P-47 vs IL-2 vs SU-2 vs Typhoon

[FLYBOYJ]

What is the most modern tank the A10 has engaged in combat, export model T72's?.

Probably but I really don't know at this point, but this guy quoted in the article I posted remained with the military after the Gulf Wars and more than likely has access to information that's way above our heads, so unless you have direct access to the same amount of real world combat experience as this individual, I'd consider his expertise and experience

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

This T-55 is an A-10 victim.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

Also on current tanks with reactive armor, a good hosing from a GAU-8 will leave the primary armor exposed to friendly armor countermeasures against that enemy tank.

I am not sure an A-10 would be employed against current tanks, as any current, or "near peer" armour would be operating with modern anti-aircraft systems, like the SA-22 or something. Loitering low and slow to line up a gun shot on the rear or top of a main battle tank would leave the Warthog with its proverbial pants around its ankles. It may be sent up with stand-off munitions, but there are better platforms for that.

One shell? Pretty sure not. However, according to wiki, that thing has a RoF of 3,900 RPM, or 65 PER SECOND

They are leaving the barrel(s) in a neat single file line, but they are not hitting the target that way. According to Wiki, the GAU-8 has a 5 milliradian dispersion, so 80% of the projectiles are hitting inside a 40 foot circle at 4000 feet. You might be able to plaster a tank with a few hits every pass, but they probably wont be hitting in the same spot on the armour every time.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

There's a lot of scenario assumptions, armchair tactics and "Wikipedianess" going on here. I'm going to reach out to a real live former A-10 driver who not only saw combat but was awarded a Silver Star to get his take of the ability of the A-10 to destroy a combatant tank with just the GAU-8. I don't really have a dog in this fight but I'd take the word over someone who actually operated the machinery rather than an internet source or Wiki.

 

[GrauGeist]

I am not sure an A-10 would be employed against current tanks, as any current, or "near peer" armour would be operating with modern anti-aircraft systems, like the SA-22 or something. Loitering low and slow to line up a gun shot on the rear or top of a main battle tank would leave the Warthog with its proverbial pants around its ankles. It may be sent up with stand-off munitions, but there are better platforms for that

The A-10 was conceived during the Cold War to counter Soviet assets.

In the years since, it has undergone upgrades to keep it current with modern battlefield settings.

It doesn't operate in a void.

 

[pbehn]

In the seventies I saw a demo of an A-10 at Salisbury. It attacked an old tank, when the rounds hit the tank and everywhere around the tank erupted in a cloud of smoke and soil.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Boy that was quick!

First the man;

Ret. USAF A-10 pilot receiving Silver Star for saving US ground soldiers in Iraq - jqpublicblog

A retired Lt. Col. is adding a Silver Star to his shadow box after Air Force officials decided to upgrade his Distinguished Flying Cross for events surrounding a 2003 A-10 mission in Iraq. Then Capt. Gregory Thornton was flying a support mission in the skies above Iraq catching up on old times...

jqpublicblog.com

I asked him about the ability of the A-10 to destroy a T-72 - his response:

 

[SaparotRob]

That settles that.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

To be honest, it settles the fact that an A-10 can knock out T-72's, but we already knew that. The question remains whether it can penetrate a more modern vehicle, like a T-90, employing modern ceramic armour with Kontakt-5 reactive elements. The Russians developed that stuff specifically to defeat NATO armour peircing projectiles fired from 105mm main guns, which are obviously more powerful than the GAU-8
I assume an A-10 could penetrate certain areas of the tank, and get a mobility kill, but maybe not knock it out completely. Or maybe it could, I certainly don't know
This is also drifting off topic, so I will refrain from further A-10 speculation

 

[pbehn]

That settles that.

How long have you been here?

 

[Greyman]

Interestingly I think the problem is the same as the problem the Hurricane IId and the Henschel 129 had -- the gun is probably capable enough ... but the manner in which you have to employ your aircraft in order to destroy tanks effectively is too expensive.

Reposted from an old post in the F-35 discussion thread:


Interview with Lieutenant General Charles A. Horner, Central Air Forces commander
June 1991

Q: Did the war have any effect on the Air Force's view of the A-10?

A: No. People misread that. People were saying that airplanes are too sophisticated and that they wouldn't work in the desert, that you didn't need all this high technology, that simple and reliable was better, and all that.

