A single piloted F-16C with a loadout of GBU-32 JDAMS is a so much more capable strike aircraft than the A-6 ever dreamed of being it's not even funny, and the same aircraft is light years ahead of any F-14 variant in air-to-air capabilities, both BVR (beyond visual range) and in close BFM.
The beauty of this generation of weapons is they plug into aircraft with little more than software changes. An A-6 with a bunch of JDAMS would be a hell of a weapon in the current evolution. More bombs, more time station and two people in the cockpit to handle the CAS role. Yes, the A-6 was old but it's weakest point were the wings and they had just gone through rewinging shortly before. No, it wasn't stealthy in pretty much any way and I am not arguing that it should be in the fleet today but it wasn't time for it to go and we had to suffer through the very less capable F/A-18 A-C until they got the Hornet E/F/G to the fleet, which are very capable aircraft and a far better value then the F-35.
I've been out of the cockpit of the F/A-18 for 17 years so I'm not the most current. I know very little about the F-35 beyond what I've read in the media and that's so full of slanted BS like the posted article that I put no faith in any of it. I've fought enough F-16's to know they're a great airplane, I've also fought a few F-14's and know that their days are long past, the fourth generation fighters are a huge leap forward in capabilities. Sooner or later all aircraft are rendered obsolete, you can't keep retrofitting them with new avionics forever. Eventually it gets to the point where you have to invest in new aircraft. Capabilities change and missions change, theater commanders, the JFACC, have certain needs that they build their plans around and if you don't bring those capabilities to the theater then they don't want you around. I saw that in Bosnia in the mid-90's, an aircraft carrier would pull into the Adriatic & the F-14's were essentially useless to the JFACC because they couldn't self designate for the laser guided bombs like the ROE required. They were glad to see the F/A-18's, but the Tomcats were pretty useless because they didn't bring any capabilities to the fight that the JFACC needed. I shake my head at all the A-10 crap posted on this forum. There are reasons the Air Force wants to get rid of the A-10's but for political reasons Congress keeps insisting they be kept around. That's just what we need, a bunch of political hacks telling the warfighters what they need. Keeping Congress out of the military's business ought to be the goal, not demanding that they push an obsolete weapons system on the commanders that say they don't need and don't want any more.
I've been out of the cockpit 10 years now but still pretty involved in the business. The F-35 is a victim of a flawed DoD acquisition system, much like the F-22 and V-22, that allows funding to ebb and flow at the whim of Congress and their special interests and the one year budget cycle. For better or worse those aircraft would have been in the fleet 10 years ago if they were not subject to those two things. The F-14, like the EA-6B I flew, had it's strengths and weaknesses but in the end it came down to cost to maintain and develop new capabilities vs the ability to cut an entire line of support. The Navy side decided to go with the Super Hornet and it was a good choice but they way they got there left us with a gap of 10 years in capability.
As you point out, the A-10 is another case of an end of life aircraft where some drastic measures are going to need to be taken to get a few more years out of a very small number of aircraft. No, the F-35 won't be the CAS aircraft that there A-10 was. Heck, it certainly won't be the airplane the F-15E is in any arena, but that does not mean that it needs to be around. Frankly, like the Hornet F, the USAF would likely be far better served by buying more F-15E's, a superb fighter and attack aircraft.
www.warisboring is just a publishing medium and they actually publish some good stuff occasionally but it is author dependent. To write off the whole website isn't a smart move.
