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The GAU-8 30mm is overkill against anything except a tank. There are much better AT missiles now than in the 70s, and the west won't often need to fight proper tank armies.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The GAU-8 30mm is overkill against anything except a tank. There are much better AT missiles now than in the 70s, and the west won't often need to fight proper tank armies.

The GAU-8, its not the chain gun that Dakka deserves, its the chain gun that Dakka needs...

 djones520 wrote:
Problem is that F-15E's are limited in numbers already, and we won't be getting anymore. Plus A-10's are single seat aircraft as well.

Yes, they are, which we've learned is suboptimal for strike aircraft.

 Seaward wrote:

 djones520 wrote:
Problem is that F-15E's are limited in numbers already, and we won't be getting anymore. Plus A-10's are single seat aircraft as well.

Yes, they are, which we've learned is suboptimal for strike aircraft.

Yet, they are the optimal aircraft.

Plenty of very successful strike aircraft have been single seaters. It clearly is not the most important factor.

 djones520 wrote:
Yet, they are the optimal aircraft.

Due pretty much exclusively to their loiter ability.

We feth up less at CAS when we've got two guys in the cockpit. There's no real getting around that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Plenty of very successful strike aircraft have been single seaters. It clearly is not the most important factor.

Don't recall saying it was.

You mentioned that specifically, rather than many other factors that may be important. It's reasonable to suppose you consider it of considerable, perhaps overriding significance.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You mentioned that specifically, rather than many other factors that may be important. It's reasonable to suppose you consider it of considerable, perhaps overriding significance.

I consider it important, but it's not the single defining characteristic of a great strike aircraft.

 Seaward wrote:
Yes, it makes quite a bit of difference. And the 'budget crisis' is entirely fictional, so we don't need to go removing some of the most useful aircraft in the inventory. This is designed to get Congress to ditch the sequester. It won't work, but it's a good try.

Sure, the whole sequester thing is an artificial crisis, but even if you get rid of that you still have the fundamental problem that we're spending way more than revenue should allow. We still have to make sensible spending cuts, and inevitably some of that will have to come from the military. I don't have any problem with the A-10 specifically, I'm just wondering if it's really something we need, or if it's a case of the military insisting on having a blank check to buy the absolute best of everything no matter what the cost.

So I guess the question here is if the A-10 is that much better than competing ground attack options what should be cut instead?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Seaward wrote:
Yes, it makes quite a bit of difference. And the 'budget crisis' is entirely fictional, so we don't need to go removing some of the most useful aircraft in the inventory. This is designed to get Congress to ditch the sequester. It won't work, but it's a good try.

Sure, the whole sequester thing is an artificial crisis, but even if you get rid of that you still have the fundamental problem that we're spending way more than revenue should allow. We still have to make sensible spending cuts, and inevitably some of that will have to come from the military. I don't have any problem with the A-10 specifically, I'm just wondering if it's really something we need, or if it's a case of the military insisting on having a blank check to buy the absolute best of everything no matter what the cost.

So I guess the question here is if the A-10 is that much better than competing ground attack options what should be cut instead?

We've experienced a cut of 20% in the last year alone, with equivalent amounts expected over the next 9 years. What more should be cut? They're already talking cutting 25% of the Marines and Army's man power. I'd appreciate it if some of the rest of the government could take some cuts for a change, instead of constantly axing us while everyone else grows.

Eliminate the Army.
Give Marines Power Swords and Terminator Armor.

Let the Great Crusade begin!

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, the whole sequester thing is an artificial crisis, but even if you get rid of that you still have the fundamental problem that we're spending way more than revenue should allow. We still have to make sensible spending cuts, and inevitably some of that will have to come from the military. I don't have any problem with the A-10 specifically, I'm just wondering if it's really something we need, or if it's a case of the military insisting on having a blank check to buy the absolute best of everything no matter what the cost.

So I guess the question here is if the A-10 is that much better than competing ground attack options what should be cut instead?

There aren't any other similar pure ground attack options to cut. We don't really build a lot of single-mission aircraft anymore.

If something absolutely has to go, the A-10's not a bad call, but I'd contend that something doesn't absolutely have to go.

 Seaward wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, the whole sequester thing is an artificial crisis, but even if you get rid of that you still have the fundamental problem that we're spending way more than revenue should allow. We still have to make sensible spending cuts, and inevitably some of that will have to come from the military. I don't have any problem with the A-10 specifically, I'm just wondering if it's really something we need, or if it's a case of the military insisting on having a blank check to buy the absolute best of everything no matter what the cost.

