USAF Woes

[George Wallace]

My mind is a little foggy on this one, but did the USAF not get rid of the A-10s and the Army take them to keep in service?

 

[GAP]

The A-10 is more suited to an Army Air/Marine Air wing than the Air Force....

 

[OldSolduer]

The A-10 is more suited to an Army Air/Marine Air wing than the Air Force....

I agree.
No disrespect intended, but from what I have observed from these threads and other sources is that the USAF is more interested in big bombers and high altitude fighters than it is supporting Army types.
Am I wrong?

 

[jeffb]

USAF has ALWAYS been more involved in what used to be called strategic bombing then tactical bombing. Since around the 1920's there has been an idea that bombers could win wars without the need to land forces (see Douhet). USAF was basically created fostering this myth after the Second World War and the US Strategic Bombing Survey. The Army tends to view air power as a support to maneuver, while the USAF might not admit it openly, it has always been of the opinion that CAS is a tertiary role with air superiority and strategic bombing being it's primary and secondary roles. If you'd like some real life examples I'd cite the various bombing campaigns in Vietnam (Rolling Thunder) designed to drive a political end. More recently you have Kosovo, Libya and Desert Storm 1 as examples.

 

[Dissident]

My barely educated guess is that the USAF is putting the KC-10 and A-10 on the chopping block for the same reason the Snow Birds and the RCMP musical ride are always at the top of the list of things to be cut: It is hard politically to cut these things and it puts pressure back on ther gov to maintain the budget or not slash as deeply.

I do wish the USAF would stop being so territorial about fixed wing aircraft and let the Army get a CAS platform (A-10?).

 

[Lightguns]

Air Forces are always interested in the sexy.  The Fighter pilot is still seen as the knight of the air by those you aspire.  Bomber pilots are a different group on to themselves and since their selection process is as rigorous as missile men, they see themselves as elite.  CAS, Cargo are very much looked down on, the USAF really looks now on helo pilots.  The chap I know almost speaks of them as though they were a different species of human. 

The Bombing winning wars has been around since Billy Mitchel (sic), other than against enemies of limited means and unity it has not been successful.  The often cited Rolling Thunder was more a question of the North's concern for preserving the resources for conquering the South after the Americans were gone than being brought to their knees.  The North always had the will to victory, right down to the lowliest rice farming peasant. 

 

[Journeyman]

.....helo pilots.  The chap I know almost speaks of them as though they were a different species of human.

      Knowing several helo pilots....   

 

[tomahawk6]

The aircraft entered service between 81 and 88.A total of 60ac were acquired.One was destroyed in a fire so there are 59 in service.
The A-10 was acquired between 76-84.A SLEP has been approved to re-wing all A-10's in service. Both aircraft are old and eliminating them would save maintenance dollars.
The A-10 has been a highly successful design but replacing it would require a purpose built aircraft. An F-35 has been ruled out. Like the Frogfoot a new aircraft would need to be armored with outstanding loiter time.The USAF studied using a 600 gal fuel tank with the A-10. A UAV might or might not be able to fill the need. The A-10 performs  escort missions for helos on SAR missions,I am not sure if a UAV would be suitable.

 

[MarkOttawa]

In fact the F-35A is supposed to take on the A-10's CAS role--with a 25mm gun and much less ammo (180 rounds) than the Warthog's 30mm:
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail-page-2.asp?aircraft_id=23
http://www.gizmag.com/f35a-armament-test-flight/21557/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[tomahawk6]

I doubt the F-35 can take damage like this.

http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Ajzk5jyE5AXC7WkQ8eHGJy2bvZx4?p=A-10+damage&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-900

 

[The Bread Guy]

In fact the F-35A is supposed to take on the A-10's CAS role--with a 25mm gun and much less ammo (180 rounds) than the Warthog's 30mm:
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail-page-2.asp?aircraft_id=23
http://www.gizmag.com/f35a-armament-test-flight/21557/

Mark
Ottawa

That feels sort of like this (bright, shiny and "let's make it fit") ....

replacing this (unsexy, simple, yet does the job) ....

 

[Colin Parkinson]

They could build more A10's with the newer wings and a few improvements, of course, no one will get promoted and it might suck money away from the high flyers.

 

[CougarKing]

More on the aforementioned cuts considered to the KC10 tanker fleet:

Defense News link

USAF Secretary: Single-mission Aircraft Could be Cut

Sep. 17, 2013 - 09:53AM  | 
By AARON MEHTA

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. — Older, single-mission aircraft fleets could face the chopping block, according to the acting US Air Force secretary.

