[Manuel_D]

> It discusses "F-16’S CAS VARIANTS". That is the F-16 in a CAS role as far as I am concerned.

Then your understanding is deeply wrong. The F/A-16 discussed in that article was a specific variant of the F-16 that mounted a 30mm gun pod. Which failed horribly. During the gun produced vibrations that broke avionics, and the targeting software didn't even work with the gun.

The normal F-16 is a multirole fighter that can drop bombs, missiles, and rockets on ground targets just fine. It can shoot HARMs, too. It has performed in a CAS role just fine for decades. Not to drag contemporary events into this thread, but I guarantee you many of the Israeli planes dropping bombs in Gaza are f-16s. And yes, this is close air support: ground forces are pushing in, and when they take fire from a position they're calling in strikes. This is textbook close air support.

> That being said, for CAS, being able to shoot bullets at dozens of targets is more useful than dropping a handful of bombs. It is also more cost effective. :/

No, it is not. 30mm cannons aren't going to demolish trenches or penetrate that far into fortified buildings. You also have to get really close to the target to be effective. It was an effective way to conduct CAS against armored targets specifically in the 1970s and 80s before laser and gps guided bombs became ubiquitous. And today, the proliferation of IR guided SAMs that are fairly resistant to flares make strafing too dangerous, even for the a-10.

If you were under the impression that the abortive F/A-16 was the only version of the F-16 ever fielded for CAS then your statements in this chain make sense. But it's a totally false understanding.

[ryao]

Okay. Lets say you want to take out a few dozen targets. Your F-16 dropping bombs will be useless for that, as it needs to fly back and forth so many times to keep getting bombs, by which point all of the ground troops could be dead. The A-10 on the other hand is fantastic for it. The A-10 does not need to return to base after hitting a few targets. Also, the A-10 can drop bombs too.

Seriously, if the purpose of CAS was only to hit 1 target, then any plane that could drop a bomb would work, but nobody cares about being able to hit a single target when they have many targets that need to be hit.

[Manuel_D]

The f-16 can also bomb a dozen targets without flying back to base: https://www.quora.com/Can-a-real-F-16C-fighter-jet-carry-6-A...

An a-10 strafing targets is also going to take multiple passes to destroy a dozen targets. Unless they're all in a column, in which case the f-16 can destroy them too with a cluster bomb.

I'm not sure where you're getting this idea that the f-16 has a very limited air to ground payload. And the 30mm canon in the a-10 is not nearly as impactful as you make it out to be. There's enough public information on f-16's operational history to make your claims demonstrably false.

[ryao]

My point about 1 target is to emphasize that quantity matters. I said that the F-16 was bad at CAS and the F-35 is even worse. This is true. First, the F-16 carries less ammunition than the A-10, while the F-35 carries even less than the F-16. Second, CAS means Close Air Support. If the airplane is not close to the ground, then it is not doing CAS.

As for making multiple passes, that is better than multiple trips to/from base.

I do not know what I am supposed to be reading at your link.

[Manuel_D]

> Second, CAS means Close Air Support. If the airplane is not close to the ground, then it is not doing CAS.

Your understanding is incorrect. Close air support means engaging targets in close proximity to friendly forces. It does not refer to the altitude at which aircraft are deploying munitions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_air_support

From my link, you're supposed to read the fact that the f-16 can carry a dozen air to ground munitions. The f-16 does not have a payload that much smaller than the a-10.

[ryao]

I think this is a waste of money compared to what the A-10 gives people. Bullets are cheaper than explosives and can be manufactured in far greater quantities. Winning a war is pyrrhic if the victor is impoverished by the price of all of the ammunition. :/

Anyway, the original complaint here is about the F-35, not the F-16. No matter how much you think of the F-16, the F-35 is being pushed into this role and it is just not fit for it. I do not think the F-16 is fit for it either, although it is certainly more fit than the F-35.

[Manuel_D]

Bullets are cheap. And so are MANPADS and other short range air defenses. But airplanes are expensive. So are pilots. That's why close air support has shifted towards dropping guided munitions to minimize exposure to short range air defenses. Losing more planes because you want to save money on munitions is a net greater expense than dropping precision munitions. A laser guided bomb costs about $20,000 less than the operation cost for one hour of an f-16's flight time [1]. This idea of precision munitions being prohibitively expensive for CAS is just a wild fantasy.

The f-35 can mount as much external stores as the f-16. The only way it's unsuitable in a CAS role is the fantasy world where modern close air support involves strafing targets.

1. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/aviation/a41956551...