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The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com

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Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#61

Post by GunboatDiplomat »

55acdda48ab5 wrote: post #44
dforrestwilson1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a real moral dilemma for me. I served in the military, and the A-10 is simply the best manned aircraft we have for CAS. However, I also hate the defense lobby. One one hand there's probably a job interest in keeping the A-10 running. Mac Thornberry has taken campaign donations from lots of defense contractors, including some related to the A-10: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/pacs.php?cycle=2016&c...…

> the A-10 fleet as ground-piloted drones. This is just a super expensive and failure prone way to do what 100 year old artillery technology does. Site the enemy, call in artillery fire. Drone techno fetishism is a big problem right now. Most of this stuff does not work nearly as well as people are pretending it does.

Artillery has a range measured in the tens of miles (discounting MLRS and ATACMS). Drones have a range measured in the hundreds of miles.

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#62

Post by dragonwriter »

dingaling wrote: post #48
dragonwriter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people that actually have to support and operate it don't want it, the people whose mission it supports but who don't bear the support burden do want it. In each case, there are structural biases that favor those decisions even if they aren't right on balance.

The Army has indicated repeatedly that it is willing to bear the support burden for tasks that are important to it. For example, the Caribou and more recently the C-27 light transports that were taken from them and reallocated. In 1960s the US Army was investigating organic fast-moving CAS aircraft, they tested the F-5A, G.91 and A-4 but were told that it was unacceptable. They even faced restrictions on arming the O…

Still, they don't have the experience of supporting it, and there's plenty of evidence that that prosuces a bias to discount the burden. That said, I've addressed the Key West agreements elsewhere in this thread: they aren't a constraint when we're talking about Congressional options. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11601834

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#63

Post by GunboatDiplomat »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #59
GunboatDiplomat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, you tell the soldiers and marines who are currently on the ground and fighting that we're getting rid of what is, for them, the most effective solution. Until we're actually not fighting these wars, it's best to keep the most effective weapons to fight them around.

You could also tell them 'hey we're bringing you back home to the States' and I think that would help the medicine go down.

But that's not going to happen. So... we're back to "do the job with sufficient equipment," or "do the job without sufficient equipment."

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#64

Post by GunboatDiplomat »

dragonwriter wrote: post #37
hosh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever read USAF Col. John Boyd's biography? He developed of maneuver warfare and pretty much invented warfighter doctrine adopted by all the modern air forces around the world. He generalized his ideas, and it became a core part of US Marines doctrine. However, the generals in charge of the USAF rejected his ideas. In their minds, you have Boyd was the one who pushed to developed the F-16 based around the ideas maneuv…

The Key West Agreement isn't like the Constitution. Honestly, if CAS is important to the Army and Congress thinks the Army knows better than the Air Force how to handle CAS, then the Congress could (and if actually considered about effectiveness, should) transfer the mission, equipment, and personnel to the Army.

They really should do it. It's not like the Army isn't already operating the world's largest fleet of combat helicopters.

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#65

Post by Turing_Machine »

Retric wrote: post #15
the_ancient wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it is arbitrary definition you are making I fail to see how that is different than simply coming to congress with "We protect America now give us a trillion dollars of stolen money you pried from the citizens and do not dare ask us how we will spend it" I think every damn screw the military buys should be heavily scrutinized by someone outside the military, maybe congress is not the right venue but the idea that t…

Tools != goals. The A-10 is not useful to the modern US military. If congress wants to fund something better great, but as it stands the A-10 is simply wasting Money. It's like congress is funding muskets from the revolutionary war.

"The A-10 is not useful to the modern US military."

The Army and Marine Corps disagree. Strongly.

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#66

Post by Turing_Machine »

rangibaby wrote: post #40
vinceguidry wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as we're making comparisons to infantry weaponry, the M16 rifle is nine years older than the A-10 Warthog.

M16 has been replaced by the M4. Some designs are so good they continue to be used actively eg the 1911 or M2. Variants of the original AK-47 are still used, even in Russia(!) where it is considered a superior weapon in urban warfare because it can penetrate cover better than more modern, smaller bullets. I think the A-10's future potential is unclear. It is theoretically extremely vulnerable to modern anti-air missi…

Some designs are so good they continue to be used actively eg the 1911 or M2.

The B-52 design dates back to the 1940s, with the first flight occurring in 1952.

The Air Force is planning to keep those well into the 2040s. I believe one of the current B-52 pilots is the grandson of one of the original pilots.

Not messing with success is often a good plan.

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#67

Post by dragonwriter »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #65
Retric wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools != goals. The A-10 is not useful to the modern US military. If congress wants to fund something better great, but as it stands the A-10 is simply wasting Money. It's like congress is funding muskets from the revolutionary war.

"The A-10 is not useful to the modern US military." The Army and Marine Corps disagree. Strongly.

The Army and Marine Corps don't operate the A-10. Conversely, the Air Force isn't responsible for what the A-10 supports. Institutionally, the first two are structurallt biased to discount the burden and the latter to discount the benefit of the A-10. In principle, the DoD has structures that should be better at resolving that than going through the services independently, but there's also a good case to be made that the mission the A-10 does ought to be moved into the services (or just one of them) that do ground combat.

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#68

Post by Turing_Machine »

dragonwriter wrote: post #67
Turing_Machine wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The A-10 is not useful to the modern US military." The Army and Marine Corps disagree. Strongly.

The Army and Marine Corps don't operate the A-10. Conversely, the Air Force isn't responsible for what the A-10 supports. Institutionally, the first two are structurallt biased to discount the burden and the latter to discount the benefit of the A-10. In principle, the DoD has structures that should be better at resolving that than going through the services independently, but there's also a good case to be made that…

The Army and Marine Corps don't operate the A-10.

They've expressed interest in taking it over, many times. The Air Force won't hear of it, of course. They don't want to do the mission, but neither do they want anyone else to do the mission.

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#69

Post by cstross »

55acdda48ab5 wrote: post #45
cstross wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution here is to get rid of the A-10 and simply not do "nation building" and counter-insurgency in poor countries. Or not to get into wars in the first place; then you could give up having an Air Force at all, right? Seriously, "stop doing COIN in poor countries" is a political solution that requires a top-down policy change that goes counter to the entire historical direction of US military involvement since…

> "stop doing COIN in poor countries" is a political solution that requires a top-down policy change Yeah? That was my whole point. You make it sound like it's crazy. It's the most sensible course.

In the abstract, yes, it's the most sensible course. Unfortunately, from where I'm watching (hint: not an American) it looks like the State Department has an ad-hoc de-facto promotion track whereby you can't make it to the top unless you've got a proven record of running a short, victorious war. Not that this is official policy or anything so formally clear-cut -- it's more like an emergent property of the institution itself, and the priorities that the bureaucracy has evolved to service -- but you don't get to become SecState unless you're a hawk and the best way to acquire hawk credentials is to "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business" as Michael Ledeen put it (according to Jonah Goldberg).

(Tertiary source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen )

Re: The A-10 Warthog May Be Kept Out of Retirement by Law

#70

Post by Retric »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #65
Retric wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools != goals. The A-10 is not useful to the modern US military. If congress wants to fund something better great, but as it stands the A-10 is simply wasting Money. It's like congress is funding muskets from the revolutionary war.

"The A-10 is not useful to the modern US military." The Army and Marine Corps disagree. Strongly.

Nope, http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/02/25/army-not-interested-in-tak.... Army not interested in the A-10.

"close-air support is not a plane, it’s a mission.”

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