"End looms for US Air Force's 'Warthog' ground-attack jet" This is Ridiculous!

Decryption? What does that have to do with jamming? At any rate, that depends on just how wide of a band the radio you want to jam can operate over. They all have limits.
But there are more factors to consider than just power output. Assuming that the drone is operating over hostile territory and the controlling transmitter is in friendly territory, that means any jammers are likely closer to the receiver (the drone) than the controlling transmitter is, possibly much closer. Assuming the emitted power of the jammers and the controlling transmitter are equal, inverse square law dictates that the drone will receive a stronger jamming signal than control signal. Unless you use some kind of highly directional transmitter/receiver, but that gets you into a whole raft of other problems.

 

Taxcutter says:
Even air-to-air can largely be partially handled by autonomous fighters. Most of the "kills" even great aces have are noobs who have no business in the air. You could dispatch manned fighters to engage their manned fighters and autonomous drones to shoot down bombers, tankers, and cargo planes.

 

The USAF's Much Maligned A-10 Warthogs Are Deploying To Fight ISIS

 

The plane has advantages its armored well, armed well, has a pilot who can assess ground changes especially if communication is available with ground units and is a bit faster than an Apache Helicopter seems to me with air superiority assured it can fly around doing its job.

 

Drones will have a place in the mix.
F-35s will have a place in the mix.
Attack helos will have a place in the mix.
An A-10 replacement will have a place in the mix.
Guided artillery rounds (tube and rocket) will have a place in the mix.
Smart bombs dropped from bombers will have a place in the mix.

The overarching requirement is that there is a mix. The existence of a mix means no one thing the scumbags may do will stymie US forces. Too much reliance on any one element makes you vulnerable to single counter-measures.

 

As I have stated....I am not all that thrilled to see the A-10 go as I LOVE that aircraft and the men who fly them.

But...nothing lasts forever.

AboveAlpha

 

Bi-planes and WW II aircraft still had uses long after their inventions and deployments, and in some parts of the world still do. But parts start becoming scarce and more expensive to replace over time, and that's true with the A-10 and many other types of equipment. If the U.S. and Europe were to become as ruthless and murderous as most of the rest of the planet, they would not be having many problems around the world defending allies and quashing gangsters and terrorists hiding under government fronts. That isn't politically viable, not yet anyway. But current cultural trends are certainly moving that way, promoted by the very ideologues who claim to be all about 'peace' and 'tolerance'.

 

Taxcutter says:
I agree. As time goes on the existing A-10s will become more dangerous to their pilots than to the enemy. Metal fatigue occurs everytime you fly them. These are all 1970s aircraft and the metal has about had it.

The A-10 is not like the B-52 or even the DC-3. Those had easily replaced fatigue elements, particularly wing spars and box sections. When the A-10 (like the F-14 and F-15 before them) airframes develop fatigue cracks, that's it - - a trip to Davis-Monthan.

The A-10s need to be replaced. They cannot be replaced in kind as the tooling to make them was destroyed at the end of the production run. The destruction of tooling is common and is required by the FARs. This is part of the FARs that makes me see red. It builds in obsolescence.

But a replacement should not be hard to develop. No need for exotic technology. A replacement could wind up looking a lot like the existing A-10 but with the following differences.

1. A carrier version so that Marines can use them in amphibious operation. Much cheap and easier to crew than V/STOL F-35Bs. Essentially this means a tailhook and nosegear that can take the extreme stress of catapult launches. Old tech. Include the automatic pilot that can land the plane on a carrier in zero-zero conditions. Existing tech.
2. Bigger engines. The weakness of the existing A-10 is that the engines don't have enough thrust to rapidly accelerate the plane or execute snappy climbs. One could easily envision turbofan engines modified from airliner designs. turbofans cool the exhaust gas stream and reduce the plane's infrared signature - a vital countermeasure against MANPADs. Turbofan engines tend to be very efficient.
3. Removeable weapons module. There is no need to marry the airplane to any one gun system. Make it big enough to carry the GAU-8 or smaller guns with more ammunition. Engines and landing gear come in removeable modules. Guns are no different. Old tech.
4. Removable cockpit module. For operation either as a manned aircraft or as a drone - either remotely operated or autonomous. I suspect that for close air support at the FEBA manned planes will be preferred, but situations where there is no risk of comm links being jammed or hacked, remote piloted planes would be better. With a manned capability you are not vulnerable to enemy comm link counter-measures. For interdiction or SEAD (Wild Weasel/Iron Hand, to use the Vietnam-era parlance) missions behind enemy lines, autonomous drones would be preferred. You size the plane for the manned cockpit module as it is the biggest and heaviest. The other options are easily substituted by ground or ship crews.

By the standards of the 1970s the A-10 was a very cheap aircraft. All of the features described in items 1-4 above are off-the-shelf items. No research or technological breakthroughs are needed. The A-10 replacement I described would be cheaper than all the F-35 variants and much better suited for the vital close air support role..


You simply cannot palm the A-10's missions off on either drones, helos or complex and expensive F-35s. They have their own niches that only slightly overlap that of the A-10.

