They tried to float that back in 1990 and 1991 as well.
The “reasoning” was this: “The A-10 is designed to survive hits, the F-16 is designed to avoid them.”
The AirForce fighter jock who said it had this sneer on his smug face.
I, for one, would love to have seen that sneer get wiped from his face the first time he tried to do CAS in an F-16 under the same conditions the A-10 faces.
BUT...the idiots who come up with these mental flatulence ideas will never be in harms way.
OTHERS will ALWAYS suffer for their feel good brainchildren.
Another thing is it’s not possible for the F-16 to fly as slow as the A-10 without worrying about stalling. The A-10’s slow speed has a lot of advantages when detail and accuracy of close air support matters.
That’s an understatement: Do you know how much punishment an A-10 Warthog delivers to the ground from above. I wouldn’t want to be taking shots at it unless I had a serious deathwish, that plane effectively “covers” an area with heavy bombs, or even powerful, full auto anti-tank rounds.
Yeah, sure. And I wonder what that Jordanian F-16 pilot who was burned alive would have said to that.
The F-16 is a pretty, but fragile, little jet, but it's no A-10.
How about improving(!) the A-10 instead of scrapping it for a lesser replacement?
In the late 80s and early 90s a NY ANG unit (”Boys from Syracuse”) was a CAS dedicated F-16 unit.
Their initial performance in the role during Desert Storm was a disaster. They ditched the centerline 30mm gun pod after the first day of operations and flew with Mavericks and dumb bombs.