On February 25th, 1991, Iraqi Republican Guard commanders laughed at the A-10 Warthog.
Too slow, too ugly, too vulnerable.
By sunset, Captain Eric Salommenson and Lieutenant John Marx had destroyed 23 Iraqi tanks, a record that has never been broken.
This is the story of how they did it.
The ground war had begun just 24 hours earlier.
Across the Kuwaiti desert, Iraqi Republican Guard units were racing south, trying to establish defensive lines before American forces could crush them.
Marine columns were advancing through smoke and sand.
They needed air support.
Not just any support, they needed an aircraft that could loiter for hours.
One that could see the difference between burning wreckage and a functional tank.
The A10 Thunderbolt 2 was designed for exactly this moment.
Fast jets, F-15s, F-16s, FA18s were dropping laserg guided bombs from 15,000 ft.
Clean, precise, safe.
The A10 was different.
It flew at 500 ft, slowed down to 300 knots, and carried a weapon no other aircraft in the world could fire.
The GA AU8A Avenger.
Seven barrels, 30 mm, firing 3,900 rounds per minute.
Rounds the size of milk bottles.
When pilots pulled the trigger, the recoil slowed the aircraft mid-flight.
The entire fuselage shook.
Pilots could smell the burnt powder through their oxygen masks.
And when a 30 mm round hit a T72 tank, it didn’t just penetrate the armor, it ignited the ammunition inside the turret.
The result, an explosion that blew the turret 20 ft into the air.
At that moment, the scale of American capability became impossible to ignore.
The A10 was never supposed to be beautiful.
It was designed in the early 1970s with one purpose: kill.
Soviet tanks in Europe.
The US Air Force wanted an aircraft that could survive in the most hostile environment imaginable.
Lowaltitude, dense air defenses surrounded by armor, and still accomplish its mission.
Fairchild Republic’s answer was radical.
Build the gun first, then build the plane around it.
The GAU8 Avenger was 19 ft long.
It weighed more than a Volkswagen Beetle.
The gun and ammunition accounted for 16% of the aircraft’s empty weight.
No other combat aircraft in history was designed this way.
But the gun was only half the story.
The cockpit was surrounded by a titanium bathtub, 1,200 lb of armor plating designed to withstand direct hits from 23 mm anti-aircraft cannon fire.
The pilot sat inside this armored shell, protected from below, from the sides, from behind.
Every critical system was duplicated.
Fuel tanks were self-sealing.
The two engines GF34 turbo fans were mounted high on the fuselage above the wings, shielded from ground fire.
If one engine was destroyed, the A10 could fly home on the other.
The design philosophy was simple.
survivability over speed.
The A10’s maximum speed was 439 mph, slower than a World War II P-51 Mustang, but it could loiter over a battlefield for hours, visually confirm every target, and absorb damage that would destroy any other aircraft.
In 1991, that philosophy
would be tested under the most intense combat conditions.
Mission one, dawn.
0620 hours.
Solomonson spots the first target, a column of T72 tanks moving south on a highway northeast of Kuwait City.
He fires a Maverick missile.
The lead tank explodes.
Turret flipping backward.
Maverick engages the second.
Another Maverick.
Another kill.
They work methodically.
Mavericks for the first four tanks, then switching to the cannon.
When missiles run dry, the 30 mm rounds punch through the T72’s upper deck armor, the weakest point, and ignite the ammunition.
Eight tanks destroyed in 14 minutes.
Return to base.
Refuel.
Rearm.
Mission two.
Midday, 10:45 hours.
Deeper into Kuwait, closer to Kuwait City.
Marines report Iraqi armor dug into defensive positions.
This time it’s different.
The Iraqi crews are ready.
They return fire.
ZSU23-4 anti-aircraft guns open up.
Tracers arc across the sky.
Bright orange streaks at supersonic speed.
Solomonson feels impacts against his aircraft.
