as an Infantry Marine, I can tell you unequivocally that when it comes to fast movers, the A10 is the only platform you really want covering your ass in a tight situation.
It is mind blowing to many of us that the USMC didn't buy up all of these things when the Air Force wanted to dump them. Yeah, yeah they can't fly off a carrier. So what. What they can do is hang in there when bullets are flying, loiter for a fairly long time and fly low and slow enough to actually see what's going on on the ground...(yeah, that 30MM gatling gun is pretty handy too..heh)
Side note: the only pilots that ever allowed us to shoot 81mm suppression over the top of the ingress routes to target when training to run CAS were the ANG A10 guys. All the active duty fast movers weren't game, and that included the MC Harrier pilots....
> Side note: the only pilots that ever allowed us to shoot 81mm suppression over the top of the ingress routes to target when training to run CAS were the ANG A10 guys. All the active duty fast movers weren't game, and that included the MC Harrier pilots....
For those of us not in the military, can you translate this for us? It sounds interesting, but I have no idea what any of it means.
The 81 is a semi-portable mortar. Three dudes can carry it although each part is pretty heavy and the ammo is not exactly helium balloons either. So you'll find it "organic" with the troops not so much 20 miles behind the lines. Anyway it's "theirs" so they tell their crew what to do rather than some arty support guy coordinating with the aircrew. Thats why the pilot coordinates with the ground troops telling them to keep firing or cease firing during the airstrike, rather than coordinating with the naval 16 inch battleship guns and the ground troops have no direct involvement in the conversation.
So a good use of a mortar is area denial, keep down and stop moving or you'll get blown up. So you find a concentration of troops and pin them down with a mortar every XYZ seconds and call in an airstrike. Mortars shoot almost straight up so they're indirect fire, you can plink away all day and the enemy can do nothing about it unless they have indirect fire capability (like their own mortar, or their own close air support, or arty support, etc). You can try suppressive fire with a machine gun, but the ammo is really heavy and its direct fire so if you can fire on them, they can fire on you, western gunfight style, so its kinda hazardous. So if you're a ground troop, and you've got an indirect fire weapon like a mortar, you will greatly enjoy using it compared to the alternatives.
Most pilots are unamused at the idea of flying thru actively firing artillery. So stop firing the mortar and hope the enemy doesn't do something bad until the airstrike arrives... Bad being anything from a massive counterattack, or charging your position, or maybe hiding from the airstrike really well. If the enemy does pretty much anything but lay there, its probably bad for the troops on the ground. On the other hand there's a 1 in a zillion chance of the aircraft getting hit by a mortar round or fragments.
The A10 guys let them just keep firing mortars while they attack unlike other pilots.
From a complimentary position, obviously a 400 knot fixed wing aircraft has less than 1/4 chance that a 100 knot helicopter has of accidentally getting hit. And its much more heavily armored than a delicate modern fighter, so taking a hit doesn't really matter as much. Its a flying tank, basically, and/or the pilots are a bit more aggressive so they are willing to take more risks.
Not entirely complimentary, as the A10 guys might also be saying that an incoming modern surface to air missile is more lethal overall than getting hit directly or indirectly off their own guy's mortars. Something like getting a 1 in a million accidental hit from a mortar is less dangerous than a 1 in a hundred hit from a modern enemy surface to air missile. So the mortar fire is stopping the enemy from preparing and firing a SAM at the incoming aircraft. Who's protecting who, exactly?
From the ground troop perspective, anytime somebody doesn't stop you from suppressive fire is a universal good, so that's why they like the A10 so much, regardless of reason.
A bit safer than you describe, "shoot 81mm suppression over the top of the ingress routes" I.e. there's a route to come in that's a 3D box, with the height typically being low for a variety of reasons (often including rules for anti-air that they can shoot anything higher), and the complete, high arc of the indirect fire 81 mm mortar is over and around that box.
