A-10 Warthogs

[elxaime]

It was mentioned recently that A-10 Warthogs may be among aircraft considered for supply to Ukraine. Online forums immediately exploded into passionate argument between pro and anti-Warthog factions! Just curious how the A-10 is modeled in CMANO? Is it viewed as dead meat without complete air superiority?

[Gizzmoe]

Just curious how the A-10 is modeled in CMANO? Is it viewed as dead meat without complete air superiority?

Sorry, but that's a weird question The A-10 is modelled the same way as everything else in CMO, it is all just pure numbers and data and stuff. You could have asked the same questions about many other CAS aircraft...

What's your real question?

[BDukes]

It was mentioned recently that A-10 Warthogs may be among aircraft considered for supply to Ukraine. Online forums immediately exploded into passionate argument between pro and anti-Warthog factions! Just curious how the A-10 is modeled in CMANO? Is it viewed as dead meat without complete air superiority?

Agility isn't great but you do have some armor to work with. My strategy would be to emulate the SU-25s your seeing in videos. Stay low and don't loiter around. Get the work done and get back to rearm.

I'd say they're more likely to get more SU-25s. There are still many that can be bought worldwide and they can be serviced by Ukrainians and Georgians.

Baring the outcome of war my guess is in the long term they'll get F-16s. Lots of places to buy, service, etc. etc.

Mike

[Nikel]

It looks good. Does it not?





What's wrong with the question? In fact I was going to ask the same

Or at least in which scenarios do they appear. I have seen Warthogs Over Latakia, 2013.

There is a bunch of them! But many more targets.


The armour means they safer than helicopters? Because the Russian side has had already 188 casualties, no data on Ukrainian AFAIK.

[Gizzmoe]

It looks good. Does it not?

Yeah, looks great

[elxaime]

Just curious how the A-10 is modeled in CMANO? Is it viewed as dead meat without complete air superiority?

Sorry, but that's a weird question The A-10 is modelled the same way as everything else in CMO, it is all just pure numbers and data and stuff. You could have asked the same questions about many other CAS aircraft...

What's your real question?

Sorry, I should have been clearer, I just wanted to know if, in CMANO, an A-10 can survive against first world air defenses.

[gennyo]

I think A-10 isn't doing really good in CMO, and I don't know how it will IRL but I don't think will be too different.

A-10 have 5 damage points in DBv495, anything more than a MANPAD should have a good chance to blast it into halves in game. CMO do simulate protection (turn on aircraft damage point option in Scenario Option) but the difference between damage and protection/overall health is too great.

They are not very stealthy (who would expect that...) so AD tracking radars will have happy hours working with them. You can't use your Brrrrr or even Maverick missiles in any situation with a Tor hanging aroud, which has excellent low altitude performance in game. The new radar model helps A-10 a bit but maybe not enough.

So... I think it should be more survivable than helicopters but not much more. You still need good SEAD and jamming support to get your A-10s into shooting range, and best with AWACS to acquire targets for them. JDAM/LJDAM may help a bit if you don't have too much choice about platform but having those weapon in hand but I think using HIMARS/GMRLS to knock them out first would be a better choice than risking aircrafts.

[Nikel]

Hmm. It does not look a good idea to give that platform to the Ukrainians.

There are also news of pilots training for F15 and F16.

And the US army had before the war 363 M142 HIMARS and 225 M270A1 MLRS. Give them more of those

[bsq]

They are not very stealthy (who would expect that...) so AD tracking radars will have happy hours working with them. You can't use your Brrrrr or even Maverick missiles in any situation with a Tor hanging aroud, which has excellent low altitude performance in game. The new radar model helps A-10 a bit but maybe not enough.

AGM-65 outranges TOR, even in its updated guise.

So... I think it should be more survivable than helicopters but not much more. You still need good SEAD and jamming support to get your A-10s into shooting range, and best with AWACS to acquire targets for them. JDAM/LJDAM may help a bit if you don't have too much choice about platform but having those weapon in hand but I think using HIMARS/GMRLS to knock them out first would be a better choice than risking aircrafts.

If you are low enough, then you can get into shooting range without being spotted and hit targets. The Kyiv convoy was just make for A-10's. AWACS would make no difference to targetting, the Ukrainians already have what they need for that... UAS in relative abundance.

[Gizzmoe]

If you are low enough, then you can get into shooting range without being spotted and hit targets.

Yes. What needs to be taken into account when using B12xx, with the low altitude that we need for stealth, also comes a low AGM range and a low "final speed" of the missiles. Those get sooo slow due to speed bleedoff that Mavs can easily be intercepted by Tor or similar. Good tactics can solve that problem

[Rob322]

It was mentioned recently that A-10 Warthogs may be among aircraft considered for supply to Ukraine. Online forums immediately exploded into passionate argument between pro and anti-Warthog factions! Just curious how the A-10 is modeled in CMANO? Is it viewed as dead meat without complete air superiority?

Maybe, but lots of platforms, esp. low level strikers like the A-10 or SU-25 are in trouble flying into the face of an opponent with total control of the air. It's really not up to the game though. It's up to the players to use them wisely and get the most out of them while it's up to the scenario designers to create interesting and challenging scenarios.

What's cool about CMO (CMANO is an older version BTW) is you can always whip up a battle on your own and find out!

Now, IRL, the Russians don't seem to have managed to take air superiority. I'm not saying the Ukrainian's have it either, but it seems to be a lot more mixed.

[Gizzmoe]

AWACS would make no difference to targetting, the Ukrainians already have what they need for that... UAS in relative abundance.

