PrairiePundit

 National Interest: The Air Force brass has finally achieved one of their highest ambitions: They have successfully begun to weasel their way out of a mission they have traditionally considered a distraction , namely, providing ground troops with effective close air support. Recently, the Air Force has transferred two A-10 “Warthogs” out of service and over to the boneyard at Arizona’s Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. They are among the first 42 A-10s to be retired this year, with the remaining 260 aircraft slated to follow over the next few years. U.S. ground forces depend on U.S. pilots to supply accurate and sustained fires so they can gain a battlefield advantage. Just as importantly, the ground forces frequently depend on those accurate and sustained fires when they’re under enemy attack and need to be rescued. For troops on the ground, effective close air support can literally mean the difference between life and death. The A-10 is the only combat-proven attack aircraft, and it...

 Times of Israel: In a show of force to Iran, the United States military has equipped aircraft sent to the Middle East with advanced bunker-busting bombs, American officials told The Wall Street Journal on Friday. According to the report, around a dozen A-10 Warthogs were refitted to allow the attack aircraft to carry up to 16 of the precision-guided GBU-39/B bombs. The paper said it was the first time the aging A-10 planes were equipped with the 113-kilogram (250-pound) bunker-busting munitions. ... Iran is said to have been attacking US forces in Syria and this move is in response to those attacks. 

 Center for Security Policy: A-10 Warthog: Destined for retirement—Or war in Ukraine? I think it could be an ideal craft for Ukraine to use against Russian mechanized forces and against the Russian infantry human wave attacks.  It was originally designed to fight the Soviet army in Europe. 

 Business Insider: The A-10 Warthog has made its reputation as a tank-killer, but now the Air Force is testing 50-year-old plane for another mission: launching decoys to protect other aircraft. During exercises in the Pacific in early November, A-10s were equipped with the ADM-160 Miniature Air Launched Decoy. Described as a sort of cruise missile, the 8-foot-long MALD weighs less than 300 pounds and has a range of 500 miles. It is equipped with a Signature Augmentation System that mimics the radar signature and flight profiles of specific US aircraft. (The MALD-J variant has a jammer.) The idea is to launch salvoes of MALDs ahead of a US airstrike to confuse the enemy about how many aircraft are coming and from where. ... This is an interesting mission for what has become an antique aircraft.  The A-10 has rarely been used for its original mission since most of the recent conflicts have not involved large tank formations.  It has been used against some terrorist mechaniz...

 Fox News: ... The Pentagon plans to purchase 17 F-15EX fighters and 12 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets from Boeing, Reuters reported . The report pointed out that the number of F-15s was higher than the Defense Department's request in May for 12. The bipartisan agreement prevents the Air Force from retiring the A-10 Thunderbolt II, Defense News reported. A Senate provision blocks the military branch from retiring any Warthog next year, the report said. ... "NO red flag laws. NO drafting our daughters. The WOKE liberal agenda Democrats tried to sneak into the NDAA is GONE," Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, tweeted. "Democrats want to turn the military into a leftist social experiment—but WE stopped them!" ... The A-10 attack plane has been on the chopping block for years, but continues to be saved by Congress. In 2014, the Pentagon requested their retirement and said the savings would be about $3.5 billion. Rep. Martha McSally, a Republican from Arizona who flew the A-10 ...

Asia Times: The much-maligned A-10 Thunderbolt ground attack airplane could prove to be a savior if fighting breaks out with North Korea. However, the US Air Force wants to get rid of the plane, and is not asking for funds to fix the wings on some 100 A-10s, which therefore may end up in the scrap yard. In any conflict with North Korea, a US-South Korean-Coalition’s objective will be to knock out North Korea’s nuclear facilities and missiles. This will surely involve strategic bombers and maybe even stealth aircraft. But one immediate consequence will be that North Korea will attack South Korea, probably aiming first at neutralizing US and Korean forces by destroying bases, airfields, depots and equipment. North Korea has a very large army that may number 3.5 million men and women, although the quality of the forces is open to question and skepticism. The country also has a considerable armored capability. There are 4,200 tanks, 2,200 armored personnel carriers, 8,600 artillery p...

The A-10 was originally designed as a tank killer and it was very good at that mission in the first Iraq war, but it is also the premier close air support weapon in the US arsenal.  This video is a little over 20 minutes, but it gives you a good idea of what these pilots do and how close they have become with those on the ground.  That is probably why it is titled "Flying Grunts."

