When the F-4 Phantom was developed, missiles were extremely unreliable, only around one in ten hit the target they were launched against, and they could only be launched in a fairly limited circumstances.
Around 1975-1985, technology advanced and new generation of missiles entered service. They became reliable, and they could be launched successfully from a wider ranger of circumstances.
Around 1995-2005, technology advanced even more, and an even more capable generation of missiles entered service. As well as being reliable, they're now smart enough and have good enough sensors to be immune to decoys, and they're agile enough that no aircraft on earth can out turn them. Some can even be launched against targets which aren't even in front of the launching aircraft.
Unless, of course, you're interested in strafing what's on the ground. If you carry 8 missiles, you have 8 shots. Assuming you can get a lock on what's on the ground. If you have 10-30s of 20mm or larger, you can do wonders on, say, a convoy of trucks.
While we used to have different planes for different tasks, the staggering costs of current/future models is killing off such things. And as there's no external threat today (for the US military), the enemies are themselves - the different services. Nobody in the Air Force really wants to support those in the mud. But they won't give them fixed wing aircraft (A-10) so they can support themselves.
> Unless, of course, you're interested in strafing what's on the ground
My (very limited) understanding is this: Against far inferior enemies such as ISIS and the Taliban, strafing works fine. But against peer enemies, such as the Russians, we'll never get close enough to strafe. Also, guided munitions are so much more accurate than unguided ones (such as bullets) that the number of hits is comparable. What we could do with hundreds (thousands?) of unguided munitions before, we now can do with 1-2 guided ones fired from a thousand miles away.
We lack the resources to develop and buy everything we want; we can't afford it and the sequester enforced by the GOP makes it even worse. If we invest in tools to defeat ISIS, we'll get crushed by peer enemies. We need to invest in beating our peers; we will defeat ISIS regardless (at least on the battlefield), even if the tools aren't optimal for the task.
"If we invest in tools to defeat ISIS, we'll get crushed by peer enemies"
As I see it, the only peer enemies of the US are Russia and China. As both of these countries are nuclear powers, war between any of them risks terrible escalation. FWIW, the A-10 was designed to fight Soviet tanks in Europe, and I doubt the top armour of tanks has thickened that much since then. And there's lots of APC's and other semi-hard targets that would be killed just fine.
Better 10-100 A-10's than 5-10 F-35's. For pretty much any conflict without nuclear overtones the loiter time, inherent survivability and weapon delivery systems on the "old, boring" A-10 is the way to go.
> the A-10 was designed to fight Soviet tanks in Europe, and I doubt the top armour of tanks has thickened that much since then. And there's lots of APC's and other semi-hard targets that would be killed just fine.
From what I understand, the A-10 was designed for that role as it was envisioned in the 1970s, 40 years ago. The air defenses have greatly improved since then and planes like the A-10 won't get near the battlefield.
They took out about 900 mostly Russian made tanks in Gulf War 1. Plus over 3000 other targets. Four A-10s were lost, shot down by surface to air missiles of the large, non man portable variety. A-10s are effective if you can remove the serious air defences first. Syria apparently has a lot of serious air defences which could be taken out but it would be a major effort.
What we could do with hundreds (thousands?) of unguided munitions before, we now can do with 1-2 guided ones fired from a thousand miles away.
By this logic, we should only be deploying snipers instead of infantry.
Look, once you've run out of guided munitions and SAMs and things, you're going to really, really, really hope that the technologically inferior aircraft hadn't packed something as obsolete as a machinegun.
For attacking an enemy that doesn't have and real air defences they shouldn't be using a multirole jet fighter like the F-35 or a jet ground attack aircraft like the A-10. They're both way too expensive to run.
They should be using a counter-insurgency aircraft, like the A-26s the Afghan Air Force is about to receive.
Not having a real air force is not the same as not having real air defenses. And the A-10 may be a juicy target for air superiority fighters, it's very resilient against ground-based firepower.
Low and slow the A-10 can out turn just about all air superiority fighters (vectored thrust fighters being the largest exception); as the old saying goes "get down low and go go go". The true enemy of planes like the A-10 is 4th+ gen missiles combined with look down radar.
Around 1975-1985, technology advanced and new generation of missiles entered service. They became reliable, and they could be launched successfully from a wider ranger of circumstances.
Around 1995-2005, technology advanced even more, and an even more capable generation of missiles entered service. As well as being reliable, they're now smart enough and have good enough sensors to be immune to decoys, and they're agile enough that no aircraft on earth can out turn them. Some can even be launched against targets which aren't even in front of the launching aircraft.
Guns are obsolete.