Why is the F-35 replacing the A-10?

[steve2267]

Oh, ok.

[vilters]

Why the F-35 will replace the A-10?? ?

What a question . . The correct answer is :
IS has infiltrated our system and are protecting their assets.


Those big BANG-BOEM bullets hurt you know….

[tailchase]

Only 3 planes were downed by ZSU during GW1 (not counting damaged)

[Gums]

Salute!

Good point, tailchase. And most were IR missiles, so altitude must have been a biggie.

Our losses were an order of magnitude lower than SEA, maybe two orders of magnitude. Some was due to tactics we developed, some due to SEAD equipment/weapons and different planes.

But the biggie I saw in 'raqi I was lack of training and practice by the enemy. And they weren't much better in 2003. Face it, the Vee had more practice shooting at us than we had shooting at them, LOL. They had 3 or 4 straight years, then dusted off their stuff and didn't take long to come back in 1972. In the meanwhile, they prolly moved their gunnery training to the Trail, then back to Hanoi and Haiphong in 72. Closest friendly forces saw to that was WW2 over the Reich.

Gums sends...

[ricnunes]

But the biggie I saw in 'raqi I was lack of training and practice by the enemy.

I not sure if I agree with you with the part above which I quoted. (or at least fully agree with it)
I would say that Iraqi forces during Desert Storm were actually very experienced forces since and afterall they were engaged in an open and conventional war against Iran whose main weaponry came precisely from the USA as well as their training (from the times when the Shah Reza Pahlavi ruled Iran). They even had experience fighting against Iranian F-14s managing to shoot down some of these (quite advanced at that time) aircraft. This was of course the Iran-Iraq war which lasted 8 years from 1980-1988 (which ended 3 years before the beginning of Desert Storm).

However I do agree with you that training was definitely better on the US and coalition (specially with NATO members such as the UK) side compared to Iraqi forces but the experience/practice was IMO better on the Iraqi side.
So, I would say that some of the reasons for the overwhelming superiority from the US/Coalition side were (and in not any particular order):
1- Training (or better training).
2- Technological superiority. Just as small comparison: F-14s, F-15s, F-16s, F/A-18s versus Mig-21s, Mig-23s, Mig-25s and Mig-29s (the later were old -A models). IMO, this says it all!
3- Numerical superiority, specially and namely in terms of Air Power. So the US was not only superior to Iraq in terms of technology but it also had the numerical advantage in terms of combat aircraft.

Finally, I do agree when you say that "they [Iraqi] weren't much better in 2003". Yes, that seems to be a fact which IMO is not odd at all since the sanctions that Iraq suffered after Desert Storm basically "dilapidated" their armed forces, both in terms of equipment itself and likely in training as well.

[Gums]

Salute!

Did the Iraqi air defense folks shoot at 200 planes attacking every day or two or 3 or 4 years?

Did they know the time and attack corridor of the enemy?

I can't find a lotta stuff about the Iraq vs Iran air war, but I'll let the results in 1991 stand for the argument.

Gums sends...

[ricnunes]

Salute!

Did the Iraqi air defense folks shoot at 200 planes attacking every day or two or 3 or 4 years?

Well, the US Air Forces (which also includes USN and USMC of course) over Vietnam were far superior numerically speaking compared to the Iranian Air Force during the Iran-Iraq war, so it's no surprise that such scale raids/attacks likely happened much more often over Vietnam compared to Iran-Iraq.
However and even still, Iraqi forces did face Iranian attacks which involved around 200 Iranian planes such as this (Operation Kaman 99):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Kaman_99

[XanderCrews]

Why the F-35 will replace the A-10?? ?

What a question . . The correct answer is :
IS has infiltrated our system and are protecting their assets.


Those big BANG-BOEM bullets hurt you know….

Wut??

[XanderCrews]

But the biggie I saw in 'raqi I was lack of training and practice by the enemy.

I not sure if I agree with you with the part above which I quoted. (or at least fully agree with it)
I would say that Iraqi forces during Desert Storm were actually very experienced forces since and afterall they were engaged in an open and conventional war against Iran whose main weaponry came precisely from the USA as well as their training (from the times when the Shah Reza Pahlavi ruled Iran). They even had experience fighting against Iranian F-14s managing to shoot down some of these (quite advanced at that time) aircraft. This was of course the Iran-Iraq war which lasted 8 years from 1980-1988 (which ended 3 years before the beginning of Desert Storm).

