A number of A-10C Thunderbolt II attack aircraft have arrived at Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Scotland on their way back to the United States.
The ten A-10C Thunderbolt II attack aircraft belonging to the Maryland Air National Guard and assigned to the 104th Fighter Squadron landed in Iceland at the start of the month before proceeding to continental Europe.
The aircraft were in Europe to support the U.S. Army’s Swift Response exercise.
🚨 NEWS | A number of A-10 Warthog 'Tank Buster' low-altitude close air support aircraft are arriving in Scotland. The aircraft are following a KC-135 tanker that's bringing them to Glasgow Prestwick Airport. pic.twitter.com/YHk9OiHtQ8
— George Allison (@geoallison) May 30, 2022
“Swift Response, an annual U.S. Army Europe and Africa-led multinational training exercise, taking place from May 2-20, throughout Eastern Europe, including the Arctic, Baltic Sea, and Balkan Peninsula regions.”
In addition to flying from Norway and North Macedonia, the A-10 aircraft were deployed to forward operating locations in North Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland to execute their ‘Agile Combat Employment‘ capabilities.
According to a press release from the U.S Air Force:
“The A-10 is the U.S. Air Forces primary low-altitude close air support aircraft and is the first Air Force aircraft designed specifically for close air support to ground forces. These capabilities provide essential support to the joint force land component and afford the U.S. military flexibility in projecting power in highly contested regions.
Approximately 9,000 service members from 17 Allied and partner nations participated in the exercise, including approximately 2,700 U.S. Soldiers and Airmen.
USAFE-AFAFRICA’s ability to support and integrate with U.S. allies and partners continually strengthens solidarity, collective resolve, and ability to adapt in a dynamic warfighting environment.”
I’m genuinely interested in how the US manages to maintain Reserve aircrew at sufficient skill levels to operate such complex systems, particularly when layering in the tactical application. I don’t think we could even dream of doing it with our reserve forces. We can barely create reserve Infantry capable of being mobilised within 12 months (that is not a slight on the Army Reserve by the way, just highlights the actual difficulty of having forces who are current, competent and sufficiently qualified.)
Yes, I remember last year when the government had the defence review announcement – saying they wanted to make the army reserves more readily available in the future. Hope they can move forward with those plans.. So important now we have a smaller regular force of personnel.
Looking forward to Trooping the colour this coming Thursday. Should be impressive as always.
That’s been the plan since 2010 and ‘Army 2020’ – still not managed it, so I’m not holding my breath. My experience as a Reserve Adjutant was that any attempt at professionalising the Reserve was incredibly difficult because it wasn’t backed up by legislation. The main problem though, was the original plan was to build up the Reserve first and then cut the Regular component (actually it was technically a cut in the funded reserve component, but planning to actually recruit up the the funded level) – but the treasury demanded the cut in parallel.
Pairing with regular units rapidly became unravelled when regular units who had lost 30% of their manpower were still getting tasked at the previous levels (for tasks for which you couldn’t mobilise the Reserve component) and were being asked to support reserve tasking on top.
In the end, the Army fudged it by creating specialised Infantry (which enabled manpower to be redistributed to Light Infantry units without cutting the number of battalions) so that they could meet the desired output again. If it couldn’t be made to work over the last ten years, I’m not sure what will be different this time.
It would be interesting to know the actual deployable number of Army Reserve troops?
Life was somewhat easier years ago, the Army was significantly larger, the technical complexity of equipment was more basic, both factors meaning you had a steady small trickle of guys leaving the Army, who wanted to sign up for the TA, mixed with enough civilians joining (many more practical minded back then) to keep the TA viable, if fed a mix of rather worn kit to use!
Today, the Army is far smaller, so the numbers feeding over to the Reserve are proportionally smaller.
There are far fewer ‘practically minded’ youngsters who are interested, the sophistication of modern complex systems mean training and continuation training is a really vexing issue, especially if you expect people to deploy operationally..
What’s the answer? In my opinion, the answer probably is to include a couple of years of active AR service, as part of your contract when you sign on in the Regular Army.
If we did this we should be able to meet an expectation of a 30,000 Reserve, with 25,000 deployable…
It would obviously take a few years to take effect and feed through, but it would be a good long term fix.
I don’t think it would work very well. Firstly, people generally don’t leave in a good rank range to fill the Reserve Pids – way too many Majors, and WO2s, hardly any Ptes etc. Secondly, in my experience the most successful reservists are those for whom the Reserve has always been a part of their life. If you force people leaving the regular Army (or RN / hundred year experimentalists) into the Reserve forces, you’ll end up messing about their transition back into civvy street and have a lot of very disgruntled people.
