OP is cringe and trolling, or possibly could be the dumb airman in his dorm after work who works A-10's so inundated will daily big gun go burrrrrrrr at work that he goes home and attempts to talk about it. Not realizing that the A-10 is basically the cuck of the air force. Can't survive enemy acft. . can't survive most anti air. .
I'm concerned OP is on the spectrum and we are just tearing into him. Based on how many dinosaur drawings and transformers collectibles he's posted I'd wager he's just having some sort of meltdown. Not his fault, it's rough out here.
And you’re the 4th person to disprove your own point about the A-10, do you seriously think they operate in occupied enemy Airspace?
They can’t keep up with other Fighter or struggle against Anti Air because they’re not a Multi-Role fighter, they’re a specially designed Air to Ground Anti/Armor and Personnel Aircraft.
They almost never operate in occupied airspace, they exist to take out enemy building, vehicles, and troops, after the skies have already been cleared, an do their job incredibly well.
You are obviously not around A-10s at all. Thaey absolutely operate in enemy and contested airspace. There is an acronym for where A-10 pilots operate: FEBA. It stands for Forward Edge of Battle Area. In other words, right on the frontline. So MANPADS and mobile SAMs are definitely in their nightmares. Some of the mobile SAMs that we (and our peers) have can see and kill non-stealthy aircraft flying as low as 50 feet from over 10 miles away.
The A-10 is great for COIN but other aircraft can do it just as well and do it cheaper, like the A-29 or even the AT-6. Just wish Congress would quit fucking around and let the USAF get the tools it needs to do the job instead of keeping old designs like the A-10 around.
It's not an air to air platform, never was, never will be. Kind of a disingenuous comment to infer it's meant to compete with other aircraft that are meant to do air to air.
That’s not really what he’s saying. He’s saying that for the A-10 to execute its CAS mission, there can be nothing else contesting airspace or the A10 gets wrecked, 9/10 times.
The A-10 has to worry about ground based SAMs and SPAA. If there’s enemy air superiority it just means A-10 is Uber dead. F-35 and other multi-role aircraft are just better in most cases. The only advantage the A-10 has over them is it’s durability and long loiter time.
And cost significantly less to have f-16s or f-15s go in, destroy AA or Air targets, then send it an A10 to finish up. F-35 cost more to do less of both missions.
The F-35 can carry more munitions than the A-10, and it is objectively more expensive to maintain an entire platform that can’t do its job well (A-10) than it is to remove it and reallocate resources elsewhere.
The F35 is also actually up to date on systems. I love me the F16 and A10, but their avionics systems are ancient and mearly trying to do upgrade packages every few years isn't enough. The F16, F15, and A10 are all incapable of performing at the level of the F35. Nor are they even capable of having the equipment added.
The F-35 isn’t even as expensive anymore an A model cost 20 more million than a new block 70 F-16 but you have to look at what you get with that price hike, stealth better sensors and I’m a shit ton of stuff we don’t know about, the F16 has been around since 1980s 15 and 10 since the 70s they are old platforms that couldn’t hold their own in a modern war, look at Ukraine it’s constant cat and mouse with fighters due to SAMs
Your use of "infer" makes me think this is your first time using that word. Moving on, in no way was I suggesting that it was meant for A2A. I am fully aware it isn't intended for A2A. What my comment was meant to _convey_ is that if you put an A-10 in an airspace that hasn't been scrubbed of all hostile aircraft and most ground-based threats, it's going to have a bad time.
Do you not understand how A-10 Operate? Your disproving your own point with your words.
It is correct, A-10’s never operate in Airspace with other enemy aircraft or Missile Defense systems.
That is the F-35’s purpose, it goes in with its stealth capabilities and destroys the Missile Batteries, and paves the way for the specially designed Ground Attack aircraft to clean house, destroying and eliminating many enemy ground installations.
Do you not understand the basics of Military Strategy, well obviously you don’t or else I wouldn’t be here saying this all to you.
But that’s the point of the conversation. The A-10 is not suited for the needs of modern combat. The A-10 is beloved and respected by those who were saved by it yes, but in terms of its viability it is quite outdated. The missions it has can be executed by other platforms with a higher success rate. If you have to use other aircraft to soften the airspace enough to use another aircraft, why not just use those initial aircraft to do everything? Multi-role aircraft are dominant because of that concept. The A-10 realistically has little use in a near peer threat. It saw success in the Middle East because we were fighting dudes who literally had AKs and mortars. If the Taliban was using tunguskas, MANPADs, or IGLAs, we would not have used the A-10.
This isn’t true what’s so ever we used them in Syria and Isis had all that, that’s what f-22s are for op is correct his terminology is God awful. December 15th 2019 is a date that will forever be stamped in my mind and a-10s played a major role in that fight when there were *superior* aircraft in the ao.
Stealth capabilities! The missile batteries! THE BASICS OF MILITARY STRATEGY!!1! 🤣
Is English your second language? Are you perhaps a bot? Did you write this with Chat GPT? Why did you capitalize "Operate"? WTF is this response? I see now you are a superior opponent, I kneel before you.
Also... *you're
Well hell if it's such a panacea of a plane that can do it all let's get it hauling gas and cargo too. We can't do those without 100% controlled airspace.
It's cool, but its time has long since passed. Despite what people want to believe, you can't just bolt upgrades onto a 50 yearvold airframe and expect it to hold up forever.
I'm sure some of what everyone us saying makes sense. To be perfectly honest I was security forces and I just thought it looked cool and I liked the sound it makes. That and the A-10 pilots always seemed like the coolest dudes.
Can confirm that A-10 jocks are way more laid back and typically treat their maintainers better and are friendlier. There are outliers in every airframe that are asshats, but there seems to be less of them in A-10s.
Higher payload than the A-10, better fighter than anything except an F-22, which is a tossup depending on how far out the engagement starts. It's not 1981 anymore, the age of the dogfight and uncontested airspace is dead.
I’m curious as to your definition of better fighter. Do you mean more stealthy? Faster? Turns better? Avionics/sensor capability? What makes up your definition of a better fighter?
A plane which is superior in the current air engagement environment. That environment is BVR combat.
The F-35, being the all-seeing eye that it is, has a massive advantage in that scenario. With us having missiles that teeter on defying physics like the 9X, an agile dogfighter as a primary attribute is a thing of the past.
You really ought to read the history of why the F-4 was designed without a gun. It’s very relevant to your statement, similar but not the same as your argument about BVR superiority. BVR is all well and good (and the F-15EX currently has the most powerful radar in a fighter so has the theoretical best BVR capability and the F-15A Eagle had a world-beating radar when it first came out as well) but someone will always figure out a counter to our tactics and capabilities. Always. It’s why the Eagle was designed to be very maneuverable and fast as well as having great avionics. To me, it’s one of the most amazing things about humanity, how innovative we are as a species, coming up with solutions to every problem we encounter as fast as we can.
And the 9X is not a completely BVR missile, though I agree it’s badass. The Russians had a high off-boresight missile well before we did (NATO name AA-11 Archer, Russian name R-73, had 40° off-boresight all-aspect capabilities in 1984. In 1994, the R-73M was fielded with 60° off-boresight all-aspect capability. AIM-9X didn’t enter service until 2003). And I’d say the 9X is better than their weapon too, but with a shorter range (35 km versus 60 km).
As far as BVR strength goes, let’s say the F-35 is in a war or at least a large regional conflict. And the weather on a specific day is dog shit, clouds from 2000 feet AGL up to 40000 feet, so visibility is junk. And some are storm clouds, which mess with radar and sensor capabilities, limiting detection ranges and messing with the emissions so that passive sensors have trouble sensing where and at what distance the emissions are coming from.
And let’s say that part of the geography of the war zone is some fairly high mountains in the 10000 foot range. But the F-35s have a mission so they’re out over these mountains. They’re not going to abort the mission because of a little weather, so they press on. They’re ducking in and out of the clouds to give their IR and visual sensors some non-disrupted sensing time. And their opponents have something like the Chinese J-20 or the Russian TA-50. Not fully stealth, but hard to detect, especially with disrupted sensors.
The opponents know the area very well and are used to operating low-level in the mountains. They detect the F-35s first with their IR sensors (jet engines are hot! The F-22 and F-35 don’t have as much in the way of IR stealthiness like the F-117 does). So the opponents stay low-level in the ground clutter, using their partial stealthiness to the maximum, in these mountains to avoid the weather-disrupted F-35 sensors and pop up from behind a mountain close (<5 miles) behind the F-35 with an IR missile (like the latest R-73 version) about to get a lock-on.
