Extremely rare. This thing is like a tank in the sky.
I also thought that Warthogs were antiquated as CAS? Fucking dipshit Kegsbreath (Epstein War aside)
They are great for fighting wars against goat herders who live in caves, which apparently is the only military we can fight.
This. We got so use to fighting farmers with guns and rpgs that we have no experience fighting an actual army.
I really don’t look forward to when we actually throw hands with a really powerful military. I feel we will see a lot of American troops dead.
It’s the A10 we are talking about. You better make sure those farmers don’t have bricks or anything else they can throw.
But on the other hand, yeah, the plane excels on its role of staying low over an enemy army and shoot everything at random.
Extremely rare.
Not really, A10s have the highest loss rate of any post-Vietnam US aircraft.
Are you factoring in as a percent of combat sorties and proportionality? Because when taking this into account, I’m not sure that’s right.
And has numerous incidents of being blown to bits and still returning to base. The pilot themselves is literally inside a “titanium bathtub”.
Keep in mind finally that the nature of this aircraft is not to engage from a stand-off distance but rather be up close. Ultimately I’m really curious what brought this bird down.
… The V-22 Osprey on the other hand… Look at it wrong and she falls out of the sky.
F-16s flew a little over 13,000 sorties during Desert Storm with fewer losses and (importantly) a higher mission success rate. Also Chuck Horner was on record as saying that he kept A-10s away from anywhere the Iraqi Republican Guard was operating as they had access to actually functional air defenses that would have shredded the A-10s.
Basically A-10 pilots bragging about Desert Storm is like someone being sent to go wrestle some toddlers and coming back with a bloodied nose and broken bones and bragging about how tough and resilient they were not to have bled out.
Not to mention it is no longer 1991 and the A-10 is even less useful on a modern battlefield.
I mostly agree, which is why I knew the air frame was largely being antiquated given modern warfare; that being said it does not change that the warthog itself is designed and proven to take a pummeling relative to these other planes who fly significantly higher and stand off further away, or that Warthog losses are rare. They’ve taken plenty of hits from MANPADS, have .50 and 20mm rounds blow off parts of the tail and punch through the hull, and kept flying, so I’m curious what air-defense system took this one down.
There’s another point to this that is probably more important to highlight: Leadership matters. A rook is a strong chess piece, but if you launch it out of the gate in your opening moves and don’t protect it you’re in for a bad time. Any war sim or RTS should convey this idea. It is rare for these to come down relative to the sorties because good commanders know when the strengths and weaknesses of their pieces.
Might have something to do with at least 10 highly experienced Generals being fired by Kegsbreath recently… Leaving aside all the others he’s done. Seems intentional.
Hunting warthogs has always been popular…
They’re old, but still the most effective in that role. At least when they don’t have the threat of being shot down.
crashed
What could have possibly caused this. What a mystery
deleted by creator
Well, some of them are built so that the front doesn’t fall off at all.
I thought the A-10 was decommissioned…?
He was ONE day from retirement!
I think they’ve been trying to phase out the damned things but who knows whats going on with the back end shit. Wouldn’t even be surprised if kegsbreth specifically kept them in commission because the look kool.
The Army wants to keep them. F-35s can’t do the A-10’s job properly, and the A-10 has a reputation. However, they are old with no replacement even in the works because the Air Force only wants bombers or fighters.
The Army wants to keep them. F-35s can’t do the A-10’s job properly, and the A-10 has a reputation. However, they are old with no replacement even in the works because the Air Force only wants bombers or fighters.
Which job is that? Killing hiluxes and insurgents with no air defense capabilities? Because against everybody else the A-10 throws stand-off munitions from medium altitude, when it’s not banned from entering hostile airspace.
It’s no coincidence nobody wants to operate it. Not any foreign air force, not USAF that is stuck with it and not the US army that was offered it(they are fine with USAF paying for it).
F-16s can do anything useful the A-10 can and much more.
Maybe I am cynical, and I am by no way a military expert of any kind, but I would figure that an A-10 is more expendable than a F-35.
I am in the ‘A-10s are cool’ camp, but I do not think that they are particularly useful anymore on a modern battlefield.
The GAU-8 they built the A-10 around is a heckuva gun. It can also weather AA fire. An F-35 can only fire missiles (which, due to it’s internal weapons bays, are limited), and isn’t going to eat a flak around and still get home safely. It wasn’t designed for the same enviroment.
Warthogs are extremely cool. I’d end this comment with “fight me!”, but honestly I’m not that invested.
No they’re not. (It’s on)
One of my favourite DOS games back in the day was A-10 Tank Killer. It was a surprisingly good flight sim for its day and relatively accessible for a kid playing on a keyboard and mouse. I played that game so much, I’ve got a soft spot for the old A-10.
You should check out nuclear option. Its sorta strangereal esque where they have near future style craft in a modern theater. Smack in between Ace Combat and DCS in realism. Theres an A10 replacement that has turboprops
Nice, never heard of it, sounds like I’d like it.
They’re cool, but from what I have read, they are shit for the most part.
It’s not like you can hear them coming or anything. Pretty stealthy aren’t they? 🤦
A10 mentioned !!!
A10 goes BRRRRRRRRR.
