Sounds a lot like the old AD Skyraider. I’ve heard that there was still a demand for them into the '70s, but the existing stocks were just plain worn out and it was decided that it would be too expensive to build new ones. Dad used to say that Skyraider had ‘the instantaneous firepower of a light cruiser.’
A-10 and A-1 side by side.
Not to mention that the A-1 could carry more bomb tonnage than a B-17.
Sweet!
I would also guess that an A-10 is a bit more robust than a helicopter. I’ve always had the impression a helicopter can be brought down just by looking at it wrong 
You should amplify/correct your statement to include the whole story about how Gates (SECDEF) was forced to cut the F22 and many other high dollar programs under Congressional budget pressure. The Air Force NEVER wanted less F22s, under any of the myriad sets of flawed fiscal reasoning that were presented over the years.
Maye since you “do” claim know these figures, you can enlighten us on what the initial vs. mid term 384 vs. final 183 flyaway numbers buys actually ended up costing the American taxpayer, when it was all said and done?
Then we’ll see whose facts are are either off, misleading or just lacking any substantive information whatsoever. :dubious:
You’ve got that backwards, dude. Gates told Congress to cut funding.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1710944,00.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aj694ju69myQ
Ha, our whole platoon was killed by an A-10 at 29 palms during CAX 85. It sucked to be us that day.
You are wrong. In 2009, Gates proposed termination, and Secretary Donley and General Schwartz both supported the proposal. Their view was that they would like more F-22s, but they had higher budget priorities that made further purchases inadvisable.
That isn’t the question you asked. You asked how much it cost to shut down production. That number is approximately $400 million. You are asking a somewhat nonsensical question that assigns a cost to buying items on a low rate initial procurement versus a mature full rate production line. It boils down to comparing points on a learning curve: every time production doubles, cost is reduced by a fairly predictable rate.
If the learning curve in the F-22 were 85% (for example), the second aircraft would be 15% cheaper than the first, the fourth would be 15% cheaper than the second, etc. While the 256th would be cheaper than the first by a considerable amount, the idea that funds are saved by buying more aircraft makes about as much sense as a spoiled housewife claiming that she saved her husband $100,000 because the diamond ring she just bought was on sale for 20% off.
Out of curiosity, do you know the difference between flyaway cost, average procurement unit cost, and program acquisition unit cost? Because by most estimates, the flyaway cost for restarting the line would be a roughly 40% increase, which means it isn’t very likely that any other country is going to pay that premium to buy F-22s, even in the unlikely event that the export prohibition were repealed.
As a little more bit of info relating to the OP, there is another consideration in that to effectively use the AC-130, and to a far lesser extent the A-10, you need airspace dominance.
It’s obviously part of the doctrine of the US Air Force, to obtain uncontested skies as early in the piece of any war as possible. Thus they’re happy to have aircraft like the AC-130 ready to use.
Whereas smaller Airforces, (eg Australia) have no illusions that they have the inherent combat power to obtain air dominance in anything but situations like Afghanistan. So could never forsee using something like the AC-130. Also it is a formal part of our strategy, and influences our militaries buying decisions, to have maximum inter-operability with US forces. So why bother with an AC-130, when 9 out of 10 warzones we’ll be in will be alongside US Air Forces anyway, who will bring them with them! 
Actually it has very little to do with technology and everything to do with the cold war and levels of training. First the O/A-10 was designed to break up waves of Soviet Armor and thin skinned vehicles in a European theater. That push never came and many people in the USAF wanted (and still do) to get rid of it because it is slow and has very limited capabilities outside of CAS and Combat Search and Rescue. The AC-130 s primary cold war mission was rear area CAS. The AC-130 was basicly able to linger and provide support against insurgents and enemy SOF units like the Spetsnaz in Europe, or North Korean units busting out of tunnels, it’s secondary mission was friendly SOF support. It now primarily does SOF support with limited over-watch/perimeter defense work in Iraq and other theaters. Most countries have little to no “white SOF” ability and those that have a “black SOF” capability lack the ability to project them, and thus have no need of an AC-130 like platform. As another poster mentioned the O/A-10 and AC-130 need complete air dominace to operate… none of the NATO countries have the ability to establish air dominance on their own, the UK and France come close but lack the numbers to maintain it for very long.
A additional issue is that the US military has a robust Close Air Support (CAS) capability, in most countries forward air control is a auxiliary duty of artillery troops or forward observers, the US has dedicated CAS controllers who receive extensive training compared to our NATO allies. The US is still the only military that can pull of a Joint Air Attack Team style attack, this is procedure where O/A-10s, Attack Rotary Wing Assets and Artillery do a coordinated strike on a moving target. It requires intensive training, communications and equipment other countries simply don’t have. This tactic set resulted in the “Road of Death” in DS1. So bottom line is even if a country had O/A-10s and AC-130s they currently lack the personnel required to properly use them.
