The fate of the US military’s A-10 attack aircraft has always been a concern for military enthusiasts. Despite some US congressmen insisting on keeping the A-10 in service, seeing the poor performance of attack aircraft in the Russo-Ukrainian war, eventually, the US Congress compromised. Starting from 2023, the A-10 began to enter the fast track to retirement, with over 200 A-10s expected to be retired by 2029.
However, the successor of the A-10 has not been determined yet. After the retirement of the A-10 attack aircraft, the US Air Force will still be able to use existing fighter jets such as F-16, F-15E, F-15EX, and F-35 to carry out close air support missions. Of course, drones are also important candidates. With the assistance of precision-guided weapons, theoretically, all active-duty fighter jets of the US Air Force can perform this type of mission, including bombers and MQ-9 drones. Close-range attack methods make it difficult for attack aircraft to effectively survive in dense modern air defense networks, let alone carry out missions.
Although the A-10 has indeed achieved many outstanding combat records during its service, providing great assistance to US ground forces, these achievements were made under the protection of the US military’s strong air superiority. Once air superiority is lost, slow-speed and low-mobility attack aircraft like the A-10 will face significant risks.
Before the disappearance of attack aircraft, multi-role fighter jets have already begun to serve as the mainstay of ground attack. The US military’s F-16, F-15E, F/A-18F, the Russian military’s Su-30, Su-34, Su-35, China’s J-15, J-16, European Typhoon, Rafale, and France’s Mirage, etc., are all multi-role fighters.
These multi-role fighter jets not only have outstanding flight performance but also have very comprehensive avionics equipment, which can be used as air superiority fighters. Additionally, due to their excellent payload capacity, they can also serve as missile trucks, becoming platforms for precision-guided weapons. However, compared to attack aircraft, these fighter jets are versatile, more complex, which results in higher procurement and operational costs.
At the same time, drones are rapidly growing to become an important means of ground attacks. The US military is vigorously developing AI unmanned combat aircraft, hoping to maintain air superiority by deploying a large number of high-performance unmanned combat aircraft.
The US has two main development directions: one is traditional slow-speed propeller-driven drones, and the other is jet-powered high-speed unmanned combat aircraft.
The slow-speed propeller-driven drones mainly include the MQ-9 series and the Mojave drone currently under development.
The jet-powered high-speed unmanned combat aircraft in the US is known as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) project. Currently under development are General Atomics’ XQ-67A, Boeing’s MQ-28A “Ghost Bat,” and Kratos’ XQ-58A “Valkyrie.” They all incorporate stealth designs such as top intake ports, V-tails, etc.
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