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PittTheElder posted:Wasn't it really considered too big and too slow to really survive a Fulda Gap scenario either? I thought they were supposed to take absolutely horrendous losses in the process of slowing a Soviet advance. Meaning what really changed over the last decade or two was the definition of acceptable losses. Everyone was going to take horrendous losses slowing the Soviet advance. The A-10 has a place in the types of wars the US actually fights, it may not have a place in a hypothetical future war against a peer competitor. Ye Olde Air Cav propaganda about the Fulda Gap. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMu2K7hPPS0 SimonCat fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 06:42
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The Russian Su-25 is their A-10, basically. And yeah, if WWIII hits the fan, everyone's life expectancy drops rapidly, since that's a conflict of he most advance peer level militaries that are also slinging nukes. We Lithuanians are very proud that we never formed a Lithuanian SS units. That did not help the Jews one bit, however, and we helped kill a lot of them. The Soviet Union is still the great evil, since they started sending (rich, educated) people to Siberia in animal train cars almost immediately after occupation, had a blast fighting partisans for ten years after the second time they took us over and were generally assholes for about 50 years of occupation. EDIT: Ugh... Shako? https://twitter.com/putintintin1/status/804028678560743425 JcDent fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 07:17
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SimonCat posted:The A-10 has a place in the types of wars the US actually fights, it may not have a place in a hypothetical future war against a peer competitor. This is the part that always gets me about the A-10 debate. You can't just radio in a cruise missile from a cruiser offshore, but you can have a loitering CAS plane nearby to fart death on concealed/covered enemies you can't get a good shot at from the ground. You're absolutely right about it being the correct plane for the asymmetric warfare we commit at present, but not necessarily the correct plane for a war against a regular combined-arms military with modern anti-aircraft machinery. Even then, I think our doctrine still follows the normal Air Superiority -> Air Supremacy -> Invasion/Landing type of strategic flow. At least I assume as much with the way we use aircraft carriers. The A-10 is really good for on-call tactical air support with minimal delay, it isn't like that need is going to go away so much as only get play after there's sufficient assurance the slow, low flying, farting, armored, bathtub of a plane isn't going to just get blasted out of the sky with a SAM as soon as it gets into the air.
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Dec 1, 2016 09:08
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JcDent posted:How desperate must you be to go into WWII minefields in search of explosives? When I was doing my undergrad research on post-WWII Libya I came across instances of folks scrounging for scrap metal by collecting shells, tossing them on campfires, and booking it.
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Dec 1, 2016 10:17
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FAUXTON posted:This is the part that always gets me about the A-10 debate. You can't just radio in a cruise missile from a cruiser offshore, but you can have a loitering CAS plane nearby to fart death on concealed/covered enemies you can't get a good shot at from the ground. You're absolutely right about it being the correct plane for the asymmetric warfare we commit at present, but not necessarily the correct plane for a war against a regular combined-arms military with modern anti-aircraft machinery. *except, apparently, black powder artillery, which is eternal
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Dec 1, 2016 12:10
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HEY GAL posted:every weapon is like that though, good for one context and not necessarily for another.* this is not an objection against the a-10 and nothing else Yeah, but in today's cost-cutting environments, its seen as a better idea to develop 1 weapon that does what ALL the weapons can do. Then you get the F-35
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Dec 1, 2016 12:22
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all, none, same loving thing oh well, at least it's not the boat that dissolves when put in contact with the sea
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Dec 1, 2016 12:27
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They should've kept the Habakkuk project online. Then you've got Stealth Multirole Fighters on your Stealth Carrier.
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Dec 1, 2016 12:30
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the JJ posted:When I was doing my undergrad research on post-WWII Libya I came across instances of folks scrounging for scrap metal by collecting shells, tossing them on campfires, and booking it. Sure these guys weren't croatian? 
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Dec 1, 2016 12:58
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FAUXTON posted:This is the part that always gets me about the A-10 debate. You can't just radio in a cruise missile from a cruiser offshore, but you can have a loitering CAS plane nearby to fart death on concealed/covered enemies you can't get a good shot at from the ground. You're absolutely right about it being the correct plane for the asymmetric warfare we commit at present, but not necessarily the correct plane for a war against a regular combined-arms military with modern anti-aircraft machinery. What i'm hearing is that we need some way of strapping an Avenger gun pod onto a UAV
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Dec 1, 2016 13:04
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Jobbo_Fett posted:They should've kept the Habakkuk project online. Then you've got Stealth Multirole Fighters on your Stealth Carrier. The Skunk Works at Lockheed once did a concept study on a stealth carrier. Then they decided, after their experience with Sea Shadow, that working with the Navy was too awful to be worth the trouble and tossed it.