Military Times: America’s beloved A-10 Thunderbolt II ―the “Warthog” ― may be headed back to Afghanistan, Military Times has learned. A senior Afghan defense official told Military Times that the Afghan government wants the aircraft to return. However, discussions to bring the A-10 to Afghanistan are in early stages, and no decision to bring the aircraft back into theater has been made. “The discussions of what forces we move to Afghanistan or drawdown from Iraq and Syria are all ongoing,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Lance Bunch, director of U.S. air operations in Afghanistan, told reporters at the Pentagon. “We have not made any decisions at this time to move A-10s, that I know of.” As operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria wind down, other air assets may be flexed to Afghanistan. In recent months, six additional F-16s and a KC-135 Stratotanker have bolstered U.S. air assets in the country. There are currently 18 F-16s in country, according to a Pentagon official. A-10s have bee...

Business Insider: US military test shows the A-10 'Warthog' can obliterate the small-boat swarms that Iran uses ... Patrick Megahan, an expert on Iran's military with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider that even without the Air Force the US Navy had plenty of ways to counter the threat posed by Iranian-style swarm attacks. "US Army Apache attack helicopters also frequently drill aboard US Navy vessels in the Persian Gulf for countering exactly this threat," Megahan said of the swarming boats. "This doesn't include the Navy's own Hellfire-equipped Seahawk helicopters or the Marine Corps' very capable attack helicopter squadrons that maintain an almost constant presence in the waters off the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. In fact, two fully load American attack helicopters would likely wreak havoc on an Iranian small-boat swarm." ... The A-10's nose gun is ideal for attacking the small boats used by I...

Washington Post: The Pentagon said it wouldn’t use depleted uranium rounds against ISIS. Months later, it did — thousands of times. Video was posted online of the strikes that used the controversial type of armor-piercing ammunition that has been blamed for long-term health complications. I personally favor both short and long term health consequences for ISIL forces.  They should be killed until they stop attempting the mass murder of all who disagree with them.  It is the objective of war to persuade the enemy that its cause is hopeless.  That appears to be something that Obama never comprehended. I suspect that there probably was an ammo shortage of the shells that did not use depleted uranium.  Those shells are usually for heavy armor, and it is possible that some of ISIL's Mad Max vehicles may have needed to be hit with those shells to stop them. Update:   This story from AFP says the ammo was used against an ISIL convoy of oil tankers they w...

War Is Boring: ... The RAND Corporation, a California-based think tank closely tied to the U.S. Air Force, recently compiled statistics on A-10s in Afghanistan, with the goal of studying how they performed and how the Air Force could replace them in the future. It should come as no surprise that as the war continued, the A-10 took on a larger share of missions — comprising “one-half of all the CAS [close air support] missions … despite representing a small fraction of the total aircraft in theater,” according to RAND. Warthogs also began striking targets across a wider span of the country as the Taliban’s reach expanded. A-10 air strikes increased sharply as U.S. Marines and soldiers surged into Afghanistan in 2010. But RAND’s data is incomplete, as it doesn’t include statistics on drone strikes and from Army attack helicopters. ... RAND noted that regarding other aircraft such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon and B-1 Lancer, a fast-moving jet bomber, “weapon use and enemy killed...

Popular Mechanics: On paper, the Air Force plans to start mothballing the A-10 in 2018, with the last Warthogs sent to the boneyard by 2021. But last month Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said that the retirement of the A-10 would likely have to be delayed further as the military continues to rely on the low-and-slow attack plane for close-air support (CAS) missions flown against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. Even more telling, the Air Force Material Command (AFMC) is bringing the depot line for A-10 maintenance and repair back up to full capacity, according to Aviation Week. The Hawg isn't going anywhere. "They have re-geared up, we've turned on the depot line, we're building it back up in capacity and supply chain," AFMC chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski recently told Aviation Week. "Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely." Air Force maintainers are also preparing to...

CNN: ... The battle tested A-10 has seen combat in Iraq, Afghanistan and most recently in Syria where it was able to target enemy forces up close without risking friendly fire casualties because the pilots are flying slow enough to visually distinguish between enemy and friendly forces. Rep. Martha McSally, an Arizona Republican lauded the Air Force's decision to reevaluate its plans, calling it "a big victory." McSally, a retired Air Force colonel and former A-10 pilot who flew missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, told CNN she was "glad to see the (Obama) administration recognize the flaws in seeking to eliminate the A-10 before we have a tested, proven replacement." "As a result of our advocacy, the Air Force will begin consideration of the follow-on platform to the A-10, including upgrading our current fleet to extend its service life. This is the exact approach for which I have advocated," said McSally, a member of the Armed Services Committe...

Military.com: A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft operating out of Incirlik airbase in Turkey provided "devastating" close air support for U.S.-backed Syrian-Arab fighters in taking a town in northwestern Syria from the Islamic State, a U.S. military spokesman said Wednesday. The A-10s were joined by an AC-130 Spectre gunship in clearing the way for the U.S.-aligned group now known as the Syrian Arab Coalition to take the town of al-Hawl and 250 square kilometers of surrounding area in fighting Monday and Tuesday, said Army Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve. "We were able to bring both the A-10s and the Spectre gunship to bear in a devastating manner" to aid in the assault on al-Hawl, Warren said. Warren's comments were believed to be the first by the U.S. military in describing a specific attack in the campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, by the A-10s, commonly known as "Wa...

