Small correction, AD mentioned 'retaining' not recruiting. That being said recruiting could very well become a viable option not so much in the case of raw recruits but poaching qualified personnel from other nations (Canada will be reducing it's fleet so might be a few dozen pilots alone to have there).
Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates
Purchase/Lease A10's for the RAAF?
Understand that the USAF is refurbishing their fleet of A10's & will continue flying them for the foreseeable future.
With the high unit costs of the F35 it may make sense to query the USAF to see if they would sell/lease a squadron of A10's to the RAAF?
Cannot envisage the RAAF committing a F35 to Army requests in a hot combat zone.
Am aware that introducing another type into RAAF service would require massive expenditure on pilot training & maintenance.
A10's would cause any aggressor to think again if a war with Australia was envisioned.
:grab
Understand that the USAF is refurbishing their fleet of A10's & will continue flying them for the foreseeable future.
With the high unit costs of the F35 it may make sense to query the USAF to see if they would sell/lease a squadron of A10's to the RAAF?
Cannot envisage the RAAF committing a F35 to Army requests in a hot combat zone.
Am aware that introducing another type into RAAF service would require massive expenditure on pilot training & maintenance.
A10's would cause any aggressor to think again if a war with Australia was envisioned.
:grab
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Well I would personally love to see A-10s and Tigers (or their replacement) operating together in a Joint CAS/ISR unit with Reaper added to the mix. But given the state of the budget that would have to come at the expense of something else and I don't see anyone giving up their slice of the pie.
A10's aren't going to be terribly interesting for Australia. They were primarily designed to take out tanks, particularly tank columns.
Recently they have found a bit of a niche as CAS, but even in that role, it unnatural for them. There are better CAS assets than an A10. In fact, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near an A10 when its strafing, those things give me the willies. As a bomber or precision munitions platform, again there are much better options.
Attack helicopters, drones, and conventional fighters make better CAS platforms.
A drone with a few hellfire missiles is going to be a lot more useful and a better CAS platform with much greater persistence.
Recently they have found a bit of a niche as CAS, but even in that role, it unnatural for them. There are better CAS assets than an A10. In fact, I wouldn't want to be anywhere near an A10 when its strafing, those things give me the willies. As a bomber or precision munitions platform, again there are much better options.
Attack helicopters, drones, and conventional fighters make better CAS platforms.
A drone with a few hellfire missiles is going to be a lot more useful and a better CAS platform with much greater persistence.
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
Doesn't sound like something that would sit particularly well with our force structure direction at all TBH.
On the contrary, I would have thought an F35 (or flight thereof) is precisely what the RAAF would want to commit to Army requests in a particularly "hot" combat zone. The Lightning seems substantially better equipped than any extant/4th gen aircraft to deal with the next generation of threats...
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In what aspect would a detachment of A-10's be better and / or more likely to be deployed to a 'hot combat zone' in support of Army?
What strategic or operational circumstance would exist do you think that would mean Government (not RAAF because it doesn't decide when and where it deploys) would be more likely to deploy an A-10 than an F-35 or any other Tactical Fighter we operate?
Finally, why would an A-10 be a better deterrent against a potential aggressor than an F-35?
This is the nature of discussion and what we try to promote here. You have made a bunch of unsupported statements and asserted them as fact. So what are the facts you used to come to this conclusion?
I'll just put my 2 cents in in regards to the ADF and the A-10. While I personally believe the A-10 to be under valued in CAS (Statistically it is the safest CAS platform behind the AC-130) by members of the forum I don't see it being a viable option for the ADF ever.
The RAAF is only so large (same goes for the ADF as a whole) so there are only so many aircraft we can operate. Acquiring the A-10 would mean giving up or reducing the number of aircraft else where. Less P-8's? E-7's? C-17's? C-130's? KC-30A's? They are all key assets none of which we could afford to reduce in numbers with out suffering a negative result so do we decrease the number of F-35's/F-18's? In the past we may have been able to swing that due to our distance from other nations and the low capabilities of surrounding air forces. Today and into the future? Not a chance. NZ has no fixed wing combat aircraft so we can't get them to pick any slack up, Indonesia is increasing there forces, China is adding Carriers to there mix, over all every one around us that could (though not very likely) be an adversary in the future is increasing there air force power leaving us with no room to decrease ours for the sake of an asset that might be used on occasion but whose role could be filled by attack helicopters flown by the Army.