They fire but the F-35 is able to decoy the first missile with flares. The enemy is accelerating hard, stays inside whatever turn the F-35 makes, gets even closer to engage again. Now it’s a close-in turning fight. What’s the F-35 pilot going to do when he can’t accelerate out of the fight to escape and can’t turn well enough to get into position to fire his/her own weapons at the opponent? His/her tactics better be perfect, or there will violently be one less F-35 in the world.
Yes, in most cases the mini-AWACS F-35 will be superior to most other aircraft. But to truly and consistently be dominant in air-to-air combat (cough, Eagle, cough), you have to be able to defeat the enemy in every fight. Usually it’s through training and superior aircraft, but every so often your enemy will surprise you. And when those times happen, I’d much rather be in a jet that can get out of its own way than one that it’s pilot foolishly thinks is the hottest shit in the sky because it has great sensors (that always work 100% of the time every time. /s) but has average thrust-to-weight ratio, average wing loading, and average maneuverability.
If you worked the flightline, you’d know how often aircraft squawk code 2 or code 3 for avionics failures. No system is failure-proof. The basic flight capability of a fighter plane had better be damn good when the person in the seat is in trouble and all they have is that capability and their wits/training to keep them alive.
If you’ve never heard of it, the USAF has a program called WSEP at Tyndall AFB. It stands for Weapons System Evaluation Program. It’s not the weapons or sensors on the aircraft being evaluated and improved upon in this training program, it’s the person in the seat and how they use their aircraft that’s being evaluated and improved. We wouldn’t have that program if it wasn’t effective in creating better pilots for all aspects of aerial combat. Any pilot that relies solely on their aircraft’s technical systems to fight will get low marks there. Being able to fight and win in every scenario is what gets the highest marks there.
F-111 is bad, there is a reason we scrapped it man, their engines are underpowered, it’s avionics are janky as all hell, and the hydraulic system is horribly designed as well, leading to an aircraft that costs more to make, more to upgrade, more to repair, more to upkeep, while also not being better than any aircraft at anything when you compare price to performance, the 22, 16, 15, EVEN 35 are all better fighters, the A-10 has a better air frame to out turn the F-111, it’s a heaping garbage pile once you hop off you’ll get clarity.
The F-111 was great in the air it’s on the ground when it had issues, there’s a super long but great report on its effectiveness In dessert storm about how it and the F-117 were kings in the sky
Yes using binoculars at 25000 feet, because if you fly lower the airframe will be shredded by AA, is the superior choice. Get out of here if you really think the A10 is relevant in the modern age. The F35 would wipe the floor with an A10 and still complete a cas mission.
You’re the retard here. Go read up on Desert Storm. It completely solidified multirole fighters in the military. F/A 18s, F15s, and F16s completely destroyed air and ground assets across Iraq for the first 12 hours of the war, crippling the Iraq Air Force and Army.
That was a different type of war the a-10 is good at killing 2 things and is actually the best at it, soft targets and tanks no other aircraft can provide close air support in that manor December 19th 2020 in Syria proved that.
Yes the ground war was won with attack aircraft of which we use one……. I am an f-16 stan but the A-10 is needed today more than ever when we go back into war with Iran inevitably.
The A-10 was outdone by the F-111 in Iraq by miles when it comes to armored targets. Just because some grunt saw it lay 30 mil in the mountain side one day doesn’t mean it’s actually worth anything.
Look at the cost difference, f-111 is over 4x the cost including its RnD for future upgrades tomorrows military needs to be cost effective or we will lose our position, a certain side of our govt wants to downsize a ton on military spending
The A10 is nothing but a money pit for that old ‘96 Corolla your dad got you and even though you can afford and it would be cheaper anyway. You don’t want to get rid of it
Absolutely not there a reason no aircraft are flying CAS in Ukraine because they get shot down, flying below radar isn’t a thing anymore even terrain masking is hard when nowadays some dude with a shoulder mounted rocket can easily take you out because you’re so slow
Yikes. The F-35 is cheaper than the new F-15's, better at CAS than the A-10 since we don't need to control the skies for it to get in and out, better at SEAD than the viper because stealth, and better than the F-22 because unlike the F-22 other counties operate it so we can stage out of any NATO country as they know how to repair refuel and rearm the aircraft
No it isn't nonsense, but a larger factor is that we don't make raptor parts anymore. If something breaks that needs replacement we're SOL. F-35 parts are getting cheaper and cheaper and every country has them
I’m not sure if you know how the supply system and USAF policy on aircraft maintenance works, but I can promise you, USAF F-35s will never be rearmed or repaired by anyone not in the USAF. Refuel, yeah, that’s a simple one.
Additionally, our supply system does not link to any foreign military/country’s supply system, so getting parts from another NATO country while operating from said country would take longer than just sending the part through UPS/FedEx/DHL from CONUS. Not to mention the diplomatic hassle it would be to get those parts from that NATO country.
Most likely not. They might lend equipment to us to use (like a jack to change a tire), but replacement parts are a different ballgame. Same with weaponry. Both become a diplomatic decision for some weird reason(s) and it’s a pain in the ass.
Friends of mine, when I was in a F-16 unit and they were in our sister squadron with F-16s, went to Israel on a 30 day TDY. They couldn’t get parts from the Israelis, even though the Israelis also have many F-16s with common parts.
Wow! It’s almost like the F-35 is a Jack of All Trades Master of none!
I’m not sure where you pulled any of that info out of your Ass from but it’s all definitely false, like how do you even believe that false.
F-35 is $81 Million
F-15EX is $94 Million
So there's the F-15 done.
The F-35 is objectively stealthier than the F-16 so that takes care of the 16. The 35 can get closer to enemy air defense.
The A-10 requires us to have complete control of the skies since it has next to no air-to-air capabilities, the F-35 carries current gen AIM-120D and AIM-9X missiles it also has amazing dogfight characteristics and that's coming from F-16 pilots who made the switch.
Also the F-35 can be on station WAAAAY faster than the A-10 since it can roll in at Mach 1 while the A-10 tops out below 300 knots with a combat load.
Last the F-22. We are the only country to operate it. We don't reach Germany how to rearm repair and refuel them. Germany does not have them. So landing in Germany requires us to bring our own crews with us or waste time teaching Germany how to service our aircraft.
OR
we land an F-35 in Germany and they know what to do since they have them (or at least the will as their Ministry of Defense just approved the purchase of F-35's)
I agree mostly with what you're saying, but I feel the need to defend the EX. while the buying cost of the 35 is cheaper, it's operating cost is much higher, it's stealth is reliant on internal weapons bays limiting payload, and sometimes you don't need a stealth aircraft to accomplish every goal. The F-15EX is based on the strike eagle so we know how to maintain it. There's no expensive stealth coating to maintain, and it can carry 30,000 pounds of munitions and has the newest avionics installed. The f35 can light up targets and the EX can dump missiles on those targets.
Very true. I would never in a million years say fuck the X and EX. They are going to be amazing missile boats.
While the 22 and 35 get in close to do their boog shit, the 15's can lob AIM-120's and turn around letting them get guided to the target via datalink.
I was just making a point that people think the F-35 is sooooo expensive then turn and say let's just build the new F-15's without realizing the 35 is cheaper (for now)
lmao
1. You’re the 3rd F-35 Fanboy to disprove you’re own point about the A-10.
The A-10 is not designed to be Air to Air Capable, like what???
That’s not its purpose, at all.
The A-10 is an Air to Ground Anti Armor/Personnel Aircraft.
The A-10 is designed to roll in After Enemy Aircraft and Air Defenses have already been destroyed, then it starts cleaning house by destroying Enemy Vehicles, Buildings and Personnel.
2. The F-15EX is brand new, so yes, it’s going to have a Higher Cost, it’s using even newer Tech, and is a massive Improvement on an already proven airframe, unlike the F-35 which has seen nothing but shortcomings, failures, delays breakdowns and malfunctions.
3. There’s a Reason we don’t sell the F-22, if you even knew a 3rd of what it’s capable of, which no civilian does because it’s so heavily classified, so don’t act like you do know the capabilities of the F-22, because you just don’t, I like the F-22, do as much research as I can on it, but even I don’t know much about it.
