I’m not against buying other off-the-shelf options, too, before those are gone.
F-15, -16 & -18 are all still in production IIRC, bring broader capability and are relatively affordable. (though believe it or not, flyaway cost of F-35 is almost the same as a Super Hornet right now)
I just insist we should be buying new…

A military built for a conventional war can be pressed into a glorified police action, counter-insurgency, and what not.

Weapons over-optimized for those purposes are nigh-useless in a full spectrum conflict.

I’m as glinty-eyed as it gets here concerning American military power but I understand defense dollars are…

Agreed which is why my position is it isn’t the end of the world.

Save for the fact that the A-10 is extremely mission ready and they are going through a wing replacement program. The Air Force is now the smallest it has ever been and numbers mean a lot, especially if the loss of one aircraft is the equivalent of losing 3 aircraft. This is why mission specific aircraft make sense.…

The cardinal truism in FA concerning the A-10 — that the only replacement for an A-10 is another A-10 — is an embarrassing article of faith. That other platforms wouldn’t be better at it isn’t my argument — I need only insist that other platforms can be pressed into which aren’t 1-trick ponies.

At 20+ years aircraft start to be maintenance-intensive moneysinks.
Even start ripping themselves apart at Mach 2.

I’m not here to sing the F-35 programs praises, though unit price is finally coming down due to the lessons learned from the 1st LRIP lots. But it is going to be the backbone of the force and something…

Didn’t say it was, the criticism was it can’t do this. Or defend itself properly against a fighter, to boot.

You’re not wrong but it doesn’t make any military intervention look appealing at all.

Those islands are really far from Japan. :|

When you circle the efficiency drain, drones will come out top.
The A-10 is just the canary in the coal mine: I loathe the bad business practice it represents.

A war which we need to kick down an advanced air defense is probably one who’s loss would represent an existential blow to American hegemony. The A-10 is…

The worst way to revitalize a military is to rapidly expand manpower and run aging hardware assets harder and longer. Equating numbers with capability is a fallacy, but it’s reassuring and encourages you to run stuff past the sell-by date. And that describes huge fractions of the teens-fleet.

We did this already and…

The worst way to revitalize a military is to rapidly expand manpower and run aging hardware assets harder and longer. Equating numbers with capability is a fallacy, but it’s reassuring and encourages you to run stuff past the sell-by date. And that describes huge fractions of the teens-fleet.

We did this already and…

Just using your numbers, and for the other %15, they’re expensive hangar queens. Even unstealthy F-15's, 16's & 18's bring capability in the 1st week of a war in carrying the kind of standoff ordinance we’re going to lean on to crack open an integrated air defense (IAD), and being able to defend themselves in an…

A cannon is still more useful than bomb in the total battlefield for slaying trucks, tents, munitions & supplies in the open and as they’re identified.

A-10's aren’t the biggest waste of money, but they still represent a very negative allocation of resources for USAF. We need those pilots in more general-purpose platforms and mechanics doing the same thing. USAF is stretched thin.

Helicopters generally and the A-10 as well are enjoying an Indian Summer in extremely…

AB InBEV is the world’s biggest beer maker.
They’re as distilled and soulless as a corporation can get.

People like being Americans, not World Citizens. They believe in the rule of law. They believe in personal responsibility & accountability.

But most prosaically they don’t like being called names, shit on, or getting pissed on and told it’s rain.

Born again Christian: what is your GUT REACTION to that description of…

HRC’s absence from the Women’s March is no great mystery.
She leads from behind: she licks her finger, feels the political winds and charts a path from there.

Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved by getting American missiles out of Turkey & Italy. The 1956 Hungarian Revolution had no tangible response. Ditto again the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Realize it or not the US military is stretched quite thin with brigades in Korea, Kuwait, Europe, Afghanistan.
Over 230,000*…