I think a better solution would be legislating to make reserve service more attractive and have more expectations on both attendance and job security from employers. And mobilisation for short term tasks.
My son was a keen Army reservist, but was treated so badly by the ARMY that he gave up after three years. He was fit strong 6ft2ins,been a shooter, rifle and shotgun,most of his life had worked as a gamekeeper, and very keen on the ARMY but they treated him like dirt. The turnover of young men in his area was very high, and no wonder.
Sorry to hear that JF. That’s not acceptable anywhere.
Tell him to apply to the Royal Marines – they know good candidates when they see them.
Thank you for the detailed reply. Interesting read.
Ah, the “Cap Badge Mafia ” in action.
Got to keep those battalions.
Interestingly Daniele it came from a very good intention that was built on a false (but reasonable) assumption. I was in Army HQ at the time and the assumption was that at some point in the next 10 years, the Army would be asked to grow again from 82k. That’s much easier if you maintain the Unit structures in place because the junior level is easy to train and replace. It’s the Coy and Bn HQs that take time to develop. You can’t grow a Maj, a WO2 and a Csjt etc over night.
It was nothing to do with cap badges, it was to do with forward planning on future force structures. It was (ironically) the same logic that went into Army 2020 – we could have cut regular infantry unit numbers and had the Reserve sat alongside. But it was deemed better to have the same number of smaller units that could be grown for operations.
Morning Bob.
Thanks, that is really interesting information, from the inside too.
It seems to be a recurring theme as previously we also had the 2nd, 4th and 5th Divisions in the regional ORBAT in case they were needed. I remember them being described as “Regenerative” Divisions, when some just scoffed as their being another chance to keep a 1* or 2*
Do you know what HQs thoughts were on the lack of CS and CSS for the infantry that remain, which continues today and is getting worse?
Yes. It was seen as sub-optimal, but Op ENTIRETY forced the structure into a combat first approach. We could get away with fewer CS assets in particular because HERRICK didn’t require them and you could more easily generate extra CSS from the Reserve. I think there was probably a lot of optimum bias as to what could be delivered by technology to reduce the need for a tail.
I’ve been out for about 5 years now, but from what I understand from mates still there; the plan pre-pandemic was to increase the Army by building the required CS and CSS for the level of Combat Arms. However, the funding available for the SDSR in the end meant that what they actually did was reduce the Combat elements in line with the available CS and CSS.
Which is painful because I remember being in meetings (as a relatively junior staff officer) where the aim was to balance the books (eg save a £bn by Christmas) so that we could show the MOD that we were a safe pair of hands (vs the RN and RAF who were absolutely spanking their budgets at the time) and we would thus secure the funding needed to grow. That’s why I get very frustrated by the Army detractors on here claiming that the Army can’t run itself. Army HQ has been trying extremely hard to run itself well for many years to continually have the rug pulled.
When was the last timr the Army had it’s numbers increase though? And isn’t that a lot like the old Soviet plan of have the officers in place and build up off that?
That’s just repeating old spin, standard MoD/HMG Tosh.
The 2010 SDSR review talked of the reserves being expanded and plugging the gaps after the cuts. Where are they?
Cloud Cuckoo Land..or maybe the Land of make believe…thats where..
Oh well.. Oops. There is always hope. We have to believe that anyway.
Having just read BobAs excellent detailed post expanding on mine, I don’t have any.
Its a bit like a flying club, the aircrews keep flying hours up and combat ready status. any deployments are planned and the training carried out accordingly.
It’s hardly a “flying club.” The Reserve and National Guard Forces are totally integrated under a “total force” concept. For example, the National Guard is solely responsible for the air defense of the US and provides 100% of the fighter force, to include ready alert crews. Reserve Forces fly about 25% of the daily missions of the Air Force. Without belaboring the point, it’s rather ridiculous to compare the US Reserve and National Gurad Forces to a “flying club”. The level of professionalism and skill of these forces are comparable to active duty personnel of any country, including the UK.
So this is my question, assuming that is true, how do they do it? I’m assuming that these people have full time jobs and this is in essence a side hustle. Doesn’t it take 2 years to become a fast jet pilot (if you had no breaks in training)? And then how do they maintain currency on top of a day job? Maintenance of the airmanship skills alone would be hard. They must be seriously dedicated people with very understanding families.
Their full time job is the National Guard. These are not reserve units.
National guard is a reservist force…
don’t think that’s accurate , they may have a cadre of full timers, but the vast majority are reservists.
