The best aircraft that never should have been built
- Thread starter Father Maryland
- Start date
How did LTV plan to mount the gun on the A-7, pray tell? The Hog was built around the gun, and for survivability: there's several A-10 drivers in both ODS and OIF who brought back Hogs with major battle damage that would've sent them skydiving if they'd been in an A-7 or F-16. Not to mention that the gun pod with a 30-mm for the F-16 failed in its only combat use in ODS. That, and the Hog's combat performance in ODS, ensured the aircraft stayed in service.
Here's the Secret Projects thread on the A-7. I agree the A-10 is a tough and survivable aircraft but this doesn't detract from the fact that it was and is obsolete in the face of an even moderately competent opponent, Iraq was thoroughly hammered and most of it's AA taken out before A-10s were sent in to mop up the stragglers. Not to mention we had complete air superiority to keep them safe from enemy aircraft, if those A-10 pilots were flying upgraded or even regular A-7s they would have been much faster on target and less vulnerable due to their higher speed and greater array of pgms integrated on the aircraft, and for what it's worth the F-111 was the greatest tank killer of ODS.
Wonderful! You've got the ammo for the gun behind the pilot. And no armor for the cockpit (design requirement for the AX from Day One).
Hogs weren't just held in reserve, they were active from Day One into Kuwait and Southern Iraq: and the two squadrons with NVGs and flares actually took no damage at all. And when it comes to taking battle damage, I'll take an A-10 that can take a full four-round clip of 57-mm or a near-miss SA-8 or -13 and bring me back than an A-7 with zero armor. And if I get hit in that A-7? Time to pull that yellow handle and hope the CSAR guys get to me before the folks I was just pounding the crap out of to send me on that expense-paid trip to Baghdad.
Hogs weren't just held in reserve, they were active from Day One into Kuwait and Southern Iraq: and the two squadrons with NVGs and flares actually took no damage at all. And when it comes to taking battle damage, I'll take an A-10 that can take a full four-round clip of 57-mm or a near-miss SA-8 or -13 and bring me back than an A-7 with zero armor. And if I get hit in that A-7? Time to pull that yellow handle and hope the CSAR guys get to me before the folks I was just pounding the crap out of to send me on that expense-paid trip to Baghdad.
Agreed: try doing that with an A-7 or F-16. The top example is Capt. (now Col.) Kim "KC" Campbell's bird that took a near-miss from a Roland SAM over Baghdad on 8 Apr 03. Despite losing hydraulics, and having pieces of the stabilizer and wing shot away, and having to use manual controls, she managed to land the aircraft-one of the few to do so successfully. She received the DFC for that.
It's fantastic that she was able to RTB (and given the DFC not the expectation) but, quite frankly, so what? The airframe was only suitable for spare parts afterwards and that certainly would've been all that it was used for had it taken similar damage in a Cold War gone hot scenario. Might as well cite that Israeli F-15 that landed with only a single wing. All that shows is that going low and slow is going to hurt severely against even the most modest AA capability. You don't design around surviving the hits, you design around not getting hit in the first place. The Warthog is mythologized, but it didn't provide a meaningful capability above the A-7 and has long been obsolete.
I have to agree, so I suppose it would be more accurate to say that the Brabazon should never have been built with that particular purpose in mind. Namely to take on the Cruise Ships of the 1930's, which had been its intended goal.
The Hog of today has been refitted with more modern weapons, targeting pods, new avionics, and is not the same that went to war in 1991. I'd rather have a Hog driver who lives and breathes the CAS mission than an F-16 driver who doesn't train for CAS as a specialty. And if I'm a driver? I'd take the Hog over the A-10 because I know that if I'm hit, I have a decent chance of bringing the bird back, unlike an F-16, where if I'm hit, I go skydiving.
And the A-7F of today wouldn’t be the same as the one of 1991 nor are today’s F-16s the same as those of 1991. “Lives and breathes the CAS mission” is also meaningless when it’s entirely dropping smart bombs nowadays and BUFFs and Lancers make for good CAS platforms because of their load and time on station capability.
Edit: I just realized that we were talking past each other a bit: When I referred to the A-10 being obsolete, I was referring to its intended roles such as second echelon interdiction.
Last edited:
Ian_W
Banned
Horseshit.
Something has to take 50% per sortie casualty to stop the Soviet spearhead in the Fulda Gap, and that something needs to do the job.
Otherwise, it'll be whiny flyboys complaining other people lost the war while they were gaining air superiority.
The absolute problem with seperating the USAAC from the US Army is that the flyboys and the bomber boys we always going to agree that CAS wasn't their problem and they weren't going to do it.
The F-101 Voodoo. It was a very high-performance aircraft, but in everything it did besides reconnaissance it was redundant to the needs. As an interceptor it lasted only a few years before being shoved out by the F-106, as a nuclear striker it was built in small numbers and rapidly displaced by the F-105, and the original bomber escort role evaporated before it even got off the ground.
The F4D Skyray and F11F Tiger. Solid planes without the problems of the Cutlass, but they were rapidly displaced by the far superior Crusader and only served on carriers for a few years.
The B-1B. Awesome bomber, but obsolete mission profile and occupies an awkward niche between the B-52 and B-2. Not for nothing is the Air Force looking to replace them first.
