iirc ALL of the tooling, jigs, machinery, etc to produce an A-10 was destroyed years ago...All very good points. To me, the F-22/F-35 is your first-strike weapon to take out their air superiority while B-2/F-117 takes out command & control. Then the F-15s/F-16s come in to mop up and maintain air superiority. But that’s just me. For CAS, the A-10 is the only thing that works. 40 years of trying and failing is proof of that. The A-10 is designed to take hits down low, no other system is. I say build more new A-10s. The original company is out of business, use the tooling and prints to contract somebody to build more.
By the way, I think the A-10 retirement plan got tripped up on the sunset clause. The A-10 is being upgraded to A-10C as we speak, you’re not supposed to do that to a system that’s retiring within 5 years.
iirc ALL of the tooling, jigs, machinery, etc to produce an A-10 was destroyed years ago...If I was a grunt in SWA, I would love it that there were A-10s around if needed.