Why not have bought a lot more of them and a lot of F-16s, A-10s and F-18s for ground pounding?
I too have asked that question a number of times. The problem as I see it is that all of the services try to make their equipment multi-role do everything items. What they end up with nearly everytime is a something that doesn’t do any of them in an outstanding manner.
The Air Force does it with their Aircraft all of the time. The Navy does it with their ships.
Why? Well I certainly don’t know why but I suspect it is a matter of dollars available for a project and once a project does make it through the approval process everyone piles on and adds their own “special” requirements and you end up with an Elephant which all who are familiar with the process know was originally designed as a mouse.
Why? Well I certainly dont know why ...
Because Congress ends up saying "you can have only X number ships or planes." The services end up saying "If we can only have X, we need it to do A, B, C, and D."
If they could have four times as many ships or planes, then they can have one to do A, another to do B, etc.
multirole aircraft........... kinda reminds me of walking into a k-mart... “By attempting to provide you with everything, they actually succeed at providing you with nothing”.....