A-10 Thunderbolt II loadout animation

that's hot

I'm not a fan of the over encumbered beast that the F-35 has become. That being said, the hog has quite a few faults that it's facing. It requires air superiority as it has no air to air capabilities and is too slow to outrun anything. It's pretty outdated and it's original purpose of taking out soviet tank columns has passed (it's also no longer capable of penetrating MBT armor with its gun). It's the only aircraft in the US still using analog computers, they lose a weapons hard point due to an electronics package to make up for their lack of internal avionics. Finally, and the most damaging. The airframes are old, the last one was built in the 80's and they take a lot of abuse. Eventually the frame becomes fatigued and more prone to failure. There's nothing really that can be done about that one. Regardless, it serves an extremely useful purpose. It's loiter time over the frontline and ability to take massive amounts of punishment. Makes it invaluable to the grunts on the ground. What we need is an A-10 III, a new dedicated ground attack aircraft that keeps the attributes of what makes the Hog so great.