How Real is it and how effectiv is the real A-10C?

Hi folks,

hope this question wasn't discussed anywhere else.

After some month spending time in the DCS A-10C I really ask for the effectiveness in the real world.

Some CAS Missions in Afghanistan with spotter on the ground is for me no reason to keep this plane alive.

Based on my expierence with the game, I doubt that the A-10 can be effective on modern tanks with auto aiming systems. Also the missing of advanced Air-Ground-Radar makes it hard to find its objetives. Watching through a small canopy or tgp for some tanks, AA etc. without radar is almost impossible to survive...the lack of speed is another reason, why I guess, that the A-10 will killed by each modern enemy (no Talibs).

Never have seen a fully equippet A-10 on footage videos, mostly only GUN Runs (if no AA) and some CBU's and JDAM's.

What are your opinions?

The A10 is slow, that's a disadvantage indeed. But it is slow because this is a big advantage in terms of CAS. And that is what the A10 excells in. It can provide support for ground troops for a long time without the need to rtb, and can deliver munitions very close to friendlies.

I don't really get why it shouldn't be effective against tanks with "auto aiming systems", a Tank won't be able to hit an A10 and even if it is strong enough to survive the GAU-8, there is no armour heavy enough to withstand an AGM-65.

I don't know if it is really worth to be kept in service, but from my point of view it is the most effective ground attack plane there is. Its slow speed makes it vulnerable for enemy Aircraft, so air dominance or good air cover are crucial for its operational use. Imagining a full scale war of the big military powers is difficult, but I guess it would be a viable tank buster if supported as needed.

http://www.military....23435630&rank=4

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- Two A-10 Thunderbolt II pilots assigned to the 74th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, provided close-air support to 60 U.S. Soldiers July 24.

The Soldiers were part of a routine clearance patrol that was ambushed after their lead vehicle in a convoy of 12 turned over during a patrol of an Afghanistan highway. The situation forced the Soldiers to establish an overnight base while they pulled the vehicle out of a ravine. As the sun rose, the unit began to receive heavy fire from a nearby tree line. The members were pinned behind their vehicles and three of the Soldiers suffered injuries. The unit was under fire and the wounded members needed a casualty evacuation so they called for close-air support.

However, there was one problem; the ground unit didn't have a way to confirm the enemy's position. The unit did have a joint fire observer who was able to communicate an estimated location to the A-10 pilots who arrived on scene shortly after receiving the call from a local base's joint terminal air controller responsible for coordinating aerial engagements.

"I flew over to provide a show of force while my wingman was looking for gunfire below," said the flight lead of the two-ship A-10 mission. "Our goal with the show of force was to break the contact and let the enemy know we were there, but they didn't stop. I think that day the enemy knew they were going to die, so they pushed even harder and began moving closer to our ground forces."

When the enemy combatants didn't flee after the show of force, the A-10 pilots decided to deliver air-to-surface munitions to protect the friendly ground forces.

"Even with all our (top-of-the-line) tools today, we still rely on visual references," said the lead pilot, who is on his first deployment from Moody Air Force Base, Ga. "Once we received general location of the enemy's position, I rolled in as lead aircraft and fired two rockets to mark the area with smoke. Then my wingman rolled in to shoot the enemy with his 30 millimeter rounds."

According to the pilots, that really stirred up the attacking force. The enemy moved even closer to the friendlies in an attempt to prevent the A-10 from attacking again. The ground forces were now taking on a large amount of fire from the trees and surrounding high terrain.

"We just kept putting down more 30 mm rounds," said the second A-10 pilot, also deployed from Moody AFB. "The bad guys were closing in and according to the muzzle flashes there were a lot of them, but because people were shooting all over the place, the JTAC didn't feel safe bringing in helicopters in to evacuate the wounded personnel."

The pilots said usually after the first or second pass, the enemy runs away, but this enemy force was large and willing to fight. The pilots continued to fire 30 mm rounds, but the enemy force refused to fall back. Now, the enemy force was close enough to engage the unit with grenades, so the convoy's commander approved the pilots to engage "danger-close." The term is meant to clearly communicate to the ground and air forces that the need for support is so grave the ground commander is willing to accept the potential risk to the friendly unit for the life-saving employment from the air.

