The Gulf War 1991 demonstrated to everyone how an air force can defeat the opposing air force, proceed to soften up the opposing army and finally slaughter that army’s retreat. That’s an exception, not a universal model, though.

There was also the Cold War with all those “two-week-war” expectations and air forces thoroughly confused what they were expected to do, in what order and what prioritisation.

Air and ground exercises are rarely well-combined, so the air forces are mostly unopposed when they claim that they need to defeat the enemy fighters and air defences first.
Army commanders can disagree – especially as the ultimate air superiority weapon is known to be a tank on the hostile airfield. Today’s fully motorised forces could advance hundreds of kilometres per day after breaking initial resistance. Which air force expects to get weeks for an air war and softening up campaign under such circumstances?

This reminds me of the artillery branches which got so occupied with its counter-artillery fight (~air superiority) that the infantry branches became worried and stressed the importance of mortars because arty was no reliable support anymore, stuck in its own arty_vs_arty battle.

Werent most of the aircraft in tactical airforces retirees from the strategic / those just not good enough anyway?

Its just not sensible to target enemy trucks until you’ve broken their airforce and any othere higher value targets, and if they’ve still got a valid interceptor force, its suicidal to try.

Granted, people are unpredictable.
On the other hand; how likely is it that an air war HQ would send those high end dogfighters full of high tech avionics out to hunt for simple trucks?
That HQ would bother about hostile fighters, hostile bombers, air defence components, bridges, bunkers, HQs and exposed combat formations. Truck convoys are a very unattractive target for high end aircraft in most terrains – especially if you assume some smart, disciplined behaviour and an intact hostile air threat warning system.

I say HQs wouldn’t send Typhoons, Gripens and Rafales on truck hunts regularly. That part of the air war repertoire would be neglected if there’s any kind of air war resource shortage (and we can bet there’s one in a defensive war).

The composition of the air forces guides the HQs to such a behaviour. The optimal behaviour under these circumstances would partially fall short of the capabilities of the Western Allies in 1944.

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/apkws-ii-hellfire-jr-hydra-rockets-enter-sdd-phase-02193/

The PG version, for “precision guided”, adds a seeker developed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace to the front of any version of an otherwise unmodified CRV7. The seeker uses a simple inertial guidance system though the midcourse, and homes during the terminal approach using a laser designator. Other versions offer anti-radiation seeking, or GPS guidance. Combining the laser seeker with the FAT warhead produces a capable long-range anti-tank missile that is faster and much less expensive than traditional platforms like the AGM-114 Hellfire.

A version of the CRV7-PG was also developed for special forces use, fired from a single tube mounted on a 6 x 6. In use, the weapon would be driven into the field and fired from behind cover, aiming at a designated location from a forward team.

oh and this

The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) is a developmental program to provide a laser guided missile which is compatible with existing Hydra 70 unguided rocket systems in service.

Overview
Where possible the system utilizes existing Hydra 70 components such as launchers, rocket motors, warheads and fuzes. The weapon bridges the gap between the Hydra 70 and AGM-114 Hellfire systems and provides a cost-effective method of engaging lightly-armoured point targets.

seems there is indeed many ways to precisely skin that cat!!

The rockets are area weapons, more so than the gun on the A10 and are meant to be fired in salvos (80 flechettes per rocket, up to 19 rockets per pod, often 2 pods carried for a theoretical maximum of 3040 flechettes) You aren’t trying to hit with a single rocket but with the spread of flechettes. In a similar fashion, the A10 fires sustained bursts to get its hits.

I wouldn’t say that attack helicopters are the best way of interdicting supply convoys, or even that Typhoon are, but neither are as hopeless as depicted, nor is the A10 as good.

A Typhoon needs to fly at about 3,000 ft to 15,000 ft in order to spot small mobile targets. That in combination with the need to focus on the ground (most are one-seaters) is not actually the description of a survivable behaviour in face of modern area AD, therefore I have strong reservations about the “Typhoon is more survivable than A-10 in A/G” argument.

The use of unguided rockets from an Apache at low altitude will not yield good hit ratios at more than 2 km range. Even a small angular dispersion becomes a problem at that range – especially against moving targets. The pods aren’t even movable iirc.

That is, if you can see your target from that position at all. Not every region looks is as empty as Arabian deserts are.
Less than 2 km range would be 30mm range, and there’s no reason for the assumption of superior Apache survivability at that distance. That’s basically the same as I said before, of course.

