The A10 is a lot less vulnerable to ground-fire and MANPADS than helicopters, can carry more and loiter longer. It's like a AC130 but cheaper to operate and with more missiles.

While the gun isn't going to be effective against a modern armored division having a high capacity missile truck is worthwhile as evidenced in desert storm.

That said, time to get on scene is very important and the A10 is very poor at that compared to other fixed wing aircraft.

Have you ever been in combat with an A10? I have. I was literally the guy putting a laser (from my Shadow 200 TUAV) onto a weapons cache building in Tal'Afar, Iraq and watched an A10 BRRRRRTTTTTT cut the building in 1/2 before it ignited from all of the ordinance inside.

As to showing the A10's effectiveness in Desert Storm, that was what, 1991? The Soviet T90-A was designed to specifically be fine against 30mm GAU8 rounds, and it was released in 1993. Soviet armor divisions also have serious business anti-aircraft like the Pantsir system, which would obliterate an A10 no question. All recent Soviet weaponry, up to and including the most recent T14 Armata would survive strafing from an A10 just fine, and in the meantime provide targetting data to anti-air platforms to take it out.

TL;DNR: Using the weapons from the early 1990s to fight a war now is a great way to lose. The A10 is an amazing machine, but so was the P51 Mustang in its heyday.

:-)

If you get a combat patch and combat pay, it is combat. If your operational flight record says you have 482 combat flight hours, what would you call it (that is the number of hours I got in OIF II 2003-2004). You don’t have to kick down doors and drop bodies with your hands to be in combat. It was the RQ-7A in specific I flew as the RQ-7B is a bigger airframe with better endurance.

The A-10 is still effective against light cavalry and mounted cavalry using low-armored ground vehicles, which are the units of choice for highly mobile hit-and-run guerilla combatants. Shooting pennies to destroy dollars is a viable strategy, and the A-10 spews nickels instead of launching quarters.

There's some interesting counter-arguments to that view in this thread; I'm not knowledgeable enough in the domain to have a strong opinion.

There were plans for light attack propeller aircraft. The US actually bought a bunch of them for the Iraqi airforce and were falling over themselves saying how good they were for the job. The US airforce then trialled their own light attack aircraft (apparently grudgingly) but...

https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/01/18/the-air-forces-pl...

and to be honest, ths reasons given are pretty suspect to me anyway.

Also, a tank without optics and sensors is pretty damn useless.

https://www.quora.com/Can-an-A-10-Warthog-airplane-take-down...

Again, a hellfire missile from an Apache is a much better way to kill a modern tank.

It is clear that a single GAU-8 shell to undamaged frontal armor will not cause serious damage. Everything else points to the A-10 being highly effective.

Since we don't get to fire at the T-90 for testing purposes, note that smaller and slower shells from the Bradley have taken out the M1A2 Abrams.

Nothing says you can't hit the same location 100 times. For increased accuracy, improving the ammunition is possible. A few years back, DARPA got 50 caliber (12.7 mm) bullets to have active steering. If we can do that in 50 caliber, 30 mm should be easy.

As for the Hellfire, the A-10 has that beat too, with the Maverick. It goes 3 times as far, carrying 7 to 15 times as much explosive. The A-10 can also carry Paveway, JSOW, and various other precision bombs.

I don't think the psychological effect should be ignored either. Having an A-10 visibly loitering over the battlefield will have an effect on the morale and behavior of both sites of the conflict.