"We train for this, but shooting danger-close is uncomfortable, because now the friendlies are at risk," the second A-10 pilot said. "We came in for a low-angle strafe, 75 feet above the enemy's position and used the 30-mm gun -- 50 meters parallel to ground forces -- ensuring our fire was accurate so we didn't hurt the friendlies.

The engagement lasted two hours that day, and in that time, the A-10s completed 15 gun passes, fired nearly all their 2,300, 30-mm rounds, and dropped three 500-pound bombs on the enemy force.

"That last gun runs must have made them give up," the two pilots agreed "because the firing stopped."

Shortly after the engagement was complete, an MC-12 aircraft specializing in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance arrived and began scanning the area for enemy forces that might be regrouping. Sometimes when close-air support leaves, enemy forces will attack again, so the A-10s remained on-station until all the Soldiers were safe.

"We wanted to make sure the area was safe because we had the pararescuemen from the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron coming to transport the injured to Bagram's hospital," said the second pilot. "The flight doctor assigned to our squadron treated the wounded in the emergency room. It was an example of a successful mission with contributions from all assets of our base."

After the pilots landed and debriefed, they went to the hospital to see the wounded Soldier.

"He was laying there and next to him was a picture of his high-school girlfriend," the lead pilot said. "We were glad knowing we helped get him home alive. He said, 'Thank you for shooting those bad guys'. Luckily we were only a few minutes away and all the friendlies made it out that day."

Providing close-air support is the squadron's main mission here, and is the specialty of the aircraft they fly, the A-10 Thunderbolt II nicknamed the "Warthog."

"This was one of the most intense sorties our squadron has come into contact with in the last four months in theater," the lead pilot said. "Afterward the Afghan National Army said they found 18 enemy dead, so I can only imagine how many were out there. This was close-air support and this is what we train for."

As a Special Operations soldier who has been supported by the A10c, i for one and many of us would hate to see the A10c go. The enemy hears that burb and thier scared as shit. When we hear that burp its a huge reassurance when a major TIC is going on, and ya we wont lie we get wood. Especially when the voice on the radio is a Lady Flying that puppy. lol

Best Memory of the Hog was downtown Baghdad and that puppy doing a show of force through a billow of huge black smoke 800m away from our team house. Believe it or not we get into tics from the roof tops of our team houses was epic sight and will remember that moment till the day i die.

Hats off always to the Hog Pilots, Saved many brothers in arms.

Well, I will try to articulate my opinion from both pros and cons going for A-10C.

First off, you judge it with impression that modern day armed conflicts are like Cold War era confrontation of peer powers.

Truth is, those peer powers took their lessons, and nowadays they don't engage in a war before winning it already. Current military operations and threats are, mainly going like : picking on an adversary that is not capable to put up a serious resistance, break it's back, then mop up, and then begin the long counter insurgency period.

A-10C is better suited to mop up and counter insurgency period than any other jet aircraft in NATO forces. I suck myself at finding targets with TGP, but I don't agree that no A-G radar = useless. In fact, in a CAS scenario where friendlies and / or civilians are in close contact with hostile elements, even if you have a radar TGP is essential and radar is only helper. In such situations, targets are more likely to be provided by a JTAC or some sort of ground observer anyway. Also for folks doing that on ground, an A-10 that can cruise merrily over battlefield is preferrable to a fast jet that zips around at mach 0.9 every now and then, and after a while go bingo fuel and be unavailable for some hours. Also, if target is in a dense urban or jungle area, or is mainly consisting of infantry, radar is almost useless. Now don't get me wrong, air to ground radar is a great asset, and is almost essential for missions like interdiction of enemy ground forces ahead of friendlies, or even just helping to point your TGP the right way in a CAS scenario. I'm just trying to point that it is not be-all end-all.

A-10C is not an aircraft that is supposed to dodge fighters or advanced IADS threats, but one that is to take over heavy hitting once those threats are neutralized. Once this happens, it is very much survivable, even in face of some mobile air defence threats. A-10 can loiter a lot, can handle fine when it's slow compared to most fast jets, and can carry a humongous payload. Add to this, simpler maintenance, you have an aircraft that is easily available, and can operate over battlefield for a long time, while still having durability and low speed maneuvribility relevant to CAS type missions.

Also, while it is not modeled in DCS (and I guess not equipped on modeled block either), A-10C has HMCS helmet cueing system for pilot, which allows pilot to point aircraft sensors to basically where he is looking, which is a great aid.

