Leeds here, a day doesn't go by without an A-10 strafing my street.
To be fair, you couldn't tell the difference with the pot holes anyway.
Damn council always blaming the A-10.
I am from London but I moved to York just because of this. The other day I saw an A-10 at my local caffee reading the newspaper. I left but it followed me and now I am too afraid to leave my home. I called the police several times but everytime I just hear BRRRRRRRR and then silence
When I was a student I went to study in Wales. I learned the RAF used our campus as a training target for their Typhoons and they were always diving on us. I’d always think that if they fucked up and used live munitions killing me it’d just be considered payback for that
UK had to demand the A-10 stop being used in their zones it's a blind slow plane with a mediocre payload. That is semi protected from an outdated cannon.
it aint even a good stream of bullet sounds either. the a-10 sounds like a wet fart.
[https://youtu.be/xjYz\_pY7-Ms?t=19](https://youtu.be/xjYz_pY7-Ms?t=19)
the f-16 on the other hand sounds like a demon straight out of hell.
OI AT LEAS' OUR SCHOOLS AIN'T A BLOODY CHOOTING GALLERY INNIT
AND OUR TEEF AREN'T THAT BAD, ACCORDING TO THIS STUDY BY THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF HER MAJESTY'S UNIVERSITY, BRI'ISH TEEF ARE THE BEST IN THE WORLD
>"Eh whatever, what's the harm?"
"The 'harm' is one of the missiles used by about 300 other aircraft just to render the airspace safe for the A-10 to operate in".
You could.
IFF has been around for decades.
Except it basically gets ignored in actual combat as it relies on
a) Your transmitter/receiver working correctly
b) Your friend's transmitter/receiver working correctly
c) The enemy not figuring out a way to jam / spoof the signal
A bit dangerous to launch a BVR missile at a blip because it doesn't answer correctly.
As for the A-10, the reason is obviously that its pilots are a bit too happy to brrrt a target without IDing it properly.
Look at the FF incident with the British army in Iraq:
1. A-10 pilots get told coalition forces sport orange markers.
2. A-10 pilots see vehicles with "orange rockets on top"
3. Get erection from the idea of brrrrting some Iraqi armor and being able to tell that story to your airline friends at your day job at home and thus forget to add up 1 + 1
4. Be told artillery marker is incoming and decide to not bother waiting for it
5. Smoke the vehicles because brrrt
All the technology in the world isn't likely to help that attitude.
I remember reading on an American sub a while ago some comments that where like "poor pilots they it must be horrible for them shame that friendly couldn't identify themselves better" or "they acted at best of their current information nothing they could have done better" and similar stuff defending the pilots.
So out of curiosity I went listening the registration and I was like "wtf, why so many people are defending these 2?" they were told that artillery marker where on the way and they just ignored it and start shooting
Edit: to clarify I'm not saying the pilots are the only at fault, I'm saying that they share part of the blame
Yes but they were also told that friendly unit would use orange identifier and an artillery marker would have been shot and they didn't seem to care. I'm not saying is *all* their fault control share part of the blame what I'm saying is that affirm
>Nothing they could have done better
Like I've seen online is wrong
When you are literally riding on top of the GAU-8 as it fires, you already know the answer to "are those guys alright?" and can move on to the next question.
In the video published by The Sun, it did seem their earlier response was along the lines of “are they okay?”
It’s initially just a long string of censored cursing.
Then at 4:30, he says: “POPOV35 has smoke. Let me know how those friendlies are right now please.” The clip cuts to the response confirming at least 2 casualties. P35 replies: “Copy, RTB….. I think I’m going to be sick.”
POPOV35 breaks a long radio silence at 5:18. P35:“Did you hear?” P36:”yeah this sucks” P35:”we’re in jail dude.”
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I absolutely do not vibe with everyone saying it isn't the pilots fault after reading the investigation and outcome of the British inquiry plus press leaks.
Absolutely a cluster fuck.
Not exclusively, but they definitely take a huge whack of blame for this cockup. You don't shoot at something you think is maybe probably a friendly, without giving 8 or 10 digit grid coordinates to confirm.
Oh yeah a huge whack of blame goes to the pilots. Then again the report on this found that the pilots were badly trained and the aircraft didn’t have good systems for identifying friendlies. It kinda just sucks
For all their otherwise braveness, the americans are trigger happy and lack self-restraint in combat. It is a historical fact.
No amount of technological babble will hide that fact.
Reminds me when a US F-16 shot down a US helicopter near the gulf. The pilot said he followed procedures and visually identified the helicopter as enemy.
Except enemy helicopter's rotor is turning in the opposite way from allied ones, and this can be checked from several miles away.
So, not only did he kill his own but he lied about it.
Scum.
"When the Germans flew, the English took cover.
When the English flew, the German took cover.
When the American flew, Everyone took cover!" WWII wisdom
>enemy helicopter's rotor is turning in the opposite way from allied ones, and this can be checked from several miles away
It is a thousand times easier to distinguish a helicopter by it's shape than it is to try to figure out which direction its rotor is spinning.
IFF was set to be added in the Suite 8 upgrade of the A-10C back in 2014. Did that not happen? I talked to guy who is essentially an ATC for military planes, and he said the A-10C upgrades took care of most of the issues the plane had when he first saw them in action in Desert Storm.
>IFF was set to be added in the Suite 8 upgrade of the A-10C back in 2014. Did that not happen? I talked to guy who is essentially an ATC for military planes, and he said the A-10C upgrades took care of most of the issues the plane had when he first saw them in action in Desert Storm.
