Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've read some analyses of the F35 vs A10 which don't favour the F35 for CAS operations much. The main thing I saw was that F35 requires more maintenance and longer runways than the A10 and is more fragile. It depends on what kind of a war that is being fought, but in a major great power war, you couldn't always guarantee having nice high quality air bases, runways, and support teams near the front. Sometimes it is p…
The A-10 would be shot out of the sky at impressive rates with today's proliferation of MANPADs, the same way the ukrainians are shooting down russion KA-52s in ukraine whenever they get too close to the line of contact. The F-35 could require 100x more maintenance than the A-10 but it will accomplish the mission and come home afterwards. The A-10 is useful for shooting someone who can't shoot missiles back at your p…
There have been no doubt thousands to tens of thousands of missions flown over the past year and a half by Russia, but only around 28 SU-25 losses and 36 KA-52 losses[0]. At 19 months into the war, that's 1-2 per month which would be more than acceptable losses. Even looking at total aircraft losses per side per month, the worst case is Ukraine with 307 losses over 19 months or 16.2 per month.
Perspective is important. We lost 2,714 planes in the Korean War[1] over 37 months. That is 73.4 aircraft per month or a little more than 4.5x as many each month and it was considered acceptable losses.
I don't care to add up all the things, but even in far less heated wars with basically zero anti-air capability, there are still a ton of aircraft losses[2].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_losses_during...
[1] https://dpaa-mil.sites.crmforce.mil/dpaaFamWebInKoreanAirBat...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and...