I’ll just put it this way:
The #1 performer in terms of fixed-wing CAS in Afghanistan has always been, by a WIDE margin, the F-15E.
Not the A-10. Not the AC-130. Not even the B-1 or F-16.
The Mudhen. The rest don’t even come close.
1.) It’s a fast mover, ready to go whenever you need it. If you’re on the ground and in trouble anywhere in Afghanistan, you can have precision CAS in 30 minutes or less. On top of that, with two external fuel tanks and its CFTs, once it arrives on-station, it can stick around as long as you need it to.
2.) It carries a formidable array of weapons, and it’s never alone. A single flight of two F-15Es carries two 2,000-pound GPS-guided bombs, 6 500-pound GPS guided bombs, 4 500-pound laser-guided bombs, 1,020 20mm rounds, 2 AMRAAMs and 2 Sidewinders. From heavily reinforced positions to wayward UAVs, the Strike Eagle’s got it covered. The same flight comes with 2 WSOs, so you don’t need to have one plane focus on flying and shooting while the other focuses on flying and lazing, as you do with the A-10.
3.) The Taliban is scared shitless of it. One of the CAS techniques the F-15 provides is the “show of force pass.”
This means diving down into the dirt, screaming between mountains at treetop-if-they-had-trees level, engines howling like a wrathful God tearing a sinful universe asunder, and turning over sideways to show the enemy every little toy you’re carrying that means instant and inglorious death. More often than not, this is enough to send them running.
4.) When bombs are too much, it still has its 20mm. Yeah, it’s less precise and it might need more passes than the A-10 to finish the job, but that’s okay, because I guarantee you the guy who’s shooting an AK at the good guys is infinitely less effective with 20mm exploding all around him, showering him with dirt, a promise of hot death to follow.
You’ll note that “being good at flying slow and having a slightly better gun” doesn’t count for any of this, except a little bit for #4.
The A-10′s great. Its BRRRRRRT is a huge crowd pleaser for our guys and in the dark humor sense for their guys. But it is intensely overrated, and its shortcomings are apparent even in an exclusively air-to-mud war.
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