The A-10 Warthog is among the most dependable and capable aircraft in the United States Air Force arsenal. For over thirty years has guarded the sky and provided close air support (CAS) to American ground forces in Desert Storm and the Global War on Terrorism. The A-10 is beloved by every service member in the Department of Defense, except Air Force generals. Air Force generals have been on a crusade since the A-10 was first introduced in 1977 to retire the aircraft. The A-10 is not a bomber nor is it a Gen 5 stealth aircraft, and it exists primarily to support other services. Therefore, Air Force generals despise it. What the A-10 is though, is the cornerstone of American combined arms warfare and instrumental to the success of our Joint Forces. If the United States is to promote peace through strength, the A-10 is an essential component. The A-10 is feared by our enemies and is iconically American. If peace through strength does fail and the United States does go to war in the future, we ill need the A-10. However, the current, congressionally approved plan, is to retire the A-10 completely by 2029. The Air Force wants to retire the A-10 so it can redirect that program’s funding to the F-35/Lockheed-Martin money pit.
The Air Force plans to replace the A-10 with the F-35. The F-35 is an extremely capable aircraft for the missions it was designed for. CAS is not one of those missions. The Air Force conducted a fly off in 2018 (https://www.pogo.org/analysis/f-35-and-a-10-close-air-support-flyoff-report) to determine which aircraft was a better CAS platform. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) was able to obtain a heavily redacted version of the report through an FOIA request, but even the redacted report reveals the F-35’s shortcomings. F-35 pilots does not train for the CAS mission set. They are not prepared to drop ordinance in support of and in close proximity to Americans on the ground. CAS is not a mission that you can show up to unprepared. That will only result in fratricide aka Americans killing other Americans. The A-10 is the only aircraft in the Air Force’s arsenal that trains regularly for the CAS mission. But as A-10 pilots are forced to transition to other aircraft or the separate from the service entirely, their institutional knowledge of the CAS mission is lost.
The Air Force argues the A-10 is a single-mission aircraft and wars of the future will require aircraft capable of performing multiple missions. This is either a blatant lie or ignorance on the part of the Air Force. The A-10 fulfills many roles, and it is the only aircraft capable of fulfilling those roles. These include, but no limited to:
Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR): the A-10 is the only aircraft in the Air Force that can lead rescue missions to locate and secure downed pilots.
Forward Air Controller (Airborne) (FAC(A)): the A-10 is the only aircraft in the Air Force that can coordinate and provide clearance for (in the absence of a JTAC) air to surface strikes from other aircraft and artillery strikes from the Army and Marines Corps.
Air Operations in Maritime Surface Warfare (AOMSW): the A-10 is the only aircraft in the Air Force that is capable of supporting Navy and Marine Corps ships against small, fast moving attack boats like Iran and its proxies use.
The Air Force has no answers as to what aircraft will assume these mission sets once the A-10 is completely retired.
The Air Force says the A-10 is obsolete and cannot survive in modern warfare. This line of thinking neglects one of the fundamental tenets of air operations which is force packaging. Force packaging is using multiple different types of aircraft in conjunction to maximize the effectiveness of each while covering each’s weaknesses. The A-10 community has worked tirelessly over the last few years to adapt new weapons to the aircraft. These include the Miniature Air Launched Decoy (MALD) and the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb (SDB). MALD is a diversionary weapon that can mimic radar signatures of other aircraft. The A-10s large payload capacity means it can carry more than any other single-seat aircraft and gives the A-10 relevance in a modern fight. SDB is a stand-off weapon with greater range than other bombs in the Air Force’s arsenal and the A-10 can carry more than other single-seat aircraft. The A-10 community continues to modernize and improve the aircraft despite the looming deactivation.
Another alternative to the Air Force retaining the A-10 is give the aircraft to the Army who would most benefit from its continued existence. Currently the Army fixed-wing aircraft capability is limited by the 1952 Pace-Finletter Memorandum of Understanding. This arbitrarily restricted the Army from operating fixed-wing aircraft greater than 5000 pounds. The memorandum also required the Air Force to provide fixed wing close air support to the Army. If the Air Force is not going to honor its agreements by retiring the only aircraft capable of supporting the Army, then the Army should not be bound by an arbitrary weight limit. The A-10 would also fill a capability gap the Army currently has. Specifically, the Army lacks sufficient observers for its long range artillery systems. A-10s could fill this role similar to how the Army Air Corps operated in World War I locating targets behind German trenches for artillery.
The United States military needs the A-10. Although the aircraft is more than 50 years old, the Air Force has older systems still in service. If the B-52 and U-2, both of which have been around since the 1950s, can keep flying for years to come, there is no reason the A-10 cannot.