A-10 Thunderbolt IIs are strafing boats in the Straits of Hormuz as part of President Trump’s war on Iran, and at least some experts say it shows why the venerable aircraft should remain in service.
“The A-10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank and is hunting and killing fast-attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz,” Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a Pentagon press briefing on Thursday.
The Defense Department posted images of the A-10 flying in U.S. Central Command airspace this week. CENTCOM praised the Warthog’s capabilities, noting in an X post on Sunday that the aircraft “can loiter for hours, standing by and ready to execute a mission whenever needed.”
The close-support aircraft, battle-proven in the Gulf War and Global War on Terror, has been threatened with retirement for decades. Congress has often pushed back; the most recent National Defense Authorization Act caps the number that can be scrapped until the Air Force details its retirement strategy. Experts told Defense One that the aircraft’s latest operations prove the war in Iran shouldn’t be the Warthog’s last rodeo.
The A-10s renewed use in the Middle East should serve as a “wake-up call” for lawmakers and the military calling for its retirement, said Dan Grazier, a Stimson Center senior fellow and the director of the nonprofit’s national-security reform program.
“The longer the A-10 exists, the more impressed I am with that aircraft,” Grazier said. “It’s just proof positive that when you design a weapon system that is stripped down and all the decisions that were made in the course of its design were all made for matters of military effectiveness, you get a really effective aircraft.”
The NDAA requires Air Force Secretary Troy Meink to provide Congress “a briefing on the status of A-10 aircraft inventory and the proposed plan for divesting all A-10 aircraft prior to fiscal year 2029.” That report is due later this month. The annual defense policy bill, signed into law in December, says the service may not “decrease the total aircraft inventory of A-10 aircraft below 103 aircraft” until the end of this fiscal year.
An Air Force spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked by Defense One if the report had been submitted early or if the service is rethinking its A-10 retirement strategy.
Earlier administrations have argued that retiring the A-10 was necessary to pivot from Middle East deployments to competition with China and Russia. The F-35 was initially pitched as a close-air-support replacement for the Warthog, but internal tests raised questions and doubts that the fifth-generation fighter could be a suitable replacement, according to a report obtained by the Project on Government Oversight.
“The F-35 was the national-security establishment going through a midlife crisis and purchasing a Ferrari,” Grazier said. “The A-10 is like that old reliable Chevy pickup truck that, as long as you can get parts for it, is going to continue with regular maintenance to provide useful service.”
U.S. and allied fourth- and fifth-generation fighter jets have helped destroy Iran’s air defenses and military infrastructure during Operation Epic Fury, but experts told