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Dec 1, 2016 13:20
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Cythereal posted:The Skunk Works at Lockheed once did a concept study on a stealth carrier. Then they decided, after their experience with Sea Shadow, that working with the Navy was too awful to be worth the trouble and tossed it. So they went to the Marines and then we got the F-35. 
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Dec 1, 2016 13:22
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Jobbo_Fett posted:So they went to the Marines and then we got the F-35. "We never want to work with the Navy again!" The finger on the monkey's paw curls towards the palm...
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Dec 1, 2016 13:52
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So what was the NATF project and how did that an A-12 contribute to US Navy's problems? Also, Cold War thread had an idea to select the worst fighters of I guess Cold War, but I think they could have gone deeper (also, that was 4 years ago - I am catching up) so if anyone wants to write about the worst flying things to ever have been flown (Nazi wunderwaffe don't count), please go ahead. Or at least tell me why the Flogger sucked
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Dec 1, 2016 14:39
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Phanatic posted:Jesus that's perfect. Thanks. Bookmarked. I agree in general and thought the same thing the first time I read it (I almost stopped reading it because of this tbh) but on closer reading I think that the author's point was more that the A-X (eventually the A-10) and the LWF (eventually the F-16 and F-18) programs were good examples of programs with well written requirements and a minimum of political interference (outside of the USAF at least) and thus they created useful, successful systems. This is of course in contrast to the F-35 where absolutely everything is wound up in both domestic and international politics as well as the...unfortunate relationship between industry and government and thus, we get the F-35. I think this point was kind of lost in the A-10 gun slobknobbing that was sort of...needlessly included. FishFood posted:I'd like to know more about the A-10 and whether it really is out of date or whatever. My layman/civilian understanding is that it is Here's a paper I wrote about this topic; it is kind of dense but it (I think) explains the issue fairly well (the A-10 is discussed on page 7). It also discusses the hollowing out of American artillery forces for anyone who likes things like artillery! bewbies fucked around with this message at 15:13 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 15:09
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and the F-35 is dogshit, have any good articles on the issue without said fetishization?
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Yeah, but in today's cost-cutting environments, its seen as a better idea to develop 1 weapon that does what ALL the weapons can do. Technically all weapons fail at some point.
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Dec 1, 2016 15:18
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SlothfulCobra posted:How do most veterans feel about that anyways? There was a big explosion of people making a show of honoring veterans after 9/11, but not to the point of...y'know, making the VA work or anything. Mom's dad didn't really like it, as he was basically a Holden Caufield type from whom I inherited most of my personality. He disliked the idea of people who didn't want to do anything to actually honor or help Veterans, but were afraid of not being seen to "support the troops." He was pretty messed up physically and emotionally from deploying in both WW2 and Korea and talked me out of enlisting but always liked to talk about tanks with me. Dad's dad would just roll his eyes. He spent around ten years in the army forcing Germans to build golf courses, hunting down AWOL soldiers (quite a lot of them committed suicide), and competing on the Army diving team, so he viewed as something kind of hollow but tended to just roll with it. He found it kind of darkly funny that people would say it to him while his wife was the one who actually went overseas for the war effort. My aunt especially hated it to the point where she stopped bringing up my uncle who died in Vietnam. All three of these people said they never really heard the phrase often until the post-9/11 era.
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Dec 1, 2016 15:28
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FAUXTON posted:
What do you mean minimal delay? The plane's slow as hell, so the delay's only minimal if you have one right by you already when you need it. There's a whole lot of selection bias in stories about how great the A-10 is. You hear stories from soldiers who swear it saved their rear end in a tight spot, you don't hear stories from soldiers who weren't saved by an A-10 because there wasn't one nearby so instead they were saved by an F-16, or a B-1, or any of the other platforms we have that have proved to be extremely effective at CAS. CAS is about coordination with the troops on the ground, not about gun runs.
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Dec 1, 2016 15:32
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Phanatic posted:What do you mean minimal delay? The plane's slow as hell, so the delay's only minimal if you have one right by you already when you need it. There's a whole lot of selection bias in stories about how great the A-10 is. You hear stories from soldiers who swear it saved their rear end in a tight spot, you don't hear stories from soldiers who weren't saved by an A-10 because there wasn't one nearby so instead they were saved by an F-16, or a B-1, or any of the other platforms we have that have proved to be extremely effective at CAS. CAS is about coordination with the troops on the ground, not about gun runs. It's minimal if there's one loitering nearby, yes.
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Dec 1, 2016 15:34
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Oh wow that is...interesting? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised now if scratch built Roman siege weaponry, Longbows and even slings came to play.
