test and the other as a contractor employee testing a big black airplane. I was involved with all the flight test programs at Edwards during my time and flew in them. In fact, the very first program I worked WAS the A-10. So I know a bit about it. Further, as mentioned above, the A-10 WAS originally designed to stop the hoard of Russian tanks envisioned to come west through the Fulda Gap in Germany. It became apparent, however, that the psychological impact of the GAU-8A was an unseen advantage of that airplane. Beyond that, I’ve met many grunts who LOVE the A-10 because it saved their lives. I met one who had it tattooed onto his arm. I suppose YOU would blather that a smaller gun would work better.
I asked you above and ask again. How many years did you spend in the USAF or military and how many of the current airframes have you had first hand knowledge of?
If Epic Fury leadership took me, millions of other informed Americans, and many others in the Pentagon seriously, there would have been NO attack on Iran. And the macabre, malevolent, disgusting opening of war attack on three girls elementary schools killing 171 girls ages 7 through 12 , including 20 young teachers followed with a double tap strike 40 minutes later designed to kill the first responders rendering aid is beyond words. And you wonder why this low-life, barbaric way of displaying American exceptionalism galvanizes, unifies a country, a civilization that has existed for over 4,500 years, now knows, accepts, and is fully commited to full victory including ejecting any US presence, militarily and/or economically in the Persian Gulf. You have forgotten that your parents I’m sure, the US government and US citizen’s was horrified thus galvanized, unified at the thought Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning while two Japanese diplomats had prepared a peace proposal for Monday morning delivery. How far we have slid from demonstrating basic morality, respect for human dignity, Geneva convention conduct of war, the rule of law domestically and internationally since 1941.
While your 15 years of USAF military service at Edwards followed with another 15 years as a paid, well paid contractor is commendable, you are stuck in a time warp. What was useful then is no longer relevant to what is useful now. I am sure this will wad your undies, but like the A-10, the projects you helped nurtured into reality was good for that time frame’s needs but not for today’s battleground. A-10’s only survive with complete air supremacy. They do not provide air supremacy. Air supremacy includes supremacy over drones, ballistic missles, and hypersonic missles, not just air combat superiority.
The US has never directly fought a war against another equal since 1945. Our military peaked in the early 90’s. But only against countries that had no effective, nor well trained, and under equipped military’s. The Soviet Union collapsed, Russia ended up with a US puppet leader, China was still under US Cold War sanctions because of our fear of communism, and by default, we ended up the only superpower. And with that hubris of thinking we are now the sole superpower, we became more aggressive. From the Navy recruiting slogan , ” It’s not a job, it’s an adventure”, we went to ” The US Navy, a global force for good”. Forget about Vietnam, pounding Lebanon with resurrected WWII battleships prior to invading their country with Marine’s occupying Beruit, providing arms and intelligence to Iraq supporting Saddam Hussein from 1980-88, inciting and sustaining an 8 year war with Iran. Forget about the US performing a coup in Iran in 1953 against Iran’s democratically elected President, installing the US puppet Shah of Iran whose despotic regime lasted until 1979.
As a result of this mostly forgotten history, Iran, China, and Russia have first hand knowledge of living under US handpicked leadership including losing control of their resources, and being stripped of everything possible under US economic sanctions. We got fat, lazy, wealthy from resource theft and handed over all that tech you helped developed at Edwards to the Congressional Military Industrial Complex, who did little to develop it further. We are the global kingpin. No one dare’s to challenge our authority to ” raise up kings and take down kings”. We got the biggest, baddest, technically overloaded weaponry , therefore expensive 45+ year old military hardware, including A-10’s last produced in 1984… that oodles of printed greenbacks can supply.
And you believe that propaganda. However, those three countries became superpowers in spite of our sanctions, and managed to threw out the US installed puppets, and learning how to do more on less. They learned from us what not to do. They learned from our aggressiveness attacking them thru proxies, all about our technology, saw our inability to mass produce it, and encrypted every detail of our weaponry as we used it against them through our proxies or by direct US attacks. They have observed or been on the receiving end of endless US wars since 1945. They have taken notes on all of this and developed alternative strategies and hardware to redefine the battlefield.
Like you, our government is still thinking of the 80’s and early 90’s military accomplishments as if they are relevant today. We have picked a fight with three superpowers who all three have been in existence for thousands of years as civilizations. Who have been attacked, invaded and subjugated by the West, including the US multiple times. The US empire is declining doing all that declining empires do, breaking things and killing people as we sink in abject corruption. We are winners in losing… signed… 9 year Naval Aviation vet, missionary pilot, A&P, including recent airframe extension programs on RC-12’s , Lear 35’s…trained maintenance and flight experience on T2C’s, F4’s, F-14’s, A7’s, P3’s , and FA/18’s. Built two homebuilts and own D-35 Bonanza. Made many traps, and have equal numbers of cat shots. Know how to “fly the ball”. Yeah, I think flying is still cool at 73. I also think killing prople is not.
Yeah, yeah, yeah … you still didn’t answer my question. It’s obvious you have a very strong opinion here but you don’t know what you’re talking about. E.G., the A-10 was NEVER EVER designed to gain “air supremecy.” Beyond that, you keep jumping from one point to another when challenged with another long diatribe. OH … and when I joined the USAF during Viet Nam, I was earning less than $100/mo and at the end was just comfy. My subsequent time was not well paid, it was just comfy, as well. I coulda made a helluva lot more money outside of DoD. I didn’t get rich doing what I did in life but stayed because I enjoyed flight test. But … it gives you the opportunity to make a snide comment about my working time. Tells me a lot about who you are.
In the early 80’s, we tested an airplane called the Piper PA-48 ‘Enforcer’ as a possible lower cost CAS airplane. It was — essentially — a P-51 with a turbine on the nose. We couldn’t pry the test pilots out of ’em but they proved mostly useless as a a CAS platform … that’s why you don’t see any of ’em. They do nice duty in the museums, tho. The current turbine Spec Ops modded airplane is being built only in small numbers for the same reason.
I wonder what you’d be saying and who you’d be blaming if NYC was a smoking hole in the ground. OH … never mind … I don’t have to guess.
Debating you here is a losing proposition. If I see your ‘handle,’ I’ll avoid you.