Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

Everyone, this is a spin-off thread coming from the <a href="f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-1767.html">Boyd thread</a>. We were talking about the A-10 and F-16, and how they followed their design mandate and were the least gold-plated aircraft of their, and probably any, time.

Here ya go Gums! Add all your comments here. Wink

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I have to agree with Gums from the other thread Habu, and also agree with you in part. You're right. The AF "Bomber Generals" (a rather useless group of individuals IMO) wasn't really in love with the concept of the A-10, but everyone came to their senses when it was realized we DID need a replacement for the A-1, and later the A-7 and OV-10. Here's the trick though: many didn't see the need for a dedicated CAS aircraft, but this is one of the problems we had, circa, 'Nam. Too many people "didn't see the need for" this system, that weapon, or this plane, etc. However, in the early 70s, something came about that scared the bejeezus out of many folks, and changed their minds about the need for the A-10...The Soviet T-72 tank. It was the deadliest ground weapon in the Red Army at the time, and would be mass produced for any communist nation that could buy them. When the idea came about that the next war would be fought somewhere over East Germany, Poland, and Czecholslovakia, everyone finally agreed that a super-armored aircraft that could blow away an entire column of T-72s would be a very good idea. Of course, we've further developed the A-10 to do so much more than that in the present day, and those former communist nations are our friends now, so we got two good deals for the price of one: No WWIII in Europe, and the greatest tank killer/CAS a/c ever built.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

The A-10 also saved the CAS mission for the AF. They were a hairsbreath away from losing that mission, but ultimately losing the money for it. If it weren't for the A-10, the AF would have been out of the CAS business for sure.

Just imagine what would have happened had the Army really taken that mission over Shocked

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

Exactly...it was about saving a mission for the AF. Schlesinger wanted to leave a legacy, and he was advised to pick a couple projects and put the whole wieght of his administration behind them. He picked, in a nexus of fate probably never to be duplicated...the LightWeight Fighter, and the A-X.....and we know what became of those two projects Wink

What assets did the Army have planned to do the CAS mission had the USAF lost it? An Apache/Cobra/Kiowa force mix perhaps? They got rid of their fixed-wing assets after 'Nam, didn't they?

Salute!

First of all, the A-10 WAS NOT GOLD-PLATED on purpose.

USAF had to sell it as a cheap CAS and tank-buster. So no computer-aided weapon delivery, no inertial, a cheap-a$$ HUD, etc.

Go find fall of '74 Aviation Week issues and you'll see my epistle about the A-7 versus A-10. Got my letter of reprimand a week later..... heh heh.

At the time, Army was developing the Cheyenne attack chopper. Never made it to production, but it was a mean machine. A-7 was outstanding for interdiction, but only 'good' for CAS. A-10 was outstanding for CAS, even without a computer-aided delivery. I missed out on testing it and the Northrop A-9 because I was at SOS and they needed a pilot real quick. Oh well, ....

The plane that was gold-plated was the SLUF. Trust me. We thought that USAF kept adding neat gadgets to it to drive up the price so Congress would lean to the A-10 and F-15.

Let me summarize:

First fully-integrated digital nav-weapon delivery system. Same IBM PI 3 box that Appollo had
radar altimiter
multi-mode attack radar with terrain following and terrain avoidance modes
Projected map display
Four radios! including one using a super ADF antenna mounted under the cockpit. real handy when we searched for survivors in the Sandy mission
a doppler to help the INS
super Marconi HUD
digital armament release system for the bombs and rocks and etc
a relief tube!!!! Viper still doesn't have one
could fly 2 and a half hours without refueling and carrying 10 or 12 500 pounders. Better than the B-17, and twice as fast!
great air-conditioning system

Man, I loved that plane..............

Interestingly, the Viper cadre was a mix of A-7 troops and Aggressor pilots. Only a few F-4 pukes.

more later

Really the major selling points for the Warthog over the SLUF, were two engines (which some folks are partial to, I guess) heavy armor, ease of maintenance, and the GAU-8 cannon. I dunno if the SLUF could carry Mavericks. What's the word on that Gums? I know the SLUF could carry smart weapons, but wasn't that with the "Passive Laser" method? Not sure if I've ever seen a SLUF carry a laser target designator, and I'm still unsure as to exactly what the Warthog's Pave Penny Pod does.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

Yo ho!

SLUF had Maverick well before the Warthog. Our radar CRT was also a real video display, so Maverick video was inherent, like the F-16. The Hog's was soley for Maverick, as it didn't have a radar.