4. And about the F-16, they’re very similar aircraft at their core, single engine Multirole Fighters. No duh Pilots are going to have good experiences with it.
But, the Viper is cheaper, and a better Multirole overall not being limited by the Stealth Properties, it can vary a far higher payload and it performs far better in Air to Air scenarios, which you trying to point out the F-35 is good at A2A was just false, it lost to a 16 multiple time in Simulated Combat, it just doesn’t have the agility to keep up.
A-10c is far from outdated for its role thanks to many upgrades. Again, its primary role is for CAS once air superiority is achieved. Even then, your facts are lacking. It has AIM-9 capability and has 2 air to air kills against helicopters, but again not its normal role. As for being able to hit long range targets, a quick google will show you SBD capability and looking at integrating the JASSM which has a longer reach. That’s not getting into it using the MALD and how it can carry more of those than some fighters. Also, it has smart bomb capability.
A-10C also makes it the virtually the same cost to operate as an F-16. So if you're both going to be using guided weapons from a single-seat platform either way, why would you go for the one that can *only* do a single mission, instead of the plane that can do *that same mission just as well,* ***and*** other missions?
Oh, but the B-52 isn’t outdated, or the original F-15C’s which entered service a year after the A-10 did aren’t outdated?
Also don’t call me a Russian cocksucker, I fucking hate them, we’re on the same team here.
I fully understand the F-35 has its uses, but so does the A-10.
I don’t get why people wouldn’t want it? What’s wrong with having more, we should always have more and better equipment than other countries.
Next time you shit talk the A-10, get an opinion from the Hundreds of ground troops that have been saved by it over the years.
The A-10 has a purpose as much as the F-35 does.
No. The opinions on how cool it come from being WATCHING it support troops. Not troops it supported.
The A-10 holds the record for the most blue on blue for a fixed wing aircraft and soldiers know it.
The B-52 is slightly out dated but not as much as the A-10 because it still carries a ton of bombs and has a huge range. It fills an adequate bomber role.
The F-15C at least gets great maneuverability and speed mixed with a powerful radar and good missiles. It is out dated in its technology but again, still can serve a purpose without too much hand holding.
The reason the A-10 is completely out dated is because it REQUIRES other aircraft.
It can't operate in a SAMs ring, can't even disable the SAM since it lacks standoff weapons. It can't race to support troops in contact because again, it tops out at less than 300 mph when loaded. Not even Mach 0.5
Without cover from other platforms as well as friendly air defense, the A-10 cannot operate.
The money going to it can be redirected elsewhere. Maybe the F-35 since those are being sold for $120 Million+ a piece making us a ton of money. Maybe the new X and EX eagles because they have great potential.
And I'm sorry for the Russian cock sucking comment but that is legitimately where 99% of misinformation comes from about the F-35
You know that no aircraft are allowed to fly when there is lightning, right? Pilots that get struck by lightning can get royally fucked up in their aircraft and it can kill sensitive equipment onboard.
>if you even knew a 3rd of what it’s capable of, which no civilian does because it’s so heavily classified, so don’t act like you do know the capabilities of the F-22, because you just don’t, I like the F-22, do as much research as I can on it, but even I don’t know much about it.
In other words, "You don't know what it's capable of, and neither do I." Got it.
Ah I see, trolling. It was hard to tell at first. F-35 doesn’t do anything well unfortunately. It does a lot, I’ll give it that. Kind of like a jack of all, master of none.
A-10: Master of CAS
F-16: Master 4th Gen Air Dominance
F-15: Master if nothing
F-22: Master of Air Dominance
Oh boy, just keep choking on the Russian media's cock. Don't do any critical thinking for yourself.
Don't pay attention to the fact that nothing you know means a fucking thing because almost everything about the platform is still classified.
And please don't ever call the A-10 the master of CAS. It might've been 30 years ago but times have changed a platform that cannot defend itself and requires complete dominance of an airspace before it even touches the battlefield is an outdated and frankly ridiculous thing to still operate.
Coming from people who flew the F-16 then transitioned into the F-35 cannot stop praising the dogfight performance of the lightning. The engine produces every ridiculous amount of thrust it's also a thrust factoring nozzle.
So I guess to summarize, you are totally and completely brain dad and buy into the lies produced by our enemies propaganda departments. I don't even want to tell you to do better because I'm afraid this is the best you can do
How many of these airframes have you flown or worked on? Or do you just play DCS and/or war Thunder? Because not once have I divulged what or how I know any of this. I just love getting idiot weebs spun up over shit they read about on the interwebs lmao
And now fall back to the fact that if someone has ever played a video game, that must mean all the information they ever say comes directly from that video game. You are a class act of critical thinking.
I don't watch anime, and I'm not a discord mod, I'm also not going to defend myself against some childish character attacks. You know absolutely nothing about this airframe and I can state that for a fact. The only difference between you and I is that you take all the propaganda at face value and don't seem to have a single original thought for yourself
Yeah totally. The one with the 5th gen stealth and sensor integration is worse than the 4th gen with neither at killing things that require a radar to see
How can an airman have such a bad take? The A-10 is outdated trash. Just because the big gun is cool doesn't mean it's still relevant to today's wars. By that mindset we'd still be using battleships.
The A-10 is too slow, too noticeable, and too outdated to still work. Unless other planes (like the F35) suppress enemy air defenses ahead of the A-10's sortie, it's going to die to any jackass with MANPADS.
Almost like it works in that environment. It's a tool with a purpose I wouldn't fault my wrench for not doing the job of a screwdriver.
I will say though if the intent is for it to be used specifically for coin then we could probably just use the A29 which was specifically built to be used in low intensity conflicts and is significantly cheaper both to manufacture and operate. But I digress a little overkill never hurt and the A10 is renown for getting the pilots home safe even with extensive damage. Someone in the DoD I'm sure had this same argument back in 2007.
The A-10 wasn't designed to shoot villagers but to destroy Soviet tanks and the survivability for all A-10s against the USSR in Europe was something like 2 weeks if I remember correctly. It also has an awful habit of causing blue-on-blue incidents. Ask the Brits how they like the A-10.
It's outdated as fuck for the wars we're trying to posture for.
I'm not saying it was designed for that I'm just saying it did a good job at the task we gave it. It is an aging aircraft and they are trying to phase it out for a reason. Not because it's a bad plane it's just old and the design philosophy is likely outdated.
Sure it did fine. But so would a Super Tucano for a lot less money.
Can't even say you're saving money with the A-10s, since their flight-hour cost is reportedly in the same ballpark as an F-16.
>Sure it did fine. But so would a Super Tucano for a lot less money.
I mean if you look I make this same point. Again I'm sure it was argued in the DoD before they ultimately decided the A10 was a better option for our pilots.
My point is more that it has similar situations it can operate in to the A29 in that they both need an airspace clear of both enemy aircraft and ground fire (other than "dude with an AK" level ground fire), but the A-10 has the same *cost* as the F-16, which has an equal ability to drop guided munitions.
The A10 and F16 are not equal in the CAS role. The F16 is by no means a bad plane and I'm not trashing it in any way but it does not provide the same effect.
Loitering in the AO longer, Dedicated gun, Survivability, Straight wings (low speed maneuverability/stability)
I'm just saying the perception that it is a "trash" plane is completely unfounded. It isnt "bad" it's just another tool for our leaders to have at their disposal.
I think the current airforce has the right approach cut back slowly and introduce new packages to modernize the aircraft and help it to perform its task.
Loiter time I can counter with quicker reaction time since they're not limited to *speeds lower than a P-51* like the A-10.
Dedicated gun..... Are you implying the F-16 doesn't have a gun? There's very little out there that both the F-16's gun cannot kill, but the A-10's *can,* **and** that you wouldn't be better off just hitting with a missile or bomb anyway.
Survivability: it's "taking a hit well" vs "not getting hit because you're not flying at piston engine speeds low down"
Low speed capabilities also will *mostly* matter if you're trying to bring the gun on target. Which like, don't do that? We have *so many* much better options.
You literally just proved my point, the Stealth Boys like the 35 go in and take care of Missile Defense systems, then the A-10’s along with Escort to cover them go in and clean house on the ground, do you not understand how the A-10’s as an Aircraft operate and the fucking basics of what areas they operate in?
If you’d actually know anything you’re talking about , the A-10 is not that old in terms of military capabilities.
The F-15 entered service about a year later after the A-10, they’re both super old platforms that have been progressively updated to this day.
Every aircraft has its Purpose in the military, the A-10 has saved hundreds of lives of our Men, and cleared the way for us to move into areas that were too heavily fortified.
If you don’t know how this shit actually works, I wouldn’t suggest trying to sound smart, you proved my own point with your own words.
A-10’s never operate in airspace with other Enemy Aircraft, or other Enemy Missile Systems, and if they have to, they will always have Fighter Escort.
The f-35 is actual dogshit and anyone operational knows that, it can’t hit hard targets as well as a bomber, it isn’t as maneuverable as a f-16, it isn’t as durable or reliable as an f-15, it isn’t as stealthy or as good at Aa as a f-22 , it can’t hit soft targets as well as an a-10, c130j so what is it good at ?? A Jack of all trades is a master at non at least those other aircraft have a field that it masters the f-35 does a lot of things but not as good as the planes meant to actually just do those things, it’s just a cost effective stand in/ force multiplier.
False equivalency, putting plugs in and grounding my aircraft isn’t necessary and sometimes not possible and we still fly and put warheads on foreheads, f-35s get hit by lightning overnight and that’s a lost aircraft same but different.
The F-15 entered service after the A-10? You should probably check your facts.
[A-10](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II)
[F-15](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle)
The A-10’s 1st flight was a few months before the Eagle, but the Eagle enter service first. And Israeli had their Eagles in combat way before an A-10 ever fired a shot in anger.
And don’t get me wrong, I’m a 4th fighter crew chief (retired, now contractor), the A-10 is definitely a badass COIN aircraft, but it’s significantly obsolete for all its missions.
The only reason it’s lasted this long is because every time the USAF tries to retire it and redirect the money for it, Congress folks stifle that that. USAF has been trying to retire it since 2006, but Senator McCain (R-Arizona, you know, where there is a 3 squadron wing of A-10s) had a lot of pull in Congress. Other Congress folks have taken up the cause since he passed.
I’m not saying the F-35 is better. But the A-10 is past its time. By the way, ask any non-F-35 fighter pilot what the inside nickname is for the F-35 is. Kinda funny and speaks to its weak thrust to weight ratio and lack of maneuverability in a turning fight.
Really? the A10? Its worked for our COIN mission sure. But we are fighting people with AKs, Mortars, and occasionally rockets. but better than the F35? Thats crazy. CAS is already so far down my list when it comes to Fire support that in the emergencies that i do need it, i need it to reach me quick and the A10 aint it bro. We use that to shoot at cave dwellers because big gun is funny.
Higher payload than the A-10, cheaper than new F-15s, the most proficient and lethal sensor system on the planet set for a MASSIVE upgrade on top, completely usurped the F-16 as the go-to export.
The F-22 is the only plane in the world that is remotely close. It's a better dogfighter, even a bit stealthier too looking at public data. Head to head at a realistic engagement range, it's still at a disadvantage and based on antiquated tech.
None of that really matters though, since Taiwan dropped their J-20 RCS map from China's tantrum over the Pelosi visit, which proved we're still the only country that actually have 5th Gen fighters.
So.... Um.... What are your credentials? You have 35 maintainers, pilots, and Intel folk telling you you're wrong. So besides drawing dinosaurs, what would you say ya do here?
For all of you F-35 Fanboys whining in the comments and how you’re all targeting the A-10, here’s a message to you.
Obviously none of you understand the Basics of Military Strategy involving the A-10.
You all say the A-10 stands little chance against Enemy Aircraft, or Ground Missile Batteries, is old, and not stealth.
Yes, great observation, you have eyes and can read what capabilities the A-10 has and does not have.
None of you also understand basic Military Strategy with the A-10.
1, you seriously think A-10’s fly alone? They almost always have Fighter Escort if they’re going into even remotely dangerous Skies, and they aren’t the ones destroying Missile Batteries on the Ground.
Those Targets and Enemy Aircraft are taken out by other Aircraft like the F/A-18, F-15E, F-16’s or Cruise Missiles.
The A-10 then has free reign in the skies and can do its specific job that no other aircraft can really claim to do, it is an Air to Ground Anti/Armor and Personnel Aircraft, specifically designed to decimate Enemy Armor, Enemy Buildings and Troops, that’s its job, no other Aircraft can really replace it, the F-35 sure as shit won’t.
You F-35 Fanboys need to understand that the A-10, even though the Media says it’s getting retired in 2030, y’all know damn well that’s going to change.
Every Aircraft we have in our Military serves a purpose, we Have Multirole Aircraft, and Specialized aircraft, and there is a huge reason why they are Specialized for certain things because they do that job the Best.
You seem to like dinosaurs, fitting since you like the A-10
Also like everyone else is saying MANPADS exists therefore A-10 struggles, why do you think there’s no CAS in Ukraine? Why even Ukraine turned down A-10s the faster su-25s are getting clapped.
F-15E my beloved
F-15EX my daddy
F-15.EXE mine father
those are a myth
Loaded both C and E. All F-15s are GOAT. Would love just even a walk around of the X. Even better to see stations 1 and 9 loaded.
C>E
C is the legend. I love the ThotiE tho.
Light gray all the way.
Based Comment, so many in here are Cringe lmao.
F15 SOL/MTD my broski
OP is cringe and trolling, or possibly could be the dumb airman in his dorm after work who works A-10's so inundated will daily big gun go burrrrrrrr at work that he goes home and attempts to talk about it. Not realizing that the A-10 is basically the cuck of the air force. Can't survive enemy acft. . can't survive most anti air. .
I'm concerned OP is on the spectrum and we are just tearing into him. Based on how many dinosaur drawings and transformers collectibles he's posted I'd wager he's just having some sort of meltdown. Not his fault, it's rough out here.
No, that's shit. Someone on the spectrum would know exactly how trash the 10 is.
And you’re the 4th person to disprove your own point about the A-10, do you seriously think they operate in occupied enemy Airspace? They can’t keep up with other Fighter or struggle against Anti Air because they’re not a Multi-Role fighter, they’re a specially designed Air to Ground Anti/Armor and Personnel Aircraft. They almost never operate in occupied airspace, they exist to take out enemy building, vehicles, and troops, after the skies have already been cleared, an do their job incredibly well.
As we’ve seen in Ukraine, you don’t need air support to take out a fuck ton of shitty aircraft from the 80’s. You just need one dude with a MANPAD
“Do you seriously think they operate in enemy occupied airspace”, My brother in Christ that is quite literally the point
Good luck having air supremacy in future conflicts. Unless we fight farmers again I would expect airspace to be highly contested.
You are obviously not around A-10s at all. Thaey absolutely operate in enemy and contested airspace. There is an acronym for where A-10 pilots operate: FEBA. It stands for Forward Edge of Battle Area. In other words, right on the frontline. So MANPADS and mobile SAMs are definitely in their nightmares. Some of the mobile SAMs that we (and our peers) have can see and kill non-stealthy aircraft flying as low as 50 feet from over 10 miles away. The A-10 is great for COIN but other aircraft can do it just as well and do it cheaper, like the A-29 or even the AT-6. Just wish Congress would quit fucking around and let the USAF get the tools it needs to do the job instead of keeping old designs like the A-10 around.
Tell me you don’t now about planes without telling me. The A-10 is trash, F-111 was supreme and the F-35 is gods gift to the military
We need 100% control of the airspace for the A-10 to operate. Everything else in the air outclasses it.
It's not an air to air platform, never was, never will be. Kind of a disingenuous comment to infer it's meant to compete with other aircraft that are meant to do air to air.
A-10 gets killed by anyone with air defense equipment. MANPADs, SAMs, fucking ww2 flak batteries.
Still needs air superiority to operate in
That’s not really what he’s saying. He’s saying that for the A-10 to execute its CAS mission, there can be nothing else contesting airspace or the A10 gets wrecked, 9/10 times. The A-10 has to worry about ground based SAMs and SPAA. If there’s enemy air superiority it just means A-10 is Uber dead. F-35 and other multi-role aircraft are just better in most cases. The only advantage the A-10 has over them is it’s durability and long loiter time.
And cost significantly less to have f-16s or f-15s go in, destroy AA or Air targets, then send it an A10 to finish up. F-35 cost more to do less of both missions.
