What? No love for an ancient A model guy?????

Because the newest A-10 was built in 1984 and it can't fly forever, because it's only really good at one aspect of one role that USAF has been doing with other aircraft, and because USAF finds it cheaper and easier to support fewer types of aircraft.

“Precision guided bombs and missiles are where it’s at now. “

The AGM-65 Maverick missile is a precision guided missile employed and used in Desert Storm! Over 5,000 were employed from the A-10 and only 116 from the F16. The Marine Corps and Navy didn’t employ many precision guided air to ground missiles in Desert Storm. They had a walleye missile.

I have shot the Maverick off the A-10 and the F16. From an operational standpoint, I would much rather shoot these from an A-10 than an F16, primarily due to slower speeds and the maneuverability of the aircraft giving me the ability to target and shoot more rapidly! Obviously the war planners in Desert Storm knew this as demonstrated by the disproportionate use of the missile by the A-10 over all other weapons systems. We made mistakes in Vietnam removing the gun from the F-4 thinking “air to air missiles is where it was at” during that timeframe. Well, the gun was put back in the aircraft. It’s a faulty premise to assume these legacy systems are obsolete. The military industrial complex and the high ranking brass that end up in jobs relating to this industry have a propensity to want to purchase shiny new jets and the newest in technology. The Buff and Hog have managed to survive because they are lethal weapons systems even today.

The Buff has survived (and is part of the long term plan) because it’s more viable to keep it going forever than it is to develop a new heavy bomber. The plan going forward is to retire the B-1 and the B-2, and to keep only the B-52 and the B-21.

And sure, in a war 30 years ago, the A-10 shot most of the maverick missiles. I can see why you’d prefer that task in the Hog over a Viper. But USAF thinks it can be effective in that mission with other platforms.

Ref. Paul Adams
Chief Analyst of Cassandra Defense Consulting

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Most of the AGM-65s delivered in Desert Storm were fired by A-10s, mostly against targets in the “kill boxes” along the Saudi and Kuwaiti border, from medium altitude. The A-10s had been withdrawn to that relatively safe area, and limited to higher altitudes, after taking heavy losses from the air defences of the Republican Guard units nearer Baghdad: since they couldn’t go low enough to use their gun, and couldn’t deliver unguided weapons from that altitude with enough accuracy to be useful, they were employed as Maverick platforms.

This worked well - the A-10 was compatible with the AGM-65, and flying at lower speeds and higher altitude above any ground fire gave pilots time to spot targets, position themselves, lock the Maverick on, and take a shot with a very high probability of success and low risk to the aircraft.

It was virtually ideal circumstances for AGM-65 employment, and the missiles themselves were mature and well-proven; against static tank targets parked in desert, it was practically test-range conditions, and it’s entirely credible that the missile performed very well. The A-10s racked up nearly 1,000 claimed kills of Iraqi tanks, plus large numbers of APCs, artillery pieces, and other targets. (Subsequent BDA discounted this to about a third - not a problem with plane, weapon or pilots, but many claims turned out to be re-attacks of tanks previously hit, or attacks on decoys)

Politically this was awkward for factions like the Military Reform Movement and the Lightweight Fighter Mafia, who had until 1990 been trumpeting how modern weapons were unreliable and ineffective, the USAF refused to fly any air-to-ground missions, that the Maverick missile was a $100,000 waste of money and the A-10 could destroy tanks with $13 cannon rounds instead, that modern aircraft would be shot to pieces by AA fire while the A-10 swooped in to shred tanks with its cannon as SAMs and cannon shells glanced harmlessly from its titanium hide…

The evidence that the A-10 was very vulnerable to air defences, that it used missiles more than gunfire, and that the despised (by the MRM) F-111F and its laser-guided bombs killed 50% more tanks than the A-10, wasn’t welcome and some of the MRM (for instance James Stevenson, in The Pentagon Paradox) tied themselves in logical granny knots to explain that the A-10 had actually been a stellar success and they’d been right all along.

However, a silver lining was the evidence that “technology” and guided weapons did work very well, such as where the F-16s showed they could use iron bombs from medium altitude with decent accuracy due to their excellent bombing computer. This supported a set of enhancements that brought us the A-10C , the aircraft getting a solid set of upgrades - acquiring a targeting pod, weapon-aiming system, and guided weapon integration - that made it a more flexible and effective close air support platform, in time for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan that it had actually been designed to support (troops on the ground needing CAS, with no SAMs and limited AAA)
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An article that supports many of the points made in this thread throughout.

Let's not forget the intricacies of all types of CAS (but especially Type 1) and Interdiction roles. A-10s have been involved in quite a few friendly fire instances to include one against my own former Battalion 1/2 during the opening rounds of Iraqi Freedom in a fight near Al-Nasiriya.
I'd certainly like to get my hands on one of those 'C' models that Terry and John speak of. The last time I climbed around the cockpit of one was in '95 timeframe.

“And sure, in a war 30 years ago, the A-10 shot most of the maverick missiles. I can see why you’d prefer that task in the Hog over a Viper. But USAF thinks it can be effective in that mission with other platforms.[/quote]

The USAF thought that it would be better without the A-10 34 years ago in 1989. That’s why our Fighter Wing transitioned to the F-16. Desert Storm saved the A-10.