I work with several natl. Guard people. The government has laws on the books for companies to give them time off no nonsense. You do not want to be on that naughty list of employers giving a Natl. Guard person grief or hardship about maintaining their high state of readiness. It’s a partnership and businesses are part of that partnership. Or god help them.
is a good question Bob. I wonder if ex air forces jet jocks are assigned to the ANG if they wish to be on the reserve once retired from the Air Force?
Correct – thanks.
The Federal government buys the equipment (though often they are hand-me-downs) and then the individual states have to pay for the ongoing maintenance and salaries until the Guard units are called up by the Federal government at which point it starts paying the expenses.
Bull. They get new kit. These are airforces run by the states. They have the latest n greatest.
They received P51 Mustangs and P-47 Thunderbolts after then end of WW2 as jet fighters were being procured, the USAF F-16A & F-16B when the airforce acquired its F-16C’s then later F-16C & F-16D when the USAF reduced its number of active squadrons. The F-15B previously stationed in the Netherlands when retired and briefly for six years B-1B when numbers were being reduced during Iraq/Afghanistan before being replaced with JSTARS and Stratotankers. They do often get semi-new transport aircraft like Hercules as the USAF uses the air national guard to carry the weight in that role.
Most Air National Guard pilots are commercial airline pilots in their day job though the mechanics tend to be employed full time.
You should be aware that there are guard units that currently fly F-22s, F-35 and B2. These are not some ragtag units.
And you should be aware that each of the 50 states and district of Colombia is mandated to maintain an air national guard unit, they arent full of the latest stuff by any margin. The Virginia 192nd also dont possess their own F-22, in 2006 they were merged and gave up their own planes to become reserve pilots to the 1st fighter wings 149th squadron at Langley. Unlike other ANG units where you can train to fly any aircraft from scratch on joining, the Virginians take in former F-22 pilots, they arent allowed to train their own new F-22 pilots.
My point being that some guard units operate the latest equipment in the US arsenal. It’s easy to cherry pick and find a unit that doesn’t have the latest piece of equipment, something like the F-22 for example that is admittedly, in short supply for even the active duty units. But doing that wouldn’t be an accurate representation of the nature of guard units overall which I believe the original poster was tying to to better understand how they fit in the US military.
The first units to get the F15EX are ANG units. Also, some of the first units to get the F35 were ANG. It is by design, it’s not hand me down nor convenience.
There are significant debates within the US government about keeping the National Guard, including the ANG, at credible strength and relevance. The notion being spoken here of hand me down and only second rate gear would never fly in the US.
Yes, they do get hand me downs, when it makes sense. But it’s not the standard. The US Marine Corps also gets a lot of hand me down gear from big army. The US Navy meanwhile got second hand Hornets from the USMC as they were the fastest to adopt the F35C. Watcherzero is reading into this a bit too much.
CORRECT.
Since they are often commercial pilots as well they usually get two to three times the flight hours compared to the active component and most are usually ex active USAF
Bingo. There are actually a number of stories that mention how highly experienced reserve and national guard units are, often more so than the active duty units for this reason. A large percentage of the two are made up of former active duty personnel who have years of experience. For these people, the training they do is maintaining and improving the knowledge they’ve built.
Bob, are you sure we could not mobilise any members of the Army Reserve in less than 12 months? I am staggered by that point.
The Army Reserve is held at 12 months notice. There are exceptions – high readiness Reserves such as UKSF (R) and 4 Para for example.
However, what would happen in a national emergency is that the notice time would reduce through a series of orders. But that assumes that you have notice. In a genuine national emergency like an immediate existential threat or declaration of martial law we could conduct full mobilisation quickly.
However, the result of 12 month NTM and the fact that it is entirely voluntary is that very few Reservists are actually fully deployable at any time. They don’t, for example do the full MATTs package and they don’t have the full primary care package so won’t be UTD on certain vaccinations. In general it takes about 3 months from mobilisation to make deployment ready and under normal circumstances you need 9-12 months notice of mobilisation. That’s why on HERRICK reservists we’re mobilised for a full 12 months for a 6 month deployment.
I believe there is now a process for short term mobilisation for things like Short Term Training Teams but the notice period is the same.
Thanks Bob. I served in Camp Bastion in 2008/9 and 2/3 of our FP Coy, including the OC, were TA – and very good they were too.
I had no idea it took 12 months from flash to bang to get them out on ops.
I remember reading of a US AF reserve pilot, a young man, with his own elderly B-52 bomber. He was the main flyer of the aircraft. “Part owner” will have positive benefits I am sure.