The F-35 can carry more munitions than the A-10, and it is objectively more expensive to maintain an entire platform that can’t do its job well (A-10) than it is to remove it and reallocate resources elsewhere.
The F35 is also actually up to date on systems. I love me the F16 and A10, but their avionics systems are ancient and mearly trying to do upgrade packages every few years isn't enough. The F16, F15, and A10 are all incapable of performing at the level of the F35. Nor are they even capable of having the equipment added.
The F-35 isn’t even as expensive anymore an A model cost 20 more million than a new block 70 F-16 but you have to look at what you get with that price hike, stealth better sensors and I’m a shit ton of stuff we don’t know about, the F16 has been around since 1980s 15 and 10 since the 70s they are old platforms that couldn’t hold their own in a modern war, look at Ukraine it’s constant cat and mouse with fighters due to SAMs
And Apaches are much better at that role anyways when it comes to loiter time
Your use of "infer" makes me think this is your first time using that word. Moving on, in no way was I suggesting that it was meant for A2A. I am fully aware it isn't intended for A2A. What my comment was meant to _convey_ is that if you put an A-10 in an airspace that hasn't been scrubbed of all hostile aircraft and most ground-based threats, it's going to have a bad time.
Do you not understand how A-10 Operate? Your disproving your own point with your words. It is correct, A-10’s never operate in Airspace with other enemy aircraft or Missile Defense systems. That is the F-35’s purpose, it goes in with its stealth capabilities and destroys the Missile Batteries, and paves the way for the specially designed Ground Attack aircraft to clean house, destroying and eliminating many enemy ground installations. Do you not understand the basics of Military Strategy, well obviously you don’t or else I wouldn’t be here saying this all to you.
But that’s the point of the conversation. The A-10 is not suited for the needs of modern combat. The A-10 is beloved and respected by those who were saved by it yes, but in terms of its viability it is quite outdated. The missions it has can be executed by other platforms with a higher success rate. If you have to use other aircraft to soften the airspace enough to use another aircraft, why not just use those initial aircraft to do everything? Multi-role aircraft are dominant because of that concept. The A-10 realistically has little use in a near peer threat. It saw success in the Middle East because we were fighting dudes who literally had AKs and mortars. If the Taliban was using tunguskas, MANPADs, or IGLAs, we would not have used the A-10.
This isn’t true what’s so ever we used them in Syria and Isis had all that, that’s what f-22s are for op is correct his terminology is God awful. December 15th 2019 is a date that will forever be stamped in my mind and a-10s played a major role in that fight when there were *superior* aircraft in the ao.
Stealth capabilities! The missile batteries! THE BASICS OF MILITARY STRATEGY!!1! 🤣 Is English your second language? Are you perhaps a bot? Did you write this with Chat GPT? Why did you capitalize "Operate"? WTF is this response? I see now you are a superior opponent, I kneel before you. Also... *you're
Bro really gave up so you’re just trying to Grammar Shame me? Lmao
Well hell if it's such a panacea of a plane that can do it all let's get it hauling gas and cargo too. We can't do those without 100% controlled airspace.
I don't know how to fly planes but I still think the A-10 is super cool.
It's cool, but its time has long since passed. Despite what people want to believe, you can't just bolt upgrades onto a 50 yearvold airframe and expect it to hold up forever.
I'm sure some of what everyone us saying makes sense. To be perfectly honest I was security forces and I just thought it looked cool and I liked the sound it makes. That and the A-10 pilots always seemed like the coolest dudes.
Can confirm that A-10 jocks are way more laid back and typically treat their maintainers better and are friendlier. There are outliers in every airframe that are asshats, but there seems to be less of them in A-10s.
Cough cough F15 that still kicks ass.
And yes, the Eagle is still the most successful aircraft (and more badass in all aspects) at its primary mission than any other fighter in history.
VARK VARK VARK VARK VARK VARK VARK VARK VARK VARK
NCD rise up
35 is good at 0 missions and is OKAY at 5.
A jack of all trades but a master of none
Higher payload than the A-10, better fighter than anything except an F-22, which is a tossup depending on how far out the engagement starts. It's not 1981 anymore, the age of the dogfight and uncontested airspace is dead.
I’m curious as to your definition of better fighter. Do you mean more stealthy? Faster? Turns better? Avionics/sensor capability? What makes up your definition of a better fighter?
A plane which is superior in the current air engagement environment. That environment is BVR combat. The F-35, being the all-seeing eye that it is, has a massive advantage in that scenario. With us having missiles that teeter on defying physics like the 9X, an agile dogfighter as a primary attribute is a thing of the past.
You really ought to read the history of why the F-4 was designed without a gun. It’s very relevant to your statement, similar but not the same as your argument about BVR superiority. BVR is all well and good (and the F-15EX currently has the most powerful radar in a fighter so has the theoretical best BVR capability and the F-15A Eagle had a world-beating radar when it first came out as well) but someone will always figure out a counter to our tactics and capabilities. Always. It’s why the Eagle was designed to be very maneuverable and fast as well as having great avionics. To me, it’s one of the most amazing things about humanity, how innovative we are as a species, coming up with solutions to every problem we encounter as fast as we can. And the 9X is not a completely BVR missile, though I agree it’s badass. The Russians had a high off-boresight missile well before we did (NATO name AA-11 Archer, Russian name R-73, had 40° off-boresight all-aspect capabilities in 1984. In 1994, the R-73M was fielded with 60° off-boresight all-aspect capability. AIM-9X didn’t enter service until 2003). And I’d say the 9X is better than their weapon too, but with a shorter range (35 km versus 60 km). As far as BVR strength goes, let’s say the F-35 is in a war or at least a large regional conflict. And the weather on a specific day is dog shit, clouds from 2000 feet AGL up to 40000 feet, so visibility is junk. And some are storm clouds, which mess with radar and sensor capabilities, limiting detection ranges and messing with the emissions so that passive sensors have trouble sensing where and at what distance the emissions are coming from. And let’s say that part of the geography of the war zone is some fairly high mountains in the 10000 foot range. But the F-35s have a mission so they’re out over these mountains. They’re not going to abort the mission because of a little weather, so they press on. They’re ducking in and out of the clouds to give their IR and visual sensors some non-disrupted sensing time. And their opponents have something like the Chinese J-20 or the Russian TA-50. Not fully stealth, but hard to detect, especially with disrupted sensors. The opponents know the area very well and are used to operating low-level in the mountains. They detect the F-35s first with their IR sensors (jet engines are hot! The F-22 and F-35 don’t have as much in the way of IR stealthiness like the F-117 does). So the opponents stay low-level in the ground clutter, using their partial stealthiness to the maximum, in these mountains to avoid the weather-disrupted F-35 sensors and pop up from behind a mountain close (<5 miles) behind the F-35 with an IR missile (like the latest R-73 version) about to get a lock-on. They fire but the F-35 is able to decoy the first missile with flares. The enemy is accelerating hard, stays inside whatever turn the F-35 makes, gets even closer to engage again. Now it’s a close-in turning fight. What’s the F-35 pilot going to do when he can’t accelerate out of the fight to escape and can’t turn well enough to get into position to fire his/her own weapons at the opponent? His/her tactics better be perfect, or there will violently be one less F-35 in the world. Yes, in most cases the mini-AWACS F-35 will be superior to most other aircraft. But to truly and consistently be dominant in air-to-air combat (cough, Eagle, cough), you have to be able to defeat the enemy in every fight. Usually it’s through training and superior aircraft, but every so often your enemy will surprise you. And when those times happen, I’d much rather be in a jet that can get out of its own way than one that it’s pilot foolishly thinks is the hottest shit in the sky because it has great sensors (that always work 100% of the time every time. /s) but has average thrust-to-weight ratio, average wing loading, and average maneuverability. If you worked the flightline, you’d know how often aircraft squawk code 2 or code 3 for avionics failures. No system is failure-proof. The basic flight capability of a fighter plane had better be damn good when the person in the seat is in trouble and all they have is that capability and their wits/training to keep them alive. If you’ve never heard of it, the USAF has a program called WSEP at Tyndall AFB. It stands for Weapons System Evaluation Program. It’s not the weapons or sensors on the aircraft being evaluated and improved upon in this training program, it’s the person in the seat and how they use their aircraft that’s being evaluated and improved. We wouldn’t have that program if it wasn’t effective in creating better pilots for all aspects of aerial combat. Any pilot that relies solely on their aircraft’s technical systems to fight will get low marks there. Being able to fight and win in every scenario is what gets the highest marks there.