The Allies in 1991 flew more sorties in 1 night than all 8 years combined of Iranian sorties. That sounds like a brag or an exaggeration, but it's not. It's a fact

[ricnunes]

The Allies in 1991 flew more sorties in 1 night than all 8 years combined of Iranian sorties. That sounds like a brag or an exaggeration, but it's not. It's a fact

I believe that's probably a bit of an exaggeration, yes (but I could be wrong).
But if you say that the Allies flew much more sorties in the month that the war (Desert Storm) lasted compared to Iranian sorties during the 8 years of Iran-Iraq war then I would certainly believe in that.

However my point was/is:
- The Iraqi air defenses did have considerably/extensive war experience. And in terms of actual war experience - namely on the Air Defense perspective - the Iraqis had more than the Allies/Coalition.

However the Iraqi war experience was far from enough to counter an enemy which was:
- more technologically advanced;
- had numerical superiority;
- had much better training.

[botsing]

Horner's comments about the A-10's in GW1 gives away an important clue:

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

http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArch ... orner.aspx

So the regular Iraqi forces were game for the A-10 but versus the better trained and equipped Republican Guard it quickly showed its weak side.

IIRC they were pulled from attacking the Republican Guard when two A-10's were shot down on the same day (February 15th 1991).

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

More of that quote should say something along the lines of he walked down his flight line and could see daylight through every single plane.

[ricnunes]

Horner's comments about the A-10's in GW1 gives away an important clue:

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

http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArch ... orner.aspx

So the regular Iraqi forces were game for the A-10 but versus the better trained and equipped Republican Guard it quickly showed its weak side.

IIRC they were pulled from attacking the Republican Guard when two A-10's were shot down on the same day (February 15th 1991).

That's a very interesting information indeed botsing which personally I didn't know and so, thanks for sharing it!

So even in 1991 the A-10 was not much of a match for the Iraqi best equipped and trained units (Republican Guard) so the F-16s were sent after these best units.
Well, I guess that goes in line what some of us (me including) have been arguing here

Just as a side note there's something that I believe I've mentioned in the past (but probably not in this thread):
- I enjoy playing combat flight simulations on PC, namely two of them (relevant I believe for this discussion) which are Falcon BMS (F-16 Block 50/52 sim) and DCS A-10C (which implicitly is an A-10C sim). Both these sims are considered to be the most realistic combat flight simulations ever made for a PC.
But everytime I played a campaign mission on DCS A-10C - which models an hypothetical conflict on Georgia where Russian forces are trying to invade Georgia while US/NATO forces are trying to defend Georgia and as expected, the player's role as an A-10C pilot is to engage Russian ground forces (usually armored) where most missions are CAS types but there are also a few other types as of missions well (such as destroying bridges near the Frontline) - I ended up needing to call supporting SEAD and CAP flights since the Russians forces in the sim are well equipped with advanced air defenses such as Tunguska's and SA-15 and various types of combat aircraft (such as Mig-29, Su-27s, etc...).
And also everytime I played this campaign, I ended up asking myself (many times unconsciously) the following: Why am I doing this with an A-10C when I could be doing this with a F-16?

[XanderCrews]

The Allies in 1991 flew more sorties in 1 night than all 8 years combined of Iranian sorties. That sounds like a brag or an exaggeration, but it's not. It's a fact

I believe that's probably a bit of an exaggeration, yes (but I could be wrong).
But if you say that the Allies flew much more sorties in the month that the war (Desert Storm) lasted compared to Iranian sorties during the 8 years of Iran-Iraq war then I would certainly believe in that.

Fact. Atkinson, Crusade. Published 1996.


Its thousands of airplanes in 1991 vs a relative handful of post revolution Iranian birds.

[botsing]

Fact. Atkinson, Crusade. Published 1996.


Its thousands of airplanes in 1991 vs a relative handful of post revolution Iranian birds.

Day one of the air campaign of GW1 had 2759 combat sorties:

https://books.google.nl/books?id=yPMjNr ... es&f=false