“It is not the object of war to annihilate those who have given provocation for it, but to cause them to mend their ways.”
-Polybius, Greek Historian (2nd Century B.C.)
I’ve heard it called “the fart of death”.
The air dominance thing makes sense, but the training part I don’t get… if that’s the case, how do ANY arms sales go through? People have to be trained for any sort of weaponry, whether it’s a gun or a stealth fighter jet or a submarine, no?
And what about, say, Israel? Don’t they normally have air dominance, good training, money to spare, and urban theaters a-plenty?
You can’t be that obtuse. :rolleyes:
Bolding MINE. Who approves the budget, again? Was that Congress? What was the budget level compared to previous years again? How many BILLION was cut again this fiscal year? Were you unaware or forget where Schwartz and Donley came from - how they got into those positions in the first place?
Let me give you a hint: It had much to do with fundamental disagreements between SECDEF and AF leadership PRIOR to the the two yes men Scwhartz and Donley coming into play.
Sheesh, educating you people seems almost like an exercise in futility. :smack:
“Dipping Below: The Air Force will begin to slip below its moderate-risk requirement for 2,000 fighters next fiscal year, Lt. Gen. Bud Wyatt, Air National Guard director, told House lawmakers last week. “The President’s [Fiscal 2012] budget has announced the loss of 18 more F-16s to the Air National Guard, and so we’re beginning to drop below that 2,000 number,” Wyatt told the House Armed Services Committee’s tactical air and land forces panel during an oversight hearing. The 2,000 aircraft requirement, which includes 1,200 frontline primary assigned aircraft, stemmed from the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.”
Analyzing current events from stale information regurgitated from rags like this that have literally no context or basis in reality is extremely disingenuous.
Gotta give you credit for the Google-foo, tho. 
I’m not sure why Israel hasn’t bought any. The IDF has its doctrines that are in many ways very different from those of the US military. For instance, Israel has also refused to buy Bradleys or Strykers - nor has it bought similar vehicles from any other nation or made any of its own, making it the sole major military not to adopt the IFV (infantry fighting vehicle) concept.
Israelis have their own way of doing things, and I guess the A-10 isn’t part of it.
I’m sorry, but that is a stone-cold hard fact. While the number of F-22s was originally supposed to be much higher, since 2005, the DoD, the Air Force, and the President had submitted long-range budget plans only for procurement of 170-odd planes. In 2008, Congress added funds to allow for the procurement of an additional 20 aircraft.
It is simply impossible to argue that the Executive Branch did not lead the efforts to truncate the F-22 line.
Yes, Congress decides how much is ultimately spent for any military program. But Congress did not come up with the idea of ending the F-22 line, in fact, there was much debate in Congress about reversing the Department’s position that the line should end. You’ve got things exactly backwards.
But to repeat myself (and others): The President’s budget in 2009 asked for no more F-22s. This position was ultimately supported by the Defense Secretary, the Air Force Secretary, the Air Force Chief of Staff, and they convinced Congress NOT to add additional funds for more F-22s in 2009. The President threatened a veto of the defense appropriations bill if more F-22s were added by Congress, so Congress did not include the additional funds that had been debated.
Your opinion would hold more weight if you acknowledged that it was the Department of Defense, not Congress, that pushed for the end of the F-22 program. That is an incontrovertible fact, no matter how you feel about the issue.
By the way, you’re somewhat misrepresenting General Wyatt’s position:
Knowing “what” happened is one thing. Knowing “why” it happened is something else. I’m wasting no more time trying to explain to you how congressional and executive branch budget cutting exercises affect procurement and senior leadership staffing decisions.
It’s kinda like the old saying: “The man that knows how to do something will always have a job. The man that knows why it needs done will always be his boss.”
I’m still not entirely clear that you know what actually happened and who proposed what…
If I may guess, I think it has to do with the IDF counting on a few things
[ul]
[li]Opposing tanks will be less advanced designs, meaning that the existing Merkavas would win most conflicts.[/li][li]Air superiority will not be guaranteed during the beginning of the conflict, and enemy ground forces will be well protected by mobile SAMs.[/li][li]It will probably be a two front conflict, meaning that the possibility of moving in strike fighters quickly is valuable.[/li][li]Air superiority must first and foremost be taken, and with a limited air force sacrificing air superiority fighters for ground attack aircraft is prohibitive.[/li][/ul]
This is of course presuming that the major threat would be a joint attack from Egypt and Syria. In my opinion, the IDFs limited capability of delivering precision CAS to infantry became very obvious during the last conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.