What Would Your Ideal A-10 Replacement Look Like?

[Mr King]

There is a lot of contention right now as to whether the A-10 is going to be removed from service or not. Even if the it is left in service at the moment, it will eventually have to be replaced. What would your ideal replacement for the A-10 feature and look like as a system?

[JasonJ]

As far as looks go, it's hard to find a better looking machine than the A-10 for its role. Such an awesome look aircraft.

[rathi]

The most likely replacements will either be a super Tucano or a drone. The primary need is for long loiter CAS against undefended targets at an affordable price.

[Simon Tan]

I feel manned CAS remains a goer, especially if they quit trying to do it from 1000km away. I also reckon that a 2-seater is probably needed for autonomy of action. The pilot needs to maintain maximum situational awareness and the WSO does all the heads down. I would seat them in a tandem arrangement. The benefits of side by side are significantly reduced with the developments in display technology. There would of course be fully redundant controls and displays to allow the crew to fly or fight as needed.

 

Stealth is not really necessary for an aircraft that is going to be in visual LOS to the enemy. What will be of value is IR suppressed exhausts and intakes for the engines. Yes...2. We have come a long way in terms of turbofans over the years and I expect contemporary units will run quieter and more efficiently.

 

Is the gun needed? Strictly....no. The GAU-8 really dominates the plane and everything to do with it. It does however represent the CAS as an idea. A gun run is pretty much as close to infantry combat a pilot will ever have and that is a crucial element of the American Way of War. I reckon you could do a similar job with a much more compact and lighter package like a Gast gun.

[Simon Tan]

Drones have their place but despite the hype, there are no swarms of Predator Bs and Reapers. Super Tucano is a farce.

[Ivanhoe]

Similar design philosophy to the A-10, but:

 

- more internal tankage

- smaller gun, more rounds

- massive drag reduction effort; fewer pylons, conformal weapons, etc.

- some sort of hard core electro-optical system; TADS/PNVS on steroids

- dual crew

- Intel Pilot On Board option package

- modern engines

- completely electric control system?

[Guest Jason L]

Was the 30mm GAU-8 ultimately worth it? Especially for the intended role of busting up vehicle columns? It's an absolutely huge piece of hardware.

 

In retrospect it seems weak against tanks. and softskins are better engaged with cluster munitions. You could fit a tremendously huge payload of guided 70mm rockets in place of the GAU-8.

 

The A-10 was also designed with fighting against a parity force in mind, and we can of course debate it's survivability in a NATO-PACT showdown, but in the current context any replacement will be most likely fighting non-parity forces, who nevertheless still have MANPADS, AA cannon and some bigger missile complexes - so "persistance" over the battlefield is probably the paramount concern.

[Colin]

It was unique as it was designed to take battle damage, something I don't think modern designers think about, they try avoid getting shot, the designers of the A-10 expected it to get hit and survive much that was thrown at it. None of the others are really designed with that mindset. I guess it would be good to do a close comparison with the SU-25 and why it has failed and what has been the primary method.

[Guest Jason L]

It was unique as it was designed to take battle damage, something I don't think modern designers think about, they try avoid getting shot, the designers of the A-10 expected it to get hit and survive much that was thrown at it. None of the others are really designed with that mindset. I guess it would be good to do a close comparison with the SU-25 and why it has failed and what has been the primary method.

 

A-10 is still highly vulnerable to larger missiles, and the core Ti armor is like a 10% weight penalty. Not getting hit ultimately seems like a better paradigm.

[Colin]

Not doable in the low down high intensity battle, every Ivan with a 12.7 is gunning for you, with no armour you are at the mercy of a lucky shot, against the bigger missiles they would still die, but it limits the threats. The aircraft was also designed to be field repairable for many components reducing down time and get it back fighting. Real CAS means getting shot at by just about everything, the F-35 will never do real CAS, it will do Air Support from higher up using it's sensor suite to ID targets and drop guided munitions.

[Colin]

 

 

 

 

http://warthognews.blogspot.ca/2011/06/from-archives-10-80-0258-from-172nd.html

Edited April 11, 2015 by Colin

[Guest Jason L]

With minaturized PGMs as well as full sized weapons and modern sensing why do you ever need to get that close anymore?

 

Close only needs to refer to a tight level of coordination, not physical proximity.

Edited April 11, 2015 by Jason L

[seahawk]

F-35 for the manned mission. UCAVs for most of it.

[JW Collins]

Ideal? I'd say something similar in configuration to the YA-9 or Su-25. It would be a bit faster than the A-10 (a speed around what the Su-25 or A-7 can do would be good) but otherwise not all that different from the A-10. It probably wouldn't be quite as tough in terms of the damage it can absorb but it would still be pretty damn good for an aircraft.

 

It would have improvements to sensors and avionics. Space and power for DIRCM when it becomes available. Yet it's going to have to be recognized that in a "real war" against a modern military such an aircraft is going to be of less use than other aircraft like the much criticized F-35. It will primarily be for "limited" wars and other conflicts were the enemy doesn't have state-of-the-art air defenses.

