Skyraider 2? The Air Force may bring back Vietnam-style combat plane

One thing I saw at the National Training Center as a young 2LT was a flight of two A-10 swoop over my track and conduct a simulated airstrike. I thought - man that is some plane. I also remember CSM Biggin, 11th ACR DSC, tell this young 2LT that Skyraiders saved his ass more than once in Nam. In both cases I came away with the realization that Close Air Support is a key element in combined arms operations.

SR-71's which are no longer flying and B-52's no matter which model are all much older than anyone flying in them or working on them and as nice as B1B's and B-2's F-117's F-15's and F-18's, F-16's and the rest do at their jobs there are few that can do Close Air Support the way it is supposed to be done. During WWII the Marines cut their teeth with the F4U Corsair. when the forward units ran low on 50 cal belts there are stories that the Line Sgt. would tie bayonets to the end of the props and the Aviation Marines would fly 50 feet closer to the ground and decapitate the enemy and cut new paths through the jungle for the Mud Marines. Then in Korea the F4U slowly gave way for the SPAD. The two made a great team for a long time and the F4U's were turned over to the Koreans. There are still a few buzzing around at Air Shows. The SPAD, built like a truck able to take a lot of fire and keep on flying, was basically the TIMEX of Close Air Support. "Take a licking and Keep on Ticking." Could carry a load of rockets, bombs and bullets, loiter on scene for a nice long time and put the tonnage on target. PLUS in a pinch could even go head to head with the odd MIG 17 if need be. When on June 20, 1965 an A1 from VA-25 the last operational A1 Attack Squadron in the Navy splashed a MIG 17. The 20MM of the A1 play hell with the cheap metal of the MIG airframes. THEN came the A-10, Big Ugly and well suited to the name Warthog. The same sweet capabilities as the A1 able to put the T.O.T. great loiter time and now we have moved from a 20mm to a 30mm Gatling style gun that uses depleted uranium rounds that are 3 times as heavy as the standard round.
Bombing from 3500 feet is nice, but when you can come in at 150 feet and shoot directly into the opening of the cave when Abdulla and his buddies are located with a thousand rounds or a Hellfire missile or maybe a Walleye. It makes all the difference in the world.

and we have not even mentioned the AC130 Gunships which are glorious in their own rights but cannot get down close and personal, and the various choppers which do have their good points but are so easy to knock out of the air if the baddie had the odd RPG or Stinger and knows how to use it.

I for one would love to see another SPAD, and rework the A-10 and upgrade it and build a few more thousand A-10B's Warthog Juniors! Get rid of Thunderbolt though no one ever called it that. It is always lovingly called WARTHOG!

It's good the air Force is finally looking at a slow plane to protect the troops on the ground that's what the a-10 was designed for I helped build over 700 of them at the time the air Force only wanted to go fast they thought planes that weren't subsonic were outdated they were approved wrong with the a10 thanks for posting