Guns that can't fire, treason, and plot.

[em2nought]

Just who is guilty of treason here Generalissimo? http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/01/16/general-praising-the-a-10-to-lawmakers-is-treason/ (http://www.dodbuzz.com/2015/01/16/general-praising-the-a-10-to-lawmakers-is-treason/)
In my opinion it is YOU!

[TorpX]

When I read things like this, my faith in the nations leadership (both civilian and military) sinks even lower. :nope:

[Jimbuna]

Politics and the military...no surprises here then.

[Schroeder]

Wow, for once I can agree with McCain.:o

[Skybird]

Makes you wonder how many of the air force top staff is on Lockheed's paylist.

McCain is right. I never was a fan of the F-35. And for those absolutely hilarious costs the air force strangely has money. No matter how loud the budget explodes once again every couple of years.

The A-10 is the finest of its kind, me thinks. And as long as the ratio between maintenance costs/work hours, and flight hours, does not shift towards what by all reason would be considered unsustainable, it should be left in the invetory of everybody opertaing it. One does not give up such a sharp sword for an inferior one, without having damn good reasons.

The treason claim is even more hilarious. That general I do not trust. Or is he already a Lockheed employee? By the damage he helps to impose on the Air Force one could even see him as an accomplice of America's enemies. :D

[Stealhead]

The A-10s biggest issue is that the airframes are getting worn out. Most of the ones flying today have had rebuilt wing spars. Of course its all about funding and the money that could be used to rebuild older A-10 airframes is going somewhere else.

Another honest weakness is its higher vulnerablilty to modern air defense systems. There is already a counter to this the A-10 and F-16 working in a hunter-killer team with the 16 providing SEAD.

The F-35 is to me a complete joke it tries to do too many things for too many people and that never works.

[Platapus]

Sadly, there are far too many people who have no frickin idea what Treason means. :nope:

[Skybird]

The A-10s biggest issue is that the airframes are getting worn out. Most of the ones flying today have had rebuilt wing spars. Of course its all about funding and the money that could be used to rebuild older A-10 airframes is going somewhere else.

Another honest weakness is its higher vulnerablilty to modern air defense systems. There is already a counter to this the A-10 and F-16 working in a hunter-killer team with the 16 providing SEAD.

The F-35 is to me a complete joke it tries to do too many things for too many people and that never works.
As I said, its about the ratio between working hours and investments, and flight hours.

However, your second point I only partially agree with. I would not easily send in A10s against a technically sophisticated enemy standing in division size on the ground and having an AA umbrella set up like lets say a Russian army would, both radar SAMs and shoulder-fired infrared short-ranged missiles. Or Chinese ground formations, probabaly also an extremely saturated AA-missiles environment.

But the US must calculate that it will still need to fight asymmetrical and low intensity wars like for example the current operations against IS as well. There must be a reason why the A-10s once again seem to bear the lion's share of missions.

The F35 may be more survivable in a high tech environment, but it surely has much shorter, and fewer, teeth so far. And its survivability in a hightech environment comes at the cost of not being able to use external hardpoints. The hilarious costs alone forbid to take that risk.

Costs also are the reason why any loss of an F35 will score much higher for the shooter.

[Oberon]

However, your second point I only partially agree with. I would not easily send in A10s against a technically sophisticated enemy standing in division size on the ground and having an AA umbrella set up like lets say a Russian army would, both radar SAMs and shoulder-fired infrared short-ranged missiles. Or Chinese ground formations, probabaly also an extremely saturated AA-missiles environment.

That's why the A10 wasn't designed to work alone in such an environment. F-series aircraft (15, 16, 18) would be using HARMs to degrade any radar unit that made the mistake of leaving its search radar on for too long. In regards to IR seekers, there's not as much you can do about them but hope the CMs work, and for SPAAGs you just hope that they leave their FCR on too long and a HARM gets it, or you focus on hitting the SPAAGs with the first aircraft while the wingman rolls in hot on the armour. Meanwhile AH-64Ds would be plinking with Hellfires from further back and ground forces would be doing their bit to blunt the offensives.
Combined arms, as they say.
In regards to survivability, the A10 is a lot more rugged than the F35, if she did get hit by a SAM, provided it didn't hit a critical area then she stands a reasonable chance of managing to RTB or at the very least getting back behind friendly lines before the pilot has to punch out.