Well, first of all, complex does not mean unreliable. We're finding that out. For example, you have a watch that uses transistors rather than a spring. It's infinitely more reliable than the windup watch that you had years ago. That's what we're finding in the airplanes.

Those people ... were always championing the A-10. As the A-10 reaches the end of its life cycle--and it's approaching that now--it's time to replace it, just like we replace every airplane, including, right now, some early versions of the F-16.

Since the line was discontinued, (the A-10's champions) want to build another A-10 of some kind. The point we were making was that we have F-16s that do the same job.

Then you come to people who have their own reasons-good reasons to them, but they don't necessarily compute to me-who want to hang onto the A-10 because of the gun. Well, the gun's an excellent weapon, but you'll find that most of the tank kills by the A-10 were done with Mavericks and bombs. So the idea that the gun is the absolute wonder of the world is not true.

Q: This conflict has shown that?

A: It shows that the gun has a lot of utility, which we always knew, but it isn't the principal tank-killer on the A-10. The Maverick is the big hero there. That was used by the A-10s and the F-16s very, very effectively in places like Khafji.

The other problem is that the A-10 is vulnerable to hits because its speed is limited. It's a function of thrust, it's not a function of anything else. We had a lot of A-10s take a lot of ground fire hits. Quite frankly, we pulled the A-10s back from going up around the Republican Guard and kept them on Iraq's (less formidable) front-line units. That's fine if you have a force that allows you to do that. In this case, we had F-16s to go after the Republican Guard.

Q: At what point did you do that?

A: I think I had fourteen airplanes sitting on the ramp having battle damage repaired, and I lost two A- 10s in one day, and I said, "I've had enough of this." It was when we really started to go after the Republican Guard.

---

From Gen. Horner

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Interestingly I think the problem is the same as the problem the Hurricane IId and the Henschel 129 had -- the gun is probably capable enough ... but the manner in which you have to employ your aircraft in order to destroy tanks effectively is too expensive.

Reposted from an old post in the F-35 discussion thread:


Interview with Lieutenant General Charles A. Horner, Central Air Forces commander
June 1991

Q: Did the war have any effect on the Air Force's view of the A-10?

A: No. People misread that. People were saying that airplanes are too sophisticated and that they wouldn't work in the desert, that you didn't need all this high technology, that simple and reliable was better, and all that.

Well, first of all, complex does not mean unreliable. We're finding that out. For example, you have a watch that uses transistors rather than a spring. It's infinitely more reliable than the windup watch that you had years ago. That's what we're finding in the airplanes.

Those people ... were always championing the A-10. As the A-10 reaches the end of its life cycle--and it's approaching that now--it's time to replace it, just like we replace every airplane, including, right now, some early versions of the F-16.

Since the line was discontinued, (the A-10's champions) want to build another A-10 of some kind. The point we were making was that we have F-16s that do the same job.

Then you come to people who have their own reasons-good reasons to them, but they don't necessarily compute to me-who want to hang onto the A-10 because of the gun. Well, the gun's an excellent weapon, but you'll find that most of the tank kills by the A-10 were done with Mavericks and bombs. So the idea that the gun is the absolute wonder of the world is not true.

Q: This conflict has shown that?

A: It shows that the gun has a lot of utility, which we always knew, but it isn't the principal tank-killer on the A-10. The Maverick is the big hero there. That was used by the A-10s and the F-16s very, very effectively in places like Khafji.

The other problem is that the A-10 is vulnerable to hits because its speed is limited. It's a function of thrust, it's not a function of anything else. We had a lot of A-10s take a lot of ground fire hits. Quite frankly, we pulled the A-10s back from going up around the Republican Guard and kept them on Iraq's (less formidable) front-line units. That's fine if you have a force that allows you to do that. In this case, we had F-16s to go after the Republican Guard.

Q: At what point did you do that?

A: I think I had fourteen airplanes sitting on the ramp having battle damage repaired, and I lost two A- 10s in one day, and I said, "I've had enough of this." It was when we really started to go after the Republican Guard.

---

From Gen. Horner

Excellent article with very candid and direct points although my buddy LtCol Greg "BillyBob" Thornton my have a difference of opinion in some points here with his old boss!

This goes back to an earlier discussion of flying in the comfort of a heavily armored aircraft designed to withstand groundfire, or an aircraft designed not to get shot at in the first place.