SLUF had a "Pave Penny" doofer that detected a laser spot and projected it in the HUD. Warthog also had the doofer, but years later. Theory was to put the TD box on the spot, designate, then let the computed release do its thing. Could also be used by the grunt or FAC to show you where the tgt was real quick. F-16 version was called TISL, and did same thing.

Just about anybody could drop a LGB after 1972, so that wasn't a big deal.

Self-designating systems came along with Pave Spike, Pave Tack, etc. Witness the Libya mission in '86 or so by the 'vaarks(El Dorado Canyon?). Hell, the Spec Ops guys at NKP in 1970 or so had the "Pave Dog" - a real four-legged critter that was welcome at the O-club (The Nail Hole).

Personally, I liked the dumb bomb/smart plane combo. Was true launch and leave and couldn't be jammed. Even the JDAM can only get down to 5-6 meters, but it can do it whilst releasing from 20K and 10 miles away!!. A good Viper could do that at a low alt release (3000 feet or less), as well as the SLUF.

Finally, we could have used off-the-shelf components from the A-7D for the A-10 to provide it really super bombing and strafing capability for maybe $500,000 per plane, probably a lot less. USAF would not even consider that idea, as they sold the plane to Congress by maintaining it could do the job with no computer-assisted bombing system. Dumb, dumb, dumb. And I got into a lotta trouble saying so publically. Ya gotta trust me. I flew about 1400 hours in the manual A-37, then about 1000 hours in the SLUF and 600 or so in the Viper. The A-37 was the foundation for the Warthog. And as good as a few of us were using Kentucky windage, a real ham-fisted gomer could beat us in the SLUF or Viper. Only the cannon was decent in the Hog. Sucker had a super-flat trajectory, so a computer could not add much to it's capability. Dropping bombs and CBU and such was a different story.

Later,

In Desert Storm A-10s were to stay high (over 20, maybe 30kft) to avoid shoulder SAMs. Some pilot decided to see how accurate that cannon was and found you could plink tanks from that altitude! Impressive to me, and to the AF. They were using a Maverick as the targeting system because you could get magnification so they essentially were flying with one captive carry Mav.

Going back to a little known piece of history from 'Nam, the US Army only had one ejection seat equipped aircraft at the time, OV-1 Mohawk (I didn't know much about them until I got a J5D seat from one and did some research.) A Grumman Iron works bird, it was built pretty strong and capable. They used it as recon/FAC like role. In the FAC role they added rockets to the wings to be able to mark targets. Soon enough some ground crew decided to see if they could hang anything heavier off there and mounted some bombs on some Mohawks. Turned out to be a decent platform for dropping them, but the USAF got its tailfeathers twisted real bad when they noticed. According to the OV-1 in Action book, there were some threats from one service to the other about killing all USAF CAS in retaliation to having an armed fixed wing in the USA. In the transfer of responsibilities worked out years before, the Army was only allowed to arm helos, and the Air Force was to be the sole fixed wing mud movers (Navy/Marines already had their own agreements and no way the AF was gonna get involved in squid work.)

When the USAF wanted to mothball all the 'Hogs, the Army got their hackles up and told whoever would listen that if that happened then USA was going back into fixed wing mud moving. The USAF then basically decided to keep some A-10s flying, probably just as an appeasement strategy. Desert Storm showed the 'Hogs still had some roles, and some surprises to the AF brass, and they got a little funding to add some LANTIRN-like pods and a few other things to make them more useful. My bet is the AF brass is still not thrilled with the airframe, but they at least aren't trying to eliminate them as rapidly anymore.

Kevin
The Ejection Site
ps the above represents my memories and translations of events. Not necessarily 100% accurate, but I think it is the gist of things.

Need some guidance from Habu. How far do you want to take this thread? If we start getting into present day and the furture. My Hog comments go down on a curve vs. time. Hey it was great in the days when we only had 10% PGM ability in the whole fixed wing force back in the old days.. But times change. To include that if I am going to use the Hog for LITENING work, I would prefer F-16s and F-18s instead where the pod is fully integreated. Not to mention a LITENING on a Hog still doesn't take it out of engagement range from newer, small battlefield SAMs which cannot engage an F-16 or F-18 at 30K + height doing the same PGM job.

Want to do COIN ops where the threat has no reach to height air defense? Make me a C-130 with a SNIPER Pod on the wing, and the ablity to toss out a dual use ( LGB or GPS/INS ) PGM the size of an SDB. Combined with UAVs/UCAVs, F-16/F-18, B-52, Apache ( a far better night netcentric killer, with more ability than the sensor limited Hog ) etc. And I am set.

