The Air Force never wanted the ground support role. The planes and mission should be turned over to the Army ASAP.
“The Air Force never wanted the ground support role.”
They just didn’t want the Army to have any aircraft with guns on them. Might show ‘em up, you know. The OV-1 was a great little great little ground support plane but we were ordered to remove the rocket pods and all we were allowed to use it for was recon. Of course, nobody objected to the Marines using their OV-10 in the ground attack role.
As far as being old age goes, in Vietnam the A-1E and A-26 were brought back for ground support, and the C-47 and C-119 were used as gunships and all did their jobs very well.
Air Force brass need to have windows installed in their stomachs so they can see where they’re going.