A-10 Thunderbolt II and the USAF

The Air Force brass really seem determined to have a monopoly on air assets even at the expense of the other services.

 

Bunch of morons in the Air force brass, As for the US Army, While not exactly they should to an extent model them selves after the USMC but instead of F-18's and F-35's have A-10's (or the future successor) and instead of C-130's have C-27's or similar. Also wouldn't hurt the Army getting some Osprey's.

Would mean less tank's and vehicles and ground combat troops but would make a more well rounded combat force able to adapt more easily to situations them selves rather then relying on inefficient dealings with other branches.

 

"Everything that flies belongs to me!"

- Hermann Goring

 

Almost everything, Hermie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP6VnbeWXSY

 

Looks like a bit of back tracking:
[SIZE=medium]www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2015/04/29/air-force-rescinds-a10-warning-memo/26606477/[/SIZE]

 

Retire 280 of A-10's or retire a similar number of F-16's.. Which is more likely to be noticed missing? With over 1,600 combat aircraft largely based in the US where no nation that is of comparable size is able to reach them I think they can forgo a few hundred F-16's without noticing their loss.

If the Air force truly had been worried about economics then they would retire an equal number of F-16's over the A-10's considering they are actually 27% more costly to operate per an hour (according to http://nation.time.com/2013/04/02/costly-flight-hours/).

 

When a government department sends a memo to Congress, one would hope it represents a well researched and thought out consensus on the topic, but as soon as they get a little political heat about it, they pull it back.

The Air Force may have some valid arguments, and it's certainly true that keeping any one thing means less of something else, but they don't build much confidence with things like this or the other shenanigans we've been discussing.

Apparently that former A-10 pilot congresswoman is pushing an amendment that would flatly forbid any reduction in the A-10 fleet, which seems equally biased in the other direction. Incidentally the article I read mentioned the Warthog's ".30mm" gun; nice to see our reporters know their subject matter

 

Well I saw an article the other day about the Indians upgrading their 155m artillery form 38mm to 45mm barrels!
See:
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/land/weapons/2015/04/27/india-howitzer-dhanush-artillery-bofors-ordnance-factory-board-mod/26456977/

and
http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/is-india-finally-getting-modern-artillery/

Looks like it may have been a press release though ...

 

Let's suggest the Airforce cut 10 B2A flight hours per month. Not a lot and we'd gain 95.57 A-10 flight hours per month. I don't imagine the B2A is flying a lot of critical missions these days. If some crisis comes up where they need to fly more B2A missions I'm sure supplemental war funding will be forthcoming.

 

I can remember when the Marine Corps upgraded all it's M109, M109A1 and A1B SP Howitzers to the A2 and A3 standard with a longer barrel. The original M109 had a short M-126 gun, the A1 and A1B's had a slightly longer M126A1. The A2/A3 had the much longer M185. Now they're the even more capable, M109A6 Paladin with an even longer M284. Kept a 1960's (1963) era artillery piece capable for 52 years.

 

WTF!

I think the reporter moron confused caliber with...What, I have no idea, but the moron is definitely confused.

AFAIK, the Dhanush was supposed to have begun delivery back in 2012, but ran into many problems with the design.

India is/was also looking into the indigenous DRDO 155mm/52 caliber howitzer, but that too, may be stuck in "development hell."

 

If I remember correctly the Caliber is the size of the shell to the length of the barrel, ie: 155mm/52 would be 155mm shell and a barrel 8060mm long but been a while since I read it up.. But a 155mm shell with a 45mm barrel.. India wont have much luck with their new 155/.29 pieces. Id imagine a Musket would be just as accurate.

 

Something something about base bleed munitions, which allow longer ranges. By bleeding gasses from the base, the munition becomes more air efficient, and travels further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_bleed

 

I think they were upgraded to 45 caliber barrels i.e. 45x155mm. I don't think I'd want to be anywhere near a 155mm gun with a 45mm barrel that was firing much less a 38mm one.

 

I have heard of snub nosed .38s before. But a snub nosed 155 is a new one.

 

Even the ACW mortars had a barrel length at least a bit longer than the barrel diameter instead of 1/4 to 1/ 3 the barrel diameter. Sorry for dragging us off topic though.

 

If getting dragged off topic doesn't involve politics then I think we can all live with it =)

 

No need to apologize lwd, we all can't help but call out the error made by the knucklehead who wrote that article.

 

What I'd actually like to know, Is how many personnel are needed per any particular aircraft frame to keep them operational? I know some need more, Some need less such as the former F-111 was very personnel heavy (especially to the end of their lives) while the Saab Gripen requires bugger all personnel. Even the Super Hornet apparently only requires half of the personnel that the Classic hornet needed even though it is a larger aircraft.

So if anyone has any idea on the personnel requirements or even how many man hours of maintenance per an hour of flight for the A-10, F-15, F-16, F-18 (classic and super hornet), F-22 and the F-35 would help.

The AF keep's saying they need to retire the A-10 to shift the maintenance crew's across but I've never heard of the A-10 being maintenance heavy, makes little sense if retiring the entire fleet of A-10's only get's you a fraction of that number of F-35's. We already know the A-10 how one of the lowest flight hour costs, Less man hours would just make the A-10 that much better to keep.

 

The shifting on maintenance crews is due to personnel required by the mandatory defense cuts. Fewer crews mean fewer airframes can be maintained, soooo, if we have x number of ground crews allowed and 100 are used by the A-10 that means 100 fewer to service the F-35.