Translation: expect more US troops to be deployed to the Middle East.
The Pentagon is deploying 300 airmen and 12 A-10 combat jets to the Middle East in early October, according to the Indiana Air National Guard.
The six-month deployment from the 122nd Fighter Wing is not specifically part of President Obama’s fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, but the airmen and jets could provide air support to troops battling ISIS on the ground.
“I don’t know of a time in Blacksnake history we have taken this kind of aviation footprint forward,” said Col. Patrick R. Renwick, 122nd Fighter Wing commander, in a statement. “The A-10 ‘Warthog’ is uniquely suited for the Combatant Commander’s needs, and the Blacksnakes are the right team to bring that capability to combat.”
A-10s are essentially flying tanks: that ‘air support’ thing is typically ‘close air support.’ Warthogs are aboust as subtle as a depleted-uranium round in the face, so wherever they’re going, it’s going to be somewhere where you want that. That means supporting ground troops.
This is just a thing that is.
Moe Lane
PS: I suppose that we could be putting the Warthogs at the service of somebody else’s ground troops. …Whose? The Kurds? Because if we’re sending the ANG units there, that’s just more American troop buildup in Iraq anyway.
Been expecting this, it’s the only way to get rid of all that armor that the Iraqi army handed over to Isis. But it is an increase in the size of our footprint in Iraq.
” “The A-10 ‘Warthog’ is uniquely suited for the Combatant Commander’s needs, and the Blacksnakes are the right team to bring that capability to combat.””
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My military acquaintances swear to me that the path to promotion nowadays lies in superior marketing skills. Specifically, you need to be able to make O sound like Hannibal.
I’m thinking that this line – the skill that went into it, its effectiveness and verve – is what we get in trade for military competence when marketing becomes king.
That would be the same A-10 that was deemed outdated and headed for the scrap pile? I guess that assessment is no longer…operative.
Its been heading there ever since I left the service, all the way back in ’95…
If we could just get the world to stop going up in flames every 5 years or so, we could get rid of the thing.
But there is an inconvenient truth to the A-10:
It works really, really well, even if the Air Force, lobbyists and military contractors want something newer and flashier and spendier(that flies much higher).
Yes, they’ve been pushing for an F-16 CAS platform since I was in F-14’s back in the late 80’s/early 90s. That’s like sending a hipster to clean out your septic tank. Freaking AF fighter mafia.
Indeed, it is that same aircraft. Isn’t it funny that the weapons we see used in all these conflicts are the ones the DoD hates?
F-22? We don’t want that. Too expensive. Too unproven. Let’s throw another billion at a Joint Strike Fighter that doesn’t perform ANY role well.
A-10? Well, it’s just soooo vulnerable to missile fire. We can’t use it in a modern combat situation.
Oh wait, someone’s shooting at our thin-skinned helicopters, and our jets can’t stay on target for 10 seconds. What do we need? Oh yeah…that old, slow, Warthog that can loiter over target all day.
Figure the odds.