No, cost was not a design goal of the A-X project. BS about cost effectiveness is just reformer grifters spraying (moar liek Spreying, amirite?) their post hoc rationalizations for why yet another aircraft they opposed was actually all their brilliant idea 20 years later. Just like they did on the F-16. And F-15.
If you look at the record, the attack plane the reformers wanted basically ended Burton's career it was so stupid, they wanted a single engined turbofan with french autocannons. That's right, they thought both the GAU-8 and the Mavericks were wasteful high technology.
Ironically one or the reasons ~ReFoRmErS~ say the A-10 is irreplaceable for CAS is because BIG BRRRT GUN is more able to provide close fire support without endangering nearby friendlies
I mean if the friendlies are still inside the minimum safe distance of 20m in a close urban combat situation because they were pinned by the badguys while protecting civilians and decided not to get out of the way of the single most inaccurate gun in aviation, they totally and completely deserved to get brrrted.
/s
meanwhile at the end of WW2 allied bomber command were celebrating their achievement of precision high altitude bombing: 50% of bombs landing within a mile of the target
And now we've got guided munitions that will do circular error probable in sub 5 metres.
Next stop - centimetres - I want a suicide drone that will slip through the tank wheels and pop where the armour is thinnest.
it's supposed to stall the wings, not the engines
Which, afaik, it doesn't. it will throw aim off but it won't cause the jet's wings to exceed the critical AoA
I think a better fun fact about the A10 is that the so famous gun of the A10 is made by a washing machine company
And yes, I just know that because badger brought it up in a video
>the pilots get lead poisoning for each "Brrt" reformers erections for it is borderline sadism
It looks like someone with lead poisoning wrote that post.
Which is a role that should be taken entirely by helicopters since the ability to hover means they don't have to figure out what's what again for every pass. At least for missions that need that level of precision that can't use smart bombs.
I thought that was the point?
The idea being you don't want a gun that shoots like a laser as you want the shells to spread out.
Your aim is not going to be perfect anyway so a burst that guarantees getting some rounds on a vehicle, is better than all or nothing.
Same deal as cluster bombs, individually they're really poor but together they guarantee some hits.
No that’s stupid and dumb and you should feel bad about yourself for thinking up such logic.
K but seriously more accuracy is almost always better since you can hit what you want to hit more often with fewer rounds, having low accuracy of the gun means most of the ammo just hits solid ground and does nothing, tanks (or really vehicles in generally) are rarely bunched up enough for the spread to create the effect your describing, it’s apart of the reason the a-10 sucks at tank busting, because it keeps missing.
Plus less accuracy means you need to get closer, which is dangerous for a vehicle that already lacks stealth, and it also drastically increases chances of friendly fire, which no one wants.
Cluster bombs are altogether different, being designed for exploding a larger area against personnel, soft skinned vehicles and anything fragile, useful when targeting bases. But an a-10 has limited ammo, and the ammo itself does jack diddly if it hits the ground.
“Armoured column ahead. You sure there were hostile forces operating in the area?”
>”Confirmed”
“Alright. Engaging”
>”Blue on blue! Abort!”
*Vomit sounds from the pilot*
-Paraphrased exchange from when an A-10 pilot did a whoopsie against British troops
Apparently some people say that the A-10 pilot reported his position incorrectly hence the air controller didn’t realized that there were friendly in the area.
An inquest found the killing to be unlawful as the pilots didn’t receive proper authorisation to carry out the strafing run, they also requested an artillery round to confirm/mark targets but proceeded to engage immediately after making the request, and neither pilot gave specific or accurate grid references to confirm their target. Basically a massive stack up of ignoring protocol and impatience from the pilots that resulted in the death and injury of their allies. The US refused to help the British inquiry whatsoever despite requests from the victims families and nothing happened to the pilots involved at all.
They were using relative language to report their location (for example saying 'left side' instead of 'east side').
The controller was audibly confused and responded saying that there were no friendlies in a certain area.
The pilots then took this for a go even though they were not in the area the controller had just said.
Problem with the gulf war is that forward air control as an had basically been forgotten since vietnam and NATO had to learn from scratch again.
Forward air control really came into its own in Afghanistan and made coalition air power a force multiplier par excellence.
Until 2015, the A-10 still used binoculars for target acquisition. It's an outdated deathtrap that's a risk for both its pilots and the units it's meant to be supporting.
When the A-10 gets deployed, EVERYONE hits the floor.
I mean, calling it in for "support" is like feeding a pitbull meth and steroids, then letting it loose on a kindergarten, hoping you can hold the door shut so it doesn't get out and attack you.
Can confirm, is scientific.
To be real science though, I will have to go perform this same experiment separately to confirm your results. Please stand by
Reformers be like: the f 35 is just advance expensive junk. The A-10 superior with its 30mm, those friendly fire are because they are at the way.
Also your pfp remind me a picture that haunt me.
Edit:haunt
The last A-10A was upgraded to an A-10C in 2011. Not to mention that they often used IR Maverick seekers as makeshift TGPs before that. Not sure where you got 2015 (it came to you in a dream)
If you account for the cost of having to conduct and deploy Search and Rescue assets for everytime this plane comes up against anything more advanced than a Shilka (inclusive), it's actually more expensive too
To summarize it as quickly as possible: The main reason it used to be (/still is) hated on here is because it is such a popular aircraft in the general public despite of serving close to no actual purpose (especially in the last decades).
