Why would we? This is on Russia’s doorstep, not ours.
Now, if you are talking about using Warthogs to blow up Mexican cartels—that’s our rice bowl.
Let’s talk.
Because the A-10s could be an effective weapon to take out attacking drones.
The U.S. has already decided to provide weapons to the Ukrainians; that is settled policy. The A-10s are already bought and paid for; their next stop is the boneyard.
The A-10s could supplement the small number of U.S. built F-16s already in use by the Ukrainians.
That doesn't mean the A-10s should be flown by American service members.
“Now, if you are talking about using Warthogs to blow up Mexican cartels—that’s our rice bowl.
Let’s talk.”
Yeah that would be worth every penny of more debt to wipe out as many as we could and put the fear of God in the survivors. A10 bbbbbbrrrrtttt much cheaper than Hellfire missiles off Reapers but Reapers much cheaper per hour of flight. So obviously make cheaper weapons to drop off a Reaper. The guided 80 mm and 120 mm mortars make for a fine drone dropped weapon sub 5 meter CEP. 80 mm have a 38 meter diameter killzone and nearly 100 meter wide frag zone. The 120 mm has a 60 meter wide you are dead zone and 100+ meter don’t be here or eat frags area. The kits that screw into the fuse well of either it’s the same size same treads. GPS+INS or semi active laser. Those cost $10,000 bucks each cheap compared to all other smart munitions. The reaper could also be fitted with gun pods and downwards and/or sideways facing turrets 20 mm 3 barrel cannon can lay down 5 mrad fire from 3000 meters up well outside small arms range. 5mrad is a 15 meter diameter area @3000 meters it should be obvious why it was chosen for gunship work.
Exactly this but on a Reaper not a Vietnam era COIN aircraft. No need to out human’s in harm’s way anymore we have global gigabit networks everywhere, all the time with Starlink and now the DOD dedicated Starshield.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/comments/1lv6w2r/yov10d_nogs_night_observation_gunship_system/
There is some great video of that system tearing up, sampans,trucks,people in the treelines if they could see it in IR or low light TV it got chewed up by 20mm HEI each round has a lethal radius for a 20mm high-explosive incendiary (HEI) round is generally cited as being between 6 and 18 feet 2-6m, with fragmentation hazards extending out to around 66 feet 20m. That cannon dumps 750-3000 per min. With a 15 meter beaten zone and 6 meter shell bursts it’s saturated nothing lives inside the beaten zone.