Obviously you’ve never been on the business end of an AK-47. There’s no shittier feeling in the world than calling in for CAS and being told that the loitering F/A-18 or F-16 won’t do danger close because all it’s got are 2,000lb bombs and you’ll have to wait 20 minutes for an A-10 or an Apache/other Attack helicopter…

Nice video. In a long stand-off arrangement using the Reaper/F-35/F-22 would have continued firing and there would have been no doubts raised by their pilots to clue their ATC to look harder. Instead they would have continued on to slaughter the friendlies. Recall that the only people with no doubts about opening fire…

the airforce has refused to do upgrades.... the b52 is older but has no issue, wonder why?

an A10 downed two Iraqi helos during Desert Storm

Hey Baron, I’ll try to be nice but you don’t have a clue. None of the specs congress wants fits the F35. How about just one, can operate from a dirt/grass runway. The F35 is destined become a great fighter, but an A10 replacement? No f’ing way. And BTW, attack helicopters don’t have the loiter or payload of an A10. Do…

Alright man you have reached the point were it should register that your talking to commentators who really do know what they’e talking about...

You really have no idea what contested battlespace means, do you? Drones and helicopters have great abilities when they arent threatened, but they are very easy to shoot down. Did you not see A-10s during the initial invasion of Iraq flying over Baghdad destroying targets in densely populated areas while dodging AAA…

Who the fuck invited this guy?

I can post isolated incidents of aircraft doing CAS causing friendly fire too! Oh look, here is an article about F-16 committing a friendly fire attack. Here is an AH-64 blowing up a friendly M-113. This time it’s a B-1B. Then there is that time a B-52 bombed a hill held by an American Special Forces team. An AC-130…

read again: they say “sustain” and “cannon” something like a bilion times. And F35 is neither “cannon” not “sustain. Please.

Until it’s cloudy. Or mountainous. F16 and F35 pilots will never venture remotely low enough to be precise enough for fluid ground situations.

Have you looked at the fuel consumption difference between the B-1B vs the A-10? Have you seen what parts for A-10 maintenance cost compared to parts for B-1B maintenance? Have you seen how much more often the B-1B gets scrubbed from a sortie for maintenance vs the A-10? Get with the program.

For the same cost of each F-35's hour of flight, we can pay for 2.5 A-10 flight hours. On top of that the F-35 can only carry 4 mavericks(they don’t fit in the internal bay and only 4 of the 6 external hardpoints can carry them), vs the A-10's 6. So now, instead of 12 mavericks(I rounded down, since you can’t have…

It can’t do the same damage.

Drones won’t be used for close support for political reasons and attack helicopter have a very low mission capable rate (friend is a very busy apache mechanic), cost more to maintain and are significantly less survivable. The a10 doesn’t just have one great cas trait...it has them all and for an amazingly low price…

Son... are you a special kind of stupid? While I like the F-35, I freely admit that it’s a shit show when it comes to CAS: can barely carry 45 seconds of cannon ammo... internal rocket bays can’t carry nearly as much as the A-10 wing pylons... the composite skin makes the F-35 low-survivable against even moderate…

Well attack helicopter loiter time is lousy, and the other two don’t do low and slow, or land without an improved runway so...not really.

F35s are not fine. Cant carry near the payload as an a10, and cant take the beating the a10 can.

CAS, though... is not really an Air Force priority, and never particularly has been.

Well then its a good thing the 30 mm cannon rounds also come in the HE variety doesn’t it? That’s generally what they use these days, and an A-10 strafing run will frag a pretty big area with them against soft targets.