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The GAU8 tears up Toyota pickups slightly faster than road salt (and time is of the essence in a CAS situation) and more cheaply than bombs/missiles.

The A10 is a lot less vulnerable to ground-fire and MANPADS than helicopters, can carry more and loiter longer. It's like a AC130 but cheaper to operate and with more missiles.

While the gun isn't going to be effective against a modern armored division having a high capacity missile truck is worthwhile as evidenced in desert storm.

That said, time to get on scene is very important and the A10 is very poor at that compared to other fixed wing aircraft.

"It's like an AC130 without a howitzer and a totally different machine gun" making it entirely unlike an AC130. The AC130's GAU23 and the GAU8 on the A10 are very different. I also did targeting missions in Ramadi for AC130s, and it was a lot of fun.

Have you ever been in combat with an A10? I have. I was literally the guy putting a laser (from my Shadow 200 TUAV) onto a weapons cache building in Tal'Afar, Iraq and watched an A10 BRRRRRTTTTTT cut the building in 1/2 before it ignited from all of the ordinance inside.

As to showing the A10's effectiveness in Desert Storm, that was what, 1991? The Soviet T90-A was designed to specifically be fine against 30mm GAU8 rounds, and it was released in 1993. Soviet armor divisions also have serious business anti-aircraft like the Pantsir system, which would obliterate an A10 no question. All recent Soviet weaponry, up to and including the most recent T14 Armata would survive strafing from an A10 just fine, and in the meantime provide targetting data to anti-air platforms to take it out.

TL;DNR: Using the weapons from the early 1990s to fight a war now is a great way to lose. The A10 is an amazing machine, but so was the P51 Mustang in its heyday.

"Been in combat"? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-7_Shadow)

:-)

It isn’t flown from Nevada like the bigger UAVs. It’s flown from in country, often only 1km from the mission site (although the total effective range is up to around 160km depending on wind direction, wind speed, and altitude). We’re doing convoys, we’re getting shot at, we’re risking our life. We woke up to mortar and missile fire every day. This is what the military refers to as combat, even cooks see combat. Did you? :)

If you get a combat patch and combat pay, it is combat. If your operational flight record says you have 482 combat flight hours, what would you call it (that is the number of hours I got in OIF II 2003-2004). You don’t have to kick down doors and drop bodies with your hands to be in combat. It was the RQ-7A in specific I flew as the RQ-7B is a bigger airframe with better endurance.

That's not the threat, though. If you're attacking a modern Russian armor division, you don't shoot bullets at it directly. You attack the weak stream of rubles linking it to Moscow, and maneuver around it until it runs out of fuel.

The A-10 is still effective against light cavalry and mounted cavalry using low-armored ground vehicles, which are the units of choice for highly mobile hit-and-run guerilla combatants. Shooting pennies to destroy dollars is a viable strategy, and the A-10 spews nickels instead of launching quarters.

The "keep the A10" camp is specifically arguing that the A10 is crucial for providing air support to ground troops against insurgent-style opponents, and that there's no equivalent available if the A10s are mothballed.

There's some interesting counter-arguments to that view in this thread; I'm not knowledgeable enough in the domain to have a strong opinion.

Ain't AC-130 Spectre is exactly for that?

They're too vulnerable to fly during the day because they're so big and fly so low.

I love the A-10 and it is better than the fast-movers for anti-insurgency work (Especially if you take cost into consideration). However it is not the best as it is still colossal overkill.

There were plans for light attack propeller aircraft. The US actually bought a bunch of them for the Iraqi airforce and were falling over themselves saying how good they were for the job. The US airforce then trialled their own light attack aircraft (apparently grudgingly) but...

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/01/18/the-air-forces-pl...

and to be honest, ths reasons given are pretty suspect to me anyway.

This is also why the Marines kept the Corsair as far into the jet age as they could.

Unfortunately, it might not. Take a look at this: https://baloogancampaign.com/2015/02/02/10-future-us-close-a...

In my adult life I’ve only ever seen the BRRRRRRRRTTTTT used on troops in the open/defilade. Those rounds work fine, even on the high tech armor favored by the enemy in Afghanistan, trees.

Just how many 30mm shells do you think modern tank armor can withstand? The A10 carries a lot of ammo, all to be fired at the same spot.

Also, a tank without optics and sensors is pretty damn useless.

A lot more than you might realize it seems. Here is a good overview of basically how the A10 is simply ineffective as a modern tank-killer.

https://www.quora.com/Can-an-A-10-Warthog-airplane-take-down...

Again, a hellfire missile from an Apache is a much better way to kill a modern tank.

I reach the opposite conclusion from your article.

It is clear that a single GAU-8 shell to undamaged frontal armor will not cause serious damage. Everything else points to the A-10 being highly effective.

Since we don't get to fire at the T-90 for testing purposes, note that smaller and slower shells from the Bradley have taken out the M1A2 Abrams.

Nothing says you can't hit the same location 100 times. For increased accuracy, improving the ammunition is possible. A few years back, DARPA got 50 caliber (12.7 mm) bullets to have active steering. If we can do that in 50 caliber, 30 mm should be easy.

As for the Hellfire, the A-10 has that beat too, with the Maverick. It goes 3 times as far, carrying 7 to 15 times as much explosive. The A-10 can also carry Paveway, JSOW, and various other precision bombs.

I don't think the psychological effect should be ignored either. Having an A-10 visibly loitering over the battlefield will have an effect on the morale and behavior of both sites of the conflict.

Fair enough, but hitting the same spot twice (even that quora article points that out) is never going to happen. In some real world situations 22 rounds will hit a vehicle the size of a T90 if the pilot has 100% perfect aim, something that is totally possible, but unlikely. You're right on the maverick as well, but the A10 is aging. It won't be too much longer before the maximum wear of the titanium frame has happened and the entire thing will have to be rebuilt, something that likely won't happen. What they need, is a modern re-make of the A10, but it won't come from the air force. They love their fast stealth jets too much.