...guys on the ground would take a Warthog (10) providing CAS over an 18 just about every time...
On what do you base this? And in what IADS environment do you think your solution is better? If I can drop a 500lb GPS guided munition within 2 meters from 10-20 thousand feet, what is a warthog going to do any better? The answer is the only thing the A-10 can excel at is its use of canon against moving armored targets. Its very efficient at that. But there are many other platforms that can do this mission, too.
As for an USN F-35. One engine aircraft while flying mainly over water...
The reason for dual engine preference for Naval blue water ops was engine reliability. Have you seen the reliability numbers for F-35? They are way above previous designs. Not that I wouldn't prefer multi-engine myself, but you can't argue with the logic in the decision...cost, weight both lower, equal or better reliability.
When the idea is for the F-35 to replace the A-10...The F-35 simply cannot fill the role that the A-10 currently ...
It wasn't and it doesn't, but it will be up to the AF to propose the A-10 replacement at some point. Dont jump all over the folks who got the second of only two new production combat aircraft in 25 years for doing their jobs...
And to make the F-35 carry the payloads that 18's typically do on CAS....Doesn't the 35 have to then go to the wing pylons...
You need to study up on future ordnance...
Plus, how many 18F's can we put out at the cost of these 35s (that don't provide that much more of a benefit).
All new A/C are expensive. F-35 can operate in an IADS environment that the Hornet would be a sitting duck in. The Hornet is a lot of things but stealthy is not one of them.
The USN would have been much better off going to a F-22 Naval version...
And they would have had to give up half their carriers to afford it, even if they could have modified F-22 to fly from a carrier.
I am not trying to poop on your concerns, I just think you aren't giving credit that is due here. No airframe is the solution to everything, but F-35 is well thought out and well designed from both operations and cost/maintenance perspectives.
“...guys on the ground would take a Warthog (10) providing CAS over an 18 just about every time...
On what do you base this? And in what IADS environment do you think your solution is better? If I can drop a 500lb GPS guided munition within 2 meters from 10-20 thousand feet, what is a warthog going to do any better? The answer is the only thing the A-10 can excel at is its use of canon against moving armored targets. Its very efficient at that. But there are many other platforms that can do this mission, too.”
What can a Warthog do? First off, it doesn’t drop ordinance on my position instead of the guy I’m trying to kill. Secondly, the Warthog driver can visually identify his target so that he doesn’t waste expensive guided weapons on Yugos with a phone pole through the front window that the Serbs put out as decoys and our Air Force misidentified as tanks, engaging them with guided weapons.
Hanging around at 20,000ft might make Air Force mission planners happy because they don’t have to take ground fire, but it wastes ordinance and it causes accidents like some guy in a fast mover who’d rather be pretending he’s the Red Baron, dropping ordinance on me.
Bottom line here is that I trust a pilot in an airplane using the M-1 Eyeball and some judgement a whole lot more than I trust a bunch of transistor twidget stuff at 20,000 where the pilot can’t identify anything and which because of time compression because he’s moving too fast, he can’t set up the shot for accurate weapons delivery anyway, let
alone discriminate between ground decoys, the enemy and me.
That guided crap looks good on paper, but it ain’t always so out on the sharp end.