In before @Sylvan

Why replace a battle proven air frame?

Makes more sense

Haha, the engineer was an 80's kid for sure.

Better need to build more A-10s with better things on it.

Aha, an O-2.  I was trying to come up with a rape scenario but couldn't remember the pusher O-2.   Good job.

And i would argue that aviation's triumph in that role is the ability to find a threat that can't be easily identified/located precisely and to pursue a broken enemy in the retreat.

These issues are a lot better solved with a man in the cockpit.  I have had the pleasure of UAV "CAS"; it sucks.

Would you really have room under the pilot for those missiles?

Hmmm...let's do a drawing of the Air Force plane we want to replace and put MARINES on it.

Is there a good argument for why the Reaper can't replace the A10?

It's got better loiter time and better AA resistance, and carries lots of weapons.

The Machete sounds like something the mexicans would name a plane.  Or maybe the Indonesian air Force if they have one.

The less you actually know about the subject the more your concepts are capable of doing.... Just sayin

It's a convertible! Sweet!

Looks like a retarded F-18!

and wheres the gun?

We don't wonder why you think that.  We know it's because you don't know jack shit.

This.  Show me a successful design they have produced and is currently flying.  

At least the super taco is flying.

Air Tractor was working with the Air Force in the 2000's to convert one of their crop dusters into a ground attack plane.

When the old man who owned Air Tractor died, the plans just kinda fell apart. It looked promising too.

Came here to post this so I'll add to it:

Anyone who thinks that is ugly looking and...




This is beautiful:

Attached File



Lacks any credibility as a judge of aesthetics.

Air Tractor 802 Gunship / Archangel Close Air Support Aircraft?
Makes too much sense.
If wiki is to be believed, they're still a thing.

I would to see what an updated Douglas A-1 Skyraider would be like.   Better engine and avionics with modern weapons systems.

Were those UAV's issued to boots on the ground?

I'm no expert but I'm thinking CAS directed by drones packed in by infantry units + F35 + resources on the net = good guy win. Just a thought.

the text book retarded definition of CAS (thanks air force) would have it as a highly planned, and meticulously integrated part of the fires battle in conjunction with the defense of western europe.  With all assets of course centrally controlled for the maximum effect against an always massed enemy.  Really, CAS is a detractor from air power as the CAOC has a much better concept of the overall ground situation than the senior ground commander. For the AF, the ultimate manifestation of "CAS" was the opening bombardment in Cobra.  The assets and targets all planned for weeks (at least!) based upon a mythical perfect intelligence picture with only a tiny amount of terminal control really needed.  This would all be endlessly rehearsed and everything shut down for this perfect mission.

needless to say, this doesn't happen.  But understand that the concept of CAS was designed primarily to ensure that minimal input from ground forces would be involved.  If it is flexible, it is only to the degree that CAOC can reallocate assets across theater.

Its not designed to "save" anyone.  And it is certainly not designed for "emergency" measures.  Quick reaction in CAS land is limited to the ATO.  This is the "text book" CAS.  It is such a massive failure that the idea of it only exists in maxwell.  Army commanders do not understand CAS for the same reason we don't understand underway replenishment.  It doesn't matter to us.  CAS is trained in areas where no ground forces exist because CAS, in air force form, has as small an interaction with the ground commander as possible.  In fact, none would be better.  Most AF will tell you after a few beers the army exists to escort JTACs around to win the war.

This is Airpower.  The Air Force only does "Airpower" so CAS must be Airpower even though Airpower and Air Support are, by definition, mutually exclusive (this assumes that Billy Mitchell, HAP Arnold and Guilio Douhet actually understood airpower.  modern air force theorists will tell you they didn't, ironically enough)

Air support is simply cavalry of the modern age.  A force multiplier using speed to quickly mass in key areas during the battle (not 96 hours prior to the battle), screen the main effort, deep penetration raids and pursue a broken enemy.  

You'll note that is how army attack (and previously scout) aviation operates.

or just use LAAR driven by army aviators and I don't have to carry a drone, won't need 10Xs as many F35s and won't need a completely unrestricted EMS.

There is lots of ways to drive a win.  But we can develop a concept that provides distributed and ubiquitous support instead of an exquisite and highly restricted support.

let's hang everything on a B-52.