And why did you imply that I was wrong about Apaches not going to infiltrate deep into contested or hostile territory?
That’s been the development post-2003 if not post-1999. Sure, that Apache regiment was in a difficult situation over Iraq, but it got beaten up. There are many ways of beating them up over a European battlefield if they fly ahead of friendly forces. Flying low is no safe bet either, and it’s entirely pointless over all but concealed terrain (forests). Flying high (above machine gun reach) is an invitation for VShorAD.

I think I will leave this one with my view that the A10 might be better truck buster in the traditional sense than the Typhoon but there is more than one way to skin a cat and the Typhoon has more ways than the A10

The A10 may have simple avionics while those of the Typhoon are complex, but the Typhoon is designed for ease of maintenance. Something like a quarter of the requirement of Jaguar on the mechanical systems as well. Granted you could design a modern A10 for ease of maintenance, but you’ve still got five versus one and the five need battle damage fixed.

As for target evasion, that works as well (or better) against the A10. He’s closer so the angular velocity of anything he is looking at is faster. Plus he’s much bigger, easier to see and slower.

Pkill is often overstated with modern missiles, but they are getting better. 80% is a reasonable assumption except in severe countermeasure or weather environment. Plus Typhoon can carry up to 24 Brimstone, plus AtoA weapons.

Don’t forget the A10 was designed to operate against the highly integrated air defence environment of the Soviet Union / Warsaw Pact.

As for Typhoon, it’s what we’ve got, we ain’t getting anything else in this economy and that’s life, so we better get used to it.

As for the standard of journalism, it’s right up there with the standard of our politicos :-(

Modern armies have furthermore ditched the idea of infiltrating with combat helicopters over a modern conventional battlefield since ta U.S. Apache regiment got beaten up by obsolete Iraqi AAA (all but one Apache damaged and not operational for a while, the only other one was shot down – the “Iraqi farmer shot down U.S. helicopter with shotgun” story).

So no, Apaches would not regularly fly 50-100 km over hostile terrain to interdict truck convoys.

A 20-truck convoy would at best have ManPADS (and that would be the smaller part of its total precautions regarding the air threat). Most ManPADS are to date at an effectiveness ebb because of modern countermeasures (DIRCM). The only exceptions are the laser beam rider ManPADS (UK, Sweden).
An A-10 could be protected with a modern DIRCM, there’s no doubt about that.

- – - -

Back to the greater picture; the Typhoon is better suited to other missions that truck convoy busting, so it would most likely treat them at most as a target of opportunity on the way back.
This means that an important part of operational air war would not be covered, with subsequent adverse effects on the operational level of ground war (corps level).
We created a capability gap by limiting us ever more to few high-end strike fighters. The 2020′s NATO air forces will use F-22, F-35, Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen. None of them would cover certain missions that were self-evident just a decade or two before.
We’re going to lack the capabilities represented in Europe by Tornado IDS, Jaguar, AMX and Corsair II.

This column of trucks, would it by any chance have any air defence?

If so, you can forget using the A10 because its speed is slow slow it has to stay within the threat envelope much longer than Typhoon. I know it was designed to be survivable but that was 30 odd years and things change, using it even in contested airspace would not be wise. The days of diving in with its 30mm cannon are numbered, however impressive it is

Brimstone now has a dual mode seeker, is expressly designed to take out columns of vehicles and has some very clever software to allow it to do this and maximise its effect on target. it is also being developed in the Selected Precision Effect At Range (SPEAR) programme to enhance it even further.

You cannot discount Attack Helicopter either, equipped with Hellfire and/or flechette warhead CRV7′s which would shred the trucks tyres, fuel tanks and crew rendering them unable to move for some time. Plus if course is the 30mm cannon for brassing up anything that evades that lot. Its range is of course not as great as the Typhoon but that would not really be a significant factor in this type of battlefield interdiction scenario.

Then you can add in the LMM on armed UAV’s, GMLRS and even guided 155mm SMarT natures, again designed to take out hard and soft skinned vehicles.

You should not look at Typhoon is isolation, yes it might have as you argue, limited utility, against numerous soft skinned vehicles but it doesnt have to be the ultimate truck killer to stop supplies getting to their customers.

Your info on the GAU/8 is incorrect, for gatlings have a much reduced rate of fire in the first half second. The GAU/8 could fire enough .5-1 second bursts for the job.

Where is your 50% figure coming from? A single Typhoon would probably carry 12 Brimstone (more likely six plus two bombs). I’d expect at most ten hits, more likely eight. 70% is virtually impossible with such a loadout (18 Brimstone would not allow for the two important drop tanks) and 55% is the maximum.

