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From: gwh%soda.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Replys to some recent threads
Summary: A-10 refitted with Sidewinder
Message-ID: <1991Jan28.035052.7036@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 28 Jan 91 03:50:52 GMT
References: <1991Jan27.110936.28397@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: UCB Open Access Computing
Lines: 29
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: gwh%soda.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George William Herbert)

In article <1991Jan27.110936.28397@cbnews.att.com> nobody@Kodak.COM (Rick Lafford (x37825)) writes:
>I have seen photo's of A-10's with two Sidewinders on one wing
>and a jamming pod on the other wing.  This makes sense when you
>realize that A-10's are expected to operate in hostile airspace
>without a protective mig-cap.  Does anyone know if the A-10 was
>originally wired for the Sidewinder or was this an adaptation.

The A-10 was not origionally equipped with the Sidewinder.  It was origionally
considered to be incapable in the air-to-air mode, and they didn't want to
bother...

After some testing where A-10's held their own against fighters (and better;
kill ratios were greater than 1:1...), including the development of the 
"Warthog Stomp" tactic (point nose at enemy fighter, open fire with GAU-8...),
the air force realized that they were not sitting ducks.  
 
Shortly thereafter, the AIM-9 wiring was run to the outer pylons.  It's not
uncommon to see A-10's fly with the ALQ-119 jamming pod on one outer pylon and
a Sidewinder opposite.

  == George William Herbert ==   * UNIX ate my last .sig, Waiting for Plan 9! *
 == JOAT for Hire: Anything, ==  #########  I do Naval Architecture, ##########
===+++ Anywhere, my price +++=== # Spacecraft Design, UNIX Systems Consulting #
 ==  gwh@soda.berkeley.edu   ==  # RPG writing/development, and lots of other #
  ==  gwh@ocf.berkeley.edu  ==   ## random stuff, of course.  I'm a JOAT 8-) ##