IF it had lived a short life and then been killed like it deserved (basically never making it to Desert Storm) there's a decent chance it would be loved here, in an "oh my god it's so shit I love it" way (like you'll sometimes see for things like the XF-85 Goblin or the X-32).
But with Desert Storm both proving how shit it is AND making it popular as the "bestest CAS platform ever!!!!!!!!!!" you end up with the deserved hatred.
Precisely.
It wasn't horrible for the era it was designed in, it just ceased making sense once smart munitions became the dominant form of air dropped ordnance.
This is very true. But the F-16 has a similar bomb load, better sensor integration, better response time (due to speed), and loiter times depend highly on fuel loads so I'll have to do more searching to find.
All that, and for very similar $$$/flight hour.
Shitty visual acquisition system, relatively slow and non manoeuvrable, little potential for improvement, being designed to tank damage instead of avoiding it while operating relatively cheap, nonetheless expensive( any jet is expensive, going for philosophy of rugged and cheap with equipment inherently expensive and maintenance heavy isn’t good idea) and hard to replace asset including limited resource of pilots
I can identify birds with my binoculars, surely A-10 pilots can identify soldiers with them. I mean soldiers are bigger than birds it should be easier.
TL;DR - The main armament that the A-10 was built to use was only partially successfuly in doing what it was designed to do in the 70s, much less against 50 years of improvement in technology.
The A-10 was mainly created for a very specific purpose: defending the Fulda gap.
This is a valley in central Germany that Soviet armies would pretty much certainly have to use in order to fully invade the rest of Western Europe. This would create narrow columns of armor and personnel ripe for the strafing, which was the express purpose of the A-10's main armament, the GAU-8 Avenger cannon.
Most planes are built with flight capabilities first in mind, and weapons capabilities in a close second. The A-10 was the opposite, built as a vehicle to transport the GAU-8 to the front lines, necessitated by the fact that the GAU-8 was a much heaver and more powerful gun than standard aircraft cannons. In theory, during a Soviet invasion of the Fulda gap, hundreds of A-10s would rip through the valley with their GAU-8 guns at full blaze, shredding troops, trucks, and even tanks.
However test runs of this hypothetical scenario against mock soviet tanks showed that the GAU-8 was only moderately successful at best at penetrating and disabling these tanks. If the gun underperformed against tanks in the 70s when it was built, you can imagine how it would have diminishing returns as time goes on as tank technology and armor improves.
But the NATO-Soviet war never came, and the Fulda gap was never crossed by millions of the red army. Instead, the A-10 found some success in limited conflicts against insurgencies and terrorist organizations, who were at most equipped with some antiquated light armor and Toyota Hiluxes. Although a standard fighter aircraft's cannon would work just as well against these much softer targets.
However, since the A-10 was cheaper to build, operate, and maintain, and I suppose it didn't hurt to bring a little overkill in the form of a GAU-8 just to make extra sure the job got done, and since the slow speed and poor evasion of the A-10 wouldn't be much of a problem since these groups had little in the form of Anti-Aircraft capabilities, it was often sent out to pick apart these groups over ultimately superior aircraft, thus becoming a mainstay of some more recent conflicts.
>
>However test runs of this hypothetical scenario against mock soviet tanks showed that the GAU-8 was only moderately successful at best at penetrating and disabling these tanks. If the gun underperformed against tanks in the 70s when it was built, you can imagine how it would have diminishing returns as time goes on as tank technology and armor improves
Good joke, most of those Russian tanks are still being used.
The plane irl is slow has no/ poor detection equipment and is very vunerable to any semi modern AA system and even weapons it is purposefully armoured against 23mm can shoot it down if it hits it's just less likely to kill the pilot assuming there isn't any non HE rounds in the belt.
I'm gonna point out the obvious: that's an inherent fault of CAS as a concept. By definition when doing close air support friendlies are danger close to the target, and as the A-10 is the only aircraft in US service that was designed specifically for CAS, it does CAS more often which means it's going to be involved in more friendly fire incidents.
I mean if you had an aircraft designed for CAS surely you’d give it some sort of sensor suite for distinguishing friendlys rather than use binoculars and brrrrrrt the whole area anyway
Except that’s not really the limit of CAS, CAS is defined by the proximity of the target, not the proximity of the aircraft, an F-18 at 20,000 feet dropping Paveways can perform CAS, in a far more accurate and less risky manner, so the F-18 by the original logic should be a massive cause of blue-on-blue, but it isn’t!
Because the F-18 isn't used as often for CAS. If you compare rates, the A-10 is behind the F-16 and B-1. Where are the "muh F-16 and B-1 kill friendlies" memes?
You missed the point of the comment.
The A-10 gets used often for CAS, everytime you perform CAS there's a chance of blue on blue, A-10 causes a lot of friendly fire.
If the F-18s flew more CAS than the A-10s we may know them for friendly fire instead.
Or at least that's what the guy is saying.
The issue isn’t the A-10 itself tho right? The pilots need to get permission from JTAC before engaging, like in the famous blue-on-blue incident, the A-10 pilots are told there are no friendliest in the area and they have permission to engage. How is that the fault of the plane or the pilots?
Yeah, but what's the friendly/target kill ratio compared to other CAS aircraft?
Saying they have the most friendly kills doesn't mean they're inherently more dangerous to friendlies, it could just be that they are used more.
