A 10 WARTHHOG - THE LEGENDARY BRRRRRRRT, A BEAST OR HYPE?

A10 one of the America's legendary aircraft which is often regarded as the best  tank buster of the world. It has a legendary cult following with people ready to swear that the aircraft is unmatched. The sound of its 30 mm canon is a music to ears of the friendly ground troops. For years there have been people within the USAF who have tried to  get rid of the WARTHOG saying its old or obsolete & then people who swear by its name & say it cannot be replaced by any aircraft.

WARTHOG has a reputation that it canon which is a huge 30 mm canon capable of spitting specialised depleted uranium ammunition is capable of destroying any tank & no tank can bear the brunt of this canon.

3 shows an A10 in straffing  spitting rounds and pic 4 is what people imagine is how a tank would look.



Fans and veterans who swear by the gun but is it really that capable & give its record during different campaign inc Iraqi etc.
What most people dont know is the WARTHOG wasnt capable of destroying or fully killing tanks. Most tanks even in 70's, there are a various ways or types of kills which can be achieved by weapons.

1) total destruction or an absolute kill which means the tank is completely destroyed and the crew possibly killed

2) a mobility kill which means the tank is not destroyed but rendered useless as one or many of its critical components are damaged and hence its immobile

A WARTHOG 30 mm gun even with dep uranium rounds wasnt able to hit tanks from any sides, it had to perform its attacks from specific sides or on specific areas to ensure the tank is either destroyed or rendered useless. A tank has max armour in front & that side is basically impenetrable for most weapons & hence the sides and back are often the targets even for other tanks which have a thinner armour, another weaker section is the top side of a tank which have a thinner armour & hence a top attack is also a preferred method for ATGM.

Now for an aircraft a tank is already a small target with a canon and to add to this all these specific sides make it even more difficult for a a 10 pilot to hit a tank in duch critical spots. On top even if we consider a 4 to 5 cm thickness of a t90 armour on top side which is least armoured and consider that added armour is added on top with era etc even if the knowing thay the a10 will come at an angle, we can say that the a10 bullet will face an additional thickness than original as the angle of bullet will actually make the plain armour on top of the tank  feel like SLOPED ARMOUR and hence the penetrator will have to penetrate a theoretical higher armour thickness.

The theoretical or estimated of a 10 canon with special ammunition was taken as 100 mm of RHA at best and hence it is very unlikely that the tank will be pentrated completely by the canon alone.

On this basis we can safely assume that the belief that an A10 can shred a tank and make it a pile of swiss cheese is highly unlikely.

Moreover the issue is not just the capability of an A10 gun to penetrate the armour the real issue is the survivability of the aircraft while attacking armour formations, often have we heard how effective the A10 was against different campaign in middle east and hence believe this will be repeated against a soviet armoured column, the original intent of the A10 but many forget how the A 10 is utilised in middle east etc, the USAF uses A10 against enemies with no air force or air Superiority and with no capabilities of area denial and hence the A10 success against modern adversary is highly doubtful.

Yes the A10 frame is highly durable and has been very effective and A10 can take great abuse and survive a lot of abuse from small medium and heavy firearms but the same against a modern missile is highly doubtful. Even in 80's and 90's pentagon believed that the entire a10 fleet would be destroyed by the soviet forces within first 2 weeks of any war. They never had hoped a high survivability against such adversary like Soviets.

But does this means that A10 was all a  hype?

The answer to this is NO, what people fail to understand is the A10 was never the main tank destroyer of USAF,  the US has its fleet of attack helicopter was the main tank destroyer of, the real intent of the a10 was to hold the soviet or other armoured columns and be a faster responding force against any agressive armoured columns. The a10 had a better response time and had a better chamce than the attack helicopters for sure. Secondly it was a big morale booster and was proven very effective against convoys and other columns and can easily destroy light armoured etc vehicles and even IFV and such light armoured infantry forces. The a10 was a very effective close ground support and for the land forces are still like angels, soldiers on ground swear that just the presence of the a10 in air made them fight more fiercely.

Also if i state that the a10 solely relies on the canon for attacking tanks it would be a lie, the WARTHOG is also equipped with a Maverick missile which is an effective air to ground missile, the missile is effective for a variety of roles including anti armour. Also there were talks of integrating the hellfire atgm missiles on the A10 but that never really happened as the USAF has long been trying to replace the same.

Nomatter what we say, A10 has been very effective for the USAF and has been a critical aircraft in US history. The WARTHOG is so great that despite regular wish to replace it for decades no one has been able to shelf it, despite the officials stating that a f 35 will replace the A10 people are highly skeptical despite it being the most advanced aircraft.

The WARTHOG has been an icon and will always have people to swear by its capabilities, despite several controversies and many clear flaws, no one can actually question the service record of a WARTHOG.

-HITESH ADHIKARI

#USAF #WARTHOG #ANTITANK #TANK DESTROYER #US #A10 #BRRRRRRRT