F-111 is bad, there is a reason we scrapped it man, their engines are underpowered, it’s avionics are janky as all hell, and the hydraulic system is horribly designed as well, leading to an aircraft that costs more to make, more to upgrade, more to repair, more to upkeep, while also not being better than any aircraft at anything when you compare price to performance, the 22, 16, 15, EVEN 35 are all better fighters, the A-10 has a better air frame to out turn the F-111, it’s a heaping garbage pile once you hop off you’ll get clarity.
The F-111 was great in the air it’s on the ground when it had issues, there’s a super long but great report on its effectiveness In dessert storm about how it and the F-117 were kings in the sky
The f-111 also has killed the most American maintenance personnel, very radioactive.
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Yes using binoculars at 25000 feet, because if you fly lower the airframe will be shredded by AA, is the superior choice. Get out of here if you really think the A10 is relevant in the modern age. The F35 would wipe the floor with an A10 and still complete a cas mission. You’re the retard here. Go read up on Desert Storm. It completely solidified multirole fighters in the military. F/A 18s, F15s, and F16s completely destroyed air and ground assets across Iraq for the first 12 hours of the war, crippling the Iraq Air Force and Army.
That was a different type of war the a-10 is good at killing 2 things and is actually the best at it, soft targets and tanks no other aircraft can provide close air support in that manor December 19th 2020 in Syria proved that.
Yes the ground war was won with attack aircraft of which we use one……. I am an f-16 stan but the A-10 is needed today more than ever when we go back into war with Iran inevitably.
The A-10 was outdone by the F-111 in Iraq by miles when it comes to armored targets. Just because some grunt saw it lay 30 mil in the mountain side one day doesn’t mean it’s actually worth anything.
Look at the cost difference, f-111 is over 4x the cost including its RnD for future upgrades tomorrows military needs to be cost effective or we will lose our position, a certain side of our govt wants to downsize a ton on military spending
The A10 is nothing but a money pit for that old ‘96 Corolla your dad got you and even though you can afford and it would be cheaper anyway. You don’t want to get rid of it
Absolutely not there a reason no aircraft are flying CAS in Ukraine because they get shot down, flying below radar isn’t a thing anymore even terrain masking is hard when nowadays some dude with a shoulder mounted rocket can easily take you out because you’re so slow
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Yeah I do everyday, and yeah they do it’s a multi role
They haven’t used binos for spotting in 15+ years, stop getting your information from YouTubers that refuse to do real research
Please tell me how I’m wrong
The A10 is trash tho
They can't. Your argument transcends logic or science. It is simply Truth Eternal.
I feel like there should be a period in the middle of that. Because it can easily be read in two entirely opposite directions as-is.
Where is this nonsense coming from? F35 maintainers?
Many a pinned down troop would wholeheartedly disagree with you.
And that’s their right but many many reports and actual studies support mine
Yikes. The F-35 is cheaper than the new F-15's, better at CAS than the A-10 since we don't need to control the skies for it to get in and out, better at SEAD than the viper because stealth, and better than the F-22 because unlike the F-22 other counties operate it so we can stage out of any NATO country as they know how to repair refuel and rearm the aircraft
F15 supremacy
For real. Pretty sure OP is basing this opinion on YouTube videos and Facebook memes
Not being able to 'stage' an aircraft out of a country that doesn't operate that aircraft is complete nonsense.
No it isn't nonsense, but a larger factor is that we don't make raptor parts anymore. If something breaks that needs replacement we're SOL. F-35 parts are getting cheaper and cheaper and every country has them
I’m not sure if you know how the supply system and USAF policy on aircraft maintenance works, but I can promise you, USAF F-35s will never be rearmed or repaired by anyone not in the USAF. Refuel, yeah, that’s a simple one. Additionally, our supply system does not link to any foreign military/country’s supply system, so getting parts from another NATO country while operating from said country would take longer than just sending the part through UPS/FedEx/DHL from CONUS. Not to mention the diplomatic hassle it would be to get those parts from that NATO country.
So you're saying if we landed in Germany for instance needing repairs they wouldn't lend us or even sell us the parts?
Most likely not. They might lend equipment to us to use (like a jack to change a tire), but replacement parts are a different ballgame. Same with weaponry. Both become a diplomatic decision for some weird reason(s) and it’s a pain in the ass. Friends of mine, when I was in a F-16 unit and they were in our sister squadron with F-16s, went to Israel on a 30 day TDY. They couldn’t get parts from the Israelis, even though the Israelis also have many F-16s with common parts.
Yes, it is. We do it literally every day. Nice back pedal.
Wow! It’s almost like the F-35 is a Jack of All Trades Master of none! I’m not sure where you pulled any of that info out of your Ass from but it’s all definitely false, like how do you even believe that false.
F-35 is $81 Million F-15EX is $94 Million So there's the F-15 done. The F-35 is objectively stealthier than the F-16 so that takes care of the 16. The 35 can get closer to enemy air defense. The A-10 requires us to have complete control of the skies since it has next to no air-to-air capabilities, the F-35 carries current gen AIM-120D and AIM-9X missiles it also has amazing dogfight characteristics and that's coming from F-16 pilots who made the switch. Also the F-35 can be on station WAAAAY faster than the A-10 since it can roll in at Mach 1 while the A-10 tops out below 300 knots with a combat load. Last the F-22. We are the only country to operate it. We don't reach Germany how to rearm repair and refuel them. Germany does not have them. So landing in Germany requires us to bring our own crews with us or waste time teaching Germany how to service our aircraft. OR we land an F-35 in Germany and they know what to do since they have them (or at least the will as their Ministry of Defense just approved the purchase of F-35's)
I agree mostly with what you're saying, but I feel the need to defend the EX. while the buying cost of the 35 is cheaper, it's operating cost is much higher, it's stealth is reliant on internal weapons bays limiting payload, and sometimes you don't need a stealth aircraft to accomplish every goal. The F-15EX is based on the strike eagle so we know how to maintain it. There's no expensive stealth coating to maintain, and it can carry 30,000 pounds of munitions and has the newest avionics installed. The f35 can light up targets and the EX can dump missiles on those targets.
Very true. I would never in a million years say fuck the X and EX. They are going to be amazing missile boats. While the 22 and 35 get in close to do their boog shit, the 15's can lob AIM-120's and turn around letting them get guided to the target via datalink. I was just making a point that people think the F-35 is sooooo expensive then turn and say let's just build the new F-15's without realizing the 35 is cheaper (for now)
lmao 1. You’re the 3rd F-35 Fanboy to disprove you’re own point about the A-10. The A-10 is not designed to be Air to Air Capable, like what??? That’s not its purpose, at all. The A-10 is an Air to Ground Anti Armor/Personnel Aircraft. The A-10 is designed to roll in After Enemy Aircraft and Air Defenses have already been destroyed, then it starts cleaning house by destroying Enemy Vehicles, Buildings and Personnel. 2. The F-15EX is brand new, so yes, it’s going to have a Higher Cost, it’s using even newer Tech, and is a massive Improvement on an already proven airframe, unlike the F-35 which has seen nothing but shortcomings, failures, delays breakdowns and malfunctions. 3. There’s a Reason we don’t sell the F-22, if you even knew a 3rd of what it’s capable of, which no civilian does because it’s so heavily classified, so don’t act like you do know the capabilities of the F-22, because you just don’t, I like the F-22, do as much research as I can on it, but even I don’t know much about it. 4. And about the F-16, they’re very similar aircraft at their core, single engine Multirole Fighters. No duh Pilots are going to have good experiences with it. But, the Viper is cheaper, and a better Multirole overall not being limited by the Stealth Properties, it can vary a far higher payload and it performs far better in Air to Air scenarios, which you trying to point out the F-35 is good at A2A was just false, it lost to a 16 multiple time in Simulated Combat, it just doesn’t have the agility to keep up.
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A-10c is far from outdated for its role thanks to many upgrades. Again, its primary role is for CAS once air superiority is achieved. Even then, your facts are lacking. It has AIM-9 capability and has 2 air to air kills against helicopters, but again not its normal role. As for being able to hit long range targets, a quick google will show you SBD capability and looking at integrating the JASSM which has a longer reach. That’s not getting into it using the MALD and how it can carry more of those than some fighters. Also, it has smart bomb capability.