To quote you directly, I honestly don't see how would any auto aiming systems on any modern tanks would have any effect on A-10s effectiveness over them. Even if you mean self propelled AAA vehicles, A-10 tends to operate comfortably above their effective altitude, eploying LGBs.

On the flipside, yes, A-10 really is a slow aircraft. In fact, funnily late war prop warbirds from WW II are somewhat faster than Thunderbolt II, including Thunderbolt I itself :). This makes it extremely vulnerable to fighters up high and manpads & aaa down low. So it really is an aircraft for the latter phase of any war. If you have to utilize it in a high intensity conflict without breaking opposition's back, you will have to assign many assets to escort the A-10 from both air and anti air threats.

So in a sense, yes, it is not the aircraft with which you could bring a near peer opposition to it's knees. But if and when you do achieve that, it is the aircraft to clobber them with.

Note this whole text applies generally to A-10C in a modern setting. Yeah, A-10A was, in contrast, designed to be used against a peer power, en masse, and more or less dispesibly, and in low altitudes, in a limited role of busting tanks and mechnanized units. And even then, it still wasn't supposed to attack strong points with advanced IADS, but would rather meet armoured columns on their tracks. It didn't need even TGP for that, let alone a radar, and it never did see use in that role. To be honest though, I doubt myself how much success would it see in face of an armoured onslaught equipped with Shilkas, Tunguskas, plethora of mobile surface to air missiles, inlcuding at least semi-prolific manpads among infantry.

First, THANKS for all your adult and serious comments!

I just compare the game (NATO vs. Russia...more or less) vs. the real thing. Flying over the battlefield with no red tags for enemy targets (like adjustable in the game) it makes it almost impossible for me to locate the tanks etc. from a secure distance.

And how "WinterH" above mentioned, it is indeed an aircarft for "...latter phase of any war".

The Game itself targets an almost equal army, and has no HMCS system neither the option to "increase" the object models like in the old Falcon 4.0 sim.

Considering the different game missions, loaded fully with bombs but "only" 4 Mavs it can be tricky to solve the mission. Often I miss an extra info on a radar that at point "X" is tank "Y".

How often happened it to me, that the MAV screen locked a target and it was a civilian car which parked near a tank or AAA. Does this happen in real life too?

There is a great a mission called FOB Vedka that you can download, that to me is an awesome show of how the A-10C can do its job.

You are doing CAS for a convoy for the first half and then you go down the road and clear out some other threats around the area. With the fire fights, explosions, directions from ground, etc. you can be amazingly effective with just guns and rockets, never mind guided munitions.

I just compare the game (NATO vs. Russia...more or less) vs. the real thing. Flying over the battlefield with no red tags for enemy targets (like adjustable in the game) it makes it almost impossible for me to locate the tanks etc. from a secure distance.

In real life this information is relayed by off-board sources. Unless it's a big armored convoy traveling down a road or other open space, an A-10 (or any other aircraft) is not very likely to spot the armor on its own.

So their location information will come from people on the ground, from assets like JSTARS etc.

The Game itself targets an almost equal army, and has no HMCS system neither the option to "increase" the object models like in the old Falcon 4.0 sim.

Why should it? A vehicle that's camouflaged will be very hard to see from the air, even if you are fairly close. Yes, there can be other tell-tale signs but even so you things aren't too easy to find. Falcon 4 doesn't do/portray everything right either.

Considering the different game missions, loaded fully with bombs but "only" 4 Mavs it can be tricky to solve the mission. Often I miss an extra info on a radar that at point "X" is tank "Y".

Why are you 'fully loaded with bombs' and 'only' 4 mavs? The payload is 4-6 bombs and 2 mavs (one munition per pylon). Anything more has horrible impact on the A-10's aerodynamics.

How often happened it to me, that the MAV screen locked a target and it was a civilian car which parked near a tank or AAA. Does this happen in real life too?

Yes, it does, or the weapon can fail completely. There might not be enough contrast to lock onto the target even though you can see it. There might be trees in the way. It might be parked too close to a civillian building so you're not allowed to attack it. All kinds of things can cause problems.

First, THANKS for all your adult and serious comments!

