He thought he was a wit, but he was only half right.
I think your poorly informed/ biased friend heard the story about how vulnerable a P51 could be as a mud mover. One well placed shot in the radiator could bring it down.
The A10 is designed to be fighting low to the ground and under fire. Even a lucky hit with a stinger or RPG would not bring this plane down because of the engines being separated the way they are and with all redundant systems it has on board. One engine only would still have the pilot being able to fly his crate at least to friendlier territory. That one engine shot up pic that Doogs showed is saying enough.
There is NO way a single assault rifle bullet will bring down an A10…period.
One more thing… The A10 is not a tank buster but a CAS plane. It can bust tanks but is not designed solely for that purpose.
Just my semi educated 50 cents there[:)]
Richard
Agreed, no need to win this argument discussion. The person is incorrect in his assumption.
Lots of what if’s here. I guess that since there are an infinate number of variables anything COULD happen. i.e. if a round went into the compressor wheel of engine 1 and caused damage similar to any solid FOD and IF the turbine wheel of said engine happend to come apart due to the damage and fly into the other engine. The possibilites are infinite. That being said the POSSIBILITY of that happening is next to zero, so you are both right.
Oh and you don’t even need a rifle or AAA/SAM to bring down any modern jet aircraft just a few large avian friends.[whstl]
For a WWII ground attack plane the Sturmovik was tough, but in 43 and 44, the Russians were barely able to keep the Sturmovik units at full strength. Losses were very close to outstripping production and they were producing lots of them. They gave the Germans hell by burying them in sheer numbers.
The A-10 is in a completely different league. It might be the toughest combat aircraft ever built.
Bill
Everyone knows Warthog pilots like to show off to their girlfriends.
When he sticks his head out of his open canopy…lol…takes his helmet off to give her a salute…lol…and begs a sniper to give it to him between the eyes…lol…happens all the time…can’t get enough recruits to fill the void…
Ah, gotcha, i had this image in my head of warm beer, thats just nasty.
No you don’t, Chris. You are a very bright young man.
Which makes it a 229!!!
I’d like to see one in RLM 71/72. With those really big tires.
thats obsurd, an m-16 round, if this aircraft could be taken down with a single on even 20 5.56mm rounds then the airforce wouldn’t be using them. a-10s a specificly designed to take fire and keep on giving and so no single failure (short of the wing falling off) can bring one down.
'nuff said [H]
There are a few combat aircraft out there that the fabled “golden BB” might get, and I stress the word might. There are so many redundancies in modern combat systems that this possibility is nearly non existent. The A-10 takes redundancy to the extreme in a simple, practical manner as well as being build like a tank to protect from ground fire. I agree that that single 5.56 round would have to come through the side of the canopy and take put the pilot, the canopy being the only place to my knowledge where a critical “system” is vulnerable.
Quantity has a quality all its own…
It just happens that I was talking to a gentleman who’s son is an F-16 pilot in the US Air Force. He told me how an F16 was actually shot down by rifle fire when the pilot was strafing the bad guys. He said the pilot was trying to help out US troops that were heavily outnumbered somewhere in Afghanistan and was flying low while working the area with his gun. No missiles were fired and no heavy machineguns were encountered, apparently just AK47’s. As mentioned before, the A10 is heavily armored and can take more punishment than an F16 but looks like either one or several .30 cal rounds did the job.
Like I said before all it takes is a good hit to the compressor…engine stops on an F16 and you have an expensive glider that will eventually loose to gravity.