The A-10 is amazing. This pilot landed her plane after receiving massive damage, including a giant hole in the wing and loss of all hydraulics. [1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Campbell_(pilot)

Sure, and it probably has it's place, but what war are we supposed to be preparing for? I've come around to some of the other comments in this thread that point out that we spent a lot of time preparing for the last war, which got us caught with our pants down in OIF/OEF. It's probably wise to analyze the F-35, warts and all, in that context. A lot of the criticisms I see seem to bake in this assumption that it would do very poorly in a COIN type war. I don't exactly agree, since by the time I left AFG (2013) it was mostly drone, F-16, and B1 support we had. I never saw a single A-10. Lots of little birds, but that's it. So if all we need the F-35 to do is drop some GBUs it seems it'll probably be able to do that at least as good as everything else.

If we're actually trying to prepare for a near-peer adversary, I'm much more concerned with the vast suite of electronics on this platform than I am with it's ability to dog fight. What use is dog fighting in a early/mid 21st century war? If you're trying to dog fight I think you've already lost. As the US has dominated the sky (and the sea) for the last half century our near-peers have optimized on that they are good at, and what we are not. The Russians with more and more advanced missile technology, and the Chinese their cyber weapons - neither of which the F-35 has anything to do with countering, at least explicitly, and with the latter seems uniquely vulnerable to.

But yes, I agree, "take this huge cannon and weld a cockpit, two engines, and some wings to it" made for a pretty cool aircraft.

"There is no current or planned plane as capable or as survivable as the A-10."

Re:survivability....The A-10 survives being hit. The F-35 avoids being hit in the first place. Modern SAMs like the S-400 will spot and engage the A-10 are farther ranges than they can even detect an F-35. The A-10 can survive ground cannon fire (say from a Pantsir-S1's cannons) better than the F-35...but the F-35 doesn't need to get "low and slow" to deliver ordnance on target in the first place.

If F-35s are tasked with doing gun runs on T-80s, then in your AOC (Air Force operations center) or DASC (Marine equivalent, roughly) somebody sucks at either weaponeering, building an Air Tasking Order, or both.

Yeah everybody loves the A-10.

The A-10 does a lot of things well but it only works if you already have air superiority.

If you control the skies? Cool, bring it in for the BRRRT. Great for chasing down those insurgents in pickup trucks.

Against a modern and capable foe (Russia, China, or -- perhaps more realistically -- countries equipped by them) that is far less likely to be the case.

It's helpless against fighters and missiles. It might survive some damage, which is great for the pilot, but it still means the plane's been neutralized and hey, you still need to figure out how to get that air support.

Also, my understanding is that modern Russian tanks (reactive armor, etc) can survive the A-10's gun. The A-10 has been around as a feared tank killer for decades and hasn't really evolved. You don't think Russia has spent the last few decades figuring out how to deal with it?