A quick reaction by the truck drivers (such as driving into cover behind buildings or trees) could easily ruin Brimstone’s chances, as would driving in hilly terrain or through forests. An A-10 with a DIRCM upgrade could hunt much better in daylight than a Typhoon at any time.
Brimstone would also have a tough time discerning already hit targets from fresh targets, especially if launched from standoff range.

All that high tech stuff is expensive and unreliable, missiles never achieve the same lethality in wartime as in peacetime tests (example Stinger estimate before Afghanistan war: 90% probability of kill, observed results in Afghanistan: 60% hits). This is especially problematic with autonomous lock on after launch (one Brimstone mode).

And one problem remains;
Brimstone is a 24/7 munition and Typhoons avionics suite is supposedly capable of 24/7 A/G as well. There’s no reason to limit yourself to night movements only if you’re not safe at night.

I could swear I wrote about this particular problem of the “all weather and night” avionics in my blog once, but the search engine fails me.

Hellfire vs one person may not count in large scale wars (though I bet that it would happen) but then the need to positively ID hostile forces also goes away. If you’ve got a motorised brigade on the move then it’s going to be pretty obvious and you’ll attack from standoff range with what you have that’s designed to take out multiple vehicles from standoff range. In the case of the RAF, that’s Brimstone. Underwing ordnance is more or less equal weights for both A10 and Typhoon

Doing some sums on the A10 shredding the column with guns only, it has ammunition for 15-16 seconds of firing. It’s not likely to score 100% kills with less than a second per vehicle.

Finally, there is more to cost than aquisition cost. For every plane in the air, you need the same cost in terms of airfield defence, fuel, maintenance crews etc. While the A10 may cost something like 1/5th that of a Typhoon, if you have 5 more of them then you have 5 times the operating cost (if not more)

@admin:
You didn’t get me right. I was not writing about the attrition of the enemy’s truck inventory. It’s about the restricting factor on enemy movement. Typhoons are not prepared to achieve more than a bit harrassment against a moving brigade, even in significant quantities (dozens of sorties on this specific mission).
Corps commanders could make great use of an air power capability that forces the enemy to pause movements by daylight (hence my disrespect for 24/7 attack capability) and restrict himself to the 1/3 to 1/2 of the day with poor visibility.
It would also be of great value if he knew almost for sure that for example a hostile reserve brigade won’t complete a 100 km march in less than six hours.

The slowing down and restricting of hostile operational movements has many advantages. It offers new manoeuvre opportunities, it improves security and it can compensate for certain own shortcomings.

Bombing bridges, bottlenecks and such won’t suffice in many scenarios. Attack helicopters lack the mission radius, speed and maneuverability in many scenarios.

NATO air forces have a shortcoming in this area that’s hidden by peace and wars against 4th rate forces on open terrain, compensated for with superior quantity (instead of quality) and very old U.S. A-10 aircraft.

The Typhoon is a fighter that got guided weapons integrated in order to replace dedicated air/ground aircraft (Tornado IDS, Jaguar). That guided weaponry is mostly oriented at high-value targets (bunkers, bridges, tanks).

I think most people would agree with that I know I certainly do hence why I no longer really bother to read the rubbish in the mainstream press.

The discussion in the comments is good but a bit pointless either would be fine but if one wants to whack a convoy you need to find it first. Ideally this would be done by a Sentinel R1 or a UAV flying really high and then tasked to any suitable assets to deal with including your A10’s or Eurofighters. Another advantage Eurofighter will have in future is the fact that it should be able to use its AESA radar to find and identify its own targets in most weather conditions as well as at night. However admin made the best argument in my opinion toward achieving a mission kill rather than actually physically destroying the convoy of trucks or whatever the target is.

Sven, your point about low value targets is interesting but a truck has no value, only what it carries AND only at the point of use. The objective is therefore not to destroy the truck but to stop it carrying out its role, that is putting supplies in the hands of those needing them. this might be carried out by destroying the trucks themselves, attacking bridges, choke points, assembly areas or the fuel supplies that allow them to move.

As mr Fred say, they might be very high value or they may simply be carrying aggregates to fill a hole but there are many many ways of attacking them. In this scenario it is likely that Attack Helicopter (Apache) would be used with its 30mm cannon or or CRV7 unguided rockets.

At a push, Typhoon might also use its cannon, Tornado certainly has in Afghanistan.

One might also use UAV’s or lighter smaller missiles like the precision guided rockets that seem to be just about appearing or another example might be the LMM, also appearing in development.

Typhoon as you say, would not play a role in interdicting trucks, but I think you are wrong on this because it could do it directly with a range of weapons or use its sensors to cue other assets.

There are many ways to achieve an effect