A 10 warthog defeated. Good night sweet prince

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yep we have a couple borderline ginger types... they flew home with blisters... and not an ounce of pity from all the people that kept harping on them to use suntan lotion.

a reply to: Irishhaf

The common thinking was cloud cover meant the sun wasn't as bad. So they'd go to Haunama Bay, which eats people alive, not watch each other, and barely be able to move a day or two later, let alone get dressed in warm clothes.

a reply to: Biigs

Hard to believe

a reply to: ScientiaFortisDefendit

They are closer to getting bat bombs working as a precision weapons delivery platform than unmanned aerial vehicles especially at danger close on the fly tasking type missions with fast evolving parameters.

For those who don't get the reference I'm saying UAV'S won't SAFELY COMPETENTLY AND ECONOMICALLY do these missions anytime soon! They will do them soon just not cheaply or without killing lots of ground personnel! Especially in light of a variety of circumstances any one of which would doom the effort from day one.

The plain truth is the A-10 was as close to the single best platform in American military inventory to an ideal platform to adapt to the realities of low intensity expeditionary deployments! Probably why the AIR FARCE hated it from day one and also why it went 4 decades before getting it's first upgrades!!

A few very cheap upgrades compared to things like f-22 or etc upgrades could've given it massively increased loiter time all weather abilities sensor systems upgrades and much much more all while dropping cost per flight hour drastically.

I guess no Warthog discussion should go without a pic of the incredible 30mm.. It is one I picked up at auction (inert, of course). Compared left to right; is the 30mm, a 50cal, a 30-06 shell, and last is a 22-250 (yea, a .22 not to be compared with the plinker.)

Anyway, I am told the A-10 spits these out at around 4000 rounds per minute. Others would know the specifics...

Not only still kicking, but they just deployed another dozen for Central Command in the M.E.