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Dec 1, 2016 15:44
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Phanatic posted:What do you mean minimal delay? The plane's slow as hell, so the delay's only minimal if you have one right by you already when you need it. There's a whole lot of selection bias in stories about how great the A-10 is. You hear stories from soldiers who swear it saved their rear end in a tight spot, you don't hear stories from soldiers who weren't saved by an A-10 because there wasn't one nearby so instead they were saved by an F-16, or a B-1, or any of the other platforms we have that have proved to be extremely effective at CAS. CAS is about coordination with the troops on the ground, not about gun runs. Exactly this. The A-10 is exceptional at blowing up a Toyota Hilux stuffed full of ISIS, and even for gutting out the 70s-era export model Soviet MBT driven by the army of a regional power. The issue is that this is a job that can also be done by an F-16 or a drone or literally whatever we have that can carry a hellfire. Keeping around specialized airframes is expensive. It isn't just the cost of the aircraft itself, either, but also the cost in training and maintaining the pilot and the support crew. An A-10 is great at dong the thing we're doing right now, but it's a single use tool. More general purpose fighters can also be used for ground attack as needed but in the event we ever need to do more than bounce rubble in the desert they are also far more capable at other missions.
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Dec 1, 2016 15:56
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Are drones still awful in worse weather than clear sunny day?
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Dec 1, 2016 16:09
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Cyrano4747 posted:Exactly this. The A-10 is exceptional at blowing up a Toyota Hilux stuffed full of ISIS, and even for gutting out the 70s-era export model Soviet MBT driven by the army of a regional power. The issue is that this is a job that can also be done by an F-16 or a drone or literally whatever we have that can carry a hellfire. Also capability bought with airframes that are capable of higher end tasks is capability that still is relevant when the higher end tasks are what's needed.
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Dec 1, 2016 16:11
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Cyrano4747 posted:Exactly this. The A-10 is exceptional at blowing up a Toyota Hilux stuffed full of ISIS, and even for gutting out the 70s-era export model Soviet MBT driven by the army of a regional power. The issue is that this is a job that can also be done by an F-16 or a drone or literally whatever we have that can carry a hellfire. Isn't part of the whole "response time" thing that an A-10 has a much longer loiter time than something like an F-16, and is also cheaper to fly per hour than the faster jets? I mean apart from the fact that the decision makers in the Air Force were A-10 guys, like how the Harrier got shitcanned in the UK because the RAF top brass flew Tornados
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Dec 1, 2016 16:27
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FAUXTON posted:Technically all weapons fail at some point.
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Dec 1, 2016 16:32
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I suspect it's kinda impossible for we as outsiders to judge whether all these decisions re: stuff like the A-10 make sense or not. Actually useful data is going to be very secret, and it comes down probably to a bunch of internal minutiae that are both very complex and very obfuscated. A lot of what we see seems actually to be internal factions within the military escalating their complaints to the public sphere so as to try and sway legislators, and well, you'd have to take all of that with a grain of salt. Like, I'd read stuff like the famous Pentagon Wars film to be just another a shot fired by the anti-Bradley faction. With historical hindsight we pick out the folks who say 'aircraft carriers are gonna obselete battleships' but at the time the other people would be speaking with just as much credibility. Maybe in a few decades we'd all be saying "man, the F35, what a visionary idea despite all the teething problems. How dare they replace it with the F42!"
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Dec 1, 2016 16:39
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Fangz posted:I suspect it's kinda impossible for we as outsiders to judge whether all these decisions re: stuff like the A-10 make sense or not. Actually useful data is going to be very secret, and it comes down probably to a bunch of internal minutiae that are both very complex and very obfuscated. A lot of what we see seems actually to be internal factions within the military escalating their complaints to the public sphere so as to try and sway legislators, and well, you'd have to take all of that with a grain of salt. Like, I'd read stuff like the famous Pentagon Wars film to be just another a shot fired by the anti-Bradley faction. With historical hindsight we pick out the folks who say 'aircraft carriers are gonna obselete battleships' but at the time the other people would be speaking with just as much credibility. Actual discussion of these issues is pointless; good point
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Dec 1, 2016 16:45
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Nebakenezzer posted:Actual discussion of these issues is pointless; good point Especially since it isn't you know, military history. I'm sure we can think of examples of stuff people thought was great at the time but turned out on subsequent examination not to be. Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 16:54
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SeanBeansShako posted:Oh wow that is...interesting? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WnbsXs7xjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59nuAhfpsaE unfortunately no longbows, other than Apache Longbows used by infidels
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Dec 1, 2016 16:56
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MikeCrotch posted:Isn't part of the whole "response time" thing that an A-10 has a much longer loiter time than something like an F-16, and is also cheaper to fly per hour than the faster jets? If you want crazy loiter times you want drones, not manned aircraft. Pilots need to eat and sleep and relieve themselves, which drone pilots do by simply getting up from their desk and doing their business elsewhere.