So I guess the question here is if the A-10 is that much better than competing ground attack options what should be cut instead?

There aren't any other similar pure ground attack options to cut. We don't really build a lot of single-mission aircraft anymore.

If something absolutely has to go, the A-10's not a bad call, but I'd contend that something doesn't absolutely have to go.

I thought the beauty of the A-10 platform is that it's also cheap. If any cuts needs to happen, look for other spendy toys.

 whembly wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, the whole sequester thing is an artificial crisis, but even if you get rid of that you still have the fundamental problem that we're spending way more than revenue should allow. We still have to make sensible spending cuts, and inevitably some of that will have to come from the military. I don't have any problem with the A-10 specifically, I'm just wondering if it's really something we need, or if it's a case of the military insisting on having a blank check to buy the absolute best of everything no matter what the cost.

So I guess the question here is if the A-10 is that much better than competing ground attack options what should be cut instead?

There aren't any other similar pure ground attack options to cut. We don't really build a lot of single-mission aircraft anymore.

If something absolutely has to go, the A-10's not a bad call, but I'd contend that something doesn't absolutely have to go.

I thought the beauty of the A-10 platform is that it's also cheap. If any cuts needs to happen, look for other spendy toys.

11 mil, compaired to the F-16's 18 mil, and the F-35's 200 mil...

 whembly wrote:
I thought the beauty of the A-10 platform is that it's also cheap. If any cuts needs to happen, look for other spendy toys.

It's cheap, but it needs upgrades. It's still basically a 1960s-era cockpit, it can't drop JDAMs, etc. Scrapping the upgrades and scrapping the plane entirely would save a few billion at a time when the budget's getting slashed.

 Seaward wrote:

 whembly wrote:
I thought the beauty of the A-10 platform is that it's also cheap. If any cuts needs to happen, look for other spendy toys.

It's cheap, but it needs upgrades. It's still basically a 1960s-era cockpit, it can't drop JDAMs, etc. Scrapping the upgrades and scrapping the plane entirely would save a few billion at a time when the budget's getting slashed.

Uh... yes it can.

 djones520 wrote:
Uh... yes it can.

Did they finally work that out, then? Last I heard of it, they'd put the upgrade on hold. That was, admittedly, years ago.

They weren't chucking them in 2007, that's for sure.

 djones520 wrote:
We've experienced a cut of 20% in the last year alone, with equivalent amounts expected over the next 9 years. What more should be cut?

Lots, because we're still spending 39% of the entire world's military spending.



This is obscene and well past unsustainable. It's time to finally start winding down some of the corporate welfare that this represents.

I understand that you have a vested interest in disagreeing with this notion, and I respect that we're not going to be able to convince each other on this,

 Ouze wrote:
Lots, because we're still spending 39% of the entire world's military spending.

True, but that's because we like a military that's actually capable of doing things.

 Seaward wrote:
True, but that's because we like a military that's actually capable of doing things.

Sure, everyone likes that thought. But the simple fact is that we're spending money we don't have to buy that ability.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, everyone likes that thought. But the simple fact is that we're spending money we don't have to buy that ability.

We have the money. There's plenty of other stuff we could cut without ever touching the defense budget.

 Seaward wrote:
We have the money. There's plenty of other stuff we could cut without ever touching the defense budget.

I don't think you're going to be able to come up with a plausible balanced budget that doesn't include cuts to military spending, especially if you want to fix problems like our failure of an educational system, our crumbling infrastructure, etc.

 Seaward wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, everyone likes that thought. But the simple fact is that we're spending money we don't have to buy that ability.

We have the money. There's plenty of other stuff we could cut without ever touching the defense budget.

Where?

Because the military gets far more funding than the rest of our government combined.

I don't like the idea of our military funding being lowered, but I'm sure there is PLENTY of spending that could be cut with minimal pain (cough F35 cough)

 Peregrine wrote:
So, serious question: considering only the wars that we can expect to fight between now and when the A-10s are scrapped because of fatigue problems, what exactly does the A-10 do that a drone or other plane can't? Or is this a case of needing X ground attack planes and only having X if we keep all of the A-10s?