Assuming, of course, the right number of propellant charges were used, something done by hand if one or more have to be removed, and it doesn't "land short" for any other reason (failure of all the propellant to burn??? Don't know if/how often that happens).
> It is mind blowing to many of us that the USMC didn't buy up all of these things when the Air Force wanted to dump them.
Any time the USAF makes noise about dumping the A10, rumors about the USMC or the Army pop back up, and the USAF soon decides they're not dumping the A10 after all.
I expect the USAF will just run the existing frames until they're gone, at which point they can tell the Army and USMC to fuck off because there's no plane left to grab and fix.
The guys in those Harriers were Marines. The guys in those F/A-18s were Marines. There are really good reasons for not allowing suppression over ingress routes with those platforms. Think about it... the BEST guys in aviation were slated for Harriers... because you just couldn't have nuggetheads flying Harriers. For a lot of really good reasons.
We don't need us against them type arguments. We need only solve problems. And problem solving requires employing different tools, with different strengths and weaknesses at different times.
it comes down to this: you should be training like you are gonna have to fight (i.e. in real world you won't always have the luxury of having suppression assets perfectly positioned.
and yes, I am blowing a little shit at my brothers in the air wing side of the house but, everything in the Marine Corps exists to support the infantry (that's why MC pilots wear cammo covers on their helmets), and frankly I was disappointed at the time they didn't have a go at it...
> you should be training like you are gonna have to fight
Maybe I misunderstood what you mean, but that sounds like a pretty stupid thing to do. When you practice advancing under direct/indirect fire, do you actually have machine guns/mortars firing towards you? I would guess that you don't (we certainly never did in the Finnish Defence Forces).
> the only pilots that ever allowed us to shoot 81mm suppression over the top of the ingress routes to target when training to run CAS were the ANG A10 guys. All the active duty fast movers weren't game, and that included the MC Harrier pilots
I can imagine this must be harrowing for the pilots. You actually shoot the 81s over their flight path?
yes, there are scenarios where you are limited by the terrain, bad guys, etc w.r.t. routes from the IP to target, and the only way to get suppression onto the necessary locations is shooting over the IP to target route.
A10 pilots are bit of a different breed and I didn't have to ask twice to get them to do it they were pretty game.
granted this was right after we got back from first gulf-war and so for those of us that had been there this was just run of the mill stuff. i don't know if things are more safety focused now, probably are...
There was, iirc, an article in the Gazette about this. Guy ran the numbers, and it worked out okay: the Corps could run X squadrons per wing, at cost Y per year, plus buy up the spare parts inventory and keep them running for Z years.
It is certainly the kind of airplane a Marine would love, and would fit the Corp's persona.
> the only pilots that ever allowed us to shoot 81mm
Well .. you know. A mortar round would bounce off an A-10. Kinda trash a Harrier.
The USS Ford can probably safely launch one. So you could do one-way Doolittle style raids. But their landing gear and the lack of an arrester hook means they're not strong enough for the controlled-crash that is a carrier landing.
No, just the opposite. Think of low speed as meaning it can fly in spite of low relative air-speed. If a plane could fly at 20 knots, say, then it could take off with 0 runway length if the carrier is steaming at 20 knots into the wind. It would just appear to hover up into the air relative to the carrier.
If you're landing on a wide range of terrain, much of it unimproved, soft, and/or uneven, large tires will float you over the soggy stuff and smooth out the lumps (large wheels experience less shock with terrain / surface variation than small ones)
It is mind blowing to many of us that the USMC didn't buy up all of these things when the Air Force wanted to dump them. Yeah, yeah they can't fly off a carrier. So what. What they can do is hang in there when bullets are flying, loiter for a fairly long time and fly low and slow enough to actually see what's going on on the ground...(yeah, that 30MM gatling gun is pretty handy too..heh)
Side note: the only pilots that ever allowed us to shoot 81mm suppression over the top of the ingress routes to target when training to run CAS were the ANG A10 guys. All the active duty fast movers weren't game, and that included the MC Harrier pilots....