Delete comment from: Elements Of Power
Being on the ground side in the fires business for going a generation now, I have used the full gambit of US fire support assets ranging from mortar all the way to Mk84 class weapons in both combat and training. I have seen the psychological effects and actually physical effects on both friendly force and the enemy. Often the usage of weapons don't result in enemy dead or wounded no matter how much estimated BDA/BHA figures are produced.
The A-10 is one of the better fixed wing CAS platform but not the best CAS platform, the 130 is the best platform out there (I group in KC-130s with Harvest Hawk kits and the AC-130). In general right under the C-130 based platforms rotary wing CAS (or CCA in army parlances) fills most of the requirements and does it better than fixed wing aircraft but its slow transit speed to the target area and limited weight of weapons (somewhat mitigated with PGMs) limited to those times when I don't need an entire building destroyed. When I need the type of "throw weights" brought in by non-gunship, fixed wing aircraft than just about anything works.
Most people attempt to sell the A-10 based on its 30mm gun, which is its least effective weapon; the simple fact is forward firing gun runs may look cool but probably are best as only a suppressive fire system because they hardly ever kill the enemy. If you want to kill people, the best way to do it is put high explosives on the designated mean point of impact. People have to remember when the GAU-8 was it was designed it was built around killing T62 era tanks; testing done in the 90s on modern Russian armor acquired on the grey market showed with the armor fielded in the last 20 or so years ago the 30mm would probably only be able to disable instead of killing it.
Mar 12, 2015, 2:38:58 PM
Posted to The Air Force Reaffirmed "A-10 retirement decision" in a "Week"