Air Force To Make A-10 Replacement Recommendations as Early As Fall

[GhostZ06]

WASHINGTON — The US Air Force is deliberating if and how to replace its close-air support workhorse, the A-10, and may have a better picture of their path forward later this year, the service’s top civilian said Wednesday.

During an interview with Defense News, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said she and other top service leaders — such as Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein — will be briefed on various options for replacing or augmenting the A-10 Warthog this fall, as the service begins to build its next five-year budget plan.

“Any of these types of possibilities would likely come up in the fall to me and the chief during this planning choices forum. And that's when we would discuss and we could make some recommendations,” which could then flow into the budget cycle, she said.

Air Force officials recently briefed a group of analysts and aerospace experts on a proposed plan that would involve buying two close-air support (CAS) aircraft. In the near term, the service would procure an existing light-attack aircraft to augment the A-10 during CAS missions in permissive environments. This OA-X would likely be an existing aircraft with a low flight-hour cost, such as the Beechcraft AT-6 or Embraer A-29 Super Tucano. Further down the road, the Air Force would purchase an A-X2 — which could be an existing or new design — that would replace the A-10. That jet would operate in slightly more sophisticated, medium-threat environments.

However, James stressed that other options, such as re-winging the A-10 or buying a single aircraft to replace the Warthog, were still on the table.

http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...se-air-support-fall-recommendations/88179822/



So looks like we will see an A-X2 program. i dont understand why they dont give the A-10 drone capability's

 

[Boagrius]

Indeed, at the current rate it's going to be either a Super Tucano or Scorpion light jet or both. As I have said before the capability it provides is probably going to get taken up by unmanned aircraft eventually - perhaps whatever replaces Reaper et al. This is to say nothing of emerging tech like loitering munitions and next gen artillery.

 

[GhostZ06]

well what i mean is, have the A-10 fly in with 2 armed drones as well as carry a pay load

 

[Boagrius]

well what i mean is, have the A-10 fly in with 2 armed drones as well as carry a pay load

I don't know if it's as simple as that. As it stands I don't believe the A10 can interface with UAVs in this way and it would thus need to be upgraded in order to do so. I think you'll find the USAF would much prefer to spend that money elsewhere.

 

[ryan3434]

Long live the warthog.

 

[Orgasmo]

Indeed, at the current rate it's going to be either a Super Tucano or Scorpion light jet or both. As I have said before the capability it provides is probably going to get taken up by unmanned aircraft eventually - perhaps whatever replaces Reaper et al. This is to say nothing of emerging tech like loitering munitions and next gen artillery.

There is no brrrrt from those, thus your argument is invalid.

 

[Boagrius]

There is no brrrrt from those, thus your argument is invalid.

The fanboyism is mindboggling sometimes. Then again, most people don't realise that the enemy in future wars might have their own BRRT gun to shoot back with... or something even bigger firing guided effing shells. I dare say it'll be much safer, cheaper and more effective to use a system like this instead of the GAU-8:



It's got a good guidance package, comes with more warhead types than you can poke a stick at, has better armour penetration/behind armour effects than any GAU-8 round or burst thereof ever will, and (best of all) you can actually use it from well outside of the range of the local SHORAD/MANPAD and trash fire defences instead of having to do a nigh on suicidal linear attack run at low alititude.

So, everybody wins! (literally - you can use it on anything capable of firing regular 70mm rockets ie. EVERY tactical CAS aircraft in the US arsenal).

 

[ralphc1]

The fanboyism is mindboggling sometimes. Then again, most people don't realise that the enemy in future wars might have their own BRRT gun to shoot back with... or something even bigger firing guided effing shells. I dare say it'll be much safer, cheaper and more effective to use a system like this instead of the GAU-8:



It's got a good guidance package, comes with more warhead types than you can poke a stick at, has better armour penetration/behind armour effects than any GAU-8 round or burst thereof ever will, and (best of all) you can actually use it from well outside of the range of the local SHORAD/MANPAD and trash fire defences instead of having to do a nigh on suicidal linear attack run at low alititude.

