In his article, War against ISIS moves A-10 jet from cutting board to front lines, James Rosen discusses the United States Air Force war on the A-10. Rosen’s piece begs the question: where would we be now if the USAF had been successful in their war on the A-10?
While the title refers to the war on ISIS, Rosen focuses on the war waged by the USAF on the A-10. Rosen does not call it a war, but those in the fight to save the A-10 have been fighting a war on multiple fronts with the USAF since the summer of 2013.
It was in August of 2013, that the fight for the A-10 became public when Arizona Senator Jeff Flake first confirmed the USAF’s dirty little secret: the A-10 was going to be the target for cuts in order to pay for the F-35. Flake, not known for his intellectual prowess, has only succeeded politically for his record as a fiscal conservative. So, armed only with the understanding that the mothballing of the A-10 would save money, the witless Flake casually answered questions about the A-10’s demise on the James T. Harris radio show out of Tucson, Arizona.
Flake’s hapless crew begins damage control
Within 24 hours, Flake’s hapless crew began damage control as Harris’ large listening, began to process the implications of Flake’s admission. Flake’s group threatened to “squash” the reporters at the Arizona Daily independent if the publication did not remove an article about Flake’s faux paus. They failed and by September, what had been a fight by a handful of USAF insiders against the stealth acquisition of the A-10 budgetary landscape by USAF brass had turned into a full scale war.
In September 2013, A-10 crusader Senator Kelly Ayotte questioned the USAF on the 2015 POM. That document showed that the A-10 was the only platform on the chopping block.
“You only gain major savings if you cut an entire fleet,” Gen. Mark Welsh, Air Force Chief of Staff, said in a September 10 interview with the Air Force Times. “You can cut aircraft from a fleet, but you save a lot more money if you cut all the infrastructure that supports the fleet.”
When directly asked about phasing out the A-10 fleet by the Air Force Times, Welsh declined to comment on specific aircraft, but everyone knew what aircraft was in the crosshairs.
Fat Amy waiting in the wings
That hypothetical question is important in a review of where we have been and where we are going.
When former USAF pilot Tony Carr, publisher of the popular military website, John Q. Public got on board in the battle – it was “Katy bar the door” for the USAF – and they couldn’t bar the door against the throngs that came forward in defense of the A-10.
When Congresswoman Martha McSally, herself a former A-10 pilot, who as Rosen notes, provided Close Air Support to troops in Afghanistan, took up the A-10 fight in the House, the war was full-blown.
Bloodied but battling bodies continued the fight, but there were at least casualties on the USAF side with – what appeared at the time to be – the ruined career of General James Post for his treason comments. News of Post’s fall were exagerated and later, we would learn that he was returned to the fight and rewarded for his sleezy tactics by USAF brass.
McSally stepped up and blew the generals out of the water, with her precision questioning and passion for the platform. She won a short term reprieve for the Warthog. Make no mistake; it was an important victory but it was only one battle front in the war dubbed “Operation Destroy CAS.”
Fat Amy, the name given the F-35 by pilots, was waiting in the wings like the ugly bridesmaid at a small town wedding, who knows that some poor sap in the female deprived community would eventually have to claim her as his own. Her daddy, Lockheed Martin, would make sure that she was put into use no matter how useless she might be on the poor sap’s farm.
Where would we be without the A-10 champions?
“Because the A-10 has been specifically designed for the close air support mission based on actual combat experience, it is capable of flying low and slow enough to properly correlate targets with the ground controllers in direct contact with enemy forces. The plane can linger over the battlefield far longer than other planes in the fleet and carry far more ammunition. That means the A-10 can reliably support our troops on the ground long enough to eliminate threats. Other planes are only able to drop a few bombs before they are forced to fly away to re-arm, often leaving the troops unsupported when they do,” Dan Grazier, of the Straus Military Reform Project with the Project on Government Oversight, told the ADI last week.
Just last month, Ayotte stated precisely: “… efforts to prematurely divest the aircraft will reduce the quality of close air support available and put lives at risk.” Lives. The lives of the men and women we sent to fight the unspeakable evil known as Daesh.
The Project On Government Oversight, has revealed time and time again to what lengths the USAF will go to sell the A-10 as unworthy and ignore the worthy beneficiaries of its mission. However, it is the beneficiaries of its mission that keep the champions fighting. They are not fighting for an aircraft; they are fighting for its mission.
They continue Operation Destroy CAS
Besides ignoring the troops, the USAF will continue to ignore the evidence that the A-10 is vital in the fight with Daesh.
The Air Force Times reported last week that Gen. Mark Welsh, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) admitted that there are “critical manning shortages, and the Air Force risks burning airmen out.”
“We can’t reach in someplace and grab more manpower to fix a problem anymore. And so we have got to figure out different ways of using our people in a more efficient way or we will wear them out. And if we lose them, we lose everything,” said Welsh at the Atlantic Council in Washington, according to the Times.
With that in mind, it is incomprehensible that the USAF would dream of pulling crews off of the A-10 to train on a plane that will not be ready for any fight years from now. Yet, it appears that the USAF is intent on staying the course.
General Carlisle said recently the USAF is going to delay the A-10s divestment. What the General really means is the USAF is going to delay shipping the last A-10 to the boneyard, but start divestment as soon as Congress allows them.
In addition, in FY17 the USAF expects to pay-off Indiana and Missouri with F-16s in the short term for their representatives’ agreement to allow the divestiture of the A-10. Ultimately those states will be rewarded for their betrayal of the ground troops with F-35s.
Congressional staff members for these states confirmed the deal in spring of 2015, when they said “whatever approach will secure the F-35 as quickly as possible is our direction at this point.”
“General Carlisle’s comments soon will serve as another example of what we call “situational integrity,” stated former A-10 pilot, Lt. Colonel (ret.) Tom Norris. “It will become apparent his comments were misleading and false when the President’s FY17 budget (released around February next year) calls for the divestment of two A-10 squadrons. This will serve as another example to the American taxpayer that our USAF leaders are not being upfront about their efforts, no matter what the cost, to divest of the best CAS platform ever built. It will also be telling how in one minute, the members of Congress from Missouri and Indiana can support our Ground Troops, and in the next minute — when their F-16 payoff was approved by the USAF leadership — reverse course and divest of the best close support aircraft available. Given the A-10 fleet is fully paid for and sustainable through 2040, the American taxpayers should demand not only the best CAS platform for our Men and Women on the Ground, but also one we can afford.”
Looking back over the past two years, Harris concluded, “Watching the fight for the A-10 is like watching the Theater of the Absurd. We are all reacting to outside forces that operate strictly for their own purposes. Their actions can only make sense when you follow the money. Those puppet masters do not send their sons and daughters to war. No, they send them to the universities they endowed with the profits. As a capitalist, I respect that, what I don’t respect is the dishonesty. I object to the actions of their flakes like Flake. If the Senator’s son was a JTAC, he would not remain a puppet. We have fought too hard for too many good men and women to lose hope – to start to believe we can’t win. We will win – we have to. The fight against “Daesh” shows us that we have no choice.”
Related articles:
JTAC on A 10: “the sound of don’t mess with me”
McSally Defends A-10, Post Captured In USAF Propaganda
NDAA Should Prevent A-10 Mothballing, Performance Should Seal It
A-10’s “Devastating” ISIL News Defies USAF Propaganda Campaign
McSally Outs USAF On A-10, F-35 Operational Testing
A-10 in play as Senate Appropriations Committee drafts FY 2015 NDAA
Ayotte: If the Air Force cut their acquisition failures they could save the A-10
Air Force brass taken to task for A-10 mothball plans