The A-10 Warthog gets a life extension/upgrades

[Llewtrah381]

I can’t speak intelligently to the “real” effectiveness of the A-10 but I was a Flight Surgeon in Germany in the late ‘80’s and deployed to Zaragosa AB with my F-16 squadron for a bit. There were some A-10’s there as well and it was such a contrast out at the range: the F-16’s seemed like mosquitoes compared to them. That gun was ferocious and the plane was comparatively HUGE.

One “fun” thing the F-16 guys enjoyed doing was lighting up the A-10s with their missile guidance radar. The A-10s didn’t have radar but, given their size, had very capable radar warning receivers. As soon as you’d light them up (as if the radar was tracking for a missile shot), the A-10s would break away aggressively in response. The F-16 guys called it “hog poppin’ - sport of kings”. Fun times…

 

[3393RP]

The Soviets took frightful losses from ground attack aircraft in WWII. They responded to that lesson with a lasting bias in their doctrine and force structure towards organic air defense capability at every level of ground forces. The Russian military has inherited that bias, as have the Chinese to a lesser extent. Any aircraft who attacks those forces, or forces of their client states, is going to face a high volume of ground fire.

That is exactly the environment the A-10 was built for, with several thousand pounds of titanium armor around the pilot and aircraft systems.

I'm not aware of the losses you describe, unless you're specifically referring to the weeks immediately after the German invasion on 22 June 1941. Beginning on that date, the Luftwaffe destroyed hundreds of Soviet aircraft parked on aerodromes. The Soviets' inexperienced aircrews were also easily shot out of the sky during that period.

Placing the shoe on the other foot, the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik eventually became an effective weapon against Wehrmacht ground troops. Just like the Red Army as a whole, the aircraft gained experience as the war progressed. The Sturmovik was present in large numbers at the July 1944 Battle of Kursk, and caused significant losses in German Panzer formations.

In 1945, as winter turned to spring, the Il-2 provided good close air support as the Wehrmacht was relentlessly pursued westward. The aircraft's weapons had evolved over the second half of the war, and as the pilots learned better tactics, the number of kills increased.

While some accounts have the Il-2 savaging Wehrmacht ground troops, the reality was that its unguided rockets weren't really effective. Most of the success the planes and pilots achieved against ground targets was by using the 23 mm Volkov-Yartsev VYa-23 cannon.

The Soviet aircraft industry produced over 35,000 Il-2s during the war, and their numerical advantage was also a major factor in its success.