AFP: The US military has deployed a dozen A-10 ground-attack planes to the air base at Incirlik in southern Turkey, a US official said Tuesday. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the move had "added capability" to the coalition's efforts against IS.The 12 planes, famed for their tank-destroying capabilities, arrived over the weekend and have already been scheduled to fly missions in support of the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria, the official told AFP. Known by troops on the ground as "Warthogs," A-10 planes are heavily strengthened and designed to withstand direct hits from armor-piercing rounds. The planes typically fly lower and slower than F-16s, which also puts them more in harm's way. "There's more significant risk than other aircraft due to the flight path they typically fly," the official said. It wasn't immediately clear if the US-led coalition has already used A-10s during its bombing...

Wall Street Journal: France’s move to prepare airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria reflects new intelligence reports warning that the Islamist group increasingly aims to use European recruits to carry out attacks back home, particularly in France, officials in Paris say. While Islamic State periodically calls for sympathizers in Europe to launch attacks, the group has mainly relied on Europeans coming to its Syrian strongholds to replenish the ranks of fighters killed in battle. But intelligence from France and its allies shows a new profile of jihadist recruits emerging from Europe: those who are traveling to Syria not principally to fight alongside the group in Syria, but for weapons training to commit attacks back in Europe, the officials say. The move to prepare airstrikes—which French President François Hollande announced last week—is also an acknowledgment that French efforts to contain the threat posed by its citizens traveling to Syria to join the extremists have fallen ...

Fox News: Cold War weaponry and modern military hardware: Inside the ISIS arsenal ISIL has an extensive array of US weapons captured from poorly led Iraqi units as a results of Obama's premature retreat from Iraq. The A-10's are trying to degrade their ability to openly operate, but they are barely able to keep up with ISIL recruiting by killing roughly a 1,000 fighters a month.   What is missing are combined arms operations where ground units can fix enemy targets so they can be destroyed by the A-10's.

Medium: Two years ago, the U.S. Air Force annoyed the other military branches, Congress and the general public when it announced a plan to quickly retire its roughly 300 A-10 Warthog attack jets — rugged tank-killers that have flown down-and-dirty close air support, or CAS, for American ground troops since the 1991 Gulf War. The Air Force’s rationale for dumping the A-10s keeps shifting. Now government auditors have poked holes in the flyboys’ latest justification — that the branch must drop the ungainly Warthogs in order to free up maintainers for the slowly-growing fleet of pricey F-35 stealth fighters. Amid public outcry and skepticism from the Army, Congress rejected the Air Force’s A-10 “divestiture” scheme in the 2014 and 2015 budgets — and seems likely to do the same in 2016. The flying branch has tried out different tactics to penetrate this solid wall of opposition. First, the Air Force claimed it couldn’t afford the billion dollars or so a year it costs to keep the A-10s in...

IBD: ... Dubbed the "Warthog" because of its decidedly un-sleek profile, the A-10 has been found to be useful in another capacity in Iraq — attacking IS forces that don't want to be on the business end of the Warthog's 30 mm cannon as it flies low and slow over the battlefield. As Iraqi News reported last week after an A-10 sortie against IS forces near Mosul: "The aircraft sparked panic in the ranks of ISIS and bombing its elements in spaces close to the ground." Such strikes also prove the value of such a low-maintenance aircraft built to take the punishment expected in close air support. "Elements of the terrorist organization targeted the aircraft with 4 Strella missiles, but that did not cause it any damage, prompting the remaining elements of the organization to leave the bodies of the dead and carry the wounded to escape," according to the Iraqi report. This is not surprising, since the A-10 can almost hover over a battlefield as it...

Aviation Week: Boeing (Chalet 321, 324) is exploring the international market for a modernized and re-engined A-10 Warthog if the U.S. Air Force retires the aircraft, according to Paul Cejas, chief engineer for off-Boeing programs in the company's support division. Cejas stressed that any such project is dependent on the Air Force retiring the aircraft, in the face of congressional opposition, and releasing its inventory. "It is fairly new and not at a point where we can provide more details." Boeing is the lead contractor for A-10 sustainment and is fulfilling a contract for 173 sets of new wings for the fleet. The company has delivered 105 sets and does not expect that the contract will be canceled even if the Air Force retires the aircraft. The new wing is close to returning the A-10 to zero-time condition. ... The Middle East is apparently the target market for the refurbished A-10's.  It is such an ideal aircraft for close air support they should also conside...