OutOnTheOP

You seem to have completely missed the point. He claimed that ED was morally obligated to deliver the modules FIRST because of promises made by RRG's kickstarter; my point was that the very same kickstarter ALSO promised the AI units, rendering his argument null. Also, whether it's "in the works" or not isn't really the point; the point is about prioritization. The NTTR map was "in the works" for... how many years, again? Six? Saying "they're working on it" doesn't really mean much. Delivery means something. Until then, it's vapor. The poll is of plenty of use: the customers are TELLING you what they want. You don't even have to spend money on focus groups and market research: we are TELLING ED that AI units would be a good investment. If you want to ignore it and patronizingly insult us for making a "pointless poll", ok, but some of us are a bit fed up with it.

Really? REALLY?!? I'm pretty sure the defunct RRG kickstarter promised not only aircraft, but also the ground and air AI assets. So saying "they must make the planes because the kickstarter promised them", but denying that they must make the AI assets, even though the kickstarter promised them... that's a bit disingenuous. Please note where, on the original kickstarter, it promises AI "B-17G" and "Authentic ground vehicles, guns, and ships; Authentic historical buildings and landmarks;" THE AI GROUND UNITS AND BOMBERS WERE ALSO PROMISED. This isn't a "moral obligation" battle. BOTH were promised. But from the standpoint of what would be best for growing DCS WW2 as a whole, what would attract the most players, and what would offer the greatest increase in content- both for existing modules and future modules- the AI units are clearly a better return on investment. It will benefit (and attract more) players of every WW2 aircraft. Making a new module, on the other hand, takes significantly more effort and only benefits people who want to fly that particular aircraft.

Honestly, I think ED is making a HUGE mistake with their handling of DCS:WW2. They need to prioritize getting at least some basic AI assets (both air and ground) in first, THEN worry about additional modules. It doesn't need to be a full compendium of every aircraft to serve in WW2, but there should at least be a low-end German fighter, a light strike aircraft for each side (Stuka, P-47/ A-36 or similar), a light bomber/strike for each side (A-20/A-26/Mosquito/Beaufort/Me410), and a heavy bomber for the allies, along with a truck, tank, APC (halftrack), artillery piece, and 20-40mm AA gun for each side. With that bare-bones basis, one can start building actual campaigns. Actual missions. Actual CONTENT. You know, something to DO. ED apparently sees DCS as a "sandbox sim". The problem is, they keep selling us shovels and pails, but there is no sand in the sandbox!

Valid point for the difficulties of creating a *playable* module. Not a particularly strong argument for why we haven't seen a single AI-only WW2 aircraft, nor a single WW2 truck, halftrack, or AA gun. They could literally copy-paste the code for the ZU23, reskin it, and have a perfectly acceptable Flakvierling. Or do the same conversion for the M113 to an M3 halftrack. MTLB to Sdkfz 251 Hanomag. Any cargo truck. But as yet, there is not one. Single. Solitary. WW2 AI asset in-game.

For a full module, sure. An AI aircraft should be much easier, and the main sticking point are the two I mentioned: multiple turrets, and maintain-defensive-formation AI. Now that's just ludicrous. Four engines do not require four times the development time, they require almost the exact same as one engine... and a bit of copy-pasting. The overall systems complexity is less than a single-seat F/A-18. Sure, there are more people aboard. Three of them have no gauges, dials, or controls other than a manually operated .50 cal mount. Two have power-operated turrets, so they have... what, a .50 cal, power switch, sight intensity rheostat, and for the ball turret, a turret retraction switch (which I am pretty sure was operated from inside the aircraft by someone else anyway). The pilot, copilot, flight engineer, and navigator stations functions are little different from what a single-seat fighter pilot has to do anyway; the navigator simply has the luxury of a map board instead of a knee board, and has a transit in the nose bubble (which is a pretty dead-simple instrument to model). The engines are less complex to operate than that of the P-47 (already in development), there are just four duplicate sets of controls. The only really new challenge would be the bomb sight. Either way, the discussion is about AI bombers, not full modules. For the AI bomber, it seems the only thing really holding it back is that ED doesn't care. Bit sad that ED can't seem to be bothered to take the relatively small steps required to actually establish a wider fan base for their WW2 modules. AI ground vehicles require little more than the addition of 3D models (which could be easily outsourced or even purchased already complete) and would greatly add to the options for DCS WW2, but in the years (YEARS!) since the release of the P-51 and FW190, they have not shown any real progress on getting it done. Lone modders have brought more WW2 content working on their own than have ED. It all gives me serious reservations about any time ED promises this or that content is "on the way" or "in development".

It won't really matter until ED finally decides they care enough to actually support it. Right now, DCS does not, to the best of my knowledge, support multiple turrets on an aircraft, and bombers will either attempt to BFM against fighters (breaking formation), or will fly straight ahead and ignore them (use "blind" mode, which keeps them in formation but means they will not return fire). Until DCS builds AI to support WW2-style bomber tactics, no amount of fan mods will make a difference. Besides that, fan mods are not really the way to go for online play, because it adds YET ANOTHER hurdle to people actually finding a server on which they can play. DCS is hard enough to get into an online game already.

[quote=Zakatak;1235666 Likely the Vulture, although Thor would offer much more interesting gameplay since it works at all ranges. Knowing how to ramp start a fusion reactor and utilizing LRM-20's would be awesome. Vulture is the main characters mech in both of these intros, if you want an idea. Enjoy pre-2000's cheesiness. Skip ahead a little. I think you mean the "Mad Dog", stravag whelp! :smilewink:

Honestly, I'd much prefer to get the Maverick. Two missiles is a small limitation; NO A-G PGMs is a BIG limitation. Maverick would open up entirely new mission profiles for it.

When you start adding radars with resolutions that can not only see tanks, but type-identify them, you *expect* a pretty hefty bump in price. Not all -Es have the radar, though.

I know the US Army experimented with sound-homing guided antitank artillery munitions. I would have sworn it was part of the SADARM program, but I can't find anything on it by searching SADARM. I do recall seeing a mockup in the artillery museum at Ft Sill, though; it was a fairly large submunition for MLRS, which had large unswept cruciform mid-body wings that had probes on the wingtips (with the microphone transducers on the probes, I guess?) It was supposed to home on engine noise.

And, if I am not mistaken, a bunch of AT-37 Dragonflies on the left side of the deck. *edit* oh, MVS already pointed that out

I seem to recall it also directs the gun gases away from the portion of the slipstream that enters the engine intakes, to prevent a flame-out.

Cute un-sourced, un-scholarly cartoons, Hummingbird. Cute, but wrong. Here, let me introduce an actual scholarly article for consideration: [ame]http://eprints.maths.ox.ac.uk/211/1/poole.pdf[/ame] Please note on page three, where it clearly states, and I quote: "The main mechanism responsible for the penetration is well-documented to be plas- ticity of the target material, resulting from the extreme pressure at the tip of the jet. Although the exact temperature profile of the jet is not well understood, the average surface temperature of the jet is of the order 500C (with some local hot-spots) and so the cavity is not a direct result of melting." You're also welcome to read: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a469696.pdf *waiting for you to point out plates 31 and 32 to me. Then waiting for you to actually read the plate titles. Oh, heck, I'll just give you the spoiler: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/47/6/10.1063/1.323028 I would like to note, while I'm at it, that the temperature of ignition for an average wood is about 500 Celcius. So... you couldn't even light a campfire with that temperature. Oh, and it's about 900 degrees too cold to turn steel molten.

*sigh* Yes, and if you put a piece of steel against a grinding wheel, it will generate sparks. Do you take this to mean that it is the thermal HEAT of the grinding wheel that is removing material from the piece of steel, or can you understand that it is a side effect of the abrasive surface physically removing material through pure kinetic energy?

Also, I assume that when you quote Zaloga, you are referring to his book "M2/M3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle 1983-95". The only reference he makes to the penetrative capacity of M919 is that it is "apparently able to penetrate over 30mm of armor at 60 degrees/ 2000 meters". Now, mind you that the PGU14 numbers were taken for targets at only THIRTY degrees from square, not 60 degrees. Accounting for the difference in line-of-sight thickness through a 30 degree plate and a a 60 degree one, this means that perforating a 30mm plate set at 60 degrees from square is in fact traveling through 60mm LOS distance (and this, not taking into account the increased tendency to ricochet or disturb the penetrator axially with increasing impact angle). This means that against a plate set at thirty degrees from square, 60mm LOS distance equals 51.96mm against a plate set at 30 degrees. At a full two kilometers. 80-100mm at 1km would be completely consistent with 52mm at 2km. In other words, M919 penetrates, at 2km, what PGU14 must be within 1.2km to penetrate. And since we're apparently taking unclassified estimates used in computer games as gospel, I'll just go to exactly the same source you used to "prove" the Abrams has only 55mm armor over the engine sides (that's not counting the skirt or roadwheels, by the way) to show that M919 does in fact get 100mm RHAe: http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php?title=Ammunition_Data#Autocannon You're welcome.

Clearly M791 APDS-T, which has not been the standard war load since the mid 90s. Not to mention, I don't care what ammunition you were thinking of, because I explicitly and repeatedly stated M919 by type designation. If you were too lazy to so much as google "M919 apfsds", then I am afraid I cannot solve your ignorance problem for you. So, what, you felt the need to delberately misrepresent what I said in order to sidestep the fact that you were pulling "facts" out of your fifth point of contact again? Let me re-iterate. 1) I stated GAU-8 was ineffective against tanks 2) You state that GAU-8 is effective, and as proof that it can penetrate the engine grill and disable a modern tank, you use as an example the fact that a Bushmaster cannon managed to penetrate the engine grill from extremely short range. Implicit to this argument is that the terminal effects of GAU-8 PGU-14 fired from combat distances are comparable to the terminal effects of M919 fired from extremely short range (it was under 50 meters, if I recall correctly). 3) If, in fact, GAU-8 PGU-14 does NOT have comparable terminal effects to the M919, then the comparison is void, and the fact that M919 can do it serves as no proof that PGU14 can. (otherwise, I could just say "M829A3 120mm APFSDS can kill a T90 through the mantlet, therefore 9mm ball ammunition can kill a T90 through the mantlet. See how that's bad logic? If A does not equal B, then results for A are not representative of results for B). Better aerodynamic drag is the *reason* M919 is so superior to PGU14, and through it's superiority, renders moot any attempt to say "if 25mm can, so can GAU-8!". THAT is why the comparison with 25mm is important, and THAT is how you HAVE indirectly claimed PGU14 is comparable to M919. It is not. Stop trying to draw conclusions on PGU14's capabilities from the real-world performance of M919 4) You have attempted to "win" the debate through presenting yourself as an expert on the terminal effects of KE shot. However, you have undercut your "expertise" multiple times by failing to understand or comprehend basic features of the projectiles in question. 5) You have incorrectly stated the mechanism through which ceramic armor works. As best I can tell, you deliberately did this in order to retroactively explain why a slower, larger-diameter PGU14 projectile would be more effective than a faster, smaller-diameter M919 (in complete defiance of all known physics) 6) You persist in claiming that ceramic armor is significant because of thermal properties (which is incorrect), and post non sequitur images to "prove" that HEAT rounds use thermal energy as their defeat mechanism. Patently false. I could post photos of big fiery muzzle flashes from a tank cannon firing APFSDS, too, but that doesn't prove that thermal energy is the defeat mechanism there, either: the tank cannon uses a combustion reaction to launch APFSDS, and a HEAT warhead uses a combustion reaction to launch a copper penetrator. Both of those use the kinetic energy of the penetrator as the defeat mechanism; the "flames" are purely incidental. 7) like a complete ass, you have again attempted to put words in my mouth. I never said HEAT rounds generate no thermal energy, I said that thermal energy was not the defeat mechanism. HEAT warheads do not defeat armor by heating it up. They defeat it by hitting it with a high-velocity projectile of ductile metallic liner which defeats the armor through intense kinetic energy and pressure. You know... EXACTLY what your mis-applied quotes you haphazardly threw out said.

Clearly M791 APDS-T, which has not been the standard war load since the mid 90s. Not to mention, I don't care what ammunition you were thinking of, because I explicitly and repeatedly stated M919 by type designation. If you were too lazy to so much as google "M919 apfsds", then I am afraid I cannot solve your ignorance problem for you.

You're right, I must have been just too stupid to possibly comprehend when you wrote: Because you clearly did not just falsely claim that ceramics have minimal or no effect against projectiles under 1200 m/s impact velocity

Look dude. Don't get all pseudo-intellectual about technicalities of what constitutes a "solid AP shot", like you've got some kind of "gotcha" on me. APCR is a solid shot. There are no sabots or other pieces that are designed to detach from the projectile when fired; it is a FULL-CALIBER, SOLID MASS. Just because the projectile is not a monolithic block of homogeneous material does not mean it is not a solid shot, and in context, I pointed out that it was "solid shot" to emphasize that it is a full-bore projectile, IE that the ballistic qualities are what is important about that. You know what else isn't a monolithic block of metal? A conventional jacketed bullet. Lead-antimony core, copper-zinc jacket. Two distinct metals comprising distinct portions of the overall structure. Still considered "solid shot". As opposed to discarding sabot, canister, cargo/ submunition, or chemical energy (HE or HEAT) designs. Do you not realize that calling me out on calling APCR "solid shot" is incredibly hypocritical of you? You apparently did not know that GAU-8 does not have APFSDS, and claimed that PGU14 was tungsten, when any cursory study would tell you it's DU. Yet, you portray yourself as the "world expert" on PGU14 ("ahem, it's *APCR*. Ugh, noob!", says the guy who has to be corrected on both the basic design of the projectile *AND* the metallic composition of the penetrator.). You don't seem to understand that larger caliber does not equal greater penetration, and appear to still believe that if 25mm M919 can perforate a target, that GAU-8 PGU14 can as well. This is simply not true. M919 is a superior penetrating round. By a LOT. Like... DOUBLE. Full stop. Oh, and the test data for the GAU-8 is already posted, several times, in this thread, including graphs that quite clearly indicate 50-55mm RHAe penetration at 1000m. You appear to not even understand that coefficient of drag is one of the biggest determining factors of kinetic energy delivered to the target, since you are still arguing that PGU14 must have more energy on target, despite having a massive amount of drag compared to subcaliber APFSDS. Don't call my reading comprehension into question, when your entire thread here has been predicated on proving that it is physically possible for GAU-8 to penetrate some portion of a tank's armor, DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE ORIGINAL ARGUMENT POSTED ABOUT IT WAS THAT GAU-8 IS INEFFECTIVE BECAUSE OF BOTH MARGINAL BALLISTIC PERFORMANCE AND TACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT ADA THREATS. Either your reading comprehension is pretty weak yourself, or you're just willfully ignoring anything that doesn't fit your preconceived notions. While we're on the topic of reading comprehension, you might want to actually go back and read my original assertion. Here, let me help you out with that: Let's see here... yep, "cannon isn't effective against tanks". Not "cannon cannot physically penetrate a tank anywhere whatsoever". Now, to those of us who put some critical thought into things, "effective" means "capable of attaining the desired result consistently and without undue risk or effort". This means that some weapons might be technically capable of killing a target, but be ineffective nonetheless. For example, unguided shoulder-fired antitank rockets are ineffective air-defense weapons. Yes, they CAN kill a helicopter in certain circumstances, as proven at the Battle of Bakara Market, but that does not mean they are effective as an ADA weapon. GAU-8 can, under very strict criteria, disable a modern tank, but it is unlikely that any given attack will produce a kill, and the attack method required is difficult, prone to failure, and extremely dangerous for the aircraft. THAT MEANS IT IS INEFFECTIVE. Your failure to understand and address the entire argument presented, does not equal our failure to "comprehend" the capabilities of GAU-8. Perhaps you still need some help here: Effective: [ih-fek-tiv] adjective 1. adequate to accomplish a purpose; producing the intended or expected result: effective teaching methods; effective steps toward peace. 2. actually in operation or in force; functioning: The law becomes effective at midnight. Is GAU-8 "adequate to accomplish the purpose" of killing tanks? Will a GAU-8 run generally "produce the intended or expected result" of killing a tank? The answer, of course, is a resounding NO. Please, tell me again how the scant possibility of maybe getting a perfect shot into the engine grill from extremely close ranges comprises "effective"? Particularly considering that 70+% of the rounds fired statistically miss the target tank entirely, the engine grill comprises perhaps 5-8% the visible surface area of the tank from the rear aspect, and the only shots that have been demonstrated to actually kill modern tanks that way were fired by rounds with 80+ mm RHAe penetration of energy, meaning that the GAU-8 would have to be... how close to be equivalent in delivered kinetic energy, now? Oh, right, the GAU-8 only delivers sufficient kinetic energy to perforate: Now, I suppose maybe I did not understand your definition of "effective". Perhaps you consider "effective" to mean that a weapon can kill a given target only when using <300m-range, rear-quarter shot into a tiny spot on a potentially moving, potentially hull-down target situated in among ground clutter, where gun dispersion statistically requires >600 rounds fired onto the target from under 300 meters, all the while right in the heart of engagement of every ADA system known to man. Rounds required calculated by live-fire flight testing hit rate percentages from earlier in the thread, multiplied by the relative size of the engine grill compared to overall size of tank. Pretty sure the number of rounds that can be fired between 300 meters and ramming the tank is less than 600 rounds; this would mean multiple passes would be statistically required. But, sure, if that counts as "effective" in your book, then I concede: by your definition, the GAU-8 is effective against modern armor. On the technical side, you may wish to read up on the difference between "fluid" and "ductile". For that matter, super-high-speed x-ray video of HEAT warheads detonating are out there on the web, and you can in fact SEE that it's not a fluid; it in fact breaks up into multiple particles. You can also SEE that the armor spall is comprised of particles, not a fluid. "Behaves like" a fluid. Not "is" a fluid. "Behaves like", as in "turns into small particles which move out of the way of the penetrator, like you would expect a fluid to do". If you want to get all semantic about it, metals "behave like a fluid" when you punch an awl through them at 0.000001 kilometers an hour using a hydraulic press. Some of the material "flows" out of the way of the awl point, because METAL IS DUCTILE. There's nothing "magic" about KE penetrators or HEAT jets; they do not "turn metal liquid", they just push it out of the way, EXACTLY THE SAME WAY A KNIFE BLADE OR CROSSBOW BOLT DOES, they just do it in a much more rapid timeframe. Oh, and ceramics are not used in tanks due to their thermal durability. They are used for the same reason they are used in SAPI plates: because they are very hard, and because they very effectively absorb kinetic energy by dispersing it through their structure. Ceramic armors are *designed* to shatter. That's what makes them so good; they shatter fairly uniformly and absorb a TON of energy in the process of shattering. That kinetic energy has to go somewhere; ceramics divert it into breaking apart the internal bonds in the ceramic. Also, the shattered remnants are highly abrasive and serve to erode and break up the projectile. This even applies to HEAT warheads, because HEAT "jets" are, in fact, just a type of projectile. A super, super fast projectile indeed, but they are nothing more than extremely high-velocity long-rod penetrators made out of rather soft metal. They are not plasma, they are not liquid, they are not molten, and their penetrative abilities have nothing to do with "melting" or "burning" anything.

Horse hockey. It absolutely WAS the debate. Shift goalposts much? My argument was explicitly stated as a) the A-10 serves well in COIN, but is not needed for it, that b) the A-10 cannot survive in a near-peer threat environment, and c) In situations where the A-10 would have to kill tanks, either it's low-intensity and there are few tanks, meaning a tactical aircraft can easily carry enough ATGM to kill all of them without resorting to gun, OR the threat environment is so high that the gun cannot be employed at all; ergo the gun is useless against tanks By the way, that DShK you red-herring'd up would just as easily kill the A-10 at it would kill a COIN A/C, because the COIN A/C would be using ATGM or LGB or similar from well outside the range of the DShK, as we have pointed out numerous times. 12.7 MG fire will easily kill the engines of an A-10, so once again, it's a fool's errand to employ the gun when there are other tools that can do it from outside the heart of the AD envelope. The near-peer threats of the world don't disappear just because you don't want to consider any conflict in which an AD weapon more sophisticated than a ZU23 is present.

You are either the world's biggest troll, or have no idea what you are talking about. Possibly both. Look, whether the penetrator of an APCR has the same L : D as an APFSDS (and no, PGU14 does NOT have anywhere near the L : D of M919) is not the issue. APFSDS has a tiny aerodynamic frontal area, and therefore, low drag. APCR has a huge aerodynamic frontal areal, and lots of drag. Also, less parasite mass on APFSDS (sabot is lighter than metal APCR cup), so the APFSDS has higher initial velocity. Even assuming the aluminum APCR "cup" is the same mass as the sabot petals, that only means they have the same energy at the muzzle. The APCR STILL has a huge, full-bore shape. It is NOT aerodynamic. Same mass and initial speed, but larger frontal area (and a crap-ton of form drag from the low-pressure area at the base of a conventional "bullet" shape)= more drag= less speed=less energy on target= less penetration. Versus APFSDS with same mass, same initial speed, way less frontal area= way less drag= much more speed= way more energy on target= way more penetration. 25mm Bushmaster firing M919 APFSDS perforates roughly 80-100mm RHAe at 1000m range. PGU14 perforates around 50-55mm at the same distance, even when counting the forward momentum of the aircraft (the numbers are straight from PGU14b tests). GAU-8 just isn't as awesome against tanks as it's made out to be. This is really, really basic physics here. I'm sorry that you feel the need to wildly back-track and retroactively correct yourself (by which I mean, "correct" everyone else) just because you were called out for saying something as patently ridiculous as "GAU-8 fires new APFSDS rounds", but you're not going to convince anyone that obsolete APCR are somehow superior to modern APFSDS. It's frankly pathetic how you're trying to justify your stance with such BS. "GAU-8 totally has new APFSDS, so it rocks! What's that? GAU-8 DOESN'T have APFSDS? Oh, uh... what I meant to say is that APFSDS is inferior, because *reasons*, so GAU-8 is totally bestest gun." It makes you sound like an idiot. The idea that slower projectiles designed with 1940s technology and construction techniques are somehow magically superior against modern armor than high-velocity APFSDS is... well, laughable. By the way, long-rod APFSDS does NOT "melt" armor. The armor does not "turn liquid". It is eroded (you know, like, ground into dust?), as is the penetrator rod. Even the penetrator jet of a HEAT round is NOT, in fact, liquid or molten. There's a reason all modern high-performance tank rounds are APFSDS: it works better than shooting a big, slow solid shot or APCR. Also, ceramics perform JUST FINE against relatively low-velocity projectiles. Guess what's used in small-arms protective insert (SAPI) plates? Yep, that's right. CERAMICS. For the express purpose of stopping military rifle-caliber bullets with average impact velocities ranging from extreme highs of 975 m/s (5.56mm at the muzzle) to lows of 590m/s (AK47 at 300 meters). If ceramics were only effective against "super high speed" projectiles, they would not be the material of choice for defeating small arms projectiles at velocities well under your alleged "1200 m/s" threshold. Arguing that GAU-8 is effective because it MIGHT penetrate a tank in certain perfect circumstances is like saying we should get rid of the TOW on Bradleys because it's already been demonstrated that 25mm can (sometimes, in extreme cases) penetrate tanks. I mean, all you have to do is get behind and within 300 meters, then hit in precisely the right spot. Simple, right? With absolute seriousness, I can say that it is significantly easier to sneak an IFV around and behind a tank without being detected and destroyed, than it is to get an A-10 into parameter for that "perfect" GAU-8 run without being detected and shot down by MANPADS (or even the AA HMGs on the tanks themselves!). But you won't hear me suggesting we stop buying TOW-IIB and Javelin, just because "cheap, simple, reliable Bushmaster can kill tanks!" You're kind of being an argumentative luddite.

The GAU-8 is a poor choice for killing tanks. I have no doubt it can, the problem is that it cannot reliably kill tanks. By the testing against even measly M47 and T62, it was found that it only had a so-so chance (4-10% per pass) of killing a tank, even against the weakest of tanks. That number is only going to get lower when facing more modern tanks. And anyway, it's completely academic! Whether it is physically possible for the round to damage a tank or render it combat ineffective means absolutely nothing, if the gun system cannot be put into parameters to put the shot on the target. Do you really think that you're going to regularly find platoon or smaller groups of tanks with no MANPADS (IE, no infantry support) anywhere nearby? To put the GAU-8 into parameters to MAYBE make a gun kill on a tank, is to put the A-10 WAY inside parameters to ALMOST CERTAINLY be killed by ground fire from any modern military. I'm sure a Macedonian phalanx could M-kill an Abrams if they got close enough to jam the engine intake with their pikes, or like... stuff a sword down the gun barrel for a K-Kill... but you don't see me arguing that it's a feasible way to take them on. :doh: Sure, against insurgents and third world militaries with few tanks and no meaningful AD an A-10 can kill tanks with the gun, but against that kind of small assortment of undefended tanks, any tactical aircraft capable of carrying ATGM could kill them at leisure anyway. F-16 with Maverick would do just fine. AH64 with Hellfire could kill a dozen of them without even needing to go back to re-arm (not even A-10 can say that). Oh, and the penetration for M919 APFSDS 25mm from the Bushmaster on the M2 Bradley is significantly better than that of 30mm PGU14. M919 is, after all, a subcaliber APFSDS with a fairly high L : D ratio, much better optimized for penetrating armor. It also loses velocity much less swiftly, so it's effective range is a lot further. GAU-8 is stuck with full-caliber, unaerodynamic, heavy (therefore relatively slow) solid AP shot. No discarding sabots for aerial guns.

Even *if* we assumed that were true (and it is highly doubtful), it is moot. Good luck getting a gun run onto a tank column where there is an SA18 with every. Single. Infantry. Squad. In. Every. SINGLE. BMP. That's not even taking into account goodies like the 2S6, SA15, and other mobile, brigade-and-below ADA systems.

I was more or less focusing on the use of the A-10 for unconventional combat, simply because against a near-peer like Russia, as has been pointed out, the A-10 just wouldn't even be able to play. It couldn't fight low because of the huge prevalence of effective MANPADS, and it couldn't fight high because of effective mobile radar SAMs and the fighter threat. Moreover, its cannon isn't effective against tanks, and the most useful weapons in the anti-armor role (CBU97/105 and similar) can be just as effectively employed by F-16, F-35 and the like (more effectively, if you count "gets to target alive" as part of the criteria).

Yes, Afghanistan is difficult terrain for mounted maneuver. So? The only reason patrols in Afghanistan are ever outside the fire fan of supporting artillery or mortar is because a) Afghanistan is, all in all, a pretty low-threat environment, and b) when faced with a fairly low-threat environment, guys get lazy and complacent. M777 and M119 howitzer are helicopter transportable. M252 and M224 mortars are man-packable. An infantry company worth it's salt carries it's company mortars and two rounds per rifleman. An infantry company that is lazy does not. Lazy companies need air support when faced by irregulars armed with small arms. Companies with integral mortar fires are capable of laying an immediate, thick barrage of extremely lethal 60-81mm fires within 50-70 meters of their own positions on demand and will almost never actually *need* CAS in COIN. You can put the same lethality of fire (against field fortifications; better against personnel due to multioption airburst fuzes) and far better suppressive effect (due to longer duration of fire) with 10-16 mortar rounds compared with a 300-round GAU-8 run. The mortars are far more responsive than even the best CAS, too. Mind you, a company can carry 250+ mortar rounds without any motorized transport and adding not more than 7 pounds to any individual rifleman's load (yes, I know, every ounce matters; I get it. Those 7 pounds are more valuable in a firefight than *almost* any other weapon they could carry) In theory, you might want CAS against targets that your organic weapons could not handle, but with modern ATGM, there is very little an infantry company is just straight-up not capable of handling, up to and including tanks. I suppose they would need heavier fires to deal with heavy fortifications in the style of the Maginot line? Anyway, for what CAS *is* needed, there is very little reason that a dedicated COIN light attack aircraft (or indeed any of the PGM-enabled fast-movers) could not accomplish 95% of the tasks A-10 does; a light COIN aircraft has the advantage of costing 1/7th what an A-10 does in operational costs, while the fast-movers have the advantage of actually being useful in other roles and in actual AD threat environments.