A-10 vs. F-35: Air Force warplanes to face off

[GhostZ06]

Can an old war horse that dates back more than 40 years hold its own against the newest warbird loaded with the latest in technology and weaponry?

The Pentagon said it aims to find out and will pit the venerable A-10 Warthog against the F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter in a series of rigorous tests replicating what the planes would face in battle.
"We are going to do a comparative test of the ability of the F-35 to perform close air support, combat search-and-rescue missions and related missions with the A-10," Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's director of operational test and evaluation, told a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing on Tuesday.
The F-35 has been designated to replace the A-10 in the Air Force's main ground-attack role by 2022, but the plan has been met with skepticism by critics who say the $163 million F-35 can't do the job as well as the $18 million A-10.

"If you're spending a lot of money to get improved capability, that's the easiest way to demonstrate it," Gilmore said of the planned test.
The A-10 is the only plane in the Air Force specifically designed for close air support, a mission that has become urgent in the fight against ISIS in the Mideast.
Able to circle over a target for long periods, the straight-winged A-10 is supremely maneuverable at low speeds and altitudes. When ground troops find themselves in trouble -- and too close to the enemy for fighter jets to drop bombs without risking friendly-fire casualties -- A-10 pilots can skim hillsides day and night, under any type of weather, and engage ground targets with its 30 mm, seven-barrel Gatling gun, which fires depleted uranium bullets at 3,900 rounds per minute.
The F-35 is designed to fulfill a variety of roles, close air support among them, so it won't function exactly in the same manner as the A-10, Pentagon officials said.
"The F-35 will not do close air support mission the same way the A-10 does. It will do it very differently. The A-10 was designed to be low, and slow, and close to the targets it was engaging, relatively speaking," Frank Kendall III, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the Senate panel Tuesday. "We will not use the F-35 in the same way as the A-10.."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/28/politics/air-force-f-35-vs-a-10-showdown/


i dont know the point of this. The F-35 isnt combat capable.

 

[Bloody Pulp]

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

which fires depleted uranium bullets

This is relevant to my interests.

 

[Oedad]

I'd bet everything and the kitchen the F-35 is declared the winner. They will never do any tests, fake the results, and release their pre-determined outcome and pretend like no one will notice.

DoD is infamous for this shit.

 

[ocean size]

Finally something to shut the fanboys up. Or who knows, maybe demonstrate a clear need for dedicated CAS. But I'll give great odds its the former.

 

[Orgasmo]

The biggest downfall of the F-35 is they want one plane to do it all, be it air superiority, SEAD, CAS, aerial recon and EW. You end up with the plane with too many on its plate and unimpressive in its aerodynamic performance. The second biggest downfall if that the DoD allowed Lockheed to have a virtual monopoly on 5th generation fighters. LM milked the living shit out of the program by spreading it as far and wide as possible, ensuring it cannot be touched politically. Obviously, I'm no fan of F-35.

With that said, the A-10s are slowly getting up there in age. They were designed to counter Soviet armor advances in the 1970's and 1980's, but the threat from IADS has evolved greatly. Don't get me wrong, it's still a very effective plane in the kind of conflicts NATO is fighting at the moment, and praises from the ground troops prove it. That doesn't mean a replacement is not needed in the future though. I just don't think the F-35 is the answer.

Now the mandatory Brrrrrrrt:

 

[Prefect]

The future is drones for support. You can have a whole bunch of them for the cost of one fighter and the price point will start dropping of them to the point just shooting them down will be expensive.

 

[MadSquabbles500]

ARe dem planes going head to head in dog fight?

 

[Boagrius]

The biggest downfall of the F-35 is they want one plane to do it all, be it air superiority, SEAD, CAS, aerial recon and EW. You end up with the plane with too many on its plate and unimpressive in its aerodynamic performance.

Dude - the F35's aerodynamic performance is a closely guarded secret - nobody has EM diagrams for the F35 quite simply because they are classified. What HAS occurred is that an abundance of unqualified individuals (bloggers/journalists) have been making bold claims about its supposedly inferior kinematics when said information isn't even available to them...

