On Wed, 01 Oct 2003 13:35:06 GMT, Ed Rasimus wrote:


Great stuff guys. Yet, the primary tactic of the A-10 if attacked by
enemy aircraft remains to "circle the Hogs". As you describe, for the
typically energy superior fighter, the problem is simply one of flying
back and forth across the circle taking high angle shots (or for that
matter, all-aspect IR shots) at the rotating targets.

The theory of the Hogs is that with their tight turn radius they can
snap the nose around and bring the gun to bear on the attacker.
Unfortunately, the attacker simply zooms out of plane, exceeding the
energy ability of the Hog to sustain an extreme nose high position for
more than a few seconds. Throw in lack of a lead computing sight, and
the big gun become little more than a nuisance threat.

Breaking up a defensive circle is easy as long as it is at an altitude
sufficiently high to allow unrestricted vertical maneuvering. My view is that
the defending aircraft want to get right down in the weeds ASAP. Down on the
deck they can use topography to mask themselves, even conceal a sneaky reverse.
This also introduces the difficulty of visually picking out individual aircraft
in the ground clutter. The circle should not be so tight that aspect changes are
minimalized. I'm sure you've seen what happens when turning circles are so tight
that the relative aspect between target and shooter barely changes due to
a very tight turn radius, yet poor turn rate (in degrees/second).

My regards,

Widewing (C.C. Jordan)
http://www.worldwar2aviation.com
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