I hope they have! His AWACS statement was in general btw, not related to Ukraine. Someone has to relay the UAV target position data to the A-10/CAS after all, it doesn't matter if it's an AWACS or something else. And there's always a JSTARS and Global Hawk lingering in that area, so I assume Ukraine knows a lot about what's going on the ground.

[maverick3320]

Just curious how the A-10 is modeled in CMANO? Is it viewed as dead meat without complete air superiority?

Sorry, but that's a weird question The A-10 is modelled the same way as everything else in CMO, it is all just pure numbers and data and stuff. You could have asked the same questions about many other CAS aircraft...

What's your real question?

Sorry, I should have been clearer, I just wanted to know if, in CMANO, an A-10 can survive against first world air defenses.

Well, the US Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 for years. Several reasons for this, some extremely legit (what exactly would an A-10 do against China in the West Pacific, the most dangerous scenario for the US) vs some less legit (fighter mafia...).

Realistically, without control of the skies, the A-10 can be a liability: relatively short range, slow speed, big radar target.

[Gizzmoe]

Well, the US Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 for years.

I, as a German, find it "funny" when the US wants to get rid of something that I wish Germany had in its arsenal CAS-wise... We don't have one thing that is comparable...

[SeaQueen]

It was mentioned recently that A-10 Warthogs may be among aircraft considered for supply to Ukraine. Online forums immediately exploded into passionate argument between pro and anti-Warthog factions! Just curious how the A-10 is modeled in CMANO? Is it viewed as dead meat without complete air superiority?

The real decisive factor that will probably prevent ANY US aircraft from being sent to Ukraine in at least the short to medium term is lack of maintainers, spare parts and supply chains. Without that, you risk creating a situation similar to what happened in Afghanistan, where they had some amazing aircraft but they required extensive help of contractors and Western logistical support to keep them flying, and when they didn't have that, most of their airplanes ended up stuck on the ground with maintenance issues.

That being said, there's a lot of reasons the A-10 is probably not the best aircraft in a modern air defense environment. Yes it's able to better able survive hits. It's also more likely to get hit, though. While I don't know that it'd be any less survivable than the 4th gen MiG-29/Su-27/Su-24 aircraft the Ukrainians are armed with, it's unclear to me that it'd constitute a decisive advantage either. ("Brrrrrt" is not an advantage)

The real problem is probably less the super long ranged SA-21s and SA-23s, because the A-10 tends to fly low, which limits their radar horizon. The real problem will be probably be the shorter ranged tactical SAMs, like SA-11s, SA-15, SA-8, SA-13, SA-22 and what not. While some of the shorter ranged ones aren't much more than a MANPAD, SA-11s, SA-15s and SA-22s definitely are not. Furthermore the A-10 is only armored up to 23mm. The Pantsir gun-missile system (SA-22) was designed to defeat the A-10 and is armed with 30mm guns.

I don't think sending them jets is really the best idea at this juncture though. Sending them Western jets means they need to get a whole suite of western weapons. If we send them A-10 or F-16, then we also need to start sending them weapons to go with it. Are we going to send them JDAMs? Are we going to send them LGBs? What about cluster bombs? If we send them F-16 are we also going to send them AMRAAM? What about jamming pods? Are we going to send those as well? What about HARM? Will HARM really help them in a world of SA-21/23?

There's probably better (and most likely more modest) things we could send them that would make a bigger impact. The HIMARS and gun artillery that was sent is making a big difference. It's sufficient to say that people are looking very closely at the question of what to send. All indications suggest that more fighters isn't really the place where we could make the biggest impact.

[Gizzmoe]

The real decisive factor that will probably prevent ANY US aircraft from being sent to Ukraine in at least the short to medium term is lack of maintainers, spare parts and supply chains.

The spare parts, are you saying that there is a general lack of them so the US currently wouldn't be able to provide the amount of spare parts that the Ukraine needs to maintain the aircraft? Or did you mean something different?

[bsq]

The spare parts, are you saying that there is a general lack of them so the US currently wouldn't be able to provide the amount of spare parts that the Ukraine needs to maintain the aircraft? Or did you mean something different?

It will be combination of factors. Older US warplanes tend to have a lot of 'spares' located at AMARC (or whatever it is called these days). In CONUS, its a simple case of sending out someone to rob a spare part, get it checked over and then installed in the broken jet. How would that work for a country outside of NATO, thats effectively at war with Russia?
No shortage of spare parts (airfcraft in AMARC) but a huge logistical nightmare getting them to Ukraine.

Add to this the fact that even in modern NATO airforces most adopt the 'just in time' approach to spares. They'll source it when its needed and it will arrive 'just in time'. Not sure that if you add hostile interdiction by RFAF this will be the same as it is for NATO users...

[Gizzmoe]

How would that work for a country outside of NATO, thats effectively at war with Russia?
No shortage of spare parts (airfcraft in AMARC) but a huge logistical nightmare getting them to Ukraine.

Good, so no shortage, that's what I thought, I couldn't image the US having a spare parts problem in that regard. I guess the "logistical nightmare" part is bringing all the stuff that the US flew in to Poland safely to the Ukrainian airbase from there.

[maverick3320]

Just to throw some more fuel (or water?) on the fire, Ukraine has said they don't want A-10s:

https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... %20message.

[elxaime]

Just to throw some more fuel (or water?) on the fire, Ukraine has said they don't want A-10s:

https://www.military.com/daily-news/202 ... %20message.

The classical trajectory. The A-10 was the handsome movie star everyone wanted to cast. Then, as middle age came on, A-10 started accepting any movie role he could. Now, at the last, his looks faded, he slowly descends the staircase, ready for his close-up with Mr. DeMille, still living a fantasy of days long gone.