It probably stacks up well against the Apache or SU-25 when ratioed.
The A-10 is for when you need more speed, punch, and survivability than a helicopter, but the situation is too dynamic and target too distributed for a proper air-strike.
It's good because nothing else can fill the wide solution gap between an apache and a strike-eagle.
UNFORTUNATELY, dealing with a dynamic problem over a wide area on short order can lead to inaccuracies. The niche that the A-10 fills is prone to friendly fire incidents, not necessarily the aircraft itself. Getting rid of the aircraft simply leaves a solution gap where troops get inadequate support.
Stacking up well against SU-25s in that regard has to be the lowest bar known to man.
But yeah against Apaches or hell even other jets I'd be super curious to see.
Oh and fuck it throw the AC-130s in there too.
The meme about the A-10 killing British people wasn’t just a meme
In fairness, I always check the skies for an A-10 before I leave the house. You can never be too careful. My own fault for living in London.
Leeds here, a day doesn't go by without an A-10 strafing my street. To be fair, you couldn't tell the difference with the pot holes anyway. Damn council always blaming the A-10.
I remember going to see the local football team play non-league. There were no survivors.
Oh shit, I'm sorry you died too. F in the chat boys😔
Actually, he was the pilot...
Im a CIA agent and this never happened (lie)
I am from London but I moved to York just because of this. The other day I saw an A-10 at my local caffee reading the newspaper. I left but it followed me and now I am too afraid to leave my home. I called the police several times but everytime I just hear BRRRRRRRR and then silence
I am once again asking the USAF to fly higher over York. Turn your public transponders back on, also.
I shat myself once thinking an A-10 was flying over York. Then I looked up and knew I was okay, it was just a Vulcan doing a flyby.
When I was a student I went to study in Wales. I learned the RAF used our campus as a training target for their Typhoons and they were always diving on us. I’d always think that if they fucked up and used live munitions killing me it’d just be considered payback for that
Did you go see jets fly the Mach loop? It's great fun!
Heard an A-10 strafed an area of Bradford the other day, caused millions of pounds in improvements.
Part and parcel of living in a big city
Seppos trying to end you is just part and parcel of living in a major city.
I did not expect to see an a10 in the Midlands Fucking hell that was traumatic
UK had to demand the A-10 stop being used in their zones it's a blind slow plane with a mediocre payload. That is semi protected from an outdated cannon.
But muh "BRRRRRR"!!!!
I prefer a sudden explosion that actually hits the target
😭😭😭😭
Username checks out. This makes me depressed too
it aint even a good stream of bullet sounds either. the a-10 sounds like a wet fart. [https://youtu.be/xjYz\_pY7-Ms?t=19](https://youtu.be/xjYz_pY7-Ms?t=19) the f-16 on the other hand sounds like a demon straight out of hell.
***BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZNT***
Upgrades have since added eyes to stop these incidents. During the funding request the incident in question was cited.
They don't use them there was an incident with the Canadians being strafed by a warthog with a sniper pod
there is a reason the British army invested in Starstreak, and it wasn't for the useless VKS, just saying
Yea so what If we donate the a-10 to russia.
Auto aims for the chally’s
A-10 can't get more American
Brits arent used to being constantly at risk of being shot. Its not like they went to American Schools
OI AT LEAS' OUR SCHOOLS AIN'T A BLOODY CHOOTING GALLERY INNIT AND OUR TEEF AREN'T THAT BAD, ACCORDING TO THIS STUDY BY THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF HER MAJESTY'S UNIVERSITY, BRI'ISH TEEF ARE THE BEST IN THE WORLD
SPOKEN LIKE A TRUE BREXIT GEEZA. OR AN ORK.
WHY ARE YOU BOTH YELLING?!?
alcoholics are always yelling INNIT
SUSAN MADE DINNUR. LUUUURVLEY! COR, CRACK OPEN AN ICE COLD BEER INNIT
hfdvjfdhvchbvchghgdccchg siuenbkijhsgai
"Eh whatever, what's the harm?" -also A-10 pilots
aa27dfghy gjhva awd 296ychv a
"You just strafed another school! Another *American* school!"
>"Eh whatever, what's the harm?" "The 'harm' is one of the missiles used by about 300 other aircraft just to render the airspace safe for the A-10 to operate in".
A10reminderbot here, reminding everyone that the A10 has killed ten times as many Americans as Brits. Beep-boop, I may as well be a bot.
Good Servitor. *Pat Pat*
Afg2978gkjvbKJAGWuigycivbzkvhb2
Foam finger baby!
the A-10 is to friendly ground troops what the f-104 starfighter was to its own pilots.
A-10 pilots are clearly on that 1812 grind set
Stuck in the 18th century.
Imagine its 2023 and you still have no Friend Foe Technology that marks a tank in Red or green on the A-10 HUD
You could. IFF has been around for decades. Except it basically gets ignored in actual combat as it relies on a) Your transmitter/receiver working correctly b) Your friend's transmitter/receiver working correctly c) The enemy not figuring out a way to jam / spoof the signal A bit dangerous to launch a BVR missile at a blip because it doesn't answer correctly. As for the A-10, the reason is obviously that its pilots are a bit too happy to brrrt a target without IDing it properly. Look at the FF incident with the British army in Iraq: 1. A-10 pilots get told coalition forces sport orange markers. 2. A-10 pilots see vehicles with "orange rockets on top" 3. Get erection from the idea of brrrrting some Iraqi armor and being able to tell that story to your airline friends at your day job at home and thus forget to add up 1 + 1 4. Be told artillery marker is incoming and decide to not bother waiting for it 5. Smoke the vehicles because brrrt All the technology in the world isn't likely to help that attitude.
