Global Courant 2023-05-02 09:08:17
While the United States Air Force publicly maintains that they are of the A-10 “Warthog” air support fighters, it has just deployed a squadron to the Middle East.
The deployed fighters can carry 16 each GBU-39B small diameter bombs (four per bomb rack). The A-10 also has an ultra-powerful 30mm GAU-8/A Revenger cannon that rapidly fires depleted uranium shells that can penetrate armor.
The Pentagon has sent an A-10 squadron to the UAE. It is likely that the A-10s will be moved to Iraq or possibly even Syria to support US bases. have been attacked repeatedly by missiles and drones. If the US has occasionally responded, it has sent supersonic fighter jets.
The subsonic A-10 is much cheaper to operate and its gun system is much more lethal. The A-10s will largely operate in an area where the enemy has little or no air defense beyond MANPADS. The A-10 has very good missile warning receivers and A-10 pilots can evade MANPADS when warned.
For the record, it’s worth noting that US bases in Iraq and Syria have very limited air defenses and have been unable to effectively counter missile and drone strikes.
The United States Air Force has criticized keeping the A-10s in service, arguing that the aircraft cannot survive against modern air defenses, and convinced the US Congress to ditch the A-10s because they are beyond survival.
However, the empirical evidence says that the A-10s survive even in dense air defense environments.
During the 1991 Gulf War, the US deployed 144 A-10s. These aircraft flew as many as 8,077 sorties – and on average 95.7% of the A-10s in the fleet were available for combat at any given time. This is much better than the capacity percentages for other US fighter jets:
The chart above is overly optimistic about the F-35’s power output rate, which ran between 54 and 58% in 2022. The F-35 needs a lot of support and cannot operate from forward bases. The A-10 can use almost any airfield and only needs light support.
The A-10 costs about US$6,000 an hour to operate. By comparison, the F-35 costs $36,000 per hour and the F-16C costs about $22,514 per hour.
In the 1991 Gulf War destroyed the A-10s 987 Iraqi tanks, 501 armored cars, 249 command posts, 96 radar installations, 72 bunkers, 1,306 trucks, 2,000 other vehicles and 53 Scud missiles and rocket launchers. About 70 A-10s were damaged but survived. Six A-10s were shot down in over 8,000 sorties.
Although air defenses have improved since 1991, most of the Russian air defenses in the current war in Ukraine date back to the Soviet era and are more or less the same as what Iraq had in its arsenal in 1991. The exceptions are the evolved S-300 and a single S-400 in Crimea.
Looking at the hard data shows beyond any doubt that the A-10 is both lethal and survivable in dense air defense environments.
The low loss rate can be attributed to the unique design. Although the A-10 is subsonic, the two jet engines are mounted above the wings, reducing the heat signature of the A-10 when viewed from the ground. This helps protect the A-10 from ground-launched infrared homing missiles, common with most MANPADS.
In addition, the cockpit is protected by a titanium “fairing” so that ground fire is unlikely to harm the pilot. The fuel tanks are foam lined too, so if hit by gunfire or shrapnel, they won’t explode.
Originally designed as a tank killer for the European theater, the A-10 served a similar role in the Gulf War and beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.
The inspiring survivability of the A-10 is exemplified by the story of Major Kim Campbellan A-10 female pilot and hero who returned her badly damaged A-10 to base after being badly damaged over Iraq in 2003.
The Air Force plans to replace the A-10 with the F-35. This limits availability due to the operational problems with the F-35, and such a replacement would increase hourly operating costs.
At the same time, the F-35 cannot possibly replace the firepower of the A-10. There is no reason to believe that the F-35 can be effective as a ground support aircraft except with ranged weapons. In addition to wielding the same ranged weapons, the A-10 can provide close ground support with its powerful Gatling-style autocannon, which cannot be done by the F-35.
American pilots load ammunition into the monstrously powerful GAUo-8/1 Avenger Gatling-style autocannon from an A-10, from General Electric. Photo: YouTube/USAF
It is noteworthy that the F-35’s “stealth” is of no value when used in close support missions, as the aircraft will be exposed to gunfire and MANPADS.
The deadlock weapon GBU 39/B is a small diameter bomb (SDB) with a range of 40 nautical miles. It costs about $40,000. There are a number of models, but the latest version has a tri-mode seeker that combines radar, infrared and semi-active laser guidance.
The whole unit weighs 250 pounds, but the warhead itself is 36 pounds (16 kg) of AFX-57 high explosive. Reportedly, with a delayed fuse setting, it can penetrate a 3 foot (1 meter) reinforced concrete bunker covered with 3 feet (1 meter) of earth.
An updated version of the GBU-39/B can triangulate GPS receivers inputting updated coordinates from a theater air operations center using Link-16. Other versions of the weapon apparently have an ImageNav system that does scene matching.
The SDB is not suitable for deep underground bunkers, but is ideal for the kind of bunkers and shelters used by irregular forces, such as Iranian-backed terrorists.
The Air Force and Congress should reconsider decommissioning A-10s. It’s a big mistake to take an effective weapon to the scrap yard. The final deployment illustrates the value of the A-10 and empirical combat performance data shows that the A-10 is much more survivable than the Air Force admits in its misleading claims, forgetting the weapon’s real success history.
The real hard truth is that the Air Force does not want to support either the US Army or the Marines in combat scenarios, which is why it is pushing to get rid of the A-10.
Follow Stephen Bryen on Twitter @stevebryen
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