The A-10 Warthog: The Plane Russia Would Have Begged for in World War II

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The A-10 is a legend. But it was built upon the wings of even greater legends.

The A-10 is a legend. But it was built upon the wings of even greater legends.

It’s a good thing that the Air Force generals who want to retire the beloved A-10 Warthog were not around 70 years ago.

If they were, Josef Stalin might have had them shot.

The Soviet dictator loved the A-10 of his day, otherwise known as the Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik. “They are as essential to the Red Army as bread and water,” he said.

It is the Sturmovik, along with the German Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber, that fathered the A-10. “The World War II close air support successes of both the Stuka and the Sturmovik had a major—and inspiring—influence in convincing all of us early A-X/A-10 proponents that close support was by far the most important mission of air power, certainly more so than strategic bombing,” A-10 designer Pierre Sprey tells War is Boring.

“I felt that the combat specifics, such as tactics, targets, aerial cannon effectiveness, austere field operations, surge sortie rates, air-ground communications and coordination, of the World War II close support experience were so relevant to designing a first-rate CAS [close air support] plane that I required every member of the A-X concept design team to read Hans-Ulrich Rudel’s Stuka Pilot.”

The Stuka connection

The Stuka and the Sturmovik symbolize different branches of the A-10 family tree. The Warthog gets its ferocious anti-tank firepower from the Stuka.

Most people think of Stukas as the clumsy-looking dive bombers in History Channel documentaries, pouncing with a terrifying screech—thanks to the sirens installed in their wings—on their hapless prey. Desperate to stop the hordes of Soviet T-34 tanks that were overwhelming the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, Germany also built a special tank-buster version of the dive-bomber.