manual loaders are only as good as.. the manual loader.

Which is still better than your average tank autoloader.

the Challenger has received few updates in comparison to the other tanks and its to the point where some in the Royal Army are thinking of even replacing it with another type!

Nothing formal about a Challenger replacement. Given Challenger fleet has shrunk to about 200 operational tanks, I doubt the Brits will be pursuing another indigenous tank.

the LeClerc was one of the first to offer new types of sensors that are now being used in other tanks, it also has a lower profile than most western tanks and closer on par to the Russian ones all while maintaining a turret bustle. Its no surprise that the Korean Pink Panther and Japanese Type 10 modelled their tank after the LeClerc

Never read anywhere that Type 10 or K2 was based on Leclerc. K2 is using a Rheinmetal gun and German components such as engines.

K2 Black Panther is a flop. It’s meant to complement heavier K1 but so far is nearly as expensive as the Leclerc.

K1 is based on M1 Abrams and is the mainstay South Korean tank with some 1,500 produced (K2 planned production was a mere 400 to replace old Pattons).

Losses in Grozny were due to pure incompetence. Same would’ve happened to battalions of M1 Abrams or Leo 2s too.

Black Eagle was roughly same weight range as T-72/-90 and T-80 (mid-40 tons).

T-95 was no where near as heavy (up to 55 tons – similar to Leclerc) as the 60+ ton M1, Leopard 2 and Challenger.

And both Black Eagle and T-95 have been cancelled and more T-90s procured (itself a modified T-72).

No weight has been published for T-99 as far as I am aware.

I’m not sure what Leclerc would bring to Russians in terms of extra capability.

I don’t actually agree with the current USAF policy of shifting away from Army support.

CAS has been an integral component since and including WWII (the “Cab Ranks of P-47s and Typhoons”).

Since it’s inception in 1947, the USAF has been trying to get away from this.

And USAF seems to get it wrong far too often:

1. 1950-early 60s – too much emphasis on technology (speed, missiles) as opposed to basic air maneouvring.
2. 1950-60s disdain of CAS and loss of such capabilities gained in WWII.
3. Overemphasis on A2A combat when in fact destroying enemy on the ground is best solution (at least the Yanks learned from Israeli experience in 1967).

1970s-80s USAF actually learned something from Vietnam and Israeli experience and it became a superbly balanced force.

Now they seem to be regressing to a 1950s mentality.

And it’s not the first major mistake they’ve made post-1991. Abolishing Strategic Air Command resulted in massive problems with integrity of nuclear deterrent forces.

They ended up having to recreate SAC in the form of USAF Global Strike Command which was created in 2008 after a couple of nuclear incidents that revealed massive training and discipline issues in nuclear assigned units following abolition of highly professional SAC in 1992.

The Army had made similar mistakes in 1970-80s, it reemphasised conventional warfare at expense of losing COIN capability and had to relearn lessons of Vietnam the hard way.

Mark my words, the US will find itself involved in some sort of nasty COIN affair again and everyone will be wishing that they had those A-10s to support them.

It would appear from previous reports that Georgia’s IADS was not 100% operational with many advanced unit in storage. Georgian training also seemed subpar as did overall C3.

Toys are useless if they’re in a warehouse or the people using them are badly trained or systems and procedures aren’t in place to enable the toy to be used as designed.

Finally I think most of the RuAF losses in Georgia were friendly fire from ground based MANPADS.

The losses incurred were also mainly MANPADS.

A-10s did not operate in ‘reasonably’ contested airspace over Yugoslavia in 1999. They faced no threat of interception by hostile aircraft. After the second day of the war, when the JVR lost six out of the seven MiG-29s it sent up to try to fight & didn’t even manage to shoot at a NATO aircraft, let alone damage one, it made only token efforts to intercept NATO aircraft, scrambling single aircraft when then refused battle.

As stated the only countries that are able to “reasonably contest airspace” are the major powers – Russia, India and China. Anyone else does not have capability to contest airspace – they lack numbers, EW capability, redundancy in systems etc etc.

Remember the A-10 was designed for tank busting in extremely heavily contested airspace i.e. WWIII v Soviets.

However it was assumed that the US and co would use relatively sane tactics such as fighters providing top cover.

The whole A-10 saga reeks of the same stuff that the cancellation of C-27 (and in past C-7) and reduction in numbers of C-130s does – basically the USAF doesn’t want to be in the business of providing air support to US Army.

And this issue started in the 1950s and by the 1960s the US Army was looking at buying it’s own G-91s for ground support because it got no joy from the USAF.

1991 was a long time ago, & if you remember, even then A-10s operated in the zone with the lowest chance of interception. Times have changed, & risk aversion has increased.

The threat assessment seems to be based purely on a war against China – in which case you might as well ramp up F-35 and LRSB and scrap all those ancient B-52s and very old B-1Bs, F-15 and F-16s and F/A-18s. After all a J-10 v F-16 fight between equal pilots is anyone’s guess. So much for increased risk aversion.

In the real world, most smaller airforces and IADS have shrunk or disintegrated due to collapse of USSR and it’s vast military aid and in many instances civil war.

The A-10 is still viable in most situations – as has been proven by real life combat since early 1990s. In fact it’s proven more useful than F-15s or F-16s.

But the USAF doesn’t want to get it’s hands dirty doing Army support work. They know in real life that the F-35s will see as much A2A combat as the F-102 and F-106 did. And they know their most likely opponents won’t be able to put up any sort of competent fight.