[null and void]

What we should be doing (and should have been doing since 2000) is designing a brand new, tougher, more heavily armed and armored replacement for the A-10.

Hear! Hear!

Add carrier take off and landing capability and have The Marines fly it!

Don't give it to a branch that hates it and wants to be no slower than Mach 2 and no closer than 35,000 vertical feet to any actual combat!

[Thumper1960]

Oh, God....just what we need.....some bloodthirsty, killing machine Marines in an A-10 type aircraft. :-)

THAT would be interesting in a theater of operations!

[Tallguy]

“Add carrier take off and landing capability and have The Marines fly it!”

Today’s Marine Corps would insist that the new ground-support craft be STOVL and possibly stealthy. So there goes a huge chunk of your ordnance & loitering capability. Moving the A-10’s over to the Marines is unfortunately not going to be well received by either the USAF or the USMC.

[Spktyr]

Carrier capability adds cost and complexity to any aircraft, as it has to be reinforced, all the materials need to be made salt-water corrosion proof or at least salt-water corrosion resistant, and on and on. Maybe not a good idea.

[doorgunner69]

no closer than 35,000 vertical feet to any actual combat!

The grunts used to laugh at the AF attempts at CAS in RVN. They, for whatever reason, released so high the joke was they were all frustrated B-52 pilots. Marine CAS could be scary to watch, they got so low before pulling out.

[null and void]