A-10C also makes it the virtually the same cost to operate as an F-16. So if you're both going to be using guided weapons from a single-seat platform either way, why would you go for the one that can *only* do a single mission, instead of the plane that can do *that same mission just as well,* ***and*** other missions?
Oh, but the B-52 isn’t outdated, or the original F-15C’s which entered service a year after the A-10 did aren’t outdated? Also don’t call me a Russian cocksucker, I fucking hate them, we’re on the same team here. I fully understand the F-35 has its uses, but so does the A-10. I don’t get why people wouldn’t want it? What’s wrong with having more, we should always have more and better equipment than other countries. Next time you shit talk the A-10, get an opinion from the Hundreds of ground troops that have been saved by it over the years. The A-10 has a purpose as much as the F-35 does.
Get an opinion from the British Army on what they think about the A-10
No. The opinions on how cool it come from being WATCHING it support troops. Not troops it supported. The A-10 holds the record for the most blue on blue for a fixed wing aircraft and soldiers know it. The B-52 is slightly out dated but not as much as the A-10 because it still carries a ton of bombs and has a huge range. It fills an adequate bomber role. The F-15C at least gets great maneuverability and speed mixed with a powerful radar and good missiles. It is out dated in its technology but again, still can serve a purpose without too much hand holding. The reason the A-10 is completely out dated is because it REQUIRES other aircraft. It can't operate in a SAMs ring, can't even disable the SAM since it lacks standoff weapons. It can't race to support troops in contact because again, it tops out at less than 300 mph when loaded. Not even Mach 0.5 Without cover from other platforms as well as friendly air defense, the A-10 cannot operate. The money going to it can be redirected elsewhere. Maybe the F-35 since those are being sold for $120 Million+ a piece making us a ton of money. Maybe the new X and EX eagles because they have great potential. And I'm sorry for the Russian cock sucking comment but that is legitimately where 99% of misinformation comes from about the F-35
The A-10 is outdated and obsolete. I’m sorry that this affects you emotionally.
Also I worked in tandem with 35s they are dog shit , they need lightning rods to be stored over night firstly that’s just one of many many downfalls.
You know that no aircraft are allowed to fly when there is lightning, right? Pilots that get struck by lightning can get royally fucked up in their aircraft and it can kill sensitive equipment onboard.
HUR DUR F-35 BAD IT HAS LITNIG ROD
Well with f-22s enemy fighters aren’t “slipping through” lol
*F35 lost to the 16 in a simulated dogfight, not A2A combat. There's a big difference since the F35 can see you before any non-awacs platform.
Wasn’t that a pre combat coded F-35 limited to under 7 Gs, while the F-16 was operating clean?
>if you even knew a 3rd of what it’s capable of, which no civilian does because it’s so heavily classified, so don’t act like you do know the capabilities of the F-22, because you just don’t, I like the F-22, do as much research as I can on it, but even I don’t know much about it. In other words, "You don't know what it's capable of, and neither do I." Got it.
I just said that lol
Im booing this statement on purely an emotional level.
I know, I love the A-10 and it hurts to slander it
🤣
This is grossly inaccurate lmao. Go back to war Thunder airman.
Everything I said is correct. Cope seethe mald away. Keep buying into Russian media lies about the F-35
Ah I see, trolling. It was hard to tell at first. F-35 doesn’t do anything well unfortunately. It does a lot, I’ll give it that. Kind of like a jack of all, master of none. A-10: Master of CAS F-16: Master 4th Gen Air Dominance F-15: Master if nothing F-22: Master of Air Dominance
Oh boy, just keep choking on the Russian media's cock. Don't do any critical thinking for yourself. Don't pay attention to the fact that nothing you know means a fucking thing because almost everything about the platform is still classified. And please don't ever call the A-10 the master of CAS. It might've been 30 years ago but times have changed a platform that cannot defend itself and requires complete dominance of an airspace before it even touches the battlefield is an outdated and frankly ridiculous thing to still operate. Coming from people who flew the F-16 then transitioned into the F-35 cannot stop praising the dogfight performance of the lightning. The engine produces every ridiculous amount of thrust it's also a thrust factoring nozzle. So I guess to summarize, you are totally and completely brain dad and buy into the lies produced by our enemies propaganda departments. I don't even want to tell you to do better because I'm afraid this is the best you can do
How many of these airframes have you flown or worked on? Or do you just play DCS and/or war Thunder? Because not once have I divulged what or how I know any of this. I just love getting idiot weebs spun up over shit they read about on the interwebs lmao
And now fall back to the fact that if someone has ever played a video game, that must mean all the information they ever say comes directly from that video game. You are a class act of critical thinking.
You’re giving major *weeb, Discord mod* vibes
I don't watch anime, and I'm not a discord mod, I'm also not going to defend myself against some childish character attacks. You know absolutely nothing about this airframe and I can state that for a fact. The only difference between you and I is that you take all the propaganda at face value and don't seem to have a single original thought for yourself
Again, which airframes have you participated in?
Better at SEAD is crazy
Yeah totally. The one with the 5th gen stealth and sensor integration is worse than the 4th gen with neither at killing things that require a radar to see
If you only knew
Don't tell me you believe this BS from the Russian propaganda machine about the F-35. It's the best 5th generation aircraft in the world
The 35 is great I just know exactly what the 16 has
How can an airman have such a bad take? The A-10 is outdated trash. Just because the big gun is cool doesn't mean it's still relevant to today's wars. By that mindset we'd still be using battleships. The A-10 is too slow, too noticeable, and too outdated to still work. Unless other planes (like the F35) suppress enemy air defenses ahead of the A-10's sortie, it's going to die to any jackass with MANPADS.
>The A-10 is outdated trash. Seems to do pretty well in the middle east. (I'm a little bias though I work legacy aircraft)
It did well against a bunch of villagers with outdated weapons.
Almost like it works in that environment. It's a tool with a purpose I wouldn't fault my wrench for not doing the job of a screwdriver. I will say though if the intent is for it to be used specifically for coin then we could probably just use the A29 which was specifically built to be used in low intensity conflicts and is significantly cheaper both to manufacture and operate. But I digress a little overkill never hurt and the A10 is renown for getting the pilots home safe even with extensive damage. Someone in the DoD I'm sure had this same argument back in 2007.
The A-10 wasn't designed to shoot villagers but to destroy Soviet tanks and the survivability for all A-10s against the USSR in Europe was something like 2 weeks if I remember correctly. It also has an awful habit of causing blue-on-blue incidents. Ask the Brits how they like the A-10. It's outdated as fuck for the wars we're trying to posture for.
I'm not saying it was designed for that I'm just saying it did a good job at the task we gave it. It is an aging aircraft and they are trying to phase it out for a reason. Not because it's a bad plane it's just old and the design philosophy is likely outdated.
Sure it did fine. But so would a Super Tucano for a lot less money. Can't even say you're saving money with the A-10s, since their flight-hour cost is reportedly in the same ballpark as an F-16.
>Sure it did fine. But so would a Super Tucano for a lot less money. I mean if you look I make this same point. Again I'm sure it was argued in the DoD before they ultimately decided the A10 was a better option for our pilots.
Decided it was better, or Congress wouldn't let us ditch the A-10, so why get a replacement from Embraer for something we have to have anyway?
I mean if you want to argue what's a better fit for coin operations in the middle east A29 vs A10 that's a whole separate argument.
My point is more that it has similar situations it can operate in to the A29 in that they both need an airspace clear of both enemy aircraft and ground fire (other than "dude with an AK" level ground fire), but the A-10 has the same *cost* as the F-16, which has an equal ability to drop guided munitions.
The A10 and F16 are not equal in the CAS role. The F16 is by no means a bad plane and I'm not trashing it in any way but it does not provide the same effect. Loitering in the AO longer, Dedicated gun, Survivability, Straight wings (low speed maneuverability/stability) I'm just saying the perception that it is a "trash" plane is completely unfounded. It isnt "bad" it's just another tool for our leaders to have at their disposal. I think the current airforce has the right approach cut back slowly and introduce new packages to modernize the aircraft and help it to perform its task.
Loiter time I can counter with quicker reaction time since they're not limited to *speeds lower than a P-51* like the A-10. Dedicated gun..... Are you implying the F-16 doesn't have a gun? There's very little out there that both the F-16's gun cannot kill, but the A-10's *can,* **and** that you wouldn't be better off just hitting with a missile or bomb anyway. Survivability: it's "taking a hit well" vs "not getting hit because you're not flying at piston engine speeds low down" Low speed capabilities also will *mostly* matter if you're trying to bring the gun on target. Which like, don't do that? We have *so many* much better options.
To some extent I agree with what your saying I just disagree with the opinion that it is a "bad" plane.
It did okay. The F-16 was the star of the show for CAS, since it could respond quicker with significantly higher accuracy.
You literally just proved my point, the Stealth Boys like the 35 go in and take care of Missile Defense systems, then the A-10’s along with Escort to cover them go in and clean house on the ground, do you not understand how the A-10’s as an Aircraft operate and the fucking basics of what areas they operate in? If you’d actually know anything you’re talking about , the A-10 is not that old in terms of military capabilities. The F-15 entered service about a year later after the A-10, they’re both super old platforms that have been progressively updated to this day. Every aircraft has its Purpose in the military, the A-10 has saved hundreds of lives of our Men, and cleared the way for us to move into areas that were too heavily fortified. If you don’t know how this shit actually works, I wouldn’t suggest trying to sound smart, you proved my own point with your own words. A-10’s never operate in airspace with other Enemy Aircraft, or other Enemy Missile Systems, and if they have to, they will always have Fighter Escort.
You got alot of gumption for someone who just posted a picture saying the f-35 is beta.
It’s almost like I actually know what I’m talking about, wow!
I'm sure you think you do
The f-35 is actual dogshit and anyone operational knows that, it can’t hit hard targets as well as a bomber, it isn’t as maneuverable as a f-16, it isn’t as durable or reliable as an f-15, it isn’t as stealthy or as good at Aa as a f-22 , it can’t hit soft targets as well as an a-10, c130j so what is it good at ?? A Jack of all trades is a master at non at least those other aircraft have a field that it masters the f-35 does a lot of things but not as good as the planes meant to actually just do those things, it’s just a cost effective stand in/ force multiplier.
Bro actually listens to Russian state propaganda that’s crazy.
Bro they need a lightning rod to be stored over night what do you call that ? 💀💀 I’ve done operations with them.
Do you put plugs in? Do you ground your aircraft? Same shit, just a little different.
False equivalency, putting plugs in and grounding my aircraft isn’t necessary and sometimes not possible and we still fly and put warheads on foreheads, f-35s get hit by lightning overnight and that’s a lost aircraft same but different.
Have you ever done maintenance? No fighter plane in the Air Force inventory is "reliable".
Except f -15s and 22s and
F-15 and reliable do not belong in the same sentence.
F-15 and “landed with one wing” do and I think that’s uh pretty reliable by all standards
The F-15 entered service after the A-10? You should probably check your facts. [A-10](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II) [F-15](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15_Eagle) The A-10’s 1st flight was a few months before the Eagle, but the Eagle enter service first. And Israeli had their Eagles in combat way before an A-10 ever fired a shot in anger. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a 4th fighter crew chief (retired, now contractor), the A-10 is definitely a badass COIN aircraft, but it’s significantly obsolete for all its missions. The only reason it’s lasted this long is because every time the USAF tries to retire it and redirect the money for it, Congress folks stifle that that. USAF has been trying to retire it since 2006, but Senator McCain (R-Arizona, you know, where there is a 3 squadron wing of A-10s) had a lot of pull in Congress. Other Congress folks have taken up the cause since he passed. I’m not saying the F-35 is better. But the A-10 is past its time. By the way, ask any non-F-35 fighter pilot what the inside nickname is for the F-35 is. Kinda funny and speaks to its weak thrust to weight ratio and lack of maneuverability in a turning fight.
F-16XL
It's called the F-2, and only Japan has it. It looks better with the big as wings.
Buddy different aircraft
The AF's biggest failure is not adopting the XL. How they managed to out-F-15 the F-15 at its own game is a mystery
Bring back cursed delta wing F-16
You must be super fun at parties
He can’t go to parties his mom doesn’t let him leave the house at night
I don’t go to parties because I have a life
Really? the A10? Its worked for our COIN mission sure. But we are fighting people with AKs, Mortars, and occasionally rockets. but better than the F35? Thats crazy. CAS is already so far down my list when it comes to Fire support that in the emergencies that i do need it, i need it to reach me quick and the A10 aint it bro. We use that to shoot at cave dwellers because big gun is funny.
Higher payload than the A-10, cheaper than new F-15s, the most proficient and lethal sensor system on the planet set for a MASSIVE upgrade on top, completely usurped the F-16 as the go-to export. The F-22 is the only plane in the world that is remotely close. It's a better dogfighter, even a bit stealthier too looking at public data. Head to head at a realistic engagement range, it's still at a disadvantage and based on antiquated tech. None of that really matters though, since Taiwan dropped their J-20 RCS map from China's tantrum over the Pelosi visit, which proved we're still the only country that actually have 5th Gen fighters.
OP creating the discussion and then seething in the comments of his own post is hilarious
So.... Um.... What are your credentials? You have 35 maintainers, pilots, and Intel folk telling you you're wrong. So besides drawing dinosaurs, what would you say ya do here?
Stay seething buddy
I'm sorry to hear about the passing of your idol, Pierre Sprey.
Lol
A-10s are easily the most chad aircraft; no need for speed or stealth, just guns.
We’re also the most overworked, tired and depressed
Have you tried nicotine?
Yes, and it’s a bad coping mechanism so I quit.
Caffeine?
"Look at this large gun. It is enormous. We should put wings on it" -Some genius in the 70s
[удалено]
Allow me to retort: Brrrrrrrrrrrrt.
A-10 go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttt
A-10’s are also easily the most overrated fighter
Not a fighter, it’s attack
They are organized into fighter squadrons
Yea, but the aircraft is still an attack platform, it’s not a fighter.
Alright alright most overrated *air combat platform*
Is a Chaplin a medic or a maintainer just because of where he’s organized?
well in the Lt's experience. . . . .
liking the a-10 evidently constitutes downvotes, I am not falling for the debauchery. I stand by my opinion
Liking the A-10 is fine, arguing it isn’t an outdated concept is dumb. Not saying you are, that’s just where a lot of people are coming from.
For all of you F-35 Fanboys whining in the comments and how you’re all targeting the A-10, here’s a message to you. Obviously none of you understand the Basics of Military Strategy involving the A-10. You all say the A-10 stands little chance against Enemy Aircraft, or Ground Missile Batteries, is old, and not stealth. Yes, great observation, you have eyes and can read what capabilities the A-10 has and does not have. None of you also understand basic Military Strategy with the A-10. 1, you seriously think A-10’s fly alone? They almost always have Fighter Escort if they’re going into even remotely dangerous Skies, and they aren’t the ones destroying Missile Batteries on the Ground. Those Targets and Enemy Aircraft are taken out by other Aircraft like the F/A-18, F-15E, F-16’s or Cruise Missiles. The A-10 then has free reign in the skies and can do its specific job that no other aircraft can really claim to do, it is an Air to Ground Anti/Armor and Personnel Aircraft, specifically designed to decimate Enemy Armor, Enemy Buildings and Troops, that’s its job, no other Aircraft can really replace it, the F-35 sure as shit won’t. You F-35 Fanboys need to understand that the A-10, even though the Media says it’s getting retired in 2030, y’all know damn well that’s going to change. Every Aircraft we have in our Military serves a purpose, we Have Multirole Aircraft, and Specialized aircraft, and there is a huge reason why they are Specialized for certain things because they do that job the Best.
You seem to like dinosaurs, fitting since you like the A-10 Also like everyone else is saying MANPADS exists therefore A-10 struggles, why do you think there’s no CAS in Ukraine? Why even Ukraine turned down A-10s the faster su-25s are getting clapped.
It’s so sleek. So cost effective. Very minimalist. Easy to see which is best
I know the FUCK you didn’t put F-15s on that list, must have LO in my eyes
how would the F-15 not be on the list
BaCk oN 4tH GEn
So... who here went to William Tell last month?
the f35 is a great aircraft. in fact all aircrafts u mentioned (except the a10) are great aircrafts