" wrote in message
ink.net...
Replacement_Tommel wrote:
In article
. net,
says...


(snip)


I heard a rumor that as part of transformation the US
Army
wants to take over the A-10 and put it under Army
Aviation
and even build a few more. It might be a viscious rumor
but, I hope its true.



It almost happened in the early nineties... the USAF was
going to
drop the A-10 and said that they didn't want them. THe
Army said that
they would gladly take them off of the USAF's hands and
argued that
part of the old Key West agreement could be modified so
that fixed
wing CAS would become an Army mission again. IIRC, some
congress
critter got the defense appropriations bill tagged with a
requirement
that for every A-10 the USAF wanted to retire, it would be
"transferred" to the Army with its support crew... the
USAF quickly
dropped the idea of retiring the A-10.

About 144 A-10s were deployed to Saudi Arabia in Operation
Desert
Storm. They did not have built in night-vision capability,
GPS
support or laser-targeting, and yet they flew more than
8,900 sorties
- nearly 30 percent of all Allied missions - and accounted
for 50
percent of confirmed Iraqi equipment losses, including
nearly 1,100
of Iraq's 1,500 tanks, 1,500+ armored vehicles and 51 SCUD
missiles
and launchers. Even with only a 'marginal' precision
capability, the
A-10s fired 90 percent of the AGM-65 Maverick missiles
used in the
Gulf War, employing them with great success. Since they
were easy to
service in the field, A-10s maintained a 96 percent
mission
availability rate - the highest of any aircraft type
during the first
Gulf War - and proved to be quite durable repeatedly
returning home
with large holes in the wings and fuselage...

Yet somehow guys like DM and the rest of the "faster,
higher and
sexier" crowd believe that the A-10 can't get the job
done - which is
in contrast to what USAF General Horner said about them
(-i.e. "I
take back all the bad things I have ever said about the
A-10. I love
them! They're saving our asses!").

-Tom
(Stats are from "The A-10 Warthog and Close Air Support:
The Warthog
and the Combat Air Support Debate" by Douglas Campell,
former A-7 and
A-10 pilot)

I've heard the same stats on "Wings". Too bad it didn't
happen. The Army could use some additional CAS assets since
unlike the Navy or the Marines the USAF (other than the A-10
Squadrons) doesn't like to fly CAS missions the way they
should be in order to put the payload on target, on time.
While having a BOne or Buff dropping LGBUs may be
spectacular and more accurate than not these days. They
can't quite get the same effect as a 30mm GAU on a pack
train or moving troops. Using the BOne or Buff is a bit of
overkill and you risk your own troops going down to collect
intelligence afterwards from the UXEs that invariably occur.

Snark

Not going to happen.