So, everybody wins! (literally - you can use it on anything capable of firing regular 70mm rockets ie. EVERY tactical CAS aircraft in the US arsenal).

Until somebody blocks the transmissions or takes over control.

 

[Boagrius]

Until somebody blocks the transmissions or takes over control.

Huh? It's a laser guidance kit for existing 70mm rockets. You literally can't "take over control of one" because they home in on a specifically coded laser spot. Worst case scenario - let's say the guidance does get disrupted or blocked (by smoke for example) - you can still fire it as a regular unguided rocket...

At any rate a much more useful weapons system than the GAU-8 for future CAS - be it in low intensity COIN ops or higher intensity/near peer conflicts.

If you're referring to my other post where I described using UAV's to take over much of the A10's current role, then yes that's true to an extent, but only for remotely piloted UAVs. True autonomous UAV's don't have this problem and could be co-ordinated by a nearby "mothership" aircraft with much more secure datalinks.

 

[ralphc1]

Huh? It's a laser guidance kit for existing 70mm rockets. You literally can't "take over control of one" because they home in on a specifically coded laser spot. Worst case scenario - let's say the guidance does get disrupted or blocked (by smoke for example) - you can still fire it as a regular unguided rocket...

At any rate a much more useful weapons system than the GAU-8 for future CAS - be it in low intensity COIN ops or higher intensity/near peer conflicts.

If you're referring to my other post where I described using UAV's to take over much of the A10's current role, then yes that's true to an extent, but only for remotely piloted UAVs. True autonomous UAV's don't have this problem and could be co-ordinated by a nearby "mothership" aircraft with much more secure datalinks.

The laser has to be held on the target. Some systems picture the target the laser is on at firing and continue to that point but smoke can obscure that or light pulses cause the camera to lose effectiveness. Are you aware that it has been shown that laser guided weapons can be influenced by other laser streams? EM pulse weapons are in development that could render electronics and control systems ineffective or useless. The less electronics required the better.

 

[Boagrius]

The laser has to be held on the target. Some systems picture the target the laser is on at firing and continue to that point but smoke can obscure that or light pulses cause the camera to lose effectiveness. Are you aware that it has been shown that laser guided weapons can be influenced by other laser streams? EM pulse weapons are in development that could render electronics and control systems ineffective or useless.

What specific systems are you referring to here? Yes there are countermeasures of various kinds to any guidance system you care to mention - it doesn't invalidate them at all. Laser targeting is still the guidance method of choice for CAS in many cases for a variety of reasons, including its versatility - for example you can do "buddy lasing" where one platform (or perhaps even the troops on the ground) designate the target while another aircraft kills it.

The bottom line is that APKWS has A LOT more promise for future CAS needs than the GAU-8 due to its superior:

a.) Lethality (better warheads)
b.) Accuracy & precision (it actually has a guidance system but you can still fire it unguided)
c.) Platform commonality (any jet, CAS UAV or attack helo can carry it) and
d.) Range (rockets > bullets).

The less electronics required the better.

This is obviously not true in all circumstances, or even most of them. For example, the Syrian airforce right now is dying (literally) from a lack of guided CAS weaponry, which has been forcing jets like this one to get too close to even basic VSHORAD systems like the HN6. The results have been less than optimal for them to say the least... (hence the Russians showing up with guided weaponry and faring much better).

I'd add that if the enemy is sophisticated enough to both detect an APKWS launch from over 12000ft altitude and then respond in time to disrupt the guidance on the APKWS rocket (ie. pretty damn sophisticated - think Russia or China) then you sure as hell are NOT going to send your A10s in to do gun runs on them at low altitude anyway (!) - OPFOR will in all likelihood also have highly lethal VSHORAD systems waiting down there as well.

So... yeah, not sure what you're getting at here.

 

[HockeyBjj]

Gonna post a picture of myself for the first time on Sherdog. And yes, have at it

Long live the gun they built a plane around

 

[Boagrius]

^ Great shot

EDIT: You might be interested to know that the gun will probably outlive the A10 itself. The Europeans turned it into the Goalkeeper CIWS for destroying anti ship missiles and even the Chinese have essentially stuck one in their LD2000 land based air defence system.