How many times did you really use it though?
“How many times did you really use it though?”
The question is irrelevant, because it is an agreed foregone conclusion that the A-10 is by far the best aircraft for the CAS role in support of the Army. No one questions that fact. The Congress has ordered the U.S. Air force to reduce its budget by reducing the number of aircraft it must service with the same number of combat air support squadrons. In other words, they have to reassign the existing personnel maintaining the current inventory of aircraft to service the F-35 aircraft under procurement. The Air Force is not permitted by Congress to appropriate more funds to add more such combat air support squadrons. The Air Force is required to use only the personnel they now have or less. The Air Force has been instructed by Congress to choose between which aircraft they will retire to make room for the F-35:
1. retire the five A-10 squadrons
2. retire one-third or more than 350 F-16 aircraft and their squadrons which makeup the largest force of our fighter forces
3. retire the entire B-1 Lancer strategic bomber force
4. retire some of our refueling tanker aircraft, which themselves are dangerously short in numbers and long past their normal service lives
5. retire a significant fraction of the air transport aircraft needed to carry the armed forces into their combat theaters and keep them supplied
These are the choices the Air Force has been given by Congress, so you must either select one of those choices for the Air Force or immediately obtain an increase in the Air Force budget to fund all of those aircraft operations.