For example, guys like Sprey, Sweetman, Rogoway, Carlo Kopp, Axe et al. like to use disingenuous metrics like wing loading (a favourite of theirs, but meaningless on a lifting body design), or passing off a control laws test as a dogfight to portray it as cumbersome, but this is almost certainly inaccurate, particularly at operationally representative loadouts.

The reality is that, of all the aircraft it is designed to replace, the A10 is the only one whose niche and requirements differ significantly from the design philosophy of the F35. Even the most ardent critic of the F35 would have to agree that it is a true spiritual successor to the Hornet and Falcon (aircraft that have already proven the potency of multi-role jets), and a HUGE step up from the Harrier (F35B).

This doesn't mean, however, that the F35 must be used exclusively as the replacement for the capability that the A10 now provides (even if it "replaces" the A10 on a squadron by squadron basis), or that it will be "worse" at it.

I concede that that the F35 may well be overly expensive for CAS in some low intensity COIN type ops, but you've said yourself in previous threads that this niche can be amply subsumed by MALE UCAVs like Reaper/Avenger/whatever comes in their stead. New tech like APKWS, JAGM, SDB etc are only going to help this transition along.

I'd also add that, given the US' penchant for curtailing production of big ticket, high tech platforms (B2, F22, Zumwalt... the list goes on) you can hardly blame LM for spreading the project around to protect it. That, combined with concurrency, may well be the ONLY way to get a 5th gen fighter platform widely fielded in the current budgetary environment...

EDIT: As an aside - I do think the little competition from the OP is a waste of time. Don't know what it will really achieve.

 

[Abezal]

The future is drones for support. You can have a whole bunch of them for the cost of one fighter and the price point will start dropping of them to the point just shooting them down will be expensive.

i see lots of posts like these.

you think counter measures aren't being developed ? that drones will take out drones. Hacking them ex.

 

[ocean size]

i see lots of posts like these.

you think counter measures aren't being developed ? that drones will take out drones. Hacking them ex.

Guess what- nothing needs to be developed to take out the A-10, it had been getting grounded by cheap tech since desert storm and for that reason and others had never been our primary CAS provider.

 

[m52nickerson]

I want to see a F-35 fly back to base with huge chucks of the plane missing like the A-10 can. Then we will talk.

 

[Der Eisbär]

i see lots of posts like these.

you think counter measures aren't being developed ? that drones will take out drones. Hacking them ex.

Huh? That same thinking applies to jets.

Jets to take out jets! Duh!

Also modern jets like the F35 are so computerized they can be hacked too.

How the fuck are jihadi's going to have drones to counter our drones?

 

[ralphc1]

I want to see a F-35 fly back to base with huge chucks of the plane missing like the A-10 can. Then we will talk.

The F-35 could be taken down by a single bullet. It is a single engine plane with no redundancy. It has to fly high enough to avoid small arms fire. It can't operate under a low ceiling of clouds or smoke.

The test is likely to be conducted at a desert test site on a clear day with no counter fire.

 

[m52nickerson]

The F-35 could be taken down by a single bullet. It is a single engine plane with no redundancy. It has to fly high enough to avoid small arms fire. It can't operate under a low ceiling of clouds or smoke.

The test is likely to be conducted at a desert test site on a clear day with no counter fire.

Yup, that was my point.

 

[Handsomebwonderfull]

The F-35 could be taken down by a single bullet. It is a single engine plane with no redundancy. It has to fly high enough to avoid small arms fire. It can't operate under a low ceiling of clouds or smoke.

The test is likely to be conducted at a desert test site on a clear day with no counter fire.

But but but hypteitcav

 

[Orgasmo]

Dude - the F35's aerodynamic performance is a closely guarded secret - nobody has EM diagrams for the F35 quite simply because they are classified. What HAS occurred is that an abundance of unqualified individuals (bloggers/journalists) have been making bold claims about its supposedly inferior kinematics when said information isn't even available to them...

