Air Force Caves, Agrees To Delay A-10 Retirement Indefinitely

From The Daily Caller:

The Air Force is indefinitely doing away with its plan to retire the A-10 jet, a move that seems both inevitable and shocking, given the aggressive steps leadership has taken to get rid of the aircraft and the fierce push back they received in response.

The remarkably high demand for A-10s from commanders is almost universally cited among critics of the A-10 decommissioning process. More details will be available when the Pentagon’s 2017 budget plan to keep the bird is sent over to Congress for consideration.

Members of Congress have long criticized the Air Force for refusing to acknowledge that the A-10 has provided incredibly useful in the fight against the Islamic State.

And the ground pounders across the military cheer!

While the enemy quivers in their caves.

Hoorah!

Congress Moves to Save A-10 Warthog from Scrapheap

From Breitbart's Big Government:

Efforts in Congress to save the Air Force’s A-10 Warthog from the scrapyard and move it to the frontlines of the war against the Islamic State bring together an unusual pairing of support.

The Warthog, a close air support aircraft, has proven highly effective in protecting friendly ground troops, while decimating enemy ground forces and equipment, during the wars of the past decade.

A unique platform that does a thankless job of saving ground troops and killing tanks.

In a Shift Pentagon Deploys Obsolete, Unnecessary Weapon to Fight ISIS in Syria

From DoDBuzz via H/T at Ace of Spades HQ:

In a change of course, the U.S. Defense Department on Tuesday announced that it deployed A-10 attack aircraft to Turkey to conduct strikes against the Islamic State in Syria.

The Pentagon had already sent the low, slow-flying gunship overseas to attack ISIS targets in Iraq. An A-10 squadron was reportedly sent to undisclosed bases in the Middle East last fall to join the air campaign against the terrorist group, also known as ISIL.

But the U.S. military recently deployed more of the aircraft, known officially as the Thunderbolt II an unofficially as the Warthog, to join F-16 Fighting Falcon and other American military planes at the Incirlik airbase in Turkey .....

The Air Force has proposed retiring its fleet of almost 300 Warthogs over the next several years to save an estimated $4.2 billion a year and free up maintainers for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a stealthy multi-role fighter jet and the Pentagon’s most expensive acquisition program.

At an average cost of $180,000,00 per plane, the savings of $4.2 billion dollars will buy you 23 F-35's vs. 300 A-10's.

A-10 Scrapping Justification Exposed

From Navy Matters Blog:

DoD Buzz website quotes Air Force Gen. Mark Welsh as saying that scrapping the A-10 will save $4.2B over five years (1). This apparently is the Air Force's justification for letting the A-10 go. Of course, the real justification is preserving the Air Force’s buy of F-35’s. Be that as it may …

Let’s check that cost savings number out, shall we? Since the purpose behind letting the A-10 go is to preserve the F-35 purchase, let’s do the math and see how many additional F-35’s we can purchase (or save from cuts) for $4.2B.

At the moment, a reasonable cost for an F-35A is $150M. I know there are some of you who believe that the F-35 will eventually cost $9.95 each once we reach super-serial production buoyed by an upswell of foreign buyers. Well, a check of the actual budget requests shows a much higher cost. Will the cost come down someday? Perhaps, but we’ll deal in the here and now.

So, $4.2B / $150M = 28

There you have it. Scrapping 300 A-10’s will buy (or save from cuts) 28 F-35’s.

28 Friggin F-35's.

BS!!