The A-10 Warthog, an infantryman's best friend.

[gridlore]

U.S. Army Paratroopers from 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, "The Rock", 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, call in an A-10 Warthog to engage Insurgent position with 30mm gatling gun in Korengal valley, Afghanistan. Additional info: "The distance was no more than 500 meters and this is after we had just gotten attacked from multiple positions, this being only one of them, and in a village we visited frequently and were shot at on the way in and on the way out just about every fucking time and in a place where we took contact on a daily basis, some from far some from close."

Sweet.

Comments

[nojay.livejournal.com]

Actually the DU penetrator round isn't that good against anything other than steel plate or ceramic armour suites. Any kind of solid penetrator will go through concrete somewhat but the DU round lights up through friction as it penetrates the armour and starts burning as it bounces around inside the vehicle cabin. Buildings and bunkers can absorb DU penetrators without them lighting off or they overpenetrate without damaging the target much.

A-1Os have been used before against buildings in Afghanistan, mission-loaded with cannonshells but the preferred building-cracker is a JDAM free-fall bomb or Ubique (artillery). The incident that made the press headlines a few years back was the attempt to "get" a particular Bad Guy who was, intelligence reported, holed up in a building on the outskirts of a small town. The A-10 pilot reportedly made a nap-of-the-earth approach to avoid detection and walked fire into the target building. Unfortunately the pilot was not briefed on the bunch of Afghan kids playing football in a field next to the building who he accidentally slaughtered... Still, shit happens in a war and boy do you get great video clips out of it.