Air Force tests two turboprops as potential A-10 “replacements”

My favorite plane. I used to have a big poster of it in my room as a kid.

Can you say 50 cal!!!

See, I fathom the turboprop idea as it was used in Vietnam, though what I can’t fathom is why not just build an updated A-10 version with newer jet engines.,also, ive seen stuff on hybrid jet/turboprop aircraft as another possibility...if the A-10 base airframe and engines allow such long loiter times, just upgrade the Gatling as well, and just completely update the avionics...the thing is, typically, the simpler the plane is, the more survivable it’d likely be as well, so maybe a hybrid jet/turboprop version might be excessively complex...the O-2 from Vietnam, which was an armored Cessna, I’d also thought of, though it might not he as aerodynamic as the airframe in the picture here....