Impact on the Iran-Iraq War if Iran had bought A-10s

[CJGibson]

If Iran had bought the A-10 in sufficient numbers, they had been delivered and entered service, what, if any, impact would they have had on the course of the Iran-Iraq war?

Chris

 

[Archibald]

Well a lot of Saddam tanks would be smoldering, glowing wrecks, for a start. Although not sure Iran could manufacture that peculiar ammo the GAU8 uses... as far as maintenance go a Whartog is a walk in the park compaired to a Tomcat. Air too air victories against Mi-24s would be cool.

 

[Hood]

The Iran-Iraq War seems to have mainly been a bloody drawn out stalemate. The Iraqi armoured formations do not appear to have been well led and certainly Iran's air force seemed to have the upper hand up to 1982. The initial attack was blunted by AH-1s and F-4s using Mavericks, certainly A-10s would have added to the carnage, the export model T-55s, 62s and 72s would have been easy meat. Using Mavericks they could have freed up the F-4s for additional air defence or strategic strike roles. After the 1982 battles and the stalemate that ensued, I'm not sure the A-10s would have added much, they may well proved useful support for several of the battles, for example Iranian AH-1s proved decisive during Operation Ramadan at Basra in July 1982 in stopping Iraqi counterattacks that threatened to break through. But I can't see any decisive input from the A-10s that would have offered war winning potential. Iranian armour suffered equally at the hand of Iraqi Hinds and TOW-toting Gazelles, of course the A-10s might be expected to help by destroying helicopters too.
The main problem would be maintaining any A-10 fleet without US spares, though in 1986 there was a brief window of US support. As Archibald said, GAU-8 ammo would have been a big problem. Its possible an alternative less-powerful home-made round would have been manufactured, but the gun's effectiveness would have suffered. Engine spares would have been an issue too.
In summary, a positive impact that would have added destructive capability in what was a costly war but not a war-winning addition.

 

[Grey Havoc]

With just about all his purchases, the Shah invested heavily in the infrastructure required to support them, including depot level maintenance and the factories and related industrial infrastructure needed to support that in turn. There is no reason to believe that he would have done any differently with regards as to the planned A-10 purchase. However nearly all of that infrastructure was lost under the Ayatollahs' incompetence and corruption. Another thing is that they were actively purging the airforce personnel needed to operate the aircraft and associated equipment, i.e. aircrew, ground crew, technical experts, etc.

 

[Archibald]

Once again, good or even excellent pilots are more needed for Tomcats rather than Whartogs. I readily agree that the stupid mullahs (an euphemism, really) really did a lot of damage to their own armies - it says how dumb arses they were, and still are to the present day, and will remain, assholes, in the centuries to come.
By the way, the mullahs humiliated and tortured Shah pilots only to realize, a year later, they needed them to fight Saddam - as the much vaunted "guardians of the revolution" were unable to pilot anything - in fact they were barely intelligent enough to run through minefields to clear the path of the REAL military forces, inherited from the Shah. The irony...

Something that always baffles me with the Iran - Iraq war is that Saddam and Khomeyni (screw that name) a) managed to get into a rehash of WWI by the late 20th century b) with very modern military gear and c) ultimately reached a brand new level of atrocities not even reached in the worst hours of Verdun, Somme, or Chemin des dames. And d) tthis butchery lasted twice as long as WWI, eight entire years. Geez, talks about dumb fanatics fighting each others. Sickening.