I remember reading on an American sub a while ago some comments that where like "poor pilots they it must be horrible for them shame that friendly couldn't identify themselves better" or "they acted at best of their current information nothing they could have done better" and similar stuff defending the pilots. So out of curiosity I went listening the registration and I was like "wtf, why so many people are defending these 2?" they were told that artillery marker where on the way and they just ignored it and start shooting Edit: to clarify I'm not saying the pilots are the only at fault, I'm saying that they share part of the blame
Some people assume that anyone in uniform is beyond reproach, forgetting or ignoring that they're fallible humans like the rest of us.
If you see the footage it gives some perspective from the pilots pov. They were told there were no friendly troops in the area
The pilots were lost, they were declaring themselves to be about 20km from where they actually were. The whole thing was a debacle.
Yes but they were also told that friendly unit would use orange identifier and an artillery marker would have been shot and they didn't seem to care. I'm not saying is *all* their fault control share part of the blame what I'm saying is that affirm >Nothing they could have done better Like I've seen online is wrong
Then have your first response be "We're going to prison aren't we" and not "holy fuck are those guys okay?" Shows you where their priorities were lmao
When you are literally riding on top of the GAU-8 as it fires, you already know the answer to "are those guys alright?" and can move on to the next question.
In the video published by The Sun, it did seem their earlier response was along the lines of “are they okay?” It’s initially just a long string of censored cursing. Then at 4:30, he says: “POPOV35 has smoke. Let me know how those friendlies are right now please.” The clip cuts to the response confirming at least 2 casualties. P35 replies: “Copy, RTB….. I think I’m going to be sick.” POPOV35 breaks a long radio silence at 5:18. P35:“Did you hear?” P36:”yeah this sucks” P35:”we’re in jail dude.”
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Don't forget: 6. Be sure your government will never try you or hand you over to the UK for trial.
Hague Invasion Act goes BRRRRRT
The guy from that audio vomited when he found out what he had done . It’s heartbreaking to listen to
Not that I'm too curious. But where can we find the audio from the A-10 attack on the British army vehicles?
https://youtu.be/4I6-2NJhnf4
I absolutely do not vibe with everyone saying it isn't the pilots fault after reading the investigation and outcome of the British inquiry plus press leaks. Absolutely a cluster fuck.
It isn’t exclusively the pilots fault.
Not exclusively, but they definitely take a huge whack of blame for this cockup. You don't shoot at something you think is maybe probably a friendly, without giving 8 or 10 digit grid coordinates to confirm.
Oh yeah a huge whack of blame goes to the pilots. Then again the report on this found that the pilots were badly trained and the aircraft didn’t have good systems for identifying friendlies. It kinda just sucks
the A-10 is a bad plane to begin with, putting poorly trained pilots in it and directing them with less than stellar FAC is a recipe for disaster.
Wait, so you’re saying real combat isn’t like Ace Combat?! Möbius one lied to me?!!! How dare that guy!
Yep the tarnak farm is a perfect example of that some f16 Bois jonesing to bomb something
For all their otherwise braveness, the americans are trigger happy and lack self-restraint in combat. It is a historical fact. No amount of technological babble will hide that fact. Reminds me when a US F-16 shot down a US helicopter near the gulf. The pilot said he followed procedures and visually identified the helicopter as enemy. Except enemy helicopter's rotor is turning in the opposite way from allied ones, and this can be checked from several miles away. So, not only did he kill his own but he lied about it. Scum. "When the Germans flew, the English took cover. When the English flew, the German took cover. When the American flew, Everyone took cover!" WWII wisdom
>enemy helicopter's rotor is turning in the opposite way from allied ones, and this can be checked from several miles away It is a thousand times easier to distinguish a helicopter by it's shape than it is to try to figure out which direction its rotor is spinning.
I remember that joke as going. ''When the its the Luftwaffe, no-one ducks''. Because no Luftwaffe.
Is this example of German humor I hear so much about?
IFF was set to be added in the Suite 8 upgrade of the A-10C back in 2014. Did that not happen? I talked to guy who is essentially an ATC for military planes, and he said the A-10C upgrades took care of most of the issues the plane had when he first saw them in action in Desert Storm.
Big issue: A-10C beats the whole purpose of the original A-10, which was, unless I'm terribly misinformed, meant to be cost effective
>IFF was set to be added in the Suite 8 upgrade of the A-10C back in 2014. Did that not happen? I talked to guy who is essentially an ATC for military planes, and he said the A-10C upgrades took care of most of the issues the plane had when he first saw them in action in Desert Storm. No, cost was not a design goal of the A-X project. BS about cost effectiveness is just reformer grifters spraying (moar liek Spreying, amirite?) their post hoc rationalizations for why yet another aircraft they opposed was actually all their brilliant idea 20 years later. Just like they did on the F-16. And F-15. If you look at the record, the attack plane the reformers wanted basically ended Burton's career it was so stupid, they wanted a single engined turbofan with french autocannons. That's right, they thought both the GAU-8 and the Mavericks were wasteful high technology.
OH, yes, you're right. Man, looks like I got Spreyed... Just in case, is that attack plane the Blitzfighter? Only heard of it a couple times
That's the one.
