Arioch wrote:Nobody wants the A-10 or anything like it.
This just isn't true, Arioch.
Arioch wrote:The Army didn't want it because they prefer helicopters to fixed-wing aircraft.
This is not true, Arioch. This is
extremely untrue.
The Army
fucking love the A-10. Ask any groundpounder which he'd rather have doing close-air support on his position, an A-10 or an Apache, and he wants the flying tank with the gun the size of God that can shrug off cannonfire, rather than the little pop-up that may be able to resist small arms fire but will die if anybody points a
real gun at it.
The army
isn't allowed to have A-10 Warthogs, thanks to that ridiculous "treaty" made when the Air Force was separated from the Army that forbade Army aviators from operating fixed-wing aircraft.
Arioch wrote:The Navy doesn't want it because it's close support AND it's not a Navy aircraft; the Marines don't want it because it can't take off from a helicopter carrier.
This is untrue as well. The Marines would
love to have A-10s, because, again, it is a flying tank with a gun the size of God that can far, far take more punishment than any zippy little helicopter or jump-jet. The Marine Corps would
quite gladly take all of the A-10s. Remember, not all of their aviation is done off LCCs.
Arioch wrote:The Air Force never wanted the A-10 because it's down-to-the-ground close support, which they have never liked -- they prefer high altitude precision munitions platforms.
This, however, is entirely true - the Air Force (and Navy aviation) is made up of people who grew up on a steady diet of
Top Gun. They want to fly the zippy little gofasts, and absolutely hate being told to fly anything else, which means they resent it and don't know how to use it properly. It also means there's a monumental communications clusterfuck between the close air support and the boots on the ground; by the time the infantryman's call for help that he needs fire on X position, which is Y meters dead ahead of him, reaches the pilot, the infantry have either retreated, been killed, driven off the enemy, or done it themselves and advanced into the position which is due to be strafed.
And all of them dislike it because it's low and slow and not even remotely stealthy, which in today's environment means it will be taking the lion's share of combat losses (which is its own political problem).
This is also untrue. The A-10 is not designed to be operating in contested airspace with modern enemy fighter opposition, and if you are operating it in contested airspace, you should damn well be operating it with heavy cover from those zippy gofasts the Air Force loves so damn much.
It's a plane that's designed to do a job. That job is to fly low and fry high. Nothing else yet designed does that job better, and asking it to do anything else is absurd; but not more absurd than asking a zippy little gofast to do what the A-10's job is to do.
I've seen you playing WoW a lot. Assigning the F-35 or F-18 to ground attack is assigning the party healer to DPS. Yes, he technically
has a damage output, but it's not his bloody job, and he's terrible at it. Assigning the A-10 to air superiority is like assigning the party DPS to heals; if she's a Paladin she
might be able to throw out some off-heals, but it's not her job and she's not very good at it and it takes her attention away from DPS, so you'd better hope her off-heals will keep the tank up long enough for the other DPS to nuke the bad'un down, or you're hosed.
The bottom line is that the A-10 will never be used in the littoral support role, which is what the Zumwalt was designed for, so I don't think you can accurately say that it's a viable replacement. That the A-10 might be better in that role than an F-18 or F-35B is, unfortunately, irrelevant.
Almost unquestionably not, but the thing is that it's a job the A-10 would be perfectly suitable for with only minor modifications.
Modification 1: Put Marine Corps aviators in the cockpit.
Modification 2: Arresting hook.
Modification 3: Beat the Chair Force generals vigorously about the head and neck until they cease their petulant insistence that fixed-wing combat aviation is something Only Air Force pilots can do.
Alternatively
Modification 3a: Fire a few Chair Force Generals, replace them with Marine Corps and Army generals who have had their personal boots on the ground under fire, give them a mandate to recruit entire flight groups consisting of nothing but people who hate zippy little gofasts and have had their own personal boots on the ground under fire to fly A-10s in the ground-attack roll.