Slava Warthogya!

Have you seen how Su-25 Frogfoot jets have been ending up, both Russian as well as Ukrainian? The Hog would fare about as well. Maybe a tad better. Our 20 years of being spoiled with unhindered air ops over Afghanistan, has created a complacency of what actual air defenses can do.
 
Have you seen how Su-25 Frogfoot jets have been ending up, both Russian as well as Ukrainian? The Hog would fare about as well. Maybe a tad better. Our 20 years of being spoiled with unhindered air ops over Afghanistan, has created a complacency of what actual air defenses can do.
Lots of videos out there now of UAF flying at comically low level over Ukraine now…. i can’t imagine one would fly that low if there was any other alternative lol
 
Have you seen how Su-25 Frogfoot jets have been ending up, both Russian as well as Ukrainian? The Hog would fare about as well. Maybe a tad better. Our 20 years of being spoiled with unhindered air ops over Afghanistan, has created a complacency of what actual air defenses can do.

Never said you’d be there long. But just think of that ONE perfect gun run. Worth it.
 
Never said you’d be there long. But just think of that ONE perfect gun run. Worth it.


Lots of videos out there now of UAF flying at comically low level over Ukraine now…. i can’t imagine one would fly that low if there was any other alternative lol

it depends on what is present air defense wise, or thought to be present. Low gets you out of one threat, and places right into another. Just as medium altitude does vice versa. There’s no such thing as high altitude for a loaded Hog. Would get to see cool things like a ZSU-23-4 or a 2S6 system face to face in action, before it waxed me. :)
 
it depends on what is present air defense wise, or thought to be present. Low gets you out of one threat, and places right into another. Just as medium altitude does vice versa. There’s no such thing as high altitude for a loaded Hog. Would get to see cool things like a ZSU-23-4 or a 2S6 system face to face in action, before it waxed me. :)

You forgot…

The ground has a Pk of 1


A whole bunch of guys over there have already been reminded of that painfully…. Or maybe not.


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A-10C initial training is about 6.5 months. My old A model Hog initial training was a 91 day course.
Presumably these timelines could be reduced if you had previous experience and your services were required due to… I dunno, a foreign invasion?

Like, in your expert opinion, what do you think the minimum timeline would be to get a proficient frog foot guy with practical experience doing a a similar job up to speed?
 
Presumably these timelines could be reduced if you had previous experience and your services were required due to… I dunno, a foreign invasion?

Like, in your expert opinion, what do you think the minimum timeline would be to get a proficient frog foot guy with practical experience doing a a similar job up to speed?

Flying the jet and basic tactics would transfer over, just learning some new specifics of a new jet. It’s the systems knowledge with the various weapons systems, munitions employment, flight systems, etc, that would take the most time to train.
 
Flying the jet and basic tactics would transfer over, just learning some new specifics of a new jet. It’s the systems knowledge with the various weapons systems, munitions employment, flight systems, etc, that would take the most time to train.
Like the original course was 91 days - you think one could do it in less?

Honestly I imagine the maintenance guys would take longer to train? But that’s not my domain of expertise, but it’s probably more complicated to work on something that’s going to take such a beating lol…

Also… main - what I see here is the real possibility for a “flying tigers” sort of scenario if that wasn’t a major escalation…
 
Like the original course was 91 days - you think one could do it in less?

Honestly I imagine the maintenance guys would take longer to train? But that’s not my domain of expertise, but it’s probably more complicated to work on something that’s going to take such a beating lol…

Also… main - what I see here is the real possibility for a “flying tigers” sort of scenario if that wasn’t a major escalation…

Just start a mercenary group. Call it Rengaw.
 
Like the original course was 91 days - you think one could do it in less?

Honestly I imagine the maintenance guys would take longer to train? But that’s not my domain of expertise, but it’s probably more complicated to work on something that’s going to take such a beating lol…

Also… main - what I see here is the real possibility for a “flying tigers” sort of scenario if that wasn’t a major escalation…

I mean, if we want to give A-10s to Ukraine, we do have maybe 30 or so old A models still in storage at the Tucson boneyard that were retired immediately after the Gulf War in 1991, though they would take some significant work to get them back up and running. But they’re the original basic jet, no bells and whistles of the C model, and easier to employ.

