Tiny Giant

Thermonuclear warhead give off some nice mushroom clouds and the MOAB's pretty impressive also. But as far as what the A-10 can carry, I think the Mark-84 will make the biggest boom. Although CBU-87 is exceptionally fun to watch when it goes off.

I believe Ervani is working on a LO-MAC A-10 squadron. He's in the NL, so I'm not sure what demographic he's looking for (I haven't read the post in a while). Your can find him on WT and here every once in a while.

The only difference between an A-10 and an OA-10 is that at some point during the process of obtaining and delivering the aircraft, some contracts person decided that (on paper) some of the aircraft would be designated OA-10 and some simply A-10. There is no physical difference between the two. If you look closely at the paperwork that accompanies each aircraft, some will say OA-10, some won't.

It's definitely Tallil. Dice, where have I seen those pics before? Oh yeah. :) The EOD pic is from the early days right after the base opened up during OIF.

PRecog, Happy to Help. I've just begun leaving my A-10 Warthog Discussion "hole."

MrMudd does an amazing job at explaining some of these things to everyone around here. I was hoping to be able to add to his answers about defeating the Roland and ManPADS specifically. The Roland is an amazing system and extremely simple to operate. During OIF there were many rumors that the Iraqi military was putting civilians into the system with no training and forcing them to operate. In fact, it's so easy to use that I got into a working Roland (once upon a time) with no instruction and was able to achieve a simulated optical kill on an A-10 flying around on the range. No radar emissions and he never knew I was there. However, the A-10s were able to kill us many times over (simulated, obviously). Here's what they did. As MrMudd said, the best thing they could've done was to use teamwork. We were able to take out entire flights with a single unit (Rolands will most likely operate with more than one, though) until they came in with a minimum of three aircraft from different directions. The sneak attack from behind hills was the worst for us. Two A-10s would manuever just out of tac effective range and we would concentrate on them as they were head-faking an attack on us. After our attention was focused on them, the third would pop over a hill and get an IR Mav off on us. Great tactic and it worked almost every time. Another way to go after the Roland is from high altitude. Rolands cannot look straight up (even their optics can't). Because of this, there is a funnel where you can attack them from the top. The biggest problem with this is that most Rolands operate in unison with several others. Therefore, one Roland's "blind spot" is in another Roland's engagement envelope. As far as getting out of the envelope, dive. Dive, dive, dive. The A-10s on the range that day couldn't get away from us until they leveled out about 100' AGL. I'm glad I wasn't flying that day, we had many minutes of gun camera footage to show them in the debrief. Kill, kill, kill. It's very easy with the Roland system. Remember, the slew rate of a Roland is well over 90°/sec and they can switch instantaneously between radar and optical tracking, even after the missile has been launched. This makes the employment of chaff not as useful as it could've been otherwise. I'm not sure if LO-MAC models this (it would be difficult to), but residual chaff from previous employments created a huge problem for all radar weapons systems, including the Roland. This is definitely an advantage for the A-10 with its huge radar cross-section. ManPADS. A ManPAD System can be easy to defeat if you know it's there. Therein lies the problem. The pilot that gets shot down will never see the ManPAD System that does it. However, his wingman may. Very few of the older ManPAD Systems have any kind of IRCCM logic built into them. What this means is that any flare put out by the A-10 before the missile leaves the launcher will deny acquisition and after the missile leaves the launcher will decoy the missile. However, there are some mare advanced missile on the market these days (SA-18, SA-13) that do have IRCCM logic and are much more difficult to defeat. Here are some basics. There are very few IR missiles today that can get a successful lock on to anything when looking within about 30° of the sun. What does this mean? Attack from the sun and depart into the sun if you can. Additionally, ground clutter and clouds will have an extremely detrimental effect on the acquisition of a target. For flare usage, your position and movement in relation to the missile system is also on note. If have a high crossing rate, the flares will not be in the FOV of the system as long. If you are heading directly toward a system, the same principal applies because your apparent motion is that of a climb. When you are flying directly away from the system, you apparent motion is a dive. Therefore the flares will stay in the FOV of the threat system longer and provide you more protection. However, realize that flying directly away from the system exposes the most IR energy to it. Bottom Line, there is no "right" answer to defeating a threat. Do a little research and figure out how it works. The way to defeat will most likely be apparent. Hope this helps a little. Not trying to step on your toes MrMudd.

The Hog was designed not only to be simple, but to be cheap. When it first came out, there was just an iron sight in it for weapons delivery. Radars cost money to buy and maintain. Pilot's eyes are already paid for. Just as Yojimb0 said, the plane's made for CAS and does not have much use for radar, or at least didn't back in the 70s. It may have more use for one now in the new fighting environments (ground attack radar, that is) but I don't think it'll ever get one. The Hog can however, use the Pave Penny pod to detect laser energy and will soon have a fleetwide ability to provide laser energy themselves for guiding weapons.

Yojimb0, The flares can be put in the wingtips or in the gear pods. We normally use chaff in the wingtip because the vortices help spread them out, however, in Afghanistan flares in the wingtips were the standard load since there wasn't any radar threat to speak of. Even in OIF, half the wingtip buckets were flares. And the gear pod flares only look like they're coming out of the tail. They're actually coming out just behind the main gear.