Two A-10C Thunderbolt IIs fly in formation over southern Arizona, April 29, 2019. The A-10 is built around the GAU-8 Avenger 30MM Gatling gun and is capable of carrying an additional 16,000 pounds of munitions under the wings and belly of the aircraft. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Betty R. Chevalier)
WASHINGTON — The House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee has decided to greenlight continued divestment of the A-10 Warthog, according to draft text of the subcommittee’s markup of the fiscal 2024 defense policy bill obtained by Breaking Defense.
The subcommittee would also seek to impose some provisions on the development of the Air Force and Navy’s next-gen fighters and drones that could join them in combat.
The permission to continue retiring A-10 aircraft builds off momentum established last year, where Congress relented after years of pleas from service officials to enable the move. As part of its FY24 budget request, the Air Force is seeking a total of 42 A-10 retirements, which the subcommittee’s mark appears to pave the way for.
Specifically, according to a legislative proposal [PDF] transmitted to Congress earlier this year, the Air Force seeks to decrease the minimum primary mission aircraft inventory to 135 A-10s as part of its divestment strategy, which the subcommittee’s mark would adopt. The markup was first reported by Politico.
RELATED: Air Force seeks more A-10 cuts, wants them all retired in 5-6 years
The legislation would require the Air Force to evaluate whether any aircraft retired in FY23 and beyond can be transferred to an ally or partner of the United States, which comes after some lawmakers have questioned whether they could be of use in places like Ukraine.
However, Ukraine reportedly doesn’t want the jets for largely the same reasons as the Air Force: they’re old, slow and limited to a single role, which officials argue renders them unfit for war with a peer adversary. Though beloved by troops on the ground for its ability to bust tanks and other targets effectively, officials say the advent of more precise munitions has rendered many of these concerns moot.
Like all provisions in the subcommittee marks, final plans could still change as the full committee takes it up for a vote, which could be further changed as an agreement on the FY24 defense policy bill is negotiated between the House and Senate. Appropriators will weigh in as well with their own defense budget bill, which could affect provisions established by House and Senate authorizers.
Air Force, Navy NGADs And CCAs
As the Air Force and Navy develop their own next-gen fighters and drones to fight alongside them, House authorizers are seeking to put in place some guardrails to ensure that costs don’t creep up and programs stay on track.
The subcommittee’s mark indicates that both the Air Force and Navy secretaries would be required to submit annual reports on the development and technological maturation of both services’ Next Generation Air Dominance fighters. The mark additionally includes a mandate that each service establish “threshold and objective key performance parameters regarding flyaway unit cost, gross/weapon system unit cost, aircraft cost-per-tail-per-year, and aircraft cost-per-flight-hour” for their fighters. (The services have said they will not follow the joint model that created the F-35 and are instead developing their own designs individually.)
Little is known about the Navy’s pursuit for its own NGAD fighter, though Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has suggested that his service’s sixth-gen fighter will be prohibitively expensive, likely costing “multiples” of an F-35. A selection of the Air Force’s design is expected next year.
The Air Force and Navy secretaries would also be required to submit a similar tech maturation report on the unmanned wingmen, a program the Air Force calls Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). The Air Force is formally seeking to launch its CCA program in FY24, while the Navy has also expressed interest in the capability.
Both service secretaries would be required to divvy up the drones in three categories, which the subcommittee’s mark describes as “expendable,” “attritable,” and “exquisite.” According to definitions laid out by the subcommittee, expendable drones would not be expected to return from combat, attritable ones would suffer an “occasional” loss and exquisite ones would be expected to make it back each time.
RELATED: CCA fighter wingmen drones won’t be ‘attritable’ despite ‘common misconception’: General
The two service secretaries would also be required to ensure that the unit flyaway cost of each category would not exceed $3 million for expendable drones, $10 million for attritable ones and $25 million for those deemed exquisite.
Notably, TacAir subcommittee head Rob Wittman, a Virginia Republican, recently argued in Breaking Defense that Congress needs to plus-up funding for CCA programs as a potential game-changer against China.
Tactical Land Concerns
When it comes to Army programs, the subcommittee has both a few concerns and asks for more information about big-ticket programs.
One of the most notable provisions revolves around the Army’s quest to decide what comes next for its main battle tank line: proceed with an M1A2 System Enhancement Package version 4 (SEPv4) Abrams or abandon the tentative plan for a new tank?
If the service proceeds with the latter option, House members said they are concerned the Army would “abandon” investing advanced “lethality and survivability” capabilities like the Third Generation Forward Looking Infrared, leaving the current fleet of tanks using second generation sights for an “indeterminate amount of time.”
To better understand the situation, the subcommittee wants senior Army acquisition leaders to submit a report by the end of April 2024 with their “plans to continually modernize and improve the current main battle tanks with capability upgrades, including, but not limited to Third Generation Forward Looking Infrared sights, the Trophy Active Protection System, and the 360 Situational Awareness System.”
The House mark also directs the Comptroller General to craft a report on the Army’s air and missile defense program detailing system technologies the service is seeking, address to what extent the service has applied leading practices for acquisitions in the that arena, how lessons learned from the war inside Ukraine have been factored in and more.
“Critical to the Army’s vision for future warfare is the ability to protect its combat formations from modern and advanced air- and missile-delivered fires, including drones,” lawmakers wrote. “Events in the current conflict in Ukraine underscore the need for such capabilities. Providing these capabilities could be challenging as the Army has not focused on the need for air and missile defense in its recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
In addition to this pair of directives, the subcommittee is calling on the comptroller general to draft a separate report about the service’s Long Range Precision Fires portfolio and asking for a copy of an analysis of alternatives for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft program or the Army Secretary’s travel budget will be frozen.
Some lawmakers have voiced concerns of fielding such a manned attack aircraft given commercial unmanned rotary wing capabilities, while others have raised concerns about abandoning the program now that Bell and Sikorsky have produced prototypes, and Bell has won the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft deal.
For his part, Doug Bush, the head of Army acquisition, told lawmakers in April that his team will be working on an FARA analysis of alternatives now that the service has decided not to follow a rapid prototyping and fielding pathway for the remainder of the program
“The Army and the Department of Defense had not decided what acquisition pathway FARA would follow,” Bush told House lawmakers in April. “Once the decision was made for it to go back to… [a] traditional program approach, the AOA is required to get through milestone B.”
