re: USAF plans to retire more A-10 Warthogs; “crippling” close air support capabilities

The DoD is always preparing for the next war(for better or for worse, different discussion.). The A-10 has been very relevant in the GWOT environment.

Regardless of its relevance in previous fights the pentagon recognizes its deficiencies on a modern battlefield. The A-10 is incredibly vulnerable to more modern manpads that our previous adversaries didn’t possess. Not to mention air to air threats, threats it didn’t face in Afghanistan and Iraq. All that said, the DoD thinks the warthog has a low survivability rate on the modern battlefield.

FWIW, I disagree and think it’s a valuable platform and retiring them is short sighted. They’ll need top cover to effectively do their job against near peer threats, but I don’t think we have anything that can do their job as effectively.