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Dec 1, 2016 16:57
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Fangz posted:Maybe in a few decades we'd all be saying "man, the F35, what a visionary idea despite all the teething problems. How dare they replace it with the F42!" 
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Dec 1, 2016 16:58
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So you call in an airstrike and get 'afk, bathroom, brb'
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Dec 1, 2016 16:58
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MikeCrotch posted:Isn't part of the whole "response time" thing that an A-10 has a much longer loiter time than something like an F-16, and is also cheaper to fly per hour than the faster jets? And a part of the whole "response time" thing is that a loaded-out A-10 cruises at only 300 knots. A B-1's loiter time kicks the hell out of an A-10 and it can actually get to where it's needed in time to do something about it.
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Dec 1, 2016 17:10
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Crazycryodude posted:The F-42 Starfury is the best air/space capable strike craft the planet has ever seen and if you disagree why don't you just surrender to the Sino-Russian Alliance Everyone knows that AI controlled autonomous orbital artillery is the way forward, enjoy your manned fighters when space robots demolish all your airbases with tungsten rods 10 nanoseconds after the war begins 
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Dec 1, 2016 17:11
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MikeCrotch posted:Everyone knows that AI controlled autonomous orbital artillery is the way forward, enjoy your manned fighters when space robots demolish all your airbases with tungsten rods 10 nanoseconds after the war begins It's like Star Wars milhist chat but even dumber!
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Dec 1, 2016 17:25
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MANime in the sheets posted:It's like Star Wars milhist chat but even dumber! Dsyp
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Dec 1, 2016 17:29
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StashAugustine posted:So you call in an airstrike and get 'afk, bathroom, brb' Nope, because, and check this poo poo out: There's a spare pilot on hand to take over when one has to get up.
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Dec 1, 2016 17:29
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The Australian Army's Vietnam mining experience is very instructive and also deeply hosed up.quote:In 1967 the commander of First Australian Task Force (1ATF), Brigadier Stuart Graham ordered the construction of an 11 kilometre ‘barrier fence and minefield’ in Phuoc Tuy Province, southern Vietnam. quote:As work on the laying of the minefield went on through May 1967, 13 Australian sappers were killed and dismembered as a result of detonations caused by the stress of the job. This stress included fierce heat, fear, faulty ordnance, and enemy action that usually involved children pushing buffaloes and dogs into the field to distract the mine laying teams. quote:As the Australian sappers were being killed and mutilated laying the mines, some 30 NLF lifters were blown to pieces during suicidal experiments to lift them. Especially as they operated at night, their biggest problem was finding out what caused many of the mines to detonate as they were being lifted. quote:The histories of Long Dat District thus recount the story of how a combat engineer named Hung Manh had an unexpected reprieve after being ceremoniously sent off (with drinks) on a likely suicide mission to the minefield. The crucial detail: ‘the grenade beneath the mine did not detonate because the detonator was damp.’ The mechanism of the anti-lift device was studied. Mine lifting training was soon devised for local guerillas and many others in the villages. The mine lifting had begun by the night of 28-9 May when Australian records show that M16 mines, some of them with anti-lift devices, were lifted from the southern part of minefield. quote:From then on, The Minefield (title of the book this text is a review of, aphid_licker) shows how the indigent, lightly armed NLF guerillas in the south-western villages had an inexhaustible supply of M16 mines to turn back against the Australian task force. The far-reaching fact would be that, by inflicting hundreds of casualties on 1ATF and its allies with M16 mines from the 1ATF minefield, the NLF guerillas would defend their strategically vital southwestern area in Phuoc Tuy against Australian incursions. Basically you better have a good idea what you're trying to do with your minefield. Also gently caress me were those guerrillas motivated, not everyone will be willing to follow through with a trial and error approach to demining. HEY GAL posted:everyone stop slagging on dresden, i live here too for six months out of every year Did you ever get poo poo after being recognized as a foreigner in Dresden? aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 17:43
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aphid_licker posted:Did you ever get poo poo after being recognized as a foreigner in Dresden?
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Dec 1, 2016 17:50
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HEY GAL posted:none whatsoever, although some of my friends do not have enough experience with people who are not east german not to get mad when i accidentally do something that is rude in their culture but not in mine That's good to hear. The first bit at least.
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Dec 1, 2016 17:57
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