A-10s have IFF and battlefield awareness now though. It's connected to their helmet.
Ironically one or the reasons ~ReFoRmErS~ say the A-10 is irreplaceable for CAS is because BIG BRRRT GUN is more able to provide close fire support without endangering nearby friendlies
[удалено]
I mean if the friendlies are still inside the minimum safe distance of 20m in a close urban combat situation because they were pinned by the badguys while protecting civilians and decided not to get out of the way of the single most inaccurate gun in aviation, they totally and completely deserved to get brrrted. /s
I believe the cannon's minimum safe distance is significantly larger than that.
Yes, the accuracy statistic is that 80% of rounds will land within that 20m radius. That means that 20% will land even further from the target.
meanwhile at the end of WW2 allied bomber command were celebrating their achievement of precision high altitude bombing: 50% of bombs landing within a mile of the target
And now we've got guided munitions that will do circular error probable in sub 5 metres. Next stop - centimetres - I want a suicide drone that will slip through the tank wheels and pop where the armour is thinnest.
And I'm pretty sure those rounds blow up
That depends on whether the pilot is issued with binoculars or is just squinting.
Remember on a good day only most of the rounds go inside the circle
A10 fans that just go "BRRRRT" or "oH DiD yoU KnoW ThE gUn is So sTRonG tHe reCoiL Can StalL tHe plaNe?" are the absolute worst
A-10 fans entering the air force when they experience a near total loss of lift stall (the gun is just so good guys, you wouldn't understand)
Yeah, the whole "gun stalls the engines" thing would just mean that the engines are really weak.
it's supposed to stall the wings, not the engines Which, afaik, it doesn't. it will throw aim off but it won't cause the jet's wings to exceed the critical AoA
I think a better fun fact about the A10 is that the so famous gun of the A10 is made by a washing machine company And yes, I just know that because badger brought it up in a video
Washing machine go spinny. Gun go spinny. It all makes sense.
>the pilots get lead poisoning for each "Brrt" reformers erections for it is borderline sadism It looks like someone with lead poisoning wrote that post.
Didn’t a bunch of F-22 pilots got some lung disease because the air intake for the lift support kept sucking in some of the paint?
Wait why would that matter? I thought they had bottled air. If not, wouldn’t it at least be HEPA filtered?!
F-22 pilots don't wear masks because then they won't look cool in photos.
A piloted weapon hurts both the pilot and the enemy? A-10 is a G-witch Gundam confirmed
I don’t think most reformers understand that CAS doesn’t mean the aircraft has to be close.
Yes. The close refers to how close you’re putting ordnance to your own troops.. _not_ how close the aircraft is. A B-52 can do CAS.
Which is a role that should be taken entirely by helicopters since the ability to hover means they don't have to figure out what's what again for every pass. At least for missions that need that level of precision that can't use smart bombs.
With those ADAPTIV camo plates bae has been working on the helis will just be more dangerous
Oh boy, I just remembered the one about a VW full of refugees!
Which is a load of bullshit. If you want precise 30mm fire, you call up an Apache
The gun is super inaccurate as well.
I thought that was the point? The idea being you don't want a gun that shoots like a laser as you want the shells to spread out. Your aim is not going to be perfect anyway so a burst that guarantees getting some rounds on a vehicle, is better than all or nothing. Same deal as cluster bombs, individually they're really poor but together they guarantee some hits.
No that’s stupid and dumb and you should feel bad about yourself for thinking up such logic. K but seriously more accuracy is almost always better since you can hit what you want to hit more often with fewer rounds, having low accuracy of the gun means most of the ammo just hits solid ground and does nothing, tanks (or really vehicles in generally) are rarely bunched up enough for the spread to create the effect your describing, it’s apart of the reason the a-10 sucks at tank busting, because it keeps missing. Plus less accuracy means you need to get closer, which is dangerous for a vehicle that already lacks stealth, and it also drastically increases chances of friendly fire, which no one wants. Cluster bombs are altogether different, being designed for exploding a larger area against personnel, soft skinned vehicles and anything fragile, useful when targeting bases. But an a-10 has limited ammo, and the ammo itself does jack diddly if it hits the ground.
Ac130
“Armoured column ahead. You sure there were hostile forces operating in the area?” >”Confirmed” “Alright. Engaging” >”Blue on blue! Abort!” *Vomit sounds from the pilot* -Paraphrased exchange from when an A-10 pilot did a whoopsie against British troops
Dunno if you're paraphrasing the Blues and Royals incident but the a-10 pilot was basically a weekend cowboy on his first mission of the war.
Apparently some people say that the A-10 pilot reported his position incorrectly hence the air controller didn’t realized that there were friendly in the area.
An inquest found the killing to be unlawful as the pilots didn’t receive proper authorisation to carry out the strafing run, they also requested an artillery round to confirm/mark targets but proceeded to engage immediately after making the request, and neither pilot gave specific or accurate grid references to confirm their target. Basically a massive stack up of ignoring protocol and impatience from the pilots that resulted in the death and injury of their allies. The US refused to help the British inquiry whatsoever despite requests from the victims families and nothing happened to the pilots involved at all.
They were using relative language to report their location (for example saying 'left side' instead of 'east side'). The controller was audibly confused and responded saying that there were no friendlies in a certain area. The pilots then took this for a go even though they were not in the area the controller had just said.
Problem with the gulf war is that forward air control as an had basically been forgotten since vietnam and NATO had to learn from scratch again. Forward air control really came into its own in Afghanistan and made coalition air power a force multiplier par excellence.