20 gau8's on each wing for starters

Trump will do it.  It'll be GREAT.  It'll be YUGE.

Dat is neet. When it comes to war planes  2 is 1 and 1 is none when it comes to engines.

They need to make a big ass mothefuckin  prop plane that is a dedicated platform that orbits at 30,000 feet  with enough ordnance to kill all the things and be fucking done with it.

These little planes are slick tho. I like them, should be attached to everyone who wants them in numbers that actually mean something all over Europe and the pacific. If we get hit with nukes dumb rockets and gun pods are gonna look real good real quick.

If the bad guys wanted to fuck us up, our reliance on stuff that requires super computers to work is softest place to hit. IMO we need parallel tech that would be ready post flash if we are going to be taken seriously by China and Iran once they get a way to project nuke force. A carrier full of F-35s wont mean shit to them if they cant fly.

The future of side boob is looking up.

Just like the A10. Having flown CAS before I can tell you with a certainty they wont send A10s where there are any ground threats much beyond small arms. They will just get shot, forcing them to fly home. Because its the A10, it will it at least fly home. But the enemy just negated your CAS.

Then again, our own leadership has already negated CAS with their ROE so its all a moot point anyway. I say go ahead and build them, my kids are already out of money but my grandkids or their kids might still have some, if they work until seventy five. Whatever will feed the procurement beast....

Ding ding ding.

Stavatti is best known for trolling the DoD with offers to build "laser rifles" about fifteen years back.

http://www.defensereview.com/stavatti-sf-1-gasdynamic-laser-rifle-individual-combat-weapon-of-the-future/

the most vulnerable fixed wing is still more survivable than the most hardened rotary wing.

rhodies were flying O2s, Aleuttes and C47s with ubiquitous SAM-7s, 14.5 and 23mm.  

the ROE restrictions on CAS were generally not the same with CCA.  It isn't the frame, its the different training and doctrine.

Because a off the shelf turboprop is much cheaper to buy and more importantly operate.

The A-10 lines and tooling went to the scrap heap decades ago.

Just outside my hanger in Boise, Id.

I was just on a call this week with some Army folks in which they declared all Army UAS going forward will be armed.  Now I know that meant being cable of carrying weapons and maybe not all the time but I think they realize what they are up against.

ROFL

AF first talked about LAAR/LAS in 2006 (maybe earlier, 2006 was the first reference I found)

Giving those planes to the AF would be a giant waste of money.

No wonder they think its a "great idea"

Unarmed UAVs are stupid at the tactical level.  Find a target and then need ANOTHER asset to monkey stomp it?

Stupid.  UAVs are magnificent surveillance assets.  CAS and recon they are not, however.

I agree wholeheartedly, and agree with most everything in your CAS definition post above. As long as general's on both sides are more interested in the budget wars than actual wars, and more interested in career risk mitigation than fighting and winning, not a thing will change.

As I have said before, having loved the mission I would have been happy to fly anything, in any uniform, that would accomplish that mission.

First just give me a general that will let me kill the enemy and wreck the enemy's stuff if our own are in harm's way. Thats all I ask.

I heart you.

kinda homo.

If we could just get apportioned airpower down to the BSO and keep the same pilots for a year, give the mission to the AF.

50 planes remain in theater, all fighter/strike pilots go through a 2 month train up/transition at NTC/JRTC with a maneuver/fires guy in the back seat.  we could stack bodies at 20% of the current footprint.

  They are being flown in combat every day in Libya and Yemen



 There are now 2 competing makers of effectively the same thing,which caused a problem with Kenya's recent order. IOMAX is now using Thrush airframes and Air Tractor is offering them in conjunction with L3.

Came here to say build a modern b25

The newer version really improved visibility for the pilot/WSO.  the first version you could barely tell there was a backseat.

guess they figured out that the thermal POD isn't the only thing you should be looking around with.

there is a lesson in there for those willing to learn it.

Everyone quit advocating more foreign made equipment. We can make our own weapons and equipment.

A27 is made in florida.

precision weapons and computers have minimized the need for massed, unguided firepower.  

the 30mm on the apache is scary accurate when fired straight on in a shallow dive.  Off axis is not nearly as accurate, however.