Judging by my hazy recollection of the ancient but fine computer game A-10 CUBA!, it’s also an experience to fly—I’ve even talked to a retired USAF pilot who said it was much more fun to fly than the F-15. So the modest status has some compensation.

And knowing about military matters is important poster #20. It takes 2 seconds to look stuff up on google. It still amazes me the number of print, blog, TV and radio journalists/commentators get basic military facts completely wrong. With today’s information access, there’s just no excuse anymore.

I’m always embarassed when my fellow liberal/lefty mates display huge frakking ignorance about things military; I don’t think it’s actually helpful towards winning elections

Oh come the frak on. Do we really want Majikthise, Corooked Timber, etc. to hold off posting anything until they’ve given an affirmative answer to, “Is this good for the Democrats?”

Frak that.

Can anyone quote the actual regulations about women in combat?

If you ask me, part of the reason the AF dislikes the A-1o is that it, painfully, reminds them they are an independent service which exists in a support role.

They haul supplies to the Army, and for themselves. They need those supplies to give air-support to the Army. Strat-bombing is done (one hopes not) by technicians who sit in silos; so that justification is also gone.

One of the things which was done as a propaganda trick, in part I think to please the AF, was to call the 117 a fighter. It is, actually, either an Attack craft, or a Bomber but not a Fighter since it can’t carry any air-to-air weaponry.

The A-10 is an incredible plane. Watching one fire a burst is incredible. The plane slows, a sound like tearing cloth is heard and the smoke falls away. For someone who fights on the ground, it’s a wonderful thing.

Lindsay askes the question because technically women are prohibited from specialties which are combat related. No infantry, no Engineers, and even no Artillery, though these days Arty is rarely close enough to the front-lines to be in any real risk of direct confrontation.

The flip side is, jobs like MP, interrogator, truck-driver, mechanic, and the like. All of which, in the present day (which goes back to at least Desert Storm) put them in positions where they will be face to face with the enemy.

TK

Despite being “true blue” he was convinced that the close air support role could better be performed by the Army than the Air Force. Part of his reasoning was that it would always be an Air Force orphan—something that has largely been true.

The Army’s response to the Air Force’s less than whole hearted commitment to close air support wws the development of the attack helicopter—a lousy idea whose chief virtue for the Army was “we control helicopters”.

Close air support has always been one of the most dangerous missions for pilots. Part fo that is the obvious vulnerability to ground fire, but problems of high speed maneuvering close to the ground, low level navigation, and a real danger of shooting oneself down are major factors.

The ones who are good at it are Marine Air—but it is their major mission.

I saw the results the next day. If you want vehicles (trucks and APCs, in this case) chewed up into little pieces, the A-10 comes in really handy.

Re comment #22, my impression during my time in the Army (2001-04) was the same—the rules against women in “combat positions” are still on the books but are being defined away bit by bit.

Nowadays, in the coverage of the second US-Iraq war, we’re seeing all sorts of stories about US women doing things that an ordinary civilian would think of as combat, and we’re not hearing anything about forbidding women from serving in combat. So to anyone who has been paying attention to this issue for a while but hasn’t been following it obsessively all that time, the interesting question is: how could that law have gone away without lots of very loud debate? And if it hasn’t gone away, then what’s going on? What are the real restrictions on women in the US military, if any?

(The answer, as far as I can figure out, is that legally US women are still not allowed to serve in combat but that over the years this law has been interpreted more and more narrowly; not all roles in the US military are open to women, but women are now put in positions where they shoot and get shot at.)

Which, combined with the very low altitudes at which the A-10 operates, and the need to aim the whole jet at the target, makes it a rather more convenient target than the high-flying supersonic jets with their laser-guided bombs and fire-and-forget weapons.

The A-10 is supposed to be quite sturdily built, with IIRC a titanium bathtub around the pilot compartment. But still…