Don’t cry for the A-10 Warthog
It had a good run, but its time has passed
I absolutely love Ars Technica, but I have to take issue with a recent piece that makes an unfair case against the decision to retire the A-10 Warthog from service in favor of the newer, yet untested, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
It is a great read and worth checking out to get a sense of the bigger picture surrounding the Pentagon’s most recent budget proposal.
As Ars notes, the A-10 is a rugged, slow and low flying ground attack aircraft originally designed to strike soviet armor formations maneuvering to attack Western Europe during the height of the Cold War. It is perhaps best known for the rapid fire 30-millimeter cannon running the length of its fuselage as well as its rather mean looking and muscular lines.
In recent years, like many legacy platforms, its role has evolved. In Afghanistan, grunts give it high praise for its nimble low-speed flying characteristics and heavy payload, which has made it particularly well suited to provide close air support to soldiers in close contact with the enemy.
Its imminent replacement, the F-35, is a longer range multirole fighter with a very checkered development history. It’s over budget, has encountered engineering difficulties and faces some significant remaining technical challenges. Unfortunately — the state of defense procurement what it is — these types of challenges are not unique to the F-35. Many a major weapon systems have faced significant delays and controversy before later going on to be the old work horse in need of replacement. I am not excusing the F-35 program’s mismanagement, but it is worthwhile to keep the planes challenges in perspective. Additionally, the F-35’s capabilities are far from vapor-ware. Its sensors, stealth, range and a host of precision weapons make it fiercely lethal against tanks, entrenched infantry and infrastructure alike. Not to mention air to air and electronic warfare capabilities that make is significantly more survivable than the A-10 by almost any measure.
Arstechnica’s piece pointing out the problems with the F-35 would be more persuasive if it didn't miss the boat in properly evaluating the A-10.
“Drones fill in some of the gaps left by the F-35 in terms of capabilities, but they don’t begin to match what the Air Force currently gets from the A-10. That appears to be a shortfall that the military leadership is willing to live with in order to keep the F-35 program alive. The Army is being cut back in size to numbers not seen since before the US entered World War II, according to the Times, and the Pentagon is betting against having to fight another land war on the scale of the Gulf War and the war in Iraq. If the Pentagon doesn’t expect to mount another invasion against a heavily armed and entrenched adversary, having the kind of firepower the A-10 provides on hand to support major ground operations might seem excessive.”
The problem with benchmarking the A-10's ground-attack capabilities based on its performance in Afghanistan is that it does not take into account how permissive an environment Afghanistan is for fixed wing aircraft. With no radar systems, modern anti-aircraft cannons and very limited access to man-portable air-defense systems (much less aircraft of their own), the Taliban and other insurgent groups have virtually zero tools to threaten American aircraft. In this environment the low and slow flying A-10 equipped with lots of ordnance is a grunts best friend. However, an opposing force with even modest anti-aircraft capabilities would rapidly reduce the value of the A-10. Perhaps even making it a liability.
Future wars against “heavily armed and entrenched adversaries” are exactly the type of environment where the A-10 would falter. It would be vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire of all types and as the result of its shorter range would need to be based nearer to the front lines, making in vulnerable to attack on the ground.
This comes at a time when American strategic planners are being confronted with more sophisticated threats from both state and non-state actors. The A-10 would be nearly useless in a conflict with China, but even militant groups like Hezbollah have access to sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles that would make using the A-10 a risky proposition. These trends are only going to continue and while there is something seductive about the simplicity and history of the A-10, it objectively is not a platform well equipped for the modern battlefield.
As the piece correctly notes, people may not be able to sacrifice some sacred cows in the name of budget reform — it is just a question of which ones.
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