I was only an A model guy. The new C model (ha…..I say “new”, the C models have been in service for over 15 years now), was just starting to come out about 6 months after I left the A-10 community. The A model had nothing high tech in it. Granted, it had upgrades from the A models that served in Desert Storm, but not much. Had a regular gyro INS for navigation, everything munitions-wise was dumb, or unguided, other than the AGM-65 Maverick missiles. There was no GPS for navigation (later GPS-corrected INS came out), no GPS guided munitions, no laser guided munitions that were carried (Laser Guided Bombs existed, but A-10s didn’t carry them). Our primary weapon was the Maverick, and it was fairly short range….only about 4-5 miles. And the gun. Tactics were primarily low altitude, but medium tactics were adopted post Desert Storm for use in areas where there wasn’t the cover for low. Low was mainly for under-the-weather employment, as the A model was a VMC only employment platform. Mostly day at first, but night unaided and later night aided employment tactics were devised via flares and marker logs. Standard high and low drag bombs and cluster munitions, were the common free-fall ordnance, along with unguided rockets.

The C model came out with full GPS navigation and weapons-interface capability. Along with targeting pod integration that allowed the ability to see far distances as well as laser designate targets, hence now LGBs could and were carried. Because of the LGB and GPS bomb capability, tactics were shifted to primarily medium altitude (GPS and LGB guided bombs weren’t viable low-level), and the A-10 became mostly a bomb truck…..flying level attacks and dropping bombs. The only diving deliveries were only for the gun and for unguided rockets, though with the advent of laser guided rockets now, even those don’t need to be pointed at the target to hit it. What I don’t like is that the new C model made weapons delivery somewhat lazy. The tight and precise delivery parameters we had to have, in order to ensure that free-fall unguided bombs and unguided rockets would actually hit their targets, and not miss due to pilot errors, made one a very precise pilot. The new technology, you could do a sloppy delivery, and the systems would correct it for you, ensuring that the bomb got to the target. The C model, was essentially a slow F-16.

Even though the tech was upgraded from the A to the C Hog, the jet itself was the same performance-wise: slow, low, and vulnerable. Some more modern threat warning systems were put into the C model, but the vulnerability of not being able to speed or climb away from threats in any substantial way, were still present, albeit medium altitude helped with the survivability. Still, we haven’t gone against a true modern integrated air defense system with this jet ever since Desert Storm, and IADS systems have significantly advanced since then, even though the old stuff is still deadly as it ever was and has proven to be so with aircraft losses we have taken since Vietnam. Insofar as power, we were supposed to get new engines that would a a good few thousand more pounds of thrust, the entire fleet of A-10s was fully funded and was to be fully retrofitted………..by the end of 1999. I sat in the briefing where that verbatim was briefed. Not one A-10 has ever gotten new engines…..not sure where this guaranteed money for them went.

Tactics wise, we knew in the 1980s that the Hog would not be survivable in a Warsaw Pact combat scenario, just as the Frogfoot wouldn’t be. With the sheer amount of lead that would be getting thrown in the air by AAA systems in a full on battle, it wouldn’t even have to be guided, the air was going to be suicide anywhere near a combat front, much lest behind lines. We’re seeing the survivability of the Frogfoots right now, and thats with less defenses than were planned for back in the Pact days. So whether Hogs to Ukraine would be a good idea or not…….I know the USAF is trying to get rid of them, maybe this would be one way they could and get around Congress not wanting them retired.

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Like the original course was 91 days - you think one could do it in less?

Honestly I imagine the maintenance guys would take longer to train? But that’s not my domain of expertise, but it’s probably more complicated to work on something that’s going to take such a beating lol…

Also… main - what I see here is the real possibility for a “flying tigers” sort of scenario if that wasn’t a major escalation…
You also have a language barrier to conquer. There are probably some English proficient pilots flying in Ukraine now, but the majority would need significant help with the language alone.
 
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