The Warthog Problem, Explained
Why everybody is so hot and/or bothered about the A-10 situation.
Congress has been trying and failing to retire this ugly beast for years, but every time the government has thought that they could do away with it, it gets called upon once again for its unique abilities. At the moment, it is the only aircraft in the U.S. Air Force that was designed specifically for the close air support (CAS) role. However, the A-10 is showing signs of aging, and it can’t stick around forever. The problem facing the military now is one of deciding what will take the place of this old but very important machine, and how and when they will be able to drop the A-10 from the budget and finally retire it. In order to understand why this issue is the subject of a very long and thorough debate in the government, we need to first understand what the military is losing in the A-10, and how they are planning to handle its absence.
What is CAS?
CAS, or close air support, is a vital role in any armed conflict. Close air support refers to frontline strike missions in active combat zones where the enemy and friendly troops may be in very close proximity. A close air support fighter needs to be able to fly low in a contested area and deliver strikes with a high degree of accuracy with the objective of helping ground troops in the area by dispatching immediate threats, such as troops, fortified positions, and armored vehicles. Often times, troops on the ground will not have the resources at hand to deal with tanks, heavy weapons or fortifications.
What is the A-10, and why is it so special?
A design of the early 1970’s, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II (named after the famous P-47 Thunderbolt) is the culmination of everything learned in the first 60 years of air to ground combat. The design pulled inspiration from numerous aircraft that came before it, as well as from the testimonies of pilots and and ground troops alike. What is so unique about the A-10, affectionately referred to as “the Warthog” or “Hog” owing to its ugly nose and cannon, is that it was the U.S. Air Force’s first designated CAS aircraft that was designed especially for the CAS role. As such, it was built to carry a large payload, fly at low speeds and low altitude, stay in a combat zone for long periods, and give the pilot extra protection from surface to air attacks.
The A-10 is more than capable of achieving all of these things. The Warthog is essentially (and frequently referred to as) a flying tank. The pilot is surrounded by titanium armor around the cockpit, which can withstand fire from rifles, machine guns, and even some cannon shells. The plane can take extreme damage and still return a pilot home.
The A-10 is also armed to the teeth, capable of carrying 16,000 pounds of munitions, with its most prominent and famous feature being its 19-foot long 30mm gatling gun, which fires 70 depleted uranium rounds every second.
In addition to providing close air support, the aircraft’s long loiter time and slow speed, low altitude capabilities make it a great aircraft for search and rescue missions, and its rugged design enables it to operate on dirt runways close to the front that often have minimal access to resources.
However, as phenomenal as this aircraft might seem, age is showing on the old airframes. Every one of the surviving A-10 airframes has been overhauled many more times than could ever have been anticipated for an aircraft built with a service life of 8,000 hours. Additionally, despite being cheap to build and run, the A-10 has had to undergo many upgrades over its service life to stay technologically relevant.
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How does the U.S intend to deal with this problem?
There are a lot of ideas that congress and the air force have proposed to deal with the issue of the aging A-10, so finding the most current proposals can be a bit of a headache. For (relative) simplicity, we’ll focus primarily on the option of replacing the A-10 with the Lockheed F-35 Lightening II.
What is the F-35 option?
This option has become increasingly unpopular as the F-35 project has continued to overrun dates and costs, and at this point some estimates say that the entire project could cost as much as $1.5 trillion dollars over the service life of the aircraft. At the moment, the F-35 has a unit cost of roughly $101 million and costs $32,000 per flight hour. This is not favorable when compared to the cheaper A-10, which only costs $19 million per plane and $11,500 per flight hour.
The F-35 is also not a specialized aircraft. It will be replacing multiple aircraft currently in military service. Despite a great deal of skepticism after the long and drawn out development process, the F-35 does, by some accounts, seem to be performing well in certain areas (contrary to the steadfast views of some critics), and it certainly was built with ground attack in mind. However, close air support is a very specific mission that requires precision and an understanding of the battlefield, and many people believe the F-35 is not qualified for such missions.
Congress has since said that the A-10 should not be retired to make way for F-35’s until the F-35 can prove its superiority as a CAS weapons system. This motion was led by senator John McCain and representative Martha McSally (both republicans).
Interestingly, the F-35 has also found a new enemy in Donald Trump, who has expressed his disapproval of the program and even hinted at shutting it down, though that would be extremely difficult given the deep roots the program has in the military industrial complex.
Are there other options?
There are a couple other options. Currently, other aircraft, such as the F-16, MQ-9 drone, and even the B-1 (a bomber) have been performing CAS missions in addition to the A-10 (notably in Afghanistan), and this is likely to continue (though the F-16 and B-1 both cost more per flight hour than the A-10).
The air force is also looking into lighter CAS aircraft to replace the A-10, specifically the Sierra Nevada/Embraer A-29 Super Tucano, Beechcraft AT-6 Wolverine, and the Textron AirLand Scorpion. However, there is no certainty that these aircraft will be adopted.
For now, the future of the A-10 is still not completely known. It recently had its service life extended to at least 2021, but there’s no telling what will happen beyond that. Warthogs have recently been deployed to the Middle East to fight ISIL. The number of active A-10’s is dwindling, but they aren’t out of the fight just yet, and with no set replacement in mind, they may not be for some time to come.
