Which airframe will do better in this CAS faceoff, the A-10 or F-35?

"Welsh said he would like to see an A-10 replacement, often referred to as A-X, that can perform the low-threat CAS mission even better than the legacy Warthog. Service officials have recently indicated a notional A-X might be in the works"....hold on a sec....if the F-35 was designed to take the place of (but not replace) the A-10, why would there be another plane in the works to do the same job as the A-10? Savings of "$4.2 billion over the next five years"...? How many billions does it take to contract and begin R&D on any military weapons platform? And then to begin testing and production? Did he really think before he spoke with this? To think there's another post on RP that the AF is talking about loosing 50 programs. I wonder if they used their heads, they could save 100?

Gonna go with A-10.

I think the A10 is more survivable, and I don't know how long it will be before the F35 is FMC and not crashing, as all new airframes are wont to do...

While the F-35 has enormous potential as a Joint Strike aircraft, it is still very new in the operating forces. The A-10 on the other hand is a tried and true airframe. Both have their respective merits but to pit two fighters designed for two rather different tasks is ridiculous in my opinion.

Silly to the max.

Yes it is silly, two different airframes from different eras that do different things. Stupid.

I think everyone underestimates the impact of being able to see and hear the aircraft during its support. There is no better sight or sound for us on the ground, or worse for the enemy. The psychology is as important as the weapon effect.

The A-10 is clearly better than the F-35 for up close and dirty. Since the F-35 can not do that the solution will be to strap million dollar high tech weapons to it just to kill ground troops and soft targets. A burst from the 30 MM will get the job done for a lot less. The attack helicopter is going to have to pick up the slack left behind from the loss of the A-10. A hell fire missile costs about 70K and a smart bomb about 20K. 30MM about $25 bucks per round.

Not even a contest... A-10 is the right tool for the job. Some times simple is better... it's stupid to swat flies with a shotgun.

Me and some of my buddies did a flight simulation with the A-10 and F-35. in a dog fight the A-won 6 out of 10. the f-35 couldn't slow down enough to get a lock on it and when it did the A-10 hit the breaks and the F-35 flew past it leaving it to the BRRRRRT. Plus it was able to out maneuver the F-35 by being able to turn on a dime. F-35....not so much. On ground targets the A-10 out performed in range, maneuverability, durability, survivability, and more kills per mission(due to is ability to loiter, size of payloads, and wide range of weapons