Salute!
Thanks for the defense at the other blog/news site,
Marauder. The comments had a few accurate views, but an awful lotta a "I love the Hog/hate the Stubbie" posts.
From a pure employment/tactical viewpoint, I take issue with the initial comments by this CAS veteran who actually flew the plane and was not an armchair Playstation expert.
I only had about 600 combat hours and 400 missions, but I feel qualified to throw my 2 cents into the pot. I supported the grunts on most of those missions, and I can tell you that unless you are in the sandbox, or an urban area with tracers flying about, then you ain't gonna see the enema without lottsa help from the grunts.
Anyone who’s been around ground combat knows F-35s, F-22s and legacy fast jets are far too fast and lack the close in maneuverability to be able detect camouflaged threats to our troops or to separate friend from foe in a highly fluid firefight. Fast jets are equally handicapped when it comes to delivering meaningful close support in rugged terrain (with confusing target elevations) or under the low overcasts prevalent in Eastern Europe or China.
- try to detect the ZSU-23/4 in the treeline if he ain't firing, just try ....... Ditto for armor, heavy or light. The IR Maverick was a cosmic improvement, and the IR helped more than you can believe. Otherwise, strafe was more effective if you were pointed fairly close to the enema position or the grunts had a good smoke to use on your run in and acquisition. The IR allowed you to pick up a tgt from a few miles instead of 4,000 feet or so.
- you don't need a lotta maneuverability with a computed bombing system as we had in the Sluf and have in the Viper to this day. The Hog didn't get help until the 90's, and I do not think it is still as good as the Viper. Just think! We had a cosmic system in the Sluf in 1970 and it proved itself in combat and.....
- the Sluf and Viper computed delivery system for dumb bombs determines the tgt elevation using the forward looking radar and allows for the hills and ridges and...... If the radar was tits up, the grunts usually knew their elevation and we could manually enter it and use the baro mode for very accurate hits. In fact, until we went to combat with full-up systems like the forward-looking radar, many of us were baro bombers as it was a bit more stable. So when bombing as the enema is crawling over the fence, baro is as good as using the FLR to solve the geometry. When we got to Korat and went into the highlands of 'nam and Laos, the FLR proved itself when hitting ridge tops and hills.
- I routinely dropped very accurate dumb bombs under overcasts that the Huns, Thuds and Double Uglies could not handle. And the Hog would have been like the A-37 and A-1. One day my wingie and I dropped from a bit under 1,000 feet level and then turned to avoid the frags. Until the mid to late 90's the Hog could not do that
We then look at basing. Hmmm....
The Pacific would be a disaster for the Hog due to time over tgt from a suitable field. They are not gonna crank out 2 or 3 sorties a day from some dirt runway 60 or 70 miles away from that "fast-moving" mobile enemy force. And who are the grunts that are being overrun?
At Korat we could get to the friendly camp or downed pilot so much faster than the A-1 could, that the helo folks had to launch and fly to a holding point until we located the survivor for a pickup. We were twice as fast as the A-37, which was about like the Hog in terms of cruise speed, although still faster than the A-1.
Let's face it, we ain't gonna have a lotta success in a land war over in the Pacific using runways close to the "fast-moving" enemy.
Every scenario over there scares the hell outta me and everybody I know that flew attack missions in combat.
Oh well, the Hog lover has some good points about a very few scenarios, as do his supporters. OTOH, I would rather fly a plane that didn't heve to be built to "take the hits", wouldn't you?
If I had the money I would retain two wings of Hogs and give them the best computed weapon delivery and navigation systems out there - kinda like what we had in the A-7 vs A-10 flyoff back in 1974, heh heh. But at what cost? And what scenario?
Gums sends...