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Old does not necessarily mean obsolete, A-10 still beats F-35s by a large margin on the job it's assigned to do, and cheaper
by dixie_land 3y ago
Old does not necessarily mean obsolete, A-10 still beats F-35s by a large margin on the job it's assigned to do, and cheaper
- greedo 3y agoThis is ridiculous. The A-10 was designed to fight the Soviets in Germany. And like the AH-1 Cobras, it was expected to have a short life span fighting anywhere near Soviet air defenses. Do you know what A-10s have done for the majority of their missions in the last decade? Flown high with JDAMS and loitered, waiting for a call. The gun is all sexy, but just not used enough. And the A-10 would be crushed over a battlefield like Ukraine. Hell, even the B-1 was used for CAS missions in Afghan because it could get their fast, and had better loiter time than most other aircraft. Of course the wisdom of using $300M+ bombers in this manner is questionable. My point wasn't that old is bad, but that all militaries use old gear. The new gear is often enhancements to old gear.
- dredmorbius 3y agoOP might better have read "the A-10 exceeds the F-35 at its assigned mission", that is, the A-10 is the more capable aircraft for close-air support, where air superiority has been achieved. The F-35 likely exceeds the Warthog in other aspects, however.