 

[BiffF15]

To be honest, it settles the fact that an A-10 can knock out T-72's, but we already knew that. The question remains whether it can penetrate a more modern vehicle, like a T-90, employing modern ceramic armour with Kontakt-5 reactive elements. The Russians developed that stuff specifically to defeat NATO armour peircing projectiles fired from 105mm main guns, which are obviously more powerful than the GAU-8
I assume an A-10 could penetrate certain areas of the tank, and get a mobility kill, but maybe not knock it out completely. Or maybe it could, I certainly don't know
This is also drifting off topic, so I will refrain from further A-10 speculation

Unless I'm missing something, realize that reactive armor doesn't regenerate. If strafed by an A-10, it might stop the first rounds, but not all. Once it "reacts", it's used up and leaves that portion unprotected or less protected. Also I can't imagine that the A-10 wouldn't get at a minimum a mobility kill due to track & sensor damage. Plus a big helping of PTSD for the crew.

Cheers,
Biff

 

[Clayton Magnet]

Also I can't imagine that the A-10 wouldn't get at a minimum a mobility kill due to track & sensor damage

That's what I am assuming, but you know what they say about assumptions...
Elements within the USAF have been trying to retire the A-10 for decades, in favor of pointier jets with guided munitions, but the ole' Warthog soldiers on anyway. I suppose that kind of answers the question, unless someone in congress' brother-in-law has a warehouse full of old Fairchild parts they want to sell.

 

[GrauGeist]

Unless I'm missing something, realize that reactive armor doesn't regenerate. If strafed by an A-10, it might stop the first rounds, but not all. Once it "reacts", it's used up and leaves that portion unprotected or less protected. Also I can't imagine that the A-10 wouldn't get at a minimum a mobility kill due to track & sensor damage. Plus a big helping of PTSD for the crew.

Cheers,
Biff

Like I mentioned earlier, today's 30mm is not our Grandfather's 30mm.

The GAU-8's 30mm API ammunition packs a hell of a whallop (I don't remember the joules of energy, but it's impressive) and would certainly trigger reactive armor, leaving the primary armor exposed on the hull/turret, which has now left the tank vulnerable to bigger, nastier pointy things to take it out.

There's also a very good chance that the tank will have it's radio antenna, optics and other equipment compromised in the attack, too.

So the A-10 may not have killed it, but it's basically left a wounded water buffalo to the mercy of the hyenas.

 

[SaparotRob]

Unless I'm missing something, realize that reactive armor doesn't regenerate. If strafed by an A-10, it might stop the first rounds, but not all. Once it "reacts", it's used up and leaves that portion unprotected or less protected. Also I can't imagine that the A-10 wouldn't get at a minimum a mobility kill due to track & sensor damage. Plus a big helping of PTSD for the crew.

Cheers,
Biff

Were any recording devices ever placed inside target hulks? You mentioned a big helping of PTSD. Wouldn't the noise/vibration/barometric(?) changes do some harm to the nervous system even if the hull and turret weren't breached?

 

[GrauGeist]

Were any recording devices ever placed inside target hulks? You mentioned a big helping of PTSD. Wouldn't the noise/vibration/barometric(?) changes do some harm to the nervous system even if the hull and turret weren't breached?

You should read some of the memoirs of German heavy Tank crews that came under fire. It didn't incapacitate them, but it sure got their attention.

 

[pbehn]

Were any recording devices ever placed inside target hulks? You mentioned a big helping of PTSD. Wouldn't the noise/vibration/barometric(?) changes do some harm to the nervous system even if the hull and turret weren't breached?

One issue, I dont know how it applies to modern tanks was "spalling". If you hit a metal structure hard enough on the outside pieces start flying about on the inside. Spall - Wikipedia

 

[GrauGeist]

One issue, I dont know how it applies to modern tanks was "spalling". If you hit a metal structure hard enough on the outside pieces start flying about on the inside. Spall - Wikipedia

Same for riveted hulls: the rivets would sheer and ricohete around the interior like bullets.

 

[pbehn]

Same for riveted hulls: the rivets would sheer and ricohete around the interior like bullets.

I dont know the science but it is exactly the same word used in the science of refractory bricks used in furnace linings etc which I did work on. I can sort of see a connection but it is a real "stretch" Spalling – Signs of Refractory Failure | RG Smith Company.