The RAAF is only so large (same goes for the ADF as a whole) so there are only so many aircraft we can operate. Acquiring the A-10 would mean giving up or reducing the number of aircraft else where. Less P-8's? E-7's? C-17's? C-130's? KC-30A's? They are all key assets none of which we could afford to reduce in numbers with out suffering a negative result so do we decrease the number of F-35's/F-18's? In the past we may have been able to swing that due to our distance from other nations and the low capabilities of surrounding air forces. Today and into the future? Not a chance. NZ has no fixed wing combat aircraft so we can't get them to pick any slack up, Indonesia is increasing there forces, China is adding Carriers to there mix, over all every one around us that could (though not very likely) be an adversary in the future is increasing there air force power leaving us with no room to decrease ours for the sake of an asset that might be used on occasion but whose role could be filled by attack helicopters flown by the Army.
MARKMILES77
Active Member
You ask the question and supply the answer.
Want a dedicated CAS aircraft to support Army?
But what aircraft would be sacrificed to allow their operation?
The Tiger Attack helicopters.
Don't even need a "high end" aircraft like A10 to offer a better CAS capability than a Tiger. Something simple like an Iomax Archangel (crop duster modified aircraft) offers vastly more CAS capability than any attack helicopter.
More Survivable: Can operate above 20,000 feet out of MANPAD range or 50 feet above the ground.
More Endurance: 10+ Hours
More Range: 2,500 Km.
More Payload: 3000Kg. 7 Weapons stations.
More weapon options: Can carry Hellfire, 70mm rockets, gun pods, Laser Guided Bombs( up to 12 LGBs!) or a combination of all.
Costs less to buy.
Hourly cost of operation as little as US $1000 (v AUS $30,000 for Tiger)!
That statistic alone is mind blowing. For similar hourly costs you could operate 1 Tiger or a whole Squadron of 16 Archangels. And not only that, EACH Archangel could be on station for 3 times as long as the Tiger.
No brainer really.
Oh wait.
Army doesn't control fixed wing aircraft so they won't want it!
t68
Well-Known Member
Looks like an interesting aircraft wonder how I compares with Super Tucano from a pilots point of view.
But you can't really compare the archangel with A10, one star out as a crop duster and converted the other for a specific mission against high intensity war fighting warpac formations big diffrence. I doubt very much the archangel would survive in that environment.
Is an interesting aircraft and seem to be quite a few capable aircraft of a comparable design/type though I'd imagine they are more suited towards COIN operations then high intensity front line combat.
Since we are discussing CAS for the ADF outside of attack/recon helicopters (AH-1Z or AH-64 in the future) what about using existing aircraft? BAE Hawk and PC-21 both have combat capabilities. I imagine politically it would be an easier sell and financially and logistically easier to acquire and sustain as much if not all of what would be needed is already in place/being put in place.
Since we are discussing CAS for the ADF outside of attack/recon helicopters (AH-1Z or AH-64 in the future) what about using existing aircraft? BAE Hawk and PC-21 both have combat capabilities. I imagine politically it would be an easier sell and financially and logistically easier to acquire and sustain as much if not all of what would be needed is already in place/being put in place.
Boagrius
Well-Known Member
Plausible but strikes me as an odd way to spend money - a solution in search of a problem?
I don't know that any deficiencies in the ADF's CAS capability have been identified as warranting this sort of rectification/augmentation - be it for COIN type contingencies or otherwise. I imagine most would simply be happy with a fleet of armed helos *cough*Apaches*cough* that provide a decent level of capability and availability...
CAS, per se, has changed and now is platform agnostic. This change is due to the advent of and increase in accuracy of PGM hence the necessity for an aircraft to get down low and dirty in the weeds is no longer a requirement nor desirable. The results of this change is that any platform capable of deploying PGM is capable of undertaking CAS, to whit B-52s, B-1Bs etc., in Afghanistan and the USAF SF C-130 that deployed the MOAB recently.