 

The reason the Marines version of the F-35 is V/STOL is so they can operate off amphibious assault ships, not just fleet carriers. You could build a fixed-wing aircraft that could operate off the app. 800 foot flight deck (which don't have catapults), but it's payload would be insignificant.

 

Taxcutter says:
No argument there, but you could build a whole squadron of my updated carrier-capable A-10 clones for the cost of one F-35B. A garden-variety carrier-capable A-10 clone would not need a veritable Chuck Yeager to fly it. AV-8s (V/STOL aircraft)get the cream of Corps aviation and they still have lot of accidents. V/STOL operations are very demanding.

In many cases the US already has air dominance, so allocating some deck space to close support planes would not compromise the stuff aircraft carriers do in an amphibious operation. If air superiority is contested, leave the carrier capable A-10s at home and use the F-35Bs.

A fixed-wing plane flying off a non-CATABAR carrier would operate just like a V/STOL carrying the same payload. Take off and hit the tanker immediately. V/STOL operations gobble a lot of fuel.

Once a land air base is taken the F-35Bs become a liability. The carrier capable A-10 clones are launched off a regular CATABAR carrier and staged onto the land base.

It is the mix that is paramount. Reliance on a single platform leaves you vulnerable to enemy counter-measures.

 

It would more properly be under the Marines, and they use smaller carriers than the Navy. Lugging A-10s around on a Navy carrier isn't effective, and a waste of space. It isn't cost effective and would be more of a nuisance than a help. The multi-role planes are a better strategic choice for carrier based craft. Let the Army and Air Force fight over it.

 

Ever meet a CIB soldier that didn't appreciate the A-10?

 

why the A-10 isn't going anywhere anytime soon:

 

And where is this tanker going to come from? Not off the deck of an LHD, or it's going to need a tanker itself if you want it have any offload.

 

Taxcutter says:
Same place the F-35B's tanker comes from. You think a fully-loaded VTO won't suck a bunch of fuel?

 

Which ties the LHD to a fleet carrier. You might just as well put all the fixed-wing aircraft on the CVN and just leave the Ospreys and helos on the LHD. Of course, this is precisely what the Marines have been trying to get away from for decades now. Besides, an AV-8B's maximum vertical take-off weight is 20,700 lbs with a range of 350 miles, adequate for flying close air support over a beachhead from a ship 50 to 100 miles off shore. So immediate tanking is not necessarily a prerequisite.

 

Women fly them as well.

[video=youtube;3qMlbOxKN50][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qMlbOxKN50[/video]

 

You could still get a dual rating and fly the U.S. Army's RC-12 Guardrail. I don't know if you have ever seen one, they resemble a dog that has lost a fight with a porcupine...just bristling with various antennae.



SIGINT/ELINT is a much more interesting mission, to me at least. Continuously flying along a route listening for enemy activity, the data is then sent back to analysts on the ground outside of hostile territory. Before you think this bird is just a modified civilian twin turboprop, and therefore dull...keep in mind the avionics are very modern and include a dual FMS-3000 flight management system, a pair of GPS-4000A and an ADC-3000 air data computer. It's also integrated with an MFD-255C for detecting weather conditions, flight plan and enhanced proximity warning system (EGPWS). However, even with modernization it is an older platform, approaching 40 years; I don't think the Army will be flying them much longer. The ISR mission, service wide, may eventually be designated to nothing but unmanned systems.

 

USAF needs a new long range bomber, a new tanker and the F-35. In order to afford all of this modernizaion they will reduce the number of tactical air squadrons including the entire A-10 inventory. This will save $3.5 billion over five years, and accelerates the plan that was already in the works to replace the A-10 with the more capable F-35 by the early 2020s.

I'm sure this was a tough decision, but the A-10 can't survive or operate effectively where there are more advanced aircraft or air defenses.

Those who are claiming this will cost lives on the ground, because the A-10 is the best close air support platform there is, are forgetting that without air superiority many more lives would be lost among those fighting wars on the ground. The A-10 is not a platform which excels at air superiority or surviving against more advanced air defenses.

The A-10 has done a good job and I'm sure has earned it's place in the military aviation hall of fame...but like Derek Jeter, Lou Gehrig and Ted Williams of baseball fame, even the greats eventually retire when they are past their prime productive years.

 

Although Army pilots in general love the opportunity to fly fixed wing, this particular bird is, for the pilots, a boring mission.


Or so I've heard from Army fixed wing pilots. For the enlisted operators, it's pretty exciting.

 

USAF has the near equivalent aircraft in the MC-12 Liberty...the main difference is the USAF mission focuses more on imagery.

Both are invaluable, if a somewhat low tech approach to doing everything from helping find drug lords in Latin America or insurgents in the Middle East to catching terrorists in the U.S.

If there's no wars going on that would utilize an A-10, it's mainly training missions...meanwhile the spy planes (reconnaissance platforms) always have something to do...ISR is 24/7/365.

The MC-12 was somewhat rushed into service and has quietly done a stellar job at providing surveillance and reconniassance support to our troops...often times developing a rapport with them; similar to a manned UAV that can fly above a patrol in real time. Easy to field technology is often over-looked.