“Everything is on the table,” Eric Fanning said Monday afternoon. “We’re trying to protect a few of the main programs, but we are looking most closely at single-mission fleets.”

Fanning made his comments at a media briefing at this week’s Air Force Association Air & Space Conference. He was specifically asked about a Defense News report that service is considering cutting the KC-10 tanker and A-10 attack jet fleets.

Cuts, Fanning said, were unavoidable due to the limited options for the Air Force.

“If we go into [fiscal year 2014] with sequestration still in effect, and we need to achieve those savings, you have to look at cuts,” he said. “You can’t get your money out of installations because they won’t support [base realignment and closure]. You can’t get money out of people fast enough. It takes about a year to get savings out of people.

“If you try to fence off some of your priority programs, it puts a lot of pressure on that small part of the wedge,” he added. “You can’t get savings of the magnitude necessary by reducing all of your fleets. You have to take out some fleets entirely in order to get the whole tail that comes with it, in terms of savings.”

Those priority programs include the F-35 joint strike fighter, KC-46 tanker replacement program, and new long-range bomber. Fanning expanded on the importance of those programs later in his speech.

The KC-46 program replaces only a third of the aging KC-135 tanker fleet, with two follow-on programs needed after completion, Fanning pointed out. “That last 135, when it lands, is going to be older than any human being alive. That’s a critical backbone, not just for the Air Force but for the military, so that’s clearly a priority.

“The long-range strike bomber, the interesting thing about that is that the real money goes into the program in the future,” Fanning said. “That won’t give us savings when we’re at our most vulnerable.”

As for the F-35, the most expensive program in Pentagon history, Fanning described the fifth-generation fighter as “the critical warfighting program for the Department of Defense.”

“The Air Force, in any of the budget scenarios, is committed to the joint strike fighter,” he added. However, he did not rule out that a JSF buy could be cut or pushed back as part of a Pentagon budget decision.

(...)

 

[Kirkhill]

You have to take out some fleets entirely in order to get the whole tail that comes with it, in terms of savings

That sounds like something a chap name of Paterson would be saying. Logistics and Support.

Tangent Alert:  I wonder what the support bill for the C16 is compared to the 60mm Mortar?

Back to the Air Force.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

“Everything is on the table,” Eric Fanning said Monday afternoon. “We’re trying to protect a few of the main programs, but we are looking most closely at single-mission fleets.”


everything but.....

Interceptors
Fighters
5 star hotels for said pilots and General Staff

 

[dapaterson]

[Never going to happen]

If the F-35 is all its proponents claim it is, why not divest the F22s?

[/Never going to happen]

 

[UnwiseCritic]

Is the c-16 replacing the 60? Or just supplementing battalions?

Back on track, wouldn't it be unwise to make everything fighters? Is it not like going Ferrari and saying "build me a 180 mile an hour car, 4x4, bullet proof, turns on a dime. Subsequently asking "does it come in black?"

Obviously building such a vehicle isn't possible. So a balance would be found. And it wouldn't win any single event. But I don't know anything on fighter jets. What do pilots say? Would they be comfortable in it against enemy interceptors, etc?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

[Never going to happen]

If the F-35 is all its proponents claim it is, why not divest the F22s?

[/Never going to happen]

Talk about a "single mission fleet" Where a cut would allow you to buy way more A10's and C-17's

 

[daftandbarmy]

That feels sort of like this (bright, shiny and "let's make it fit") ....

replacing this (unsexy, simple, yet does the job) ....

Clearly, you have no respect for the needs of the military-industrial complex  ;D

 

[CougarKing]

From FOX news:

New Air Force cargo planes fly straight into mothballs
quote:
The Pentagon is sending $50 million cargo planes straight from the assembly line to mothballs because it has no use for them, yet it still hasn’t stopped ordering the aircraft, according to a report.

A dozen nearly new Italian-built C-27J Spartans have been shipped to an Air Force facility in Arizona dubbed “the boneyard,” and five more currently under construction are likely headed for the same fate, according to an investigation by the Dayton Daily News. The Air Force has spent $567 million on 21 of the planes since 2007, according to purchasing officials at Dayton’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Of those, 16 have been delivered – with almost all sent directly to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, where some 4,400 aircraft and 13 aerospace vehicles, with a total value of more than $35 billion, sit unused.


The C-27J has the unique capability of taking off and landing on crude runways, Ethan Rosenkranz, national security analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, told the newspaper. But with sequestration dictating Pentagon cuts, the planes were deemed a luxury it couldn't afford.