 

The much loved 30mm cannon would mostly be the same. Maybe FLIR (or something like EOTS) on the nose to enable more accurate targeting and better night/all weather capability, you would have to position it and the gun so firing doesn't blind the thing however.

 

You'd have some people in favor of cheaper options (similar to the Super Tucano for example), I'd try to argue that A-XX would still have more use of this in a wider range of conflicts.

 

I'll get into other weapon systems intended for the aircraft later. Also all of this presumes that somehow the DoD, USAF, and entire federal government suddenly get good at managing money which is impossible.

[DougRichards]

Hawker Sea Fury with a 30mm gun pod.

 

Should be two engined:

 

De Havilland Sea Hornet with a 30mm gun pod, or perhaps a 57mm with Molins auto loader firing APDS.

 

May even be able to operate off the HMS QE without a catapult.

[Simon Tan]

A-10 chalks up an AF kill. A 2-star no less. Maj. Gen. 'Treason' Post is fired as deputy commander ACC and his career is dead. The AF has a lot of headwind in Congress with a ton of hate coming their way. This jackass made it public that the AF leadership will lie to get their way.

[T19]

It would look like the A10 with improvements. No need to change the design it's solid just improve it or evolve it.

[shep854]

Arty with drone observation. All-weather, all-the-time and a short commo loop to the ground commanders

[Fritz]

My impression from what I read on defense blogs is that the A-10 is never going to have a proper successor, regardless of how long it survives in service.

 

Things are basically going to move in the UCAV direction unless something radical happens.

[Ivanhoe]

Was the 30mm GAU-8 ultimately worth it? Especially for the intended role of busting up vehicle columns? It's an absolutely huge piece of hardware.

 

For the Fulda Gap scenario, you can't blame the USAF for going big. They were grasping for ways to stop massive Soviet AFV movements into western Europe. No time for relaxed runs at a single AFV target and putting 5-10 rounds into it. My view is that the A-10 was intended to go well past the FEBA, find a Soviet IFV column, and in one pass kill half of them.

 

 

In retrospect it seems weak against tanks. and softskins are better engaged with cluster munitions. You could fit a tremendously huge payload of guided 70mm rockets in place of the GAU-8.

 

Back in the day, I doubt the USAF or the Army was going to put lots of faith into cluster munitions. The latter have turned out to be incredibly effective, but the A-10 was the brute force low-tech teammate of the high-tech Apache for keeping West Germany West.

[Ivanhoe]

 

It was unique as it was designed to take battle damage, something I don't think modern designers think about, they try avoid getting shot, the designers of the A-10 expected it to get hit and survive much that was thrown at it. None of the others are really designed with that mindset. I guess it would be good to do a close comparison with the SU-25 and why it has failed and what has been the primary method.

A-10 is still highly vulnerable to larger missiles, and the core Ti armor is like a 10% weight penalty. Not getting hit ultimately seems like a better paradigm.

 

Infantry are highly vulnerable to mines, IEDs, and arty. Tanks are highly vulnerable to EFPs. Surface ships are highly vulnerable... I culd go on adn on. Its all about cost/benefit.

[Guest Jason L]

 

 

It was unique as it was designed to take battle damage, something I don't think modern designers think about, they try avoid getting shot, the designers of the A-10 expected it to get hit and survive much that was thrown at it. None of the others are really designed with that mindset. I guess it would be good to do a close comparison with the SU-25 and why it has failed and what has been the primary method.

A-10 is still highly vulnerable to larger missiles, and the core Ti armor is like a 10% weight penalty. Not getting hit ultimately seems like a better paradigm.

 

Infantry are highly vulnerable to mines, IEDs, and arty. Tanks are highly vulnerable to EFPs. Surface ships are highly vulnerable... I culd go on adn on. Its all about cost/benefit.

 

 

Actually, dug in infantry and tanks are extremely resilient to attack, sure they take casualties, etc but they can still do their jobs against effective opposition. And while the death of the tank has been predicted multiple times the concept of a well protected, direct fire gun is obviously too sound.

 

There is also no alternative to infantry - you can't exactly phase them out and use something else.

 

No analog exists for CAS aircraft, indeed I don't think the concept of a pure CAS type operating against sustained, parity AA has ever really been tested - some concepts are too vulnerable for the cost to be worth the benefit.

[Simon Tan]

Arty...? Timely? Bwhahahahahaha......good luck on fighting Bde to get your shoot. Barring JAG being murdered, nevah happen GI.

[shep854]

Simon funny man...

[Colin]

I keep arguing the language needs to change, what the A10 does is CAS, what the F-35 is going to do is air support, The USAF des not want to change it, because of the politcal nature of the issue, but the F-35 will never engage targets in a real fight the way the A10 does, nor should it, the 180rds is not adequte for the job and the risk to a scarce airframe is not worth it. F-35's should fall cover for the A10, focusing on the heavy AA threat and have the A10's do the close in dirty work. In the real world thee is room and need for both.