My Love for the Bringers of Chaos---Episode 1 The A10-Warthog

I have always been fascinated by military machinery, I get a special kind of turn-on just watching them. The creativity behind each design, the wit, the physics, the engineering and the genius that's employed just to bring these designs to life just fascinates me above and beyond. Maybe it's because I was brought up in a barracks, maybe because I loved war movies as a child, or maybe it's just too much Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. I would never know…

So I decided to start a series, talking about my favourite war tech. I hope it fascinates you as much as it does me.

Introducing the A-10 Warthog

Eeerm, no it's not a genetically engineered warthog as you may presume.

It's a plane.

It's a plane that turns me on, from the design to its extremely efficient abilities. I have got mad love for this beauty. On the list of alternate life plans I have should in case the rest fail, there's one where I would sign a contract to join the US Airforce for life as a combat pilot. Just because of their beautiful planes, and this one is one of it. I think I should drop some specifications so you get what I mean by “Extremely Efficient Abilities”

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First off, the real name of this beauty is The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II… scary right!!!

The A-10 was designed for close air support (CAS) of friendly ground troops, attacking armoured vehicles and tanks, and providing quick-action support against enemy ground forces. It entered service in 1976 and is the only production-built aircraft that has served in the USAF that was designed solely for CAS.

There is no better feeling of assurance you get as a soldier, than the feeling you get when you are charging the lines and the A-10’s got you covered from up above. This beauty is a monster when it comes to CAS.

It comes equipped primarily with a 30×173 mm GAU-8/A Avenger autocannon.

Image - Wikimedia

Remember those toxic radioactive waste we learnt about back in school, which are gotten from nuclear fission and fusion. Well, they turned them into armour piercing bullets and the A-10 comes loaded with a 30mm auto cannon that fires these things.

It's really badass right!!

What’s even sicker, is that it fires at an astonishing rate of 3900 bullets/ minute. I don’t think anybody or anything wants to be at the end of that firing cannon. It’s a beast. Let me break down how it fires, it fires 50 rounds during the first second, then 65 or 70 rounds per second thereafter.

The gun is accurate enough to place 80 per cent of its shots within a 12.4 m diameter circle from 4,000 feet (1,220 m) up above, while in flight...

12.4 m is basically 3 average cars parked in parallel. So from 4000 ft up in the sky, it can hit anything within a 3 parked car diameter with accuracy of 80%. That’s scary…I think I’m too scared to continue talking about how scary it is.
So I’ll just round up with, it also has missiles (Some of which are laser guided) and it can go as fast as 706km/hr.
So try not to be around or on the defending side when this beast is operational. Because it’s fast, and it accurate and its just brilliant engineering…
Thank you.

References

Wikipedia
Other references are found within the Wikipedia page