Air Force considering A-10 replacement for future close air support

[Major Shaitan Singh]

Even as the US Air Force is still banking on saving billions by retiring the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, the service is considering building a brand new aircraft to take over the close air support (CAS) role.

Speaking at the Air Force Association’s annual conference in Orlando, Florida, air force Gen HawkCarlisle, chief of Air Combat Command (ACC), says a follow-on weapon system for the A-10 is on the table.

Carlisle also announces an upcoming focus meeting with the army, navy and marine corps to solicit input from the services about the CAS mission in future conflicts. Though the air force wants to retire the A-10 in a plan to save $4.2 billion for other programmes, the service will still be required to provide CAS, Carlisle says.

“We have always, throughout our history, been dedicated to defense of the ground force from the air,” he says. The A-10 was designed to fly low and slow and provide cover fire for ground troops with its nose-mounted 30mm cannon. The air force has said it cannot afford to continue operating what officials consider a single-mission aircraft.

However, “another weapons system programme may be something we need to consider as we look at the gaps and seams for the future” of the CAS mission, Carlisle says.

“We’ll continue to look at what’s next, that’s part of the discussion,” Carlisle says. “What provides that close air support in the future is something we’ll continue to look at. It could be a follow-on. It’s a mission we have always been committed to and will stay committed to, so the potential out there is that we will look at that.”

Congress has balked at retiring the A-10 and its potential mothballing has resulted in an emotional backlash from pilots who have flown the aircraft in combat and ground troops who have fought under its protection. The air force initially pitched its retirement as a means of dealing with sequestration cuts and has again suggested the aircraft be retired if those across-the-board cuts go into effect in fiscal year 2016.

The A-10 has gotten a leg up recently as the US has ramped up airstrikes against Islamic state militants in Iraq and Syria, an operation called Inherent Resolve. Carlisle says the A-10 is performing effective CAS missions in support of anti-Islamic State operations.

A fleet of 12 A-10s and 300 airmen recently deployed to Spangdahelm Air Base in Germany to support Operation Atlantic Resolve, which is a security cooperation effort with other NATO countries.

The A-10, however is an aging aircraft that is vulnerable in contested environments where enemy air defenses are present. New aircraft could be necessary to provide CAS in contested environments, which will multiply in the future, he says.

“Contested environment are going to go up because our adversaries know what we can do when we own the airspace and will continue to try to deny that to us,” Carlisle says. “The A-10 is significantly vulnerable in a contested environment than other airplanes.”

Air Force considering A-10 replacement for future close air support - 2/13/2015 - Flight Global

 

[Major Shaitan Singh]

The Air Force is in a dilemma. It’s committed to buying hundreds oftroubled and expensive stealth fighters just as it runs low on money. To make up the difference, the flying branch is trying to retire the A-10 Warthog, a slow but tough—and devastating—ground-attack aircraft.

Now the A-10 might be around for a little while longer, after a tough-talking senator compelled the Air Force to keep the attack jet’s software up to date.

On Feb. 12, the Air Force’s top civilian official directed the service’s Air Combat Command to continue developing a new software upgrade for the A-10 after a complaint from Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican.

“In response to your concerns, I have directed that Suite 8 development continue in Fiscal Year 14,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James wrote in the letter to Ayotte. “As we continue with FY15 budget deliberations, I look forward to discussing the A-10 with you at greater length.”

In a Jan. 24 letter to James, Ayotte expressed concerns the Air Force may be violating language in the FY14 National Defense Authorization Act, which prohibits the service from taking any steps to retire the A-10 fleet until Dec. 31, 2014.

“It has come to my attention that the Air Force may be taking steps to prepare to retire the A-10 in violation of current law,” Ayotte wrote in her Jan. 24 letter to James.

Ayotte pointed out that the Air Force had issued orders to cease development of a package of software updates for the A-10 called Suite 8.

The Suite 8 software package includes a new transponder system known as Identification Friend or Foe Mode 5. For an A-10 pilot, this technology is crucial, as it allows other friendly aircraft and ground units to identify youraircraft as friendly.

An A-10's 30-millimeter Gatling gun over Afghanistan on Aug. 18, 2011. Air Force photo
“Without IFF Mode 5, combatant commanders will be unlikely to allow the A-10 to operate in contested areas,” Ayotte wrote.

Further, Ayotte asserted that without the new software, new subsystems could not be integrated into the A-10. Effectively, that would eventually turn a capable plane into an obsolete plane, retroactively justifying the program’s termination in favor of stealth fighters like the F-35.

Ayotte has led a caucus of senators and congressmen from both parties urging the Air Force to maintain the already heavily-upgraded A-10. For its part, the Air Force wants to kibosh the A-10 fleet because many within the service believe it will not be useful in future conflicts.

“I would dearly love to continue in the inventory because there are tactical problems out there that would be perfectly suited for the A-10,” Gen. Mike Hostage, ACC commander, told Defense News.

“I have other ways to solve that tactical problem,” Hostage said. “It may not be as elegant as the A-10, but I can still get the job done, but that solution is usable in another level of conflict in which the A-10 is totally useless.”

Hostage said that the Air Force has no choice but to cut all 340 A-10s currently in service, because the alternatives are far worse.

“They are still cutting the budget so I have to do something, and, unfortunately, the something that is left is worse than cutting the A-10 fleet,” Hostage told Defense News. “It is far worse for the nation if I have to keep the A-10 and cut a bunch of other stuff because they will not give me enough money to keep it all.”

