European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 03, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday january 3,1990 the stars and stripes Page 9 Over Here yer i Vin s4s life Gus Schu Attar two a ios with tin 92nd tac fighter so Rise in tandem on a training Mission from Rak bin Waters. England. Con Mersy surrounds i i future if the aircraft. A-10 aircraft locked in fight for survival by William j. Bartman and Dave d1ehl staff writers it. Col. Dave Roodhouse. One of the air Force s most experienced a-10 pilots finds his plane caught in a dogfight. In the reshuffling going on Between the military superpowers some experts think the deck seems stacked against the tank killer in which Roodhouse has spent nearly 2,000 hours. It. Col. Donald Black an air Force spokesman in the Pentagon acknowledged that the plane is in trouble saying the service believes the a-10 needs to be replaced by the mid-1990s. We need a plane that is faster that won t be As easy to shoot Down he said. The conventional forces in Europe talks on arms reduction May be a Way for the air Force to pull the a 10 out of Europe and perhaps destroy some of them said an official in the office of defense Secretary Dick Cheney. Third air Force officials have disputed that a-10 installations in the United kingdom the prime euro Pean location for the plane had been targeted As an option for closing. I Don t think the a to is any bigger bargaining Chip than a lot of other air planes in the nato inventory said maj. Gen. Marcus a. Anderson the 3rd air Force commander who is also a qualified a-10 Pilot. We have to look at this from a nato context and not just a . Context. The a-10 is doing a very credible Job of doing close air support for which it was de  but the official in Cheney s office said the air Force would push to close Down those bases with a-1 of. The United states has a los stationed at two locations in Europe Raf Alconbury which has two squad Rons of the plane and Raf be Waters which has four squadrons. Both bases Are in England. None of the air Force s 648 a ios now in their Sec Ond decade of service with the air Force has Ever seen combat. If they did Sec combat the planes would provide close air support on the Battlefield. To accomplish this fission the plane is armed with a seven barrel Cannon. It also can carry up to 16,000 pounds of mixed ordnance including general purpose bombs incendiary and Rock cye ii Cluster bombs. Mav Erick missiles and laser guided bombs. Pilots say the a-10 is an extremely rugged durable aircraft. They also cite the plane s ability to loiter for extended periods near the Battle area and operate under 1,000-foot ceilings with 1.5-mile visibility. Its Short Takeoff and Landing capability permits operations in and out of locations near front lines. Despite these assets the plane has run into a Field of flak from critics. Some officials Sec the plane s role As having no place in the air Force s Mission. Other critics View the a-10 As a Clay Pigeon that could easily be gunned Down by mis Sile carrying troops. The official in Cheney s office said the air Force wants to get the a ios out of Europe because they Don t want to work for the army. They want to go for Long Range bombing and All that. It s like a rerun of world War  air Force spokesman Black said however that the air Force will stick with the close air Mission that the a 10 is designed to perform. We Are dedicated to it he said. We will be providing it for the foreseeable fun  critics outside the military View the plane As out dated. John Taylor who has been editor of Jane s All the world s aircraft for 30 years said these big winged comparatively slow air planes have had their Day. With the Modem surface to air missiles you really need a much faster  Taylor said nato could expect no More than two wartime sorties from each a-10, which has a cruising Speed of387 Mph at 5.000 feet. Others said the army should hold the Battlefield sup port role. Don Kerr an analyst at London s International Institute for strategic studies said that ground attacks should be neutralized Long before they got to the front and that the army s multiple launch rocket systems could do the Job. Some enemy Armor could gel through in such an attack but harriers. F-l5s and f-l6s could do the cleanup work. Despite the criticism the plane has its defenders. One Pentagon strategist said of take a few a ios out of Europe maybe. But keep most of them. It s a Good air plane. It s for close support. That Means going after less protected targets taking out machine gun nests opposing troops before the infantry gets  Roodhouse the operations officer of Raf bunt a ters 92nd tac fighter so disputed criticism that the plane was an easy target saying the a ios were unlikely to become mired in the Center of pitched Battle. I m not going to go into the Center of the fray the 16-year Veteran said. We will be operating on the Friendly Side " the air Force has yet to decide on a replacement for the a-10. The a-16 version of the f-16 is a candidate hut Congress has put that plan on hold for now. Lack said the air Force has Money in its current budget to modify 146 f-16s for increased air to ground capability. Some a-1 of will also be modified. Out he said that the modified f-l6s would not be the same As the proposed a-16 and that a-10 modifications were being carried out As Way to improve the planes ability to survive. Taylor believes in air planes with vertical Short take offs and landings. He said the air forces of the world should develop a fourth generation fighter that would Combine the a 10 s firepower and the harrier s relative mobility with the Speed fan f-16. As for the a-10. Roodhouse said it could Well be used into the 1990s and maybe beyond. He added that the a 10 could be used As a less provocative weapon in smaller skirmishes the third world kind that Many theorists believe to be the Only real military threat to the United slates. Anderson agreed that the plane has a future. It s doing a credible Job now and it costs Money to replace it Anderson said. You could Well Sec a ios around fora Long  pravda soviet to news show get new look for 90 Moscow a the communist party newspaper pravda and the govern. Merit s nightly to news began the new year with a new look. In what might be called a Madison Avenue image makeover pravda on Jan. I unveiled a new simplified Masthead that removes emblems of three awards and replaces them with a sketch of the newspaper s founder Vladimir i. Lenin. An editor s note said the change was the first to the daily s Masthead since 1972 and emphasized that the removal of the award emblems did not mean Edi tors were not proud of them. The word pravda which Means truth in russian now is larger and the bust of Lenin shows him looking to the left above the phrase the newspaper was founded May 5, 1912, by .  the slogan workers of All countries unite remains atop the Masthead but the heading communist party of the soviet Union has been removed so the Only identification of the publisher is a note. Organ of the Central committee of the i us communist party of the soviet Union. Also monday the newscast Vrem a which Means time debuted a new studio set. The previous set had news anchors sitting at a Long desk in front of a Wall. The new set was a desk in front of a window of a control room with television monitors and to workers visible. In a message to readers published monday pravda s recently appointed editor in chief Ivan t. Frolov said his reporters will try to be closer to the peo ple and give up old  Frolov. Who in october replaced Vik Tor g. Afana Sylv a conservative who had been in the Job since 1976, also promised the newspaper will open itself 19 discussion expression of dissent socialist pluralism of  the changes reflect the newspaper s new leadership and the Overall spicing up of soviet Media under president Mikhail Gorbachev s glasnost or openness Campaign