The airforce doesn't like the "artillery" or ground support missions, because they're not sexy. I've looked at the plans they have for close air support and bombing, they're sad, very sad. The B-3 is a joke compared to the bomb trucks capable of flying around the world like the B-1, B-2, and B-52 (it is planned to have less payload capacity and less range). And if I'm a grunt on the ground facing heavy armor I'd rather have a GAU-8/A with several tons of ammo on the other side of the radio rather than just a few hellfires or JDAMs. The A-10 is an armor killing monster, the Apache is merely an armor killing animal, the JSF has armor killing functions. Which would you want on your side?

Perhaps more importantly, which would you rather have developed into next generation systems which would be even more capable than their last generation? Would you want to upgrade strike fighters to match the capabilities of helicopters, or would you want to upgrade the A-10 design and role to exceed all past ground attack capabilities?

If you want my opinion the job of ground attack should be given over to the Army, and the airforce should be dedicated to achieving air superiority. Either that or a lot of high level generals need to get a dent in their asses to get them to realize that running bomb dump trucks and dedicated ground-attack planes might be unsexy but it's a cornerstone job of air power in the modern military.

Robin: Amen!!

It's been patently obvious for years that the A-10 is basically a flying tank; therefore, assigning it to the Army makes a whole lot of sense!

I'm in favor of splitting up the Air Force so as to leave the fighter generals all alone with their cute little pointy nose fuel burners. Recast the Defense Department as the Navy Department and the War Department and get those yoyos back under some adult supervision.

Isn't the essential problem that Army is not allowed to fly fixed wing aircraft? It would seem that relaxing that would solve the problem.

The Army has fixed wing birds. But there is a 50ish year-old agreement that limits the gross weight of the aircraft, and their ability to defend them selves. Check out the OV-1 Mohawk, 2 seater Reccon, heavily armed with two (2) .38 cal revolvers!
Photographic missions, Near InfraRed, and Side Looking Airborne radar (SLAR), were the tasking of the OV-1, and RV-1D models flew Electronic Intel (ELINT) missions.

They flew many penetration missions in VN, I just flew cold war border missions in Germany. Mohawks were also assigned to the DMZ in Korea, and had some air time in Honduras and the First Gulf war.

http://www.ov-1mohawk.org/
http://nasaa-home.org/asa/buley/memorial.htm

As former USAF I recognize horse manure from chicken feathers, and I'm afraid a bunch of overly-promoted chicken colonels masquerading as generals are wrong - wrong - wrong about phasing out the warthog and 'multi-tasking' CAS. Can't be done! Didn't work in Korea, didn't work in 'Nam, didn't work anywhere else! Flying too fast to be shot up means you're flying too fast to hit back and be of any use.

Get real or give it up to the ground-pounders, guys. You ain't fooling nobody but yourselves.

In its June 9 issue, Air Force Times reports that Maj. Gen. David Deptula has no idea what Robert Coram is talking about. The article is available (for subscribers) at http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.php?f=0-AIRPAPER-1900398.php.

Excerpts:

"I was shocked when I woke up and read that thing," Deptula told Air Force Times. "It is absolutely not true."

Current ACC plans call for keeping some A-10s flying through 2028, Deptula said.

The jet eventually expected to replace the A-10 — the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — won’t start operational testing until 2010.

...

Deptula said he hadn't spoken with Coram or the New York Times before or after the piece was published.

The column said Deptula ordered one of his staff members to write a report justifying the retirement of the A-10 by as early as 2004.

Deptula said he didn't ask anyone to write such a report and couldn't think of a report that might have been mistaken for what Coram described.

(End excerpts)

Of course the Air Force has no plans to get rid of the A-10 in the immediate future. This is just one of those seasonal things that seem to pop-up every Spring and Fall. It's the typical Chicken Little shit we've been hearing from know-nothings for the past ten years.

A little information can often lead to overblown hand-wringing. When HAF recently told its MAJCOMs to find money in the budget for (unspecified program), some commands had the bright idea to offer up the A-10 as a chop option. They knew dropping the A-10 early is a non-starter. It was just a ploy to make it look like they had savings to offer. Of course the option was dropped, and those commands are again scrambling to find other ways to "do more with less." Media caught a whiff and ran with it.