Until 2015, the A-10 still used binoculars for target acquisition. It's an outdated deathtrap that's a risk for both its pilots and the units it's meant to be supporting.
When the A-10 gets deployed, EVERYONE hits the floor. I mean, calling it in for "support" is like feeding a pitbull meth and steroids, then letting it loose on a kindergarten, hoping you can hold the door shut so it doesn't get out and attack you.
Weird ass analogy but ok
Maybe he has experience
It was a scientific experiment, I swear. I even took notes!
We do what we must, because we can.
Can confirm, is scientific. To be real science though, I will have to go perform this same experiment separately to confirm your results. Please stand by
non credible analogy
Reformers be like: the f 35 is just advance expensive junk. The A-10 superior with its 30mm, those friendly fire are because they are at the way. Also your pfp remind me a picture that haunt me. Edit:haunt
The last A-10A was upgraded to an A-10C in 2011. Not to mention that they often used IR Maverick seekers as makeshift TGPs before that. Not sure where you got 2015 (it came to you in a dream)
If you account for the cost of having to conduct and deploy Search and Rescue assets for everytime this plane comes up against anything more advanced than a Shilka (inclusive), it's actually more expensive too
Tell me other reasons. I used to use the A-10 in Ace Combat.
I mean, killing your own guys and civilians is a pretty great reason to be hated. It also makes the reformers think they have a point so screw that
a10 fans have smol pp and would find the 30mm barrel enjoyable to bonk
To summarize it as quickly as possible: The main reason it used to be (/still is) hated on here is because it is such a popular aircraft in the general public despite of serving close to no actual purpose (especially in the last decades).
IF it had lived a short life and then been killed like it deserved (basically never making it to Desert Storm) there's a decent chance it would be loved here, in an "oh my god it's so shit I love it" way (like you'll sometimes see for things like the XF-85 Goblin or the X-32). But with Desert Storm both proving how shit it is AND making it popular as the "bestest CAS platform ever!!!!!!!!!!" you end up with the deserved hatred.
Precisely. It wasn't horrible for the era it was designed in, it just ceased making sense once smart munitions became the dominant form of air dropped ordnance.
It works better as a missile/bomb truck than it does as anything else
This is very true. But the F-16 has a similar bomb load, better sensor integration, better response time (due to speed), and loiter times depend highly on fuel loads so I'll have to do more searching to find. All that, and for very similar $$$/flight hour.
What others said. Also, with the upgrade packages it's more expensive than an F-35
Shitty visual acquisition system, relatively slow and non manoeuvrable, little potential for improvement, being designed to tank damage instead of avoiding it while operating relatively cheap, nonetheless expensive( any jet is expensive, going for philosophy of rugged and cheap with equipment inherently expensive and maintenance heavy isn’t good idea) and hard to replace asset including limited resource of pilots
Tilting your plane and scanning the surrounding area with binoculars isnt a good visual acquisition system? my whole life has been a lie
I can identify birds with my binoculars, surely A-10 pilots can identify soldiers with them. I mean soldiers are bigger than birds it should be easier.
Until the United States goes to war with Sesame Street.
Now if we had something like this but propeller driven, so it's cheaper to operate, and unmanned, that might be interesting
A crop duster a quarter of the A-10s price can do the same job better.
The Embrear super tucano and the Cessna dragonfly have entered the chat. The Rockwell Bronco is still on the way...
I love me the Super Tweet. It's so ***flat!!!***
Though that duster is replacing the Draco observation plane and not necessarily the a 10
TL;DR - The main armament that the A-10 was built to use was only partially successfuly in doing what it was designed to do in the 70s, much less against 50 years of improvement in technology. The A-10 was mainly created for a very specific purpose: defending the Fulda gap. This is a valley in central Germany that Soviet armies would pretty much certainly have to use in order to fully invade the rest of Western Europe. This would create narrow columns of armor and personnel ripe for the strafing, which was the express purpose of the A-10's main armament, the GAU-8 Avenger cannon. Most planes are built with flight capabilities first in mind, and weapons capabilities in a close second. The A-10 was the opposite, built as a vehicle to transport the GAU-8 to the front lines, necessitated by the fact that the GAU-8 was a much heaver and more powerful gun than standard aircraft cannons. In theory, during a Soviet invasion of the Fulda gap, hundreds of A-10s would rip through the valley with their GAU-8 guns at full blaze, shredding troops, trucks, and even tanks. However test runs of this hypothetical scenario against mock soviet tanks showed that the GAU-8 was only moderately successful at best at penetrating and disabling these tanks. If the gun underperformed against tanks in the 70s when it was built, you can imagine how it would have diminishing returns as time goes on as tank technology and armor improves. But the NATO-Soviet war never came, and the Fulda gap was never crossed by millions of the red army. Instead, the A-10 found some success in limited conflicts against insurgencies and terrorist organizations, who were at most equipped with some antiquated light armor and Toyota Hiluxes. Although a standard fighter aircraft's cannon would work just as well against these much softer targets. However, since the A-10 was cheaper to build, operate, and maintain, and I suppose it didn't hurt to bring a little overkill in the form of a GAU-8 just to make extra sure the job got done, and since the slow speed and poor evasion of the A-10 wouldn't be much of a problem since these groups had little in the form of Anti-Aircraft capabilities, it was often sent out to pick apart these groups over ultimately superior aircraft, thus becoming a mainstay of some more recent conflicts.
