No, that’s an F-15E in the first pic, a B-1B in the second pic. Neither of them were even in service during Vietnam.

He was captured almost immediately by ISIL (they control huge areas of Syria). They burned him alive in a cage and recorded it on video as a propaganda tool. Oh, and they did that while talking to either the Jordanian government or his family about a ransom for his release.

After that, word came down from on high:…

Are you talking about RF-AK last year? Because BOTH of those happened during that. My favorite was when the Viper guys brought up SEAD, the Hog drivers were all “Oh no, we don’t need SEAD support, we’ll manage CSAR!” The AK ANG guys were all “Uh, wut?” and how many A-10s were shot down? Nine? yeah, you go in to get…

DU rounds are good for one thing and one thing only - killing tanks. For soft targets, HE rounds (that have no uranium in them) are actually more effective.

Given the proliferation of PGMs, if DU rounds go away tomorrow, I won’t shed a tear. They should have been phased out after the first Gulf War.

Right up until it either:

then you will need pilots who fly low and slow

No worries. BTW, the 35 has NOT been 30+ years in the making. Where’d you read that?

Both the F-15 and F-16 are 40+ year old aircraft. Same age as the A-10 +/- a couple years.

Bingo. Why restart production for an aircraft that’s 30 years out of production when you have an aircraft with similar capabilities and far lower hourly operating costs already in production?

The “hj” reply? Yeah, not knowing the context, I elected to ignore it.

They’re not that modular. Replacing a shot engine isn’t the same as replacing an engine as part of the regular maint. schedule. The structure has to be inspected, the mounting, surrounding systems have to be inspected and repaired. If it costs too much to repair it, then they’ll scrap it for parts.

No. The official story is still “engine failure.”

Why do I need a 30mm HE round to kill a human or a Toyota Hilux? 2omm kills both just as dead. As does a 25mm. I’d rather have an accurate 20mm shot than a burst of 30mm going everywhere.

There is NO mission that cannot and HAS not been performed by other aircraft just as effectively. Since 2001, the A-10 has performed only 20% of the total CAS taskings in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rest were performed by F-15E, F-16, F-18.

We’d have fewer aircraft than we do now. The F-15C/Ds we have are 3x past their structural life. At least one has broken apart in flight. These aircraft have been under constant stress of combat operations since 1990. You cannot expect them to last forever.

Sure. Got the money to build new airframes along with the tooling required to make the parts? Also, you’re going to need to boost the speed and range, so that’ll mean new, more powerful engines and a smaller gun (so you can put more gas in the fuselage). 25mm’s good for killing soft targets and it’s more accurate than…

I’m sick of the “A-10 IS INVINCIBLE” argument.

How many Soviet SAM sites were there in West Germany in the 1970s?
How many Tor M1s did the Soviets have in the 1970s?
How many SA-10s (“Bad”) did they have?
How many SA-20s (“Worse.”) did they have?
How many SA-20C (“Shit”) did they have?
How many SA-21s (“We’re fucked.”) did…

– Only the A-10’s cockpit has armor. The rest of the plane is standard aircraft grade aluminum. The A-29B standard that the USAF flies has armor for both the cockpit and the engine. The A-10 is NOT a flying tank.

- The engines are NOT shielded from ground fire.

The AF never liked the A-10 in the first place.

The AF generals do not give two shits about the ground troops.