 

I just compare the game (NATO vs. Russia...more or less) vs. the real thing. Flying over the battlefield with no red tags for enemy targets (like adjustable in the game) it makes it almost impossible for me to locate the tanks etc. from a secure distance.

 

And how "WinterH" above mentioned, it is indeed an aircarft for "...latter phase of any war".

 

The Game itself targets an almost equal army, and has no HMCS system neither the option to "increase" the object models like in the old Falcon 4.0 sim.

 

Considering the different game missions, loaded fully with bombs but "only" 4 Mavs it can be tricky to solve the mission. Often I miss an extra info on a radar that at point "X" is tank "Y".

 

How often happened it to me, that the MAV screen locked a target and it was a civilian car which parked near a tank or AAA. Does this happen in real life too?

The A-10 was designed as tank killer against the soviet union - to blow up T-50 and T-60. But there were calculations made by NATO generals which revealed that they estimated a horrendous loss rate. But those were considered "acceptable" back then and under the given circumstances. Today's A-10's role is primarily CAS in a low thread environment and for that it does a pretty good job.

What scenario you will fly in in DCS - depends ... on you. Full scale WW III or hunting insurgents - it is up to the mission designer. Therefore the difficulty can vary vastly. But when speaking of difficulty: you can not really compare your DCS experiences with how the real thing would perform. We are limited by our hardware. The visibility of objects on our computer screen is not as good as it would be in RL and the limited field of view significantly lessens our situational awareness. Then there are a lot more people involved in RL - guys that provide all sorts of intel, guys that talk you on to your targets, guys that fly at your wing that are not dumb robots, etc.

And last but not least, real pilots tend to be better trained, more experienced and generally be way better pilots ... than us sim freaks. :o)

You should know A-10 pilots directed faster jets as AFAC.

Also, A-10A's used predator drones in OAF as AFAC/BDA.

My gripes with this game is the lack of realism in combat. So for instance, in the real OAF, A-10 pilots did 2-3 (sometimes more) push (vul) time, went in and out, refuelled, went in and out again, refueled. Targets were lacking. This frustration in finding targets that are SCARCE is something I lone for in DCS.

But you cant swap a slow plane just for being 'slow'. People still witnessed how life saving that thing is. I never heard of a fast jet that got struck by a shoulder SAM, humped it all the way back to base with one engine, a shrapnel-filled wing, a dud, or even a jammed gun. Fairchild designed a good plane. Period.

You should read OAF

Sorry my possible dumb question...what is OAF?:(

All your apreciated comments here, show that the "hardcore sim DCS A-10C" is not that realistic than I thought.

All the gun runs inside the game, which can be horrible frustrating when attacking ~1Nm against a rusty sovjiet APC and get shot down....are-when I am right- not that real.

Operation Allied Freedom-If I remember correctly that was the 1999 attacks on Serbian forces.

Sorry my possible dumb question...what is OAF?:(

 

All your apreciated comments here, show that the "hardcore sim DCS A-10C" is not that realistic than I thought.

 

All the gun runs inside the game, which can be horrible frustrating when attacking ~1Nm against a rusty sovjiet APC and get shot down....are-when I am right- not that real.

Some APC are a bit overpowered in DCS atm, it seems, yes. But that is just a bug that can be fixed.

Regarding "hardcore" - you won't find anything more realistic - for the PC and for less than 50 bucks. The technical aspects of the aircrafts are replicated about as good as it possibly can (yes, within constraints, like no confidential stuff, etc.)

But if you expect to be deployed to the Near East as an A-10 pilot after your 1-2 years of simulator training in DCS ... well, not gonna happen.

 

But if you expect to be deployed to the Near East as an A-10 pilot after your 1-2 years of simulator training in DCS ... well, not gonna happen.

:lol: May I should send my CV to the USMC at the 1st April 2015 ???

One thing OP needs to know is:

The A-10C represented in DCS is Suite 3,

Actual in Service A-10Cs are well past Suite 3 (Suite 7 or so, Paul can tell you for sure),

And AFAIK there are some things different in RL A-10Cs, that aren't modeled in DCS, Due to Contract restrictions, and Suite Differences etc.

I can almost guarantee a very detailed/long response from Paul is coming..

:lol: May I should send my CV to the USMC at the 1st April 2015 ???

USMC doesn't fly A-10C's ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Marine_Corps_Aviation#Current_aircraft

Don't get me wrong, they're likely to work closely with Army and Marine personnel. But fly them, they do not.

