The Navy doesn’t fly A-10s or F-22s. They need a carrier capable aircraft. The Marines need a VTOL to replace the Harrier.
Trump is asking Boeing to price out new F-18s. This addresses the carrier aircraft but not the VTOL. Unless the Marines get the VTOL variant of the F-35.
Whatever they decide, the days of manned air combat aircraft are limited. Drones will be the next generation. Why waste trillions on obsolete technology?
Just read an article posted here that the V-22 is now in development of weapons systems to include a chin gun and also possibly the 30mm cannon. How is that for your sea-based variant? The one thing the V will never have is the stealthy noise attitude of the A-10 along with its maneuverability and the ability to loiter without refueling. IN GW1, the Iraqi soldiers gave it the name of Silent Death because they just could not hear it coming until it was way too late. In joint operations, both will be employed to devastating effects if the up armed V comes to pass which I think it will.
I might even argue that the Marines don’t need a replacement for the Harrier, and might go even further and state that the Marines don’t even need their own aircraft. They’re part of the Navy, let the Navy take care of the flying.
I could see using a combination of manned and drones.
Current Predator technology has the drone being controlled via satellite link, but that option has finite bandwidth for visuals, plus is vulnerable to the satellites being destroyed in a conflict with a first-class adversary.
One thing I'd like to see is a UAV which could be controlled by a guy in a trailing aircraft, with the UAV pilot having a hi-definition panoramic view of what's going on, using an F-35 helmet
The manned aircraft flies far enough away to be out of range of hostile SAMs, but close enough that they can have a direct, high-bandwidth link offering the UAV pilot a high-def view of battle zone. Make the UAVs cheap enough that there can be a whole bunch of them, so the human pilot can switch control to another UAV if one gets shot down.