Experience gained in the last 20yr in the middle east (Afghanistan in particular) indicates that what we traditionally consider "fighter" type aircraft are capable of delivering various guided munitions with sufficient accuracy and that time to location is highly important.
Having dedicated CAS aircraft is nice and it's probably wise to keep something of that nature in service at all time but it's foolish to pretend that a modern multirole fighter can't be shoehorned into that role with reasonable effectiveness.
Edit: You people (you know who you are) seem hellbent on interpreting what I have to say as being a much stronger statement than I am making. I am saying that aircraft like the F35 can do the job and that there are some pros to having those kind of aircraft do the job (namely speed). I am not saying they are better than a purpose built aircraft.
what we traditionally consider "fighter" type aircraft are capable of delivering various guided munitions with sufficient accuracy and that time to location is highly important
That is true but what is also true is that using expensive aircraft designed for near-peer conflicts for that mission burns through airframe hours at an unsustainable rate.
The B-1B bomber has performed a larger percentage of CAS missions than any other aircraft. In many ways they are the best airframe for this since they have a long loiter time, incredible load out, high speed to get to the fight. The only downside is no brrrp cannon like the A-10.
This is the same type of argument that people make over programming languages or EMACS/VIM. You could provide CAS with just about anything that flys. However a good CAS vehicle should be able to fly relatively slow and be well protected from ground fire. The A-10 if perfect and I really wish there was a way to make new ones. I even heard at one point the USMC was thinking of bringing back the OV-10 Bronco.
The A-10 is a death trap in a modern air defense environment. The USAF hasn't gone against one of those since Kosovo, and even back then it was all high-altitude fast movers and stealth aircraft dropping ordinance because of the threat of Serbian AD.
What the A-10 is perfect for is counter-insurgency, which is pretty much all the shooting action the US has seen since Kosovo. There's an argument to be made that, considering US engagements, a dedicated COIN aircraft is a good thing to have in the US inventory. It's a niche, though, and the US military is currently resistant to fielding niche systems.
> it's foolish to pretend that a modern multirole fighter can't be shoehorned into that role with reasonable effectiveness.
I would say it is foolish to make such a broad generalization like that a plane being new and designated multirole is enough for it to fill all CAS roles (there's more than 1 type of CAS mission) "with reasonable effectiveness". In the case of F-35 replacing A-10, we know that it won't be able to fill some of those roles.
The US has air dominance in Afghanistan, so even a Stuka would look good.
And the F35 has such a small production run that the Air Force would run out in months. Which they won't do for another agency for CAS.
In Vietnam we learned that having airplanes in-theater are much, much cheaper to operate than carrier and remote-based aircraft that take multiple refuelings to arrive on target.
For those not familiar with high-performance figher/bomber jets, they have to be refueled immediately after carrier launch and typically at least one more time after that before a bombing run. It's ridiculous, and exposes the tankers to risk.
> The US has air dominance in Afghanistan, so even a Stuka would look good.
USAF had air dominance in all recent wars, and A10s suffered the highest losses. Going against an enemy with functioning air force and air defence with those would be unwise.
You're wrong on enough points that I'm unsettling to put in the time to refute all of them...
But the easy one is: there are 490 F-35s built, with the next 3 lots buying almost that amount more, for less than it'd cost to buy F-16s/-18s. It's not a small production run.