As happens so often from the Pentagon, weapons systems are scrapped before there is actually an adequate replacement. I think they would be wise to keep the A-10 until such time as they have something as good or better to take it's place. Currently they are claiming that the F-18 and other combat aircraft can fill the vacancy left by the A-10. Anyone who knows aircraft knows that one of the strengths of the A-10 is loiter time, which is simply the main weakness of those other systems. Yes it is "dated" but I personally don't see anything in the current inventory that can replace it. And that includes the Apache Longbow.

Also, remember, that while this game is actually pretty good at system simulation, it does not simulate the pilots experiance. There are no errors, no checklist items your crew chief might have missed, no proper preflight. There is absolutely no incentive to play this game like a us air force pilot might fly his or her plane other than your personal standard.

Most missions are designed really unrealistic from the load-out to the rules which are set by the designer.

So, in reply to your inital question:

This game can be used to simulate a somewhat pilot like experiance, but it usually is everything but.

All your apreciated comments here, show that the "hardcore sim DCS A-10C" is not that realistic than I thought.

 

All the gun runs inside the game, which can be horrible frustrating when attacking ~1Nm against a rusty sovjiet APC and get shot down....are-when I am right- not that real.

DCS A-10C is really one of the most realistic combat aircraft simulations to the date, perhaps the most realistic. It is as realistic as you'll get in a public, affordable, entertainment sim. Flight performance, systems, weapons are all quite realistic, and when they aren't it is usually due to classification of sensitive information. Being general public, we won't even know what's missing or wrong :P. But we at least know that laser guided mavericks and their MFD pages are not modeled.

Anti-air abilities of some APCs are overmodeled in DCS in my opinion too, but "that rusty Soviet APC" being BMP-2, it is still pretty much a valid threat even today to most adversaries if they don't know what they are doing. If you fly straight at them slowly, they will nail you in DCS. If you approach somewhat fast, ideally employ steep dives from medium altitude, you should be quite safe usually. I haven't flown A-10 for may be 6 months now, and I wasn't much of a master of it at all. But even I was doing pretty damn fine strafing IFVs and even some T-72s.

If you use your maverick in conjunction with you TGP, you can often lock things more precisely, and can obtain a lock further away. This way you can even fly against some of the more serious mobile anti air threats like Tunguska, OSA, Strela-10 etc.

In DCS you (or rather mission designer) choose what setting you fly in, against a near peer or low intensity conflict or even counter insurgency, all up to what missions are designed and which you choose to fly.

One thing OP needs to know is:

 

The A-10C represented in DCS is Suite 3,

Actual in Service A-10Cs are well past Suite 3 (Suite 7 or so, Paul can tell you for sure),

 

And AFAIK there are some things different in RL A-10Cs, that aren't modeled in DCS, Due to Contract restrictions, and Suite Differences etc.

 

I can almost guarantee a very detailed/long response from Paul is coming..

You know me to well ;)

I was going to but I'll keep most of my thoughts to myself for once. And we're starting upgrades to Suite 8. Lots of goodies I'm sure we'll never see in DCS (I'd gladly pay for a suite 5 upgrade and a suite 7 with HMCS...I'm drooling).

Anyone who says the A-10 is ineffective needs to talk to Army and Marines who have seen first hand what she can do. Even in a high AAA/SAM network no 4th gen (or earlier) aircraft without SEAD support stands much of a chance.

That would be epic!

HMCS simulation with Oculus Rift. That would be pretty sweet. Having the contraption on the head would be all the more simulation :)

 

My gripes with this game is the lack of realism in combat. So for instance, in the real OAF, A-10 pilots did 2-3 (sometimes more) push (vul) time, went in and out, refuelled, went in and out again, refueled. Targets were lacking. This frustration in finding targets that are SCARCE is something I lone for in DCS.

That's a short day....the last few years in Afghanistan we've flown 8 to 10 hour sorties.

We currently have a mission on rotation within the 476th vFG that we only have 4 TGPs for the entire run. The mission has ran for over a month on our dedicated server so the 4 don't last long. Makes for some fun low flying/target searching sorties.

DCS A-10C 2014 Edition Upgrade :), I'd pay for it.

You should read OAF

Okay, who wrote that book and what is the official title ?