Carrier based A-10

Did a search and couldn't find a previous post. What if the Air Force transfers a squadron of A-10 Thunderbolts II to the navy. I could just imagine what that big a$$ed gun ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/GAU-8_avenger.jpg) would do to a gunboat or even a destroyer. I would guess that with some modification the plane could be rigged up for cat shots and arrestor gear.The plane is built like a flying tank so I would imagine the worst part would be getting the wings to fold.
What do you all think?
docfl
 

Bearcat

Banned
Did a search and couldn't find a previous post. What if the Air Force transfers a squadron of A-10 Thunderbolts II to the navy. I could just imagine what that big a$$ed gun ( http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/GAU-8_avenger.jpg) would do to a gunboat or even a destroyer. I would guess that with some modification the plane could be rigged up for cat shots and arrestor gear.The plane is built like a flying tank so I would imagine the worst part would be getting the wings to fold.
What do you all think?
docfl

If an A-10 gets close enough to a modern surface combatant to use it's gun, the A-10 is dead.

A-10s survive on the modern battlefield by using terrain masking and such tactics.

NO Way the navy does this.

Now the Marines might have been interested. Marines love Close Air Support as much as anyone. But it likely would have been a land-based aircraft only, no catapult. The cost of rebuilding the design to survive carrier landing, cat shoots and long exposure to marine (salty) air probably precludes it ever being realistic.
 
The USN hasn't faced a modern surface combattant capable of dealing with jet aircraft for years, decades even. And if it did the CAGs Hornets would deal with it anyway. However carrier aircraft need to be designed from the ground up, you can't just rivet in a set of hinges in the wings and weld some sheet steel onto the wheel struts and start flying off a carrier.
 
While I doubt it would have been a good idea....I would so join the navy and fly one.

Best use of course would be with the marines but the AF is stingy about losing their monopoly on jet craft
 
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CalBear

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The A-10 is a single role aircraft, with a decent secondary role as a Sandy escort. That role is killing tanks. There are fairly few tanks at sea, and everything bigger than a rowboat also sports a SAM launcher.

The A-10 could, in the proper circumstances, have been a very effective ship killer (in Hunt for Red October Clancy provides a scenario that illustrates this), but overall it is far too much of a one trick pony to be useful in a carrier air wing.

I would also point out that adapting a land based aircraft to carrier use almost never ends well. It is easy to go from carrier capable to land, all you have to do is take off the arrestor gear and a few other widgets and you have a land based aircraft, but getting a plane to be able to survive the thousands of Cat shots and controlled crash-... er, arrested landings necessary for the fleet is a very different matter.
 
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