The only problem I can see with the A-10 is that the airframe is getting old, and as with any aviation assets, the older it gets the more expensive it is to maintain. I would hate to see the A10 go without a proper replacement.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Where?

Because the military gets far more funding than the rest of our government combined.

I don't like the idea of our military funding being lowered, but I'm sure there is PLENTY of spending that could be cut with minimal pain (cough F35 cough)

I'd start with most social programs, personally.

But the F-35 isn't going anywhere. Everyone's got way too much invested in it to simply dump it. It's in a sucktastic state now, especially the C, but in twenty years it's going to be incredible.

 Seaward wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Where?

Because the military gets far more funding than the rest of our government combined.

I don't like the idea of our military funding being lowered, but I'm sure there is PLENTY of spending that could be cut with minimal pain (cough F35 cough)

I'd start with most social programs, personally.

But the F-35 isn't going anywhere. Everyone's got way too much invested in it to simply dump it. It's in a sucktastic state now, especially the C, but in twenty years it's going to be incredible.

I guess we see, but us in the Army aviation community thought the same thing about the Commache, and we all know where that ended up.

 Seaward wrote:

The AT-6 got kicked out of the Light Air Support program a few years ago. The Air Force went with the A-29 (Super Tucano) from Embraer. Think we're buying only like 10 of them, though.
.

A crying shame really, an American made aircraft with a proven track record and we pick up some BS from the Brazilians that does the job worse from the stats I've seen. Typical airforce. Why be sensible when you can spend money?

 Seaward wrote:
30mm's nice, but 20mm does the job as well. The A-10's good, even great, but it's also been a tad mythologized. I think we ought to keep it, but I also don't think it'd be the end of the world if we didn't. Strike Eagles and Rhinos can do the CAS job (because you want two guys in the jet on strikes, anyway), and the new Harvest HAWK stuff the Marines are messing around with looks pretty promising for more unconventional solutions.

Personal experience as a Marine C-130 crew chief, the Harvest Hawk program is the best possible set up you can get without purchasing mission built AC-130Us. Which the Commandant looked at said "Hell with that" and told the boys in the Mech yard to get out some speed wrenches and get creative. A 40mm Bofors cannon and plenty of hell fire missiles is a lot of "feth you" that we can put on target, AND our KC-130Js remain multirole and can be swapped to do an entirely different mission like say aerial refueling in... I think a buddy in the program said 45 minutes to an hour turn around? Probably faster now, it's nuts

 Supertony51 wrote:
I guess we see, but us in the Army aviation community thought the same thing about the Commache, and we all know where that ended up.

Sure, but the Comanche got nowhere near as far along as the F-35. The Air Force, Navy, and Marines are already flying it.

There's a lot about it I don't like - I still think a single engine solution's a bad idea for naval aviation, and we learned the gun pod lesson with the Phantom in Vietnam, but apparently decided to learn it all over again with the F-35 - but a lot of what it brings to the table is light years ahead of fourth gen stuff. I kind of regret that I'll never get to fly it.

 Seaward wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
Where?

Because the military gets far more funding than the rest of our government combined.

I don't like the idea of our military funding being lowered, but I'm sure there is PLENTY of spending that could be cut with minimal pain (cough F35 cough)

I'd start with most social programs, personally.

But the F-35 isn't going anywhere. Everyone's got way too much invested in it to simply dump it. It's in a sucktastic state now, especially the C, but in twenty years it's going to be incredible.

Most of those social programs are a drop in the bucket compared to the military budget. At the pace we're at it just doesn't strike me as sustainable.

It would be like if I bought a $100,000 Ferrari and justified it by cutting down on my cable package.

Glad to see there are many other service members on this forum


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Seaward wrote:

 Supertony51 wrote:
I guess we see, but us in the Army aviation community thought the same thing about the Commache, and we all know where that ended up.

Sure, but the Comanche got nowhere near as far along as the F-35. The Air Force, Navy, and Marines are already flying it.

There's a lot about it I don't like - I still think a single engine solution's a bad idea for naval aviation, and we learned the gun pod lesson with the Phantom in Vietnam, but apparently decided to learn it all over again with the F-35 - but a lot of what it brings to the table is light years ahead of fourth gen stuff. I kind of regret that I'll never get to fly it.

Funny thing is that I got to lay my hands on the Commache prototype while attending ALC at FT.Eustis. To think of the billions of dollars spent and its a shell sitting in the elements.