Attack aircraft

Since the 1960s, only two dedicated attack aircraft designs have been widely introduced, the American Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II and the Soviet/Russian Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot.

Such missions required flying where light anti-aircraft fire was expected and operating at low altitudes to precisely identify targets.

Admittedly, the cost to the Allies was high, with the Royal Flying Corps sustaining a loss rate approaching 30% among ground-attack aircraft.

Within the range of types serving attack roles, dive bombers were increasingly being seen[citation needed] as more effective than aircraft designed for strafing with machine guns or cannons.

While they did not pioneer dive bombing tactics, Marine aviators were the first to include it in their doctrine during the United States occupation of Haiti and Nicaragua.

However, like most air arms of the period it did operate attack aircraft, named Army Cooperation in RAF parlance, which included the Hawker Hector, Westland Lysander and others.

The federal government had approximately 58 aircraft divided between the Navy and the Army, as the Air Force at this time did not constitute an independent branch.

Moreover, the experiences of German Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War, against an enemy with few fighter aircraft, changed ideas about ground attack.

Though equipped with generally unsuitable designs such as the Henschel Hs 123 and cannon-armed versions of the Heinkel He 112, their armament and pilots proved that aircraft were a very effective weapon, even without bombs.

This led to the introduction (in 1942) of a unique single-seat, twin-engine attack aircraft, the slow-moving but heavily armored and formidably armed Henschel Hs 129 Panzerknacker ("Safecracker" /"Tank Cracker").

Both, like their US counterparts, were lightly armored types, and were critically reliant on surprise attacks and the absence of significant fighter or AA opposition.

The British concept of a light aircraft mixing all the roles that required extensive communication with land forces: reconnaissance, liaison, artillery spotting, aerial supply, and, last but not least, occasional strikes on the battlefield.

The United States Navy, in distinction to the USAAF, preferred the older term "Scout-Bomber", under a "SB-" designation, such as the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver.

The Junkers Ju 87s of the German Luftwaffe became virtually synonymous with close air support during the early months of World War II.

The British Commonwealth's Desert Air Force, led by Arthur Tedder, became the first Allied tactical formation to emphasize the attack role,[citation needed] usually in the form of single-engine Hawker Hurricane and Curtiss P-40 fighter-bombers or specialized "tank-busters", such as the Hurricane Mk IID, armed with two 40 mm Vickers S guns (notably No.

Nevertheless, skilled crews could be highly successful in those types, such as the leading Stuka ace, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who claimed 500 tanks,[21] a battleship, a cruiser, and two destroyers in 2,300 combat missions.

Conversely, some mid-war attack types emerged as adaptations of fighters, including several versions of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the British Hawker Typhoon and the US Republic P-47 Thunderbolt.

Likewise the P-47 was designed and intended for use as a high altitude bomber escort, but gradually found that role filled by the North American P-51 Mustang (because of its much longer range and greater maneuverability).

[23] However, even a near miss with rockets could cause damage or injuries to "soft targets," and patrols by Allied rocket-armed aircraft over Normandy disrupted or even completely paralyzed German road traffic.

[24] The ultimate development of the cannon-armed light attack aircraft was the small production run in 1944 of the Henschel Hs 129B-3, armed with a modified PAK 40 75 mm anti-tank gun.

These weapons, however, were hand-loaded, had shorter barrels and/or a lower muzzle velocity than the BK 7,5 and, therefore, poorer armor penetration, accuracy and rate of fire.

(Except for versions of the Piaggio P.108 armed with a 102mm anti-ship cannon, The BK 7,5 was unsurpassed as an aircraft-fitted gun until 1971, when the four-engine Lockheed AC-130E Spectre; equipped with a 105 mm M102 howitzer, entered service with the US Air Force.)

Many post-World War II era air forces have been reluctant to adopt fixed-wing jet aircraft developed specifically for ground attack.

Jet attack aircraft were designed and employed during the Cold War era, such as the carrier-based nuclear strike Douglas A-3 Skywarrior and North American A-5 Vigilante, while the Grumman A-6 Intruder, F-105 Thunderchief, F-111, F-117 Nighthawk, LTV A-7 Corsair II, Sukhoi Su-25, A-10 Thunderbolt II, Panavia Tornado, AMX, Dassault Étendard, Super Étendard and others were designed specifically for ground-attack, strike, close support and anti-armor work, with little or no air-to-air capability.

A proliferation of low intensity conflicts in the post-World War II era has also expanded need for these types of aircraft to conduct counter-insurgency and light ground attack operations.

A primary distinction of post-World War II aviation between the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force was that latter had generally been allocated all fixed-wing aircraft, while helicopters were under control of the former; this was governed by the 1948 Key West Agreement.

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 dedicated attack helicopter.

The A-10 was originally conceived as an anti-armor weapon (the A-X program requirements specifically called for an aircraft mounting a large rotary cannon to destroy massed Warsaw Pact armored forces) with limited secondary capability in the interdiction and tactical bombing roles.

The U.S. Air Force is currently researching a replacement for the A-10 and started the OA-X program to procure a light attack aircraft.