The RAAF is transiting to a 5th generation multidomain force, which is part of the overall development of the ADF into a fully integrated 5th generation multidomain force, possibly the first such in the world. The RAAF are leading the way in this capability and acquiring a 3+ generation platform to operate in the modern battlespace that is dominated by the EM spectrum and information is not the most logical or practical of ideas. Even the Kopp and Goon comedy show would admit that. The time of the A-10 Warthog in modern high intensity combat has come to pass. It simply would not survive in that environment. For an air force the size of the RAAF to acquire such a platform would depleted much need resources from more advanced and much needed capabilities within the RAAF and the wider ADF.
The RAAF is transiting to a 5th generation multidomain force, which is part of the overall development of the ADF into a fully integrated 5th generation multidomain force, possibly the first such in the world. The RAAF are leading the way in this capability and acquiring a 3+ generation platform to operate in the modern battlespace that is dominated by the EM spectrum and information is not the most logical or practical of ideas. Even the Kopp and Goon comedy show would admit that. The time of the A-10 Warthog in modern high intensity combat has come to pass. It simply would not survive in that environment. For an air force the size of the RAAF to acquire such a platform would depleted much need resources from more advanced and much needed capabilities within the RAAF and the wider ADF.
MARKMILES77
Active Member
It is the effect that matters not the platform that delivers it.
Why pay $30,000 per flying hour for an armed helicopter when the same (or superior) effect can be delivered for $1000 per hour?
There is a huge opportunity cost to paying $29,000 per hour extra.
The saved money, for example, could pay for a HIMARs Regiment.
That all presumes the quote figures are accurate though. As we've seen, the figures provided by the manufacturer aren't always gospel. For example, what was the quoted cost for Tiger back in 2001? How does that compare to reality once it was in service? We all know the answer to that.
I think we'd need to validate those numbers before making any sort of comparison. Then compare it to the cost of a UAV that can do pretty much the same thing, other than the fact that it could actually be risked over a contested battlefield, in the way manned aircraft won't be.
MARKMILES77
Active Member
Few Points:
I see a cheap CAS platform as an alternative to Tiger/Apache not as an alternative to JSF. Therefore talk of 5th Gen is irrelevant.
High Intensity Conflict is unlikely.
Low Intensity Conflict is almost permanent.
Why not get an aircraft suitable for that.
Any conflict in which an A10 could not survive a Tiger/Apache would have no chance.
I am not advocating an A10 but an even lower end solution.
Money would be saved by scrapping Tiger so no resources would be deleted from the RAAF.
Quick reply to a few of your points.
While high intensity conflict is unlikely and low intensity conflict is a certainty do you prepare your forces to fight purely in low intensity conflicts? No. You prepare them to fight in the worst case situation.
While I believe personally that the threats against the A-10 have been hyped to an extent comparing the safety of them against each other is like apples and oranges. While the A-10 can fly low the Tiger/Apache/Venom can all fly much lower and have far tighter turns allowing them to utilize the terrain to there advantage fully compared to the A-10. The same situation would apply to any fixed wing CAS aircraft.
Money would be saved scrapping the Tiger which is already on the table and to go forth and acquire manned and/or unmanned recon/attack helicopters whose cost 9at least for the Apache/Venom) are known and far lower then theTiger. But scrapping the Tiger and by extension the recon/attack helicopter capability entirely as you indicate would be a step in the wrong direction. While attack helicopters and CAS aircraft perform a similar role they do so very differently under far more different set of circumstances so they can't be truly compared to one another. Armed escort is needed for our utility helicopters and at the speeds they fly at the fixed wing CAS aircraft would not be suitable to the role as they could not fit into the formation as well as dedicated attack helicopters could.
Dont get me wrong I'd love to have both but if it is one or the other it has to be the asset that fit's best into the entire ADF structure not just the RAAF. Attack helicopters work better with utility helicopters and compared to fixed wing aircraft can operate off of our LHD's.
It needs a runway. It can't do what Tiger or an Apache or whichever helo you prefer can do, until it can take off and land vertically and hover.
As for it's costs, not sure I quite believe either, the extremely low operating costs quoted...
Considering a lot of the costs associated with high end attack and reconnaissance helicopters relates to their avionics, sensors and weapons I would imagine a fixed wing platform offering the same level of capability would require the same level of systems.