[Humor] hangar sale...

[Adm.Lee]

https://www.duffelblog.com/p/air-for...ng-take-them-a

I think I have room in my shed for one or two...

(Yes, I recognize this is one of the oldest bones of contention between fans of the services and that bird. I even know a few A-7 pilots who claim the Warthog was over-hyped before it was accepted. Please accept this as the tongue-in-cheek it is meant for. It is Duffleblog, after all.)

[Tegyrius]

In an only-slightly-surprising turn of events, Greece offered to sweeten the deal by throwing in a free F-4 Phantom II and a bottle of ouzo.

https://www.twz.com/air/greece-plans...hter-inventory

- C.

[Raellus]

It's not nearly as sexy its contemporary fighter-bomber cousins, but I've always thought the A-10 was cool in an ugly-tough badass sort of way. I think the war in Ukraine has proven, however, that aircraft of that type would have a very low survivability rate in a modern, high-threat environment. In other words, if there'd been a WW3 during the 1980s, the Warthog would have become an endangered species fairly quickly.

On the other hand, the A-10 was praised to the rafters by soldiers and Marines during the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those were low-threat [aerial] environments, and the A-10 excelled in them.

I wonder how the Vietnam War would have played differently had the A-10 entered service 10 years earlier. I'm not suggesting that it would have changed the outcome entirely (I don't believe that any weapon system short of tactical nukes would have), but with A-10s performing CAS missions instead of the F-105, F-4, A-4 "fast movers"*, would the North Vietnamese have been brought to the negotiating table sooner?

*Yes, I do know about the A-1 Skyraider.

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[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Raellus

It's not nearly as sexy its contemporary fighter-bomber cousins, but I've always thought the A-10 was cool in an ugly-tough badass sort of way. I think the war in Ukraine has proven, however, that aircraft of that type would have a very low survivability rate in a modern, high-threat environment. In other words, if there'd been a WW3 during the 1980s, the Warthog would have become an endangered species fairly quickly.

Serious question: is it fair to compare the A-10's hypothetical performance in the 1980s, against air defenses designed in the 1970s, versus the ADA environment in Ukraine which benefits from another four decades of development? I don't know how many of the air defense systems in use in that conflict are vintage systems without subsequent updates.

- C.

[Adm.Lee]

These are all fair questions, but an acquaintance of mine spurs me to ask: is there anything the A-10 *has* done that the A-7 couldn't have done?

The bombload, AFAIK, was equivalent, the speed isn't much different. The big difference is that gun, and the A-10's 30mm isn't that big a difference vs. 20mm over Afghanistan & Iraq. Both designs benefited from Vietnam experience. Neither might have been all that survivable in a very-hostile ADA environment, such as 1987 Germany or 2024 Ukraine?

To answer my own question: Oh, yeah, I was overlooking the '91 war, in which there were lots of Iraqi tanks to be shot up.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

These are all fair questions, but an acquaintance of mine spurs me to ask: is there anything the A-10 *has* done that the A-7 couldn't have done?

The bombload, AFAIK, was equivalent, the speed isn't much different. The big difference is that gun, and the A-10's 30mm isn't that big a difference vs. 20mm over Afghanistan & Iraq. Both designs benefited from Vietnam experience. Neither might have been all that survivable in a very-hostile ADA environment, such as 1987 Germany or 2024 Ukraine?

To answer my own question: Oh, yeah, I was overlooking the '91 war, in which there were lots of Iraqi tanks to be shot up.

The traditional argument is that the A-10 is more capable of low-level flight for terrain protection from ground fire and is more likely to survive the inevitable hits. In practice, we'd need someone to do a deep dive into the respective designs' records of combat losses versus damaged aircraft returning to friendly tarmac.

- C.