I remember reading after Desert Storm that McPeak offered the Army the A-10 in exchange for TACMS. Reason was the deconfliction hassle related to the use of TACMS on the battlefield: "20 Aug 92 - USAF Chief of Staff General Merrill McPeak and US Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan meet to discuss air defense and fire support coordination issues. McPeak would like the USAF to take over the US Army Patriot and long range Tactical Missile System (TACMS) which engage targets well beyond the Fire Support Coordination Line (FSCL) in exchange for fixed wing aviation for the Army to do its own Close Air Support. This is the latest in the "Roles and Missions" war going on in Washington for a larger share of the Clinton Administration's budget."
http://www.sci.fi/~fta/1992-ops.htm

For a really good description of why, take a look here: http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/96spring/winton.htm Summary: Changing weapons systems and Army doctrine are expanding the fire support coordination line (FSCL) (no air weapons release before this line without coord of a ground commander). Target deconfliction during Desert Storm required Army TACMS targeteers to coord with AF targeteers over which service got to hit which targets.

Very sharp stuff, Earl. I'd say McPeak's idea might have a lot to recommend it. Wonder how "deconfliction" worked in Gulf War II, generally acknowledged to be a big leap ahead in having services work together.

The F-35 JSF sounds like a replay of the TFX (aka "Flying Edsel"), a wish list with wings that mutated into the F-111, F-14, and F-15. All of these eventually became very capable aircraft, but only after years of problems and compromised performance due in large part to unrealistic emphasis on commonality as a cost-saving measure. (Thank you, Robert MacNamara and your "Whiz Kids")

Considering that the Marines are a Department Of the Navy, does it make sense for the Air Force to become a Department of the Army?

The long-term goal is the same - destroy the enemy.

The Navy has their own Air Force. Now that I think about it, the Navy is a self-contained military outfit - land, sea, air.

Why shouldn't the Air Force be considered a Department of the Army?

Yeah, it's the same ol' same old.

The Air Force exists to bomb things. Give it a transport aircraft, and it designs bombs for it. Give it a "fighter," and it makes it into a "fighter/bomber."

The Air Force does not want the A-10 because they can't bomb things with it. That's their whole argument.

And, if they get their way, they will retire the A-10 and replace it with the F-35 which won't be a good CAS plane, and won't be a good fighter either, but WILL BE ABLE TO BOMB THINGS. And they will say it is better than any alternative. And they will be right, if by 'better' you mean 'better at bombing things.'

Take CAS away from the Air Force, and give it back to the Army.

as a former planner for USFK in Korea.. i have to agree with robin. the air force loves the dog fight and hates the ground fight. it was a constant battle to get them to weaponeer their planes for our fight. the CinC was an Army 4 star and the Air Force 3 star never wanted to listen to the CinC about ground support.

Looks like everyone has had a lot of fun here with the A-10 football.

I'd have to say that Scarlet is probably right about it being a constant fight to get the AF to weaponeer for "their fight", probably because their idea of weaponeering is usually pretty myopic. That and that they inherently don't seem to trust the AF can deliver if simply given a requirement, with out also being given specific instructions how to carry it out. This is known as telling the other guy exactly how to suck eggs.

And its also the reason the Army lost the airplanes in the first place - the groundpounder's view of the proper employment of airpower, which looks remarkably like the groundpounder's view of tube artillery, or mess kits, for that matter. You assign it to the coprs, division, or battalion level, and they are the only ones that get to use it, unless you get into a really stylized mother may I dance.

With some of the complimentary weapons coming online to go along with the F-22, the F-35, the F-15E, and the Super Hornet - the CAS mission will be covered, a couple of ways to Sunday. And I still have yet to see anyone mention the C-130U in all this back and forth.

Jeez, you guys might as well be carrying on about the claw hammer being the ultimate tool for putting in drywall screws.

C-130 Spectres are counter-insurgency aircraft, incredibly useful in low-threat environments but rather expensive. One does NOT send them in to go after, say, dug-in Republican Guard divisions. They're great aircraft, and we should have more, but they don't replace the A-10.

The "complementary weapons" you speak of... it would help if you were more clear about what you envision, exactly. More precision weapons on multi-role aircraft just entrenches the procurement death-spiral of fewer and fewer weapons that are more and more expensive. That is not a good trend, for a whole host of reasons.

Unless I'm way behind the times, LockMart is working on an A-10 upgrade to avionics, navigation, targeting, etc as I'm typing this. Seems like an odd thing to do to an aircraft you're going to immediately dump on the scrap heap.

The A10 is a much better option than even choppers foran insurgensy war fare. They can circle a city until a opperation is over, or until they have to intrudce Mr RPGer to mister Avenger gatling cannon. Also, because RPG's could come from any direction, ARMOR is the most important tool for ALL things in a LIC war.

"Armor is the ultimate weapon"

Armor without infantry support is easy prey for light infantry in an urban setting. See what happened to Israel last summer.