{"id":38877,"date":"2013-12-16T10:55:29","date_gmt":"2013-12-16T15:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=38877"},"modified":"2013-12-16T10:55:29","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T15:55:29","slug":"a-10-on-chopping-block-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=38877","title":{"rendered":"A-10 on chopping block again"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember prior to the first Gulf War, the first thing the Air Force wanted to cut was the A-10 close air support aircraft for the “Peace Dividend”, not because it didn’t work, but rather because it wasn’t sexy enough for the Air Force. But then in the middle of shutting the program down, Saddam Hussein intervened and the A-10 proved to be the star of that brief conflict. Then there was talk of cutting the aircraft from the roles before 9-11 and reality intervened again. Now, according to the Washington Times<\/a>, the A-10 is facing extinction once again; <\/p>\n

\u201cIs the A-10 the best at close air support? Absolutely,\u201d Gen. Welsh, a former A-10 pilot, said Friday at a Pentagon news conference. \u201c[But] we can do it with other aircraft. Those other aircraft do other things for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Supporters of the Warthog say other aircraft can perform close air support only in a \u201csecond-rate manner\u201d and service members fighting on the ground would end up suffering the most from its elimination.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe A-10 has proven successful in every single war we\u2019ve fought since Desert Storm in 1991,\u201d said Winslow T. Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Project on Government Oversight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2000, name one person who said the next war we would fight would be in Afghanistan and would be a ground war,\u201d Mr. Wheeler said. \u201cAnybody who says they know what the next war is going to be like and therefore we need \u2018X\u2019 and should discard \u2018Y\u2019 is a person with an agenda.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t think there is a US infantryman alive that didn’t suddenly get a warm and fuzzy feeling at the sight of the A-10 circling over his battle space. The Air Force says that they’re shifting their focus to the Pacific Rim and the A-10 doesn’t fit that shift. I guess it’s because the Chinese hordes are impervious to the 30mm cannon, and the inherent survivability of the aircraft doesn’t work over Asia. The general admits that the A-10 is the best aircraft at close air support, but he still wants to tube the system – does that mean that he really doesn’t care about giving the troops the best support he can give them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember prior to the first Gulf War, the first thing the Air Force wanted to … A-10 on chopping block again<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}