The B-58 Hustler. It's a Mach 2 nuclear bomber, what's not to like? Well, the fact that it was horribly vulnerable to Soviet SAMs, ill-suited for low-altitude missions, and equally ill-suited to conventional bombing on top of being expensive and accident-prone.
The F4D Skyray and F11F Tiger. Solid planes without the problems of the Cutlass, but they were rapidly displaced by the far superior Crusader and only served on carriers for a few years.
The B-1B. Awesome bomber, but obsolete mission profile and occupies an awkward niche between the B-52 and B-2. Not for nothing is the Air Force looking to replace them first.
The B-58 Hustler. It's a Mach 2 nuclear bomber, what's not to like? Well, the fact that it was horribly vulnerable to Soviet SAMs, ill-suited for low-altitude missions, and equally ill-suited to conventional bombing on top of being expensive and accident-prone.
Er, no? The A-10 was purpose built (as was the YA-9 prototype) with all the conditions you mention in mind. You're also getting Air Force policy/desires mixed up with actual capability which the AF wanting to 'get-rid' of the A-10 was the former not the latter. (The "plan" was in fact to give them gun and all to the Army in exchange for more F-15s/F-16s and FINALLY allowing them to do their own CAS... No Mavricks though and they had to change it to OV-10 which was not at all going to cause some confusion
)The Air Force was 'moving away from low-altitude tactics' not because the A-10 couldn't do it's job but because it could and the Air Force didn't want to do that job. (Not that we every DID want to do it mind you) The A-7 didn't stand a chance and was on the way out when I joined up in 1979 and everyone knew it because it not only couldn't do a decent job of CAS, (too fast and to limited weapons load) it wasn't able to be a 'fighter/bomber' like the Air Force wanted.
The Air Force was never happy about being forced to field a dedicated CAS aircraft, (and they still aren't) and were still trying to get rid of the A-10 from the day it arrived to today. It's all never been about the actual capabilty but the doctrinal issues with CAS itself versus "air superiority" which is far more important to the Air Force.
Randy
How about the B36? Had a lot of reliability problems but at least for the time had unparelled range and weapons load. Was quickly made obsolete by changing conditions.
Personally always been one of my favorites. There's something I love about a plane that physics and nature seem to be screaming "This should not Fly!"
Personally always been one of my favorites. There's something I love about a plane that physics and nature seem to be screaming "This should not Fly!"
This is amazingly wrong.Er, no? The A-10 was purpose built (as was the YA-9 prototype) with all the conditions you mention in mind. You're also getting Air Force policy/desires mixed up with actual capability which the AF wanting to 'get-rid' of the A-10 was the former not the latter. (The "plan" was in fact to give them gun and all to the Army in exchange for more F-15s/F-16s and FINALLY allowing them to do their own CAS... No Mavricks though and they had to change it to OV-10 which was not at all going to cause some confusion
The Air Force was 'moving away from low-altitude tactics' not because the A-10 couldn't do it's job but because it could and the Air Force didn't want to do that job. (Not that we every DID want to do it mind you) The A-7 didn't stand a chance and was on the way out when I joined up in 1979 and everyone knew it because it not only couldn't do a decent job of CAS, (too fast and to limited weapons load) it wasn't able to be a 'fighter/bomber' like the Air Force wanted.
The Air Force was never happy about being forced to field a dedicated CAS aircraft, (and they still aren't) and were still trying to get rid of the A-10 from the day it arrived to today. It's all never been about the actual capabilty but the doctrinal issues with CAS itself versus "air superiority" which is far more important to the Air Force.
Randy
Yes, the Air Force wanted to ditch the A-10 as early as the late 80s. No, it wasn't to get out of the CAS game, else they wouldn't have funded three separate programs to produce a CAS-dedicated F-16 before Desert Storm put the kibosh on that.
No, the Air Force did move away from low-altitude tactics precisely because the A-10 couldn't do it's job at acceptable loss rates. See again Desert Storm, where the A-10 fleet got sufficiently chewed up that F-16s with guided bombs replaced them in the CAS role.
Here's the thing: the revelation about the A-10 was not that it was vulnerable to SHORAD, that had been known from day one. The revelation was that with precision munitions in quantity normal fast movers could do the same job with far less risk and only having to hang a targeting pod on one of the pylons. The F-111 was the best tankhunter aircraft in that war, for Chrissakes.
I'm going to say the Hawker Sea Fury because by the time entered service it was already obsolete in comparison to the Sea Vampire. The RN should have followed the RAF's lead and put its money into jet aircraft.
This situation only came about because of the comprehensive destruction of Iraq's high- and medium-altitude air defense systems early in the war. The Iraqis still had a huge amount of low altitude flak and missiles, so low altitude strike aircraft like the F-111 and Tornado were forced to operate at medium altitudes with PGMs rather than in the mission profiles they were designed for. This situation absolutely would not have arisen in a war against the Soviets in Europe; the Soviet integrated air defense system was far more resilient than the Iraqi derivative.
While the A10's wouldn't have lasted long in the air in said scenario it's also fair to say the same about pretty much everything.
The sheer amount of missiles, flak, interceptors, and fighters the Soviets would have thrown up was insane.