Correction. Forget the reserves, we can’t even maintain a basic army anymore. Our MBTs are being reduced to the bare minimum, Warrior upgrade cancelled, Ajax is a clusterfuck, AS-90s in a pitiful state, and I don’t even want to continue from there.
All that is true. But we need the Reserve Army more than ever now that the Regular Army is being cut to 73,000.
Maryland National Guard (and any state for that matter) maintain a high state of combat readiness. They are considered more than “reserve forces” and often used for front-line combat work and thus, are treated just like any other serving combat enabled member.
impressive. would 10 x A10’s only need one tanker to cross over? nice message for the bear.
Nice and clear.
The T-62’s should be pretty trivial for an A10….
Seems the t62 is pretty trivial to anything.
The main reason the us airforce has been looking to take these out of service is they would be easy picking for air defences, but considering Russia has likely the most advanced such systems that the west is likely to go against and they appear to be highly ineffective, maybe some rethinks are needed
Good points.
Agreed, especially as the USAF plan is to use F35s in the CAS role instead which looks like a misuse of resources to me – taking out APCs and trucks with a $100m aircraft?
Not sure cost is so much an issue, I doubt the A10 are that much cheaper, considering they must be pretty pricey to maintain. They just do a better job at providing CAS in areas where they can operate due to their weapon load and time on station
A10s much better protecteced against ground fire, A10s designed to be survivable & repairable from the outset. Repairing f35s is astronomical & a long, slow process. Surely a misuse of precious F35s unless from distant stand off range.
it would need to be at stand off range, since the f35 gun is of limited use due to lack of ammo.
Go look what 150 mill Typhoons have been plinking recently.
One tanker would be enough if they intend to route back through Greenland & Canada for example. Red Arrows transit to US that way without any tanker support.
Can’t see them crossing the pond in one go with one tanker. Not good if its fuel delivery system goes u/s.
Guessing they’ll be met with a second or possibly third tank from the US itself after they get a certain distance across the pond. You’ve got McGuire and Dover AFB’s on the east coast in New Jersey and Delaware respectively. McGuire having KC-135’s based there.
Are there any A10s at the Boneyard/in reserve?
As a defensive weapon could some not be gifted to UKR – Give the Russians a headache.
Thoughts?
My thoughts….no chance Biden would even countenance that.
Cool plane though.
There are indeed:
https://www.airplaneboneyards.com/images/amarg/amarg-davis-monthan-afb-a10-thunderbolts-storage.jpg
Sympathetic thought to be sure, but I would strongly suggest a proper (read: lengthy) course for UKR pilots before they jump in and turn the key. Some fundamental design differences between west and fmrly Sovblock aircraft (Su25).
As it stands, I would prefer more Switchblade-600s (the 40km AT variant equipped with a Javelin warhead) instead of more aircraft or even helicopters in the anti-tank role. Having a loitering munition that can reach 25-40km far without the danger of getting shot down is a massive game-changer imo.
We have this in the pipeline, I’m not sure if it is in service? No doubt a smaller version could be made available if required?
Team LM, led by MBDA, is unveiling its Fire Shadow Weapon System at the DSEI exhibition in London this week. The weapon system is being presented as a solution for the UK ground forces’ requirement for a low cost, all-weather, 24-hour capability to carry out precision attacks against surface targets which may be difficult to engage and time-sensitive.”
https://www.mbda-systems.com/press-releases/team-lm-launches-fire-shadow-to-meet-uk-mod-loitering-munition-requirement/
Boy, that’s one I haven’t heard of in a long while. No idea what the status of that Fire Shadow program is, but wasn’t it circular-filed into oblivion?
The Switchblade-600 I mentioned above is, unlike similar systems already available and still man-packable (~50lbs) meaning a 2-man team can reach out and touch an ERA-equipped T-series tank over 25 miles. That’s precision strike / Close Air Support at the company/platoon level without the need of fxd wg or rotary aircraft.
Re-roll battalion or company mortar teams with this or similar light systems and you have a true game-changing ability – where company teams can now safely engage armored formations that were previously the domain of battalion/brigade task forces.
I couldn’t agree more!
yes over 200 are in storage. many of the machines are used as spares recovery.
its an amazing place i had a tootle about whilst I was based at Davis Monthan.
maybe we should ask for 50 of em ..
For years the USAF have been trying to get rid of them and Congress have refused. Our tank buster was the Jag and performed extremely well at it.
loved the Jaguars …see them at Cosford taxi’ing around in teh AirShows …I dont get why none of them ever fly these days . 🙁
I really like them, but I also, unfortunately don’t think they’re right for us. Even with the updates the US are putting on them, the primary benefits are arguably better filled by other aircraft these days (it’s an emotive subject..!)