An A-10 during a recent Air Force exercise in Alaska. Air Force photo
The A-10 Is the Air Force’s Most Awesomest Warplane—Of Course the Brass Wants to Get Rid of It
Legendary attack plane is getting better with age, but tell that to the Air Force


Starved of funding and saddled with a bunch of redundant Cold War-era airbases by an incompetent Congress, the U.S. Air Force is fast running out of money and needs to cut back.

But instead of eliminating expensive new technologies that demonstrably don’t work, the flying branch is proposing to permanently ground arguably its most useful warplane—one that’s been heavily upgraded and could fly cheaply for at least another 25 years.

I’m talking about the A-10 Warthog, of course, that iconic 1970s-vintage tank-killer with the Mickey Mouse engine layout and a powerful nose-mounted 30-millimeter cannon the size of a Volkswagen Bug. The low- and slow-flying Warthog, heavily loaded with missiles and bombs, has flown top cover for American ground troops in three wars.

In July, two A-10s zoomed to the rescue of 60 American soldiers pinned down by a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan. Protected by their jets’ titanium armor, the Warthog pilots flew low, spotted Taliban attackers by eye, fired thousand of 30-millimeter rounds and dropped three bombs.

Three U.S. troops were injured; the Taliban left 18 dead on the battlefield. “I think that day the enemy knew they were going to die,” one of the fliers mused.

Despite the A-10's impressive combat record, simplicity and low cost—just$17,000 per flight hour, the lowest of any Air Force jet fighter—the flying branch’s generals want to eliminate all 326 Warthogs by 2015 in order to protect three complex, pricey new planes still in development: the controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the secretive Long-Range Strike Bomber and the KC-46 aerial tanker.

The F-35 is slated to replace the A-10. But the new plane is flimsier, has a much smaller gun and flies too fast for spotting small targets on the ground. Owing to its complexity it’s also expensive: $200 million per copy to buy and $32,000 per hour to fly.

The Air Force knows the F-35 cannot match the A-10 in the ground-attack role, but prefers the former anyway because the JSF is new, allegedly able to avoid radar detection and because it can also at least attempt to fight other airplanes—something the single-mission Warthog cannot do at all. With less money to spend, the brass only wants warplanes that can perform more than one task.

“Fighters today really have to be multi-role and cover a lot more area, and have a wider mission set,” Rebecca Grant, director of the Washington Security Forum and a paid Air Force consultant, told National Defensemagazine.

But the F-35's mission set is so wide as to render it almost pointless. Forced to do the jobs of nimble dogfighters and vertical-launching attack planes, aerodynamically the JSF is a complicated and badly compromised design. In future battles with other airplanes, the F-35 “can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run,” according to one military-funded analysis.

The Air Force nevertheless wants 1,763 copies of the plane—together costing more than $400 billion to develop and build—to replace almost all existing tactical jets.

It would be cheaper—and militarily more effective—to design simple, single-purpose planes. “What you don’t do is hold up complexity as a desirable attribute,” says Dan Ward, an Air Force officer and weapons-buying expert.

Or better yet, just maintain existing jets that have already been paid for. Pierre Sprey, who helped design the A-10, is advocating for the Air Force to scrap the F-35 and pull some of the 300 already-retired Warthogs—made redundant by 1990s defense cuts—out of storage and revamp them for future use.

In any event, the Warthog has far more useful life left in it than most people realize. It only seems like an old warplane.

An A-10 undergoes work in 2007. Bryan William Jones photo
Rejuvenated ‘Hogs
Starting in 2006 the Air Force upgraded all the A-10s with new electronics. A year later the flying branch began paying Boeing a billion dollars to replace the A-10s’ wings with brand-new, tougher wings that would make the jets safe to fly through 2040.

Most promising of all, Raytheon and the military’s fringe-science Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency have been working on new gear that could allow troops on the ground, via radio, to partially take over control of an A-10 flying overhead, deciding for themselves when and where the Warthog should drop its bombs.

The Precision Close Air Support initiative could make the Warthog even more responsive than it already is. “Every minute on the ground counts for warfighters waiting for close air support,” said Tom Bussing, a Raytheon vice president. “PCAS could reduce the critical minutes it takes to get it to them.”

But the new hardware won’t be ready until 2015, the very year the Air Force wants to place the last A-10 in storage.

Fortunately the Warthog has allies in Congress—although to be fair, it’s Congress’ inability to produce reasonable budgets that has compelled the Air Force to propose cutting airplanes in the first place. In 2012 the flying branch wanted to retire 103 A-10s, but Congress overruled the plan.

A coalition of representatives and senators is forming around the Warthog. New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, has held up the nominationof Debbie Lee James for Air Force secretary over the A-10 issue. Rep. Ron Barber, an Arizona Democrat, wrote Air Force chief of staff Gen. Mark Welsh, reminding him that the A-10 “is unsurpassed in its ability to provide close-air combat support.”

Grassroots movements are also trying to help save the jet. There’s aFacebook page and a White House petition.

In coming months the Air Force will formally propose a budget, and then Congress will decide how much money actually gets spent—and on what. That’s when the real fight over the A-10 will go down.

 

[C130]

it's a old hog it might be time for it to retire.
i would say go with a highly advance UAV with a 360 degree flir, and a anti-personal/vehicle weapon system in the 50lb round range like the Griffin missile or even lighter like Pyros .

if the UAV can carry at least two dozen of these it would be better than the A-10 in the role and cheaper.