The A10 shutters but keeps flying.
He rolls in on the first revetment and fires a 2-cond burst from the GAU8- 70 rounds.
The tank erupts in flames.
They alternate between cannon and missiles, exploiting the chaos.
Iraqi gunners can’t track both aircraft simultaneously.
Eight more tanks destroyed.
Landing at 12:30 hours, the squadron commander pulls Solomon aside.
You guys are having a hell of a day.
Solomon nods.
We’re going back out.
Mission three, afternoon, 1500 hours.
outskirts of Kuwait city.
Smoke from burning oil fields darkens the sky.
Visibility is poor.
They go lower, 300 ft above the desert.
They find seven more tanks scattered across 3 km of highway.
This time, cannon only.
Maverick’s stocks are depleted across the squadron, and the 30 mm ammunition is proving devastatingly effective.
They worked through the remaining targets methodically, professionally, without wasted movement or ammunition.
When the last tank was burning, they climbed to 2,000 ft and turned south.
1645 hours, they had been flying combat missions for nearly 11 hours.
Gun camera footage confirmed the kills.
23 Iraqi tanks destroyed in three separate missions.
The squadron intelligence officer looked up from his notes.
You guys just set an all-time record.
No pilot before or since has destroyed 23 tanks in a single day.
Between January 17th and February 28th, 1991, A10 Warthogs destroyed more than 900 Iraqi tanks, 2,000 additional military vehicles, 1,200 artillery pieces.
The psychological impact was even more significant.
After the war, coalition forces interviewed captured Iraqi soldiers and officers.
When asked which aircraft they feared most, the answer was consistent.
The A10.
One Iraqi tank commander described it.
We heard the sound before we saw the aircraft.
A low roar, then a ripping sound like fabric tearing.
By the time we saw the plane, our tanks were already burning.
Another officer was more direct.
The A10 was the single most recognizable and feared aircraft at low level.
When we heard that sound, we knew we were going to die.
34 years have passed since February 25th, 1991.
Eric Solomonson and John Marx are retired now, but their record remains.
And yet, the A-10 has been on the chopping block for decades.
The US Air Force has repeatedly attempted to retire the Warthog, arguing that modern air defenses make lowaltitude operations too dangerous and that multi-roll fighters like the F-35 can perform close air support more effectively.
The arguments are familiar, too slow, too vulnerable, too old.
Congress has repeatedly refused to authorize retirement.
Why? Because the A10 still does one thing better than any other aircraft in the world.
Close air support in contested environments.
It can see the battlefield.
It can differentiate between friendly and enemy forces.
It can loiter for hours waiting for targets to appear.
And when it fires, there is no ambiguity.
During operations in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2001 and 2021, A10s flew more than 280,000 combat hours.
When troops were pinned down and needed immediate fire supports, they called for the Warthog.
The GAU8/A cannon designed in 1971 to kill Soviet tanks proved equally effective against fortified positions, vehicle-born IEDs, and enemy combatants in buildings.
The titanium bathtub built to withstand 23 mm anti-aircraft fire protected pilots from small arms fire and rocket propelled grenades.
50 years after its first flight, the A10 remains in service.
Current plans call for the fleet to remain operational until at least 2030, possibly longer.
The Air Force has upgraded the aircraft with new wings, new avionics, and new targeting systems.
The basic airframe, the gun, the titanium bathtub, and the redundant controls remains unchanged because it works.
The debate over the A-10’s retirement will continue.
Fast jets will get faster.
Stealth technology will improve.
Precisiong guided munitions will become more precise.
But the fundamental question remains, what aircraft can loiter over a battlefield for hours, visually confirm targets, survive hits that would down anything else, and deliver devastating firepower exactly where ground forces need it.
The answer, 50 years later, is still the same ugly plane Iraqi tank crews feared most.
On February 25th, 1991, Eric Solomonson and John Marx proved why.
23 tanks, three missions, one day.