I am curious to see how many Hogs you would have left after a few days in a Fulda Gap scenario, of years gone by, where there was no shortage of ZOO's, MANPADS, SA8, SA9, trashfire and everything else ( and I didnt even mention nastys like the SA6 ) Not a place to be orbiting down low and slow. Yeah it can take a beating alright. And a beating is what it would get in that environ.

elp, with the optical pod the A-10 doesn't need to be in the weeds, that is kinda the point of my first paragraph. They are effective at plinking tanks and other vehicles from altitude with relative impunity. The advantage of the 30mm vs PGMs is that you can nail a lot more vehicles per mission cycle. Running the gun alone you probably can get 10-15 vehicles damaged or killed. Add on all the PGMs you can dangle off those wings and you can do some serious damage. Now, if you toss in some of the SADARM (IIRC) munitions with multiple sub-munitions, one A-10 could do quite a bit of damage to a battalion sized group of vehicles. 30mm has better penetration than the 20mm in the -16 and other aircraft, especially when firing DU.

Not saying it is the be-all/end-all, but I wouldn't say it is needs a cane and walker yet.

Kevin
The Ejection Site

Oh no no, the Hog is a great plane, don't get us wrong, but I don't want to be above 3K AGL in the A-10 when they start launching the SAMs at me, or shooting ZSUs and God knows what else at me. Experience in Nam proved that the "Golden BB" can come from some peasant holding a hunting rifle. The Hog can keep turning near the mud to avoid crap like that, and it is well armored, but I'd like to stay below the radar cup of the SAMs and the radar guided guns. The Hog is great for getting in low, and taking that stuff out. Bottom line, if you can stay low and take out the threats, then by all means do, rather than stay high, and be lunch for those ground toads.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

I respectfully disagree. The Hog can't do LANTIRN guiding with "impunity".

The Hog with weight has a hard time at 15k+. Like a pig on roller skates. At that altitude its engine power just is not there. It is work just to do tanker drag ferry jobs to get it deployed in theater. The problem here is that your newer battlefield SAMS ( not large SAMS ) can engage this thing. Realistically it will probably be be lower with combat weight. So it might be able to avoid trashfire and some AAA but it is still at risk. COIN work with no serious AD? Its probably OK. The LANTIRN is nice for it. But again you run into other things like funding the jet properly so it gets more than just a few hardpoints smart bused so you can put lots of stuff on it. The more stuff you put on it though, means it can't go as high if needed.

When it does go low it isn't going to be running from AD threats, it just has to eat it because it is slow.

I think it has a bright future if they put the right gear on it with the up coming mods, but really if I want to kill tanks on the move, I'll use CBU-105 and kill them by the bushel and not be at risk to any ground threat accept large SAMs. Tanks in fixed positions? Well, an F-15 can ( and has in combat ) carry up to 9 GBU-12s. I'll prefer an F-15E any day of the week with all the gear it can carry. A few less GBU-12s on it and 4-8 SDBs and I am set. The furture looks even brighter with JCM years from now ( smaller yet longer range than Maverick with a tri-sensor ) and any kind of duel use ( LGB/GPS_INS ) PGM.

The gun on the A-10 is nice, but facing a real hardcore defensive force, if you can shoot it, IT and everything around "it" can shoot at you.

I like: "I can touch you, but you can't touch me, .... in near any weather" which NCW along with PGMs provides. It takes all ground threats accept large SAMs right out of the picture. Once we clean up large SAMs, we can kill at leasure, pound the enemy, and use ground troops later vs. a totally thrashed enemy.

I don't think A-10 will ever go away. It is a nice tool in the tool bag. More so IMHO for COIN work. Just be prepared to bury a lot of unservicable airframes in the ground in_theater like we did in Desert Strorm, if A-10 has to go up against a real conventional force enemy with all kinds of air defense fun things to pick it off.... and some of those new ( Chinese as one example ) heaters don't much care if you punch off some flares anyway.... they can get you.

With what we have now, we can ( and have ) murder any conventional enemy armor division with fixed wing air, and not even use the A-10 ( which means LESS air crew risk also ).

elp wrote:

Need some guidance from Habu. How far do you want to take this thread?

I dunno, as far as it'll go I guess. I had no preconceived goals, I just started it because Gums suggested so. It's been good discussion so far though.

Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

A-10: Last of the non-gold-plated aircraft... and others...