Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: A-10 Thunderbolt Message-ID: <10738@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 30 Oct 89 02:51:10 GMT References: <10404@cbnews.ATT.COM> <10615@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 64 Approved: military@att.att.com From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >From: aws@itivax.iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer) >>>If you went in horizontal, you wouldn't hit anything... >>Of course, if you *don't* go in horizontal, you don't hit anything because >>you're too busy trying to eject before the A-10 blows up from all the AA >>missiles arriving. > >It's not that simple Henry. IF the SAM operator burns through the jamming >and IF the chaff doesn't confuse him and IF the enemy defense suppression >doesn't kill him he can get a shot off. First, what jamming? I don't recall any jamming gear on the A-10s, and the deep-strike boys are certainly going to get first call on the limited supply of jamming pods and specialized jamming aircraft. Second, what chaff? Do the A-10s have chaff dispensers now? They didn't originally. (I may have missed an upgrade, though.) Third, what defense suppression? The big danger to an A-10 is not the heavy SAMs that the D.S. boys will be concentrating on, but the light vehicles up in the front lines, and all those infantrymen packing SA-7s and the like. (A lot of these missiles, being IR homers, will ignore chaff and jamming anyway.) Lots and lots of them will be getting shots off. The relatively light missiles involved, especially the man-portable ones, might not knock down an A-10 with one hit... but they won't be arriving one at a time. >If what you say is true, then we shouldn't bother with A-10's and CAS >at all. If they do hit anything going in horizontal it will be by chance. >In addtiion, the thing they hit will have about an even chance of being >the troops he is attempting to help. No, there is a major role for the A-10s and other CAS aircraft. But they have to be used in realistic ways, by pilots trained in realistic ways. It *is* possible to hit the right targets going in horizontal, but it takes *practice*... practice that the pilots aren't getting in peacetime, and will get the hard way in a war. Ask the South Africans and the Israelis. For that matter, ask the Vietnam-vintage air-superiority pilots, who had a *very* high mortality rate early in their tours for the same reason: having to learn realistic tactics while under fire, because they hadn't learned them in training. The air-superiority folks fixed this once they realized what was going on. The lesson hasn't penetrated to other branches, however. >>... another example of the USAF not training the way it will have to fight. >... Training them that way tends to get a lot >killed and crashes a lot of fighters. Those aircraft and pilots are expensive >so as a taxpayer I have no problem with it. Now if a war looks to be on the >way, then they will train different and some will die as a result. In the >long run however we are ahead of the game. We are ahead of the game *if no major war breaks out*. The USAF is doing a very good job of preparing for peace. That's not their job, however. They're not going to get a year's warning of a war. The folks who do train at 50 feet, like the South Africans, say that it's something you can't learn in an afternoon. (The student pilot's first response, when asked to check a map while flying at 50 feet, is "how?!?". Once they get used to it, it's practical.) And the USAF can't afford to give away advantages like this -- they're outnumbered already. Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu