Ground attack aircraft
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A ground-attack aircraft is an aircraft that is designed to operate in direct support of ground forces such as infantry, tanks and other fighting vehicles. Their use is therefore tactical rather than strategic, operating at the front of the battle rather than against targets deeper in the enemy's rear.
A number of names have or are used for ground-attack aircraft: attack aircraft, fighter-bomber, tactical fighter, tank-buster, tactical bomber, etc. During the Second World War, German forces coined the phrase Jabo short for Jagdbomber (Ger. "hunting bomber").
In US service ground-attack aircraft have been identified by the prefix A- as in "A-6". British designations have included FB for fighter-bomber and more recently "G" for Ground as in "Harrier GR1"
[edit] History
In the First World War Dedicated "trench fighters" such as the Sopwith Camel TF.1 and the Boeing GA-1 were experimented with but not taken up.
The development of the ground-attack aircraft came with the Second World War, mostly through the adaptation of fighters or light bombers. The earliest use of aircraft can be seen in the German Junkers Ju-87 'Stuka' dive-bomber which could be used alongside the rapidly advancing Panzer units during the opening stages of the war in the place of artillery which was not able to advance as rapidly.
Ground attack aircraft generally used extra armour and particular weapons for attacking ground targets. While machine guns and cannon were sufficient against infantry and light vehicles, and one or two small bombs could be easily fitted to most fighters, for operations against tanks heavier weapons such as the 40 mm Vickers S gun or high explosive rockets (such as the RP-3 60 lb rocket) were needed. The former equipped the Hawker Hurricane to good effect in North Africa Campaign, the latter was used by many RAF aircraft among them the Hawker Typhoon, an aircraft design which proved less effective than expected as a fighter at altitude but an effective ground attack aircraft and was used extensively in Normandy in 1944.
The Eastern Front turned up another successful ground attack aircraft, the Soviet Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik, which Stalin credited with winning the war. The Luftwaffe also fielded a successor to the Stuka in the ground-attack role (although not a dive bomber), the Henschel Hs 129, but produced very few of them and they had little effect on the war.
By the end of that war the average day fighter was more than capable enough to carry out the ground attack role, and some of the most successful designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and the unmodified Hawker Typhoon.
[edit] Post World War II
In the immediate post war era the piston engined ground attack aircraft remained useful - Royal Navy Hawker Sea Fury fighters and the US Douglas A-1 Skyraider operated in the Korea with the latter plane effective into the Vietnam conflict. The long loiter times of the piston powered planes gave an advantage over thirsty jet planes.
In most of the post-World War II era air forces have been increasingly reluctant to develop combat aircraft specifically for ground attack. Although close air support and interdiction remain crucial to the modern battlefield, attack aircraft are less glamorous than fighters, and both pilots and military planners have a certain well-cultivated contempt for 'mud-movers.' More practically, the extra cost of a dedicated ground attack aircraft is harder to justify as opposed to having multi-role aircraft. Examples of modern ground attack aircraft include the Blackburn Buccaneer, A-6 Intruder, A-7 Corsair II, Panavia Tornado IDS, Sukhoi Su-7, and Sukhoi Su-17. Ground attack has otherwise become the domain of converted trainers like the BAC Strikemaster, BAE Hawk, and Cessna A-37.
Production of new Republic F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bombers ended in 1964. The aircraft was built especially for a supersonic radar evading low altitude attack profile, thereafter lofting a nuclear weapon from an internal bomb bay, thereby allowing escape from the detonation.
The design of this "fighter" was vastly different from that of an air superiority fighter. It was very heavy, with a small air-penetrating wing, fitted with both existent air-to-air refueling systems, exceptional fuel capacity, capable of supersonic flight at tree-top level, possessed of self-contained inertial navigation computers, powerful radar for all weather ground target locating; all-in-all designed to threaten Russian strategic targets, whatever the weather. Since one flight only was planned, it was built "soft" with little resistance to battle damage. For reasons never explained, it possessed a complex radar assisted lead-computing visual gunsight, and a built-in rotary 20mm cannon with a large magazine.
Soon, the US Air Force found that it was the only aircraft capable of long range precision dive bomber attack of heavily defended North Vietnamese targets. The built-in computer and gun sight made all the necessary calculations for 45 degree dive bombing attacks. Dive brakes stabilized 500 knot dive from 20,000 ft, releasing at about 10,000 with a high "G" supersonic pull out at about 5,000 ft (clear of small arms fire). Accuracy with a sequenced "spread" of five one-thousand pound bombs was sufficient to destroy a bridge (very tough target). In melee, F-105s shot down 20 MiG fighters by surprise.
In the late 1960s the US Air Force requested a dedicated air support plane that became the Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II. It eventually became a primarily anti-armor weapon with limited capability in the interdiction and tactical bombing role, and even in the anti-tank role it was met with mixed feelings. However, the A-10's performance during Operation Desert Storm negated these criticisms. Current US doctrine increasingly emphasizes the use of US Army helicopters for close air support and anti-tank missions. The Soviets' similar Su-25 Frogfoot found greater success in the flying artillery role, although it, too, shifted to anti-armor use in later versions and has largely been phased out in favor of 'fast mover' fighter-bomber versions of the MiG-29 and Su-27.
Nevertheless, the role remains well-defined and in use, resulting in dual designations like F/A-18 Hornet. More recently, the term strike fighter has been gaining currency as the way to refer to these dual-role aircraft. Ironically, in British parlance "strike" was for some years a euphemism for the nuclear warfare attack role, with "attack" used to denote conventional (non-nuclear) missions.
[edit] Recent History
U.S. experience in the Gulf War [1], Afghanistan, in the Iraq War, as well as the U.S. experience intervening militarily in Kosovo, has resulted in renewed interest in fixed-wing ground-attack aircraft.
Under the Key West Agreement which governs the allocation of aircraft between the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force, fixed-wing ground-attack aircraft were generally allocated to the Air Force, while attack helicopters were generally allocated to the Army. The Army, wishing to have its own resources to support its troops in combat and faced with a lack of Air Force enthusiasm for the ground-attack role, developed the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter for ground-attack roles such as destroying enemy tanks and supporting troops in combat.
One concern involving the Apache arose when a unit of these helicopters were very slow to deploy during U.S. military involvement in Kosovo. The Apache, which is the main alternative for the same airborne anti-tank role in the U.S. military as the A-10, ended up performing more poorly than anticipated, while the A-10 performed well in anti-tank roles in the Gulf War and in Iraq. Indeed, in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, a unit of AH-64's Apaches was severely mauled by the Republican Guard division, Hammurabi.
According to the Army Times [2], the Army is shifting its doctrine to favor ground-attack aircraft over attack helicopters for this role because ground-attack helicopters have proved to be highly vulnerable to small-arms fire. The U.S. Marines have noted similar problems.[3]
Officially, the U.S. Air Force planned to replace the only dedicated ground-attack aircraft currently in U.S. service, the A-10, with its new "Joint Strike Fighter", the F-35 Lightning II. But, facing political concerns that the new fighters were not designed for the ground-attack role that had proven particular useful in Iraq [4]and Afghanistan [5] [6], a plan to decommission the A-10 has been replaced with a plan to upgrade the existing aircraft with improved electronics [7] extending the service life of the planes until as late as 2028. The U.S. Air Force has not commissioned any new designs for this role (in part, out of concern for the F-35 program).
The UK is replacing its current ground attack aircraft with the F-35 (replacing the Harriers), and the Eurofighter Typhoon (Jaguars and Tornado GRs)
The other major complication to planes of military forces to purchase new ground-attack aircraft is uncertainty over the degree to which manned fixed wing aircraft may be replaced by unmanned combat drones in this role, a possibility illustrated by the armed Predator drone which has been used in this capacity.cs:Bitevní letoun de:Schlachtflugzeug es:Cazabombardero fr:Avion d'attaque au sol ms:Pesawat serang darat id:Pesawat serang darat ja:攻撃機 pl:Samolot szturmowy pt:Caça-bombardeiro ru:Штурмовик sl:Jurišnik zh:攻击机