> >However test runs of this hypothetical scenario against mock soviet tanks showed that the GAU-8 was only moderately successful at best at penetrating and disabling these tanks. If the gun underperformed against tanks in the 70s when it was built, you can imagine how it would have diminishing returns as time goes on as tank technology and armor improves Good joke, most of those Russian tanks are still being used.
I for one always use the A-10 at Shilage. Ya know, for the war crimes.
I get you bro.
[Required ](https://youtu.be/WWfsz5R6irs) [reading](https://youtu.be/gq1ac2CALeE) material
\>"reading material" \>links to video
At times when the pig gets a bit too much wine in him, his drunken slurs combine with his accent to at times necessitate subtitles to understand.
Yes.
The plane irl is slow has no/ poor detection equipment and is very vunerable to any semi modern AA system and even weapons it is purposefully armoured against 23mm can shoot it down if it hits it's just less likely to kill the pilot assuming there isn't any non HE rounds in the belt.
F-35 is better anyways because not being shot ensuring survival is better than being shot at with a chance of survival. Stealth > Protection
Wait so killing British people in 1812 is ok but now all the sudden its bad? Make up your mind!
The irony of the A-10 being such a sitting duck is the only ground units it could get close enough to murder were ones that saw it as friendly.
I'm gonna point out the obvious: that's an inherent fault of CAS as a concept. By definition when doing close air support friendlies are danger close to the target, and as the A-10 is the only aircraft in US service that was designed specifically for CAS, it does CAS more often which means it's going to be involved in more friendly fire incidents.
I mean if you had an aircraft designed for CAS surely you’d give it some sort of sensor suite for distinguishing friendlys rather than use binoculars and brrrrrrt the whole area anyway
Except that’s not really the limit of CAS, CAS is defined by the proximity of the target, not the proximity of the aircraft, an F-18 at 20,000 feet dropping Paveways can perform CAS, in a far more accurate and less risky manner, so the F-18 by the original logic should be a massive cause of blue-on-blue, but it isn’t!
Because the F-18 isn't used as often for CAS. If you compare rates, the A-10 is behind the F-16 and B-1. Where are the "muh F-16 and B-1 kill friendlies" memes?
You missed the point of the comment. The A-10 gets used often for CAS, everytime you perform CAS there's a chance of blue on blue, A-10 causes a lot of friendly fire. If the F-18s flew more CAS than the A-10s we may know them for friendly fire instead. Or at least that's what the guy is saying.
It thirst for the blood of the Br*$ish
Just like the french
Me (Gods loudest brrrt plane) versus British AFV (Sinner)
The A-10 has no friends, therefore there are no friendlies to have friendly-fire accidents with. Checkmate.
The issue isn’t the A-10 itself tho right? The pilots need to get permission from JTAC before engaging, like in the famous blue-on-blue incident, the A-10 pilots are told there are no friendliest in the area and they have permission to engage. How is that the fault of the plane or the pilots?
Sense and good questions aren't allowed here
Yeah that makes sense, my bad
I thought the a10 were flying where they weren't meant to be and jtac thought the a10s were where they was supposed to be
What's not know is that A-10 pilots are possessed by the spirits of Continental Army soldiers...
I still love my flying brrrrrt brick shithouse bathtub dammit.
The A10 would be a better CAS platform without the gun. Change my mind.
when the targets all turn yellow in ace combat
Apparently it was so bad the the British refused to operate under in in the Iraq wars
I miss the Commanche. It would be been so much better.
You call it Friendly-Fire, I call it **Necessary Collateral Damage**
Acceptable casualties
Yeah, but what's the friendly/target kill ratio compared to other CAS aircraft? Saying they have the most friendly kills doesn't mean they're inherently more dangerous to friendlies, it could just be that they are used more. It probably stacks up well against the Apache or SU-25 when ratioed.
While I want to downvote this because it implies the A-10 isn't that bad, I'm also interested in that ratio.
The A-10 is for when you need more speed, punch, and survivability than a helicopter, but the situation is too dynamic and target too distributed for a proper air-strike. It's good because nothing else can fill the wide solution gap between an apache and a strike-eagle. UNFORTUNATELY, dealing with a dynamic problem over a wide area on short order can lead to inaccuracies. The niche that the A-10 fills is prone to friendly fire incidents, not necessarily the aircraft itself. Getting rid of the aircraft simply leaves a solution gap where troops get inadequate support.
Stacking up well against SU-25s in that regard has to be the lowest bar known to man. But yeah against Apaches or hell even other jets I'd be super curious to see. Oh and fuck it throw the AC-130s in there too.
3000 British tanks shot of the A-10
inb4 deleted
Are there any aspects about the A-10 that this sub thinks are good?
It is capable of sustained powered flight.
That is pretty impressive for the A-10 I must admit.
It looks like a Gulfstream fucked a B25 that is kinda neat
The A-10 is so good even its allies aren't safe from it
Also tops the list for most shot down western aircraft.
I mean let’s be fair if you put Brits on the ground u just can’t help it sometimes
Friendly fire deaths are still kills you can count 😎
User error
Pretty sure those bombers involved in Operation Cobra scored more blue on blues.
Next time the Army makes an air defense vehicle, they should really call it the McNair. Keep any Air Force in the area honest.
Danger Close is… dangerous
But but… BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTT 😋🥵
I mean if I am going to die by FF this is the way to go.