Why not build planes like the old p38 and p 51 as ground scrapers?

Joshuah T

In a world that is fought with your military strength, what sense would it make to bring back a WW II era plane? It is a great thought and a good point that you made about the cost effectiveness though. Our Air Force, Navy and Marines have the best fighterâ€™s in the world, and the Military is starting to make more jets multi-role verse just one role. The A-10 is more expensive, but tell a ground pounder (like me) to relay on a piston driven prop job that does not have the fire power of the A-10, we might as well stick our head between our legs and kiss our *** good buy. The AH-64 Apache is the best at ground support though, this is the most feared Helicopter in the World, even the Insurgents in Iraq run and hide when they finally see them, (you do not even know the Apache is there till it is too late) so yes more money, more expensive, but better for the soldier that is on the ground fighting and is in need of heavy fire power from the Air so that they may live and fight another day. BUT MOST IMPORTANT THEY LIVE TO GO HOME AND SEE THERE LOVED ONES! CAN YOU PUT A PRICE TAG ON THAT? If you think you can put a price tag on the life of a Soldier, get the F**K out of my Country!

wraeth - PHA

Whats wrong with the A-10? It seems to be doing quite well in the roll it was built for.

Aegis of Freedom

We have A-10s, Apaches, Cobras, C-130 gunships, etc. that now do close air support. None of them are very cheap, but in today's world, cheap means vulnerable. It costs a lot of money to give our brave soldiers the best protection we can.

rotorhead

Piston engines are high maintenance and unreliable compared to jet engines, also not fast enough or can carry enough payload. The A-10 meets all our current needs as a ground pounder. With its vast array of weapons choices, there is virtually nothing it can't take on. Don't fix what ain't broke. On top of that, Marine, Navy and Air Force are also all capable in engaging ground targets with a lethality never seen before.

b52gflyer

As a retired B52 pilot, I would hate to see B25's, B26's and B29's brought back to service today. They were state of the art in World War 2, but are junk today. The old P38, P51 and the F4AU were wonderful airplanes in their time, but they cannot exist in the world of shoulder fired missiles, they have no Electronic Warfare ability, they cannot climb fast enough, they are not pilot defended, when their engine blows they become nose heavy and crash, and mostly they are as out of date as the M-1 Garrand.

Ain't technology grand. We now have the A10, F15 Strike Eagle, the F16, and the FA-18A. They are doing the job fine. So are the helicopters.

As an added thought 1981-1982 were two years the United States was not at war with anyone. More military died during that time period than any two years in the Iraq war. Source is Yahoo News, Fox News, and CNN.

Great idea but will never work.

thegubmint

That what A-10s and OV-10s, plus gunships like the Apache are for. The A-10 especially is better than the old aircraft you mentioned for ground support mainly because it carries a much larger payload than the old prop planes. The P-51 was actually a fighter that got switched to a ground support role, but it could only carry about a fifth of the payload an A-10 can.

Gunships aren't sitting ducks, they're extremely fast and agile. The helicopters that get shot down are the crew carriers and cargo ships.

THE WRAITH OF GOD IS COMING

The A-10 can do these missions much more effectively.

mindworms

man, these planes would be the sitting ducks more than helicopters. those planes were good during WWII, but they still relied on the airbases.
they carried funny ammounts of ordnance when compared to the todays planes, and they would suffer from air defences. not to speak about their 0 /ZERO/ chance to succed in the tank busting.

There are more sotisphicated planes today, even the prop ones, which are doing these missions the best.

The time is a key element in the counter insurgency, and the jets are much faster in response time, while helicopters are much faster in comparison to the mustangs with their avaiability at 15 minutes :) the plane has to fly off the base, helicopter has its base right behind the frontline or at the outpost. Call them, get them.

mnbvcxz52773

I don't think a prop plane could handle a gun heavy enough to bust tank armor today.

Even the A10 with jet engines has to enter a dive to keep enough velosity from stalling out from the recoil.

Payload has already been mentioned, but to back it up, A10s would take out 20-30 tanks in one sortie. A prop plane couldn't carry that payload.

A10s were full of holes, by guns larger then machine guns, and still were able to fly. A prop would have fallen to pieces.

And compared to most planes, the A10 is cheap in cost and maintenance. And since survivability of the plane would be a major factor with props, it cheaper to replace several parts of a plane, then train a new pilot because you lose so many.

booman17

The A-10 Warthog is doing that now and is very effective in it's role.

As Real As It Gets

Mostly because the technology the enemy uses would pick them apart too easily. They aren't fast enough (overall) to adequately defend themselves.

Stephen H

If your ONLY concern is MONEY, then might I suggest you look into the maintenance requirements associated with aircraft piston engines as compared with jet engines? Aircraft piston engines are FAR more intricate and maintenance-intensive than a jet engine. A piston engine is FAR less dust-tolerant than a jet engine, and available flight-hours would be heavily restricted due to the hours of repair needed. Then let's talk fuel. Aircraft jet engines use JP5, a compound not too far removed from Kerosene, it is relatively cheaper to distil than aviation gas, and is far safer to transport and store than av-gas. Then let's talk payload. It all boils down to thrust-to-weight ratios, and a jet engine has a piston engine beat hands-down. the more powerful the engine, the more payload (Think weapons) you can carry to the target. What the A-10 can deliver in ONE sortie would take several by anything BUT a heavy bomber. The jet engine also allows the carrying of targeting systems, threat detection and suppression electronics, and armor, (The A-10 has a titanium "bathtub" to protect the pilot that would comprise a majority of the combat-load for the piston-engine planes you advocate) and communications gear that didn't exist during the days of the piston engine aircraft. What is the cost, (In training-dollars) of a pilot? Prettry doggone high. Now, if you reduce the # of available flight-hours due to aircraft intolerance of the elements, you reduce the return on those training-dollars. You further reduce the effective return on those training-dollars if you reduce the effectiveness of each individual sortie due to the reduction in payload compared to the payload of a jet plane. You astronomically compound the loss by increased pilot losses due to the reduced survivability of the aircraft you advocate in the modern battlefield environment. THAT is why we do it the way we do it, because the way we do it WORKS! You need to do a little more reading and research, son, and a LOT more thinking.

Mr_Biggelsworth

There are tons of reasons.

Theyre not as safe, not as accurate, too slow to engage/ disengage, easy to detect and shoot down/ not as energy efficient, etc.

wichitaor1

A better idea would be to bring back the A-1 Skyraider, which had a much larger weapons payload and could take more damage.

The Piper PA-48 Enforcer was built in the early 1980s, from the P-51 design, as a counter-insurgency (COIN) aircraft. But the Air Force never bought it and only four prototypes were ever built. The Air Force never really liked "mud mover" aircraft and the Army helicopters are much more versatile than fixed wing aircraft.

conranger1

Too easy too shot down with quad Anti-Aircraft systems.

michinoku2001

I think you have a good point. However the mentality of military procurement is always to go for the high-tech and expensive system. A robust piston engined plane armed with rockets and chain guns would be just fine for engaging the taliban, and probably more likely to get it's crew home safely than any helicopter. A plane like a twin otter or sherpa would keep flying even if shot full of holes, but a helicopter goes down as soon as it's tail rotor is damaged.

starbrite.

In the Korea war 51s was used as air support
covering downed jet pilots in bad guy country.A plane would chew up N. Korean soldiers.foll wed by his wing man a minuet later.when a chopper
arrived for the pick up the planes covered chopper till he was out of danger.
Yea we need prop jobs and stop messing around
wasting our money

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