For example, guys like Sprey, Sweetman, Rogoway, Carlo Kopp, Axe et al. like to use disingenuous metrics like wing loading (a favourite of theirs, but meaningless on a lifting body design), or passing off a control laws test as a dogfight to portray it as cumbersome, but this is almost certainly inaccurate, particularly at operationally representative loadouts.

The reality is that, of all the aircraft it is designed to replace, the A10 is the only one whose niche and requirements differ significantly from the design philosophy of the F35. Even the most ardent critic of the F35 would have to agree that it is a true spiritual successor to the Hornet and Falcon (aircraft that have already proven the potency of multi-role jets), and a HUGE step up from the Harrier (F35B).

This doesn't mean, however, that the F35 must be used exclusively as the replacement for the capability that the A10 now provides (even if it "replaces" the A10 on a squadron by squadron basis), or that it will be "worse" at it. I concede that that the F35 may well be overly expensive for CAS in some low intensity COIN type ops, but you've said yourself in previous threads that this niche can be amply subsumed by MALE UCAVs like Reaper/Avenger/whatever comes in their stead. New tech like APKWS, JAGM, SDB etc are only going to help this transition along.

I'd also add that, given the US' penchant for curtailing production of big ticket, high tech platforms (B2, F22, Zumwalt... the list goes on) you can hardly blame LM for spreading the project around to protect it. That, combined with concurrency, may well be the ONLY way to get a 5th gen fighter platform widely fielded in the current budgetary environment...

EDIT: As an aside - I do think the little competition from the OP is a waste of time. Don't know what it will really achieve.

Heh, you forgot the part where F-35 can achieve Warp Factor 9, shoot phasers out of its nose and dive in the water like a SSN. A pig with fancy clothes and makeup is still a pig at the end of the day.

 

[lifelessheap]

I just love that the A-10 is a gun with wings.

 

[Boagrius]

Heh, you forgot the part where F-35 can achieve Warp Factor 9, shoot phasers out of its nose and dive in the water like a SSN. A pig with fancy clothes and makeup is still a pig at the end of the day.

Yeah yeah bla bla bla. You know full well I didn't claim any of that.

Meanwhile where is your actual evidence that it's "a pig"?

Not having a go at you mate just doubting your sources...

The F-35 could be taken down by a single bullet. It is a single engine plane with no redundancy. It has to fly high enough to avoid small arms fire. It can't operate under a low ceiling of clouds or smoke.

Oh come on @ralphc1 I've already explained to you in another thread why this is total BS. Raise the quality of your critique dude...

PS. @ralphc1 have you heard of SAR mapping? It is a radar function that allows you to see and target what's on the ground through things like cloud, smoke and even vegetation. The F35's radar has been designed for SAR mapping, among other things. The A10 on the other hand doesn't even have a radar (nor could it, realistically).

 

[Orgasmo]

Yeah yeah bla bla bla. You know full well I didn't claim any of that.

Meanwhile where is your actual evidence that it's "a pig"?

Not having a go at you mate just doubting your sources...

It sounded like you were reading off of a Lockheed brochure. That company's motto should be "over-promise, and under-deliver at twice the cost".

Let's ignore all the detractor bias for a moment and read factually into the whole F-35 vs F-16 test scenario from the quotes of the test pilot. We know it was at a distinct energy disadvantage, and we know that the F-35 was flying in clean configuration while the F-16 were carrying two fuel tanks. The test pilot also noted insufficient pitch rate. You have a plane that can't outrun or out-turn a legacy fighter that was designed in the 1970's.

Now I know what you're going to say since we had this discussion before. You're gonna say VLO , ECM suite and sensor fusion would allow it to get the jump on opponents before things go WVR. If that didn't do the job, AIM-9X and high off bore engagement capability will allow it to stay competitive. Those sound wonderful in an ideal world where potential competitors are a generation behind you. I'm not convinced of the long term longevity of American technological lead.

We'll just wait and see where F-35 goes, but I'm nowhere as optimistic as you are.