The aircraft is built around the main gun, which is impressive but these days isn’t going to kill much- even back in the day the USAF issued a “colouring book” to their A-10 crews which showed which parts of a T-62 they could and couldn’t kill. It’s really only good for straffing soft targets, infantry positions, and maybe IFVs. Not terrible, but most aircraft cannon will handle them.
You can hang a lot of ordnance off it. Modern ATGMs are getting smaller all the time,so less of an issue these days. Attack helicopters, MQ-9 can all carry upwards of 16 Hellfire/Brimstone.
It can fight down low (manoueverable, well armoured) like a helicopter, but has the endurance and speed of a fixed wing aircraft. But so do a lot of the new advanced helicopter/tiltrotor types coming into use now.
Ultimately, the airframes are old, unstealthy, and will give us another type to train and maintain that is really only good for one thing. We don’t have a big enough air force and pool of pilots to have specialists in a single type of combat, and I would wager that if we did, then SEAD/DEAD (aka Wild Weasel) would be the priority.
PS the colouring book is worth a read: https://imgur.com/gallery/fd4sK
I wonder how many of them 200 are actually air worthy without significant time in maintainance, I doubt many if any
The Mojove desert is dry ideal for aircraft storage. Many can be returned to airworthy status with a little fettling.
Thats assuming they were fully functional when they went there, and havent been raised for parts since. I am curious about storing in a dessert, as that normally sand blasts and destroys anything delicate.
No corrosion you see. Engines are out, all lines are drained and a special preservative pumped in and the use a white spraylat plastic coating parts of the aircraft.
Such a handy thing to have really.
Nice idea, but none of the ammunition/munitions that the A-10 uses are in service with Ukraine, and they will be all kitted with NATO-standard comms etc. That’s before you even get into thinking about training, maintenance, and training for maintenance.
It is significantly simpler to hand over artillery pieces and some ammo than it is a brand new model of jet aircraft with PGMs. Even then, the US left of the fancy targetting computer from their howitzers because it would’ve taken too long to get the Ukrainians up to speed.
Could UKR get the textron scorpion or even bae hawks? Would they be good in CAS and not seen as an escalation?
To be honest, I don’t know a lot about them.
But for my money, given the limited number of pilots, time for training, creating stockpiles of NATO PGMs in country, etc. I’d just send them Bayraktar TB2s and surplus SU-25s and Hinds for CAS. Keep it simple.
Once all this sorry mess is over and we have some hard data about how effective Russian AAD was (not just in shoot downs, but also restricting ops), Ukraine can review which of their CAS platforms were most effective and choose a western equivalent. I don’t think, long term, that they will continue with Russian equipment.
When its over …they may unfortunately have to …..
Bae Hawks too vulnerable to MANPADS & ground fire I would’ve thought.
Best for Ukraine just now is what they have been doing so far. Aircraft they can fly already and ones they can use easily.
They need artillery, rockets, drones that are longer range than the opponents. Also all the weapons given previously need to keep coming.
Situational awareness and general recon is vital. They need to know where the enemy is so they can judge when to take the fight and when to back off and move.
Ukraine is doing well and has made a smart move to attack around kerson while Russia is putting its efforts into the east.
Remember when it started. Folks saying Ukraine will fall in days.
I wonder what long-range weaponry we are supplying? Ben Wallace has been talking about arty for weeks but none has yet been supplied by UK.
UKR military infrastructure is mostly legacy soviet as far as I’m aware – which presents some hurdles when trying to integrate western weapons & systems. Not necessarily an issue for small arms, but maybe for an aircraft and other more sophisticated systems that need broader infrastructure and systems in place to operate/maintain.
This is part of the reason that a lot of the equipment donated so far as been old soviet stuff from east European nations.
Biden hasn’t got the nuts to do that.
How many Baryaktar drones and NLAWS can you buy for an A10?
Paul,
NLAW has an effective range of up to 800m at most; A10 can engage armour at much longer range. You are comparing apples with oranges.
Morning Graham Yeh. Just playing devil’s advocate. Perhaps a better question would be how many MAM armed drones can you buy for an A10?
warthogs should be going to Ukraine…they could do more good than in Maryland
Agreed. We’re allowing Russia to murder & devestate across Ukraine by our refusal to commit our forces & hold Ukraine back from being able to be more effective. Just because Putin expects everyone to pander to his wishes doesn’t mean we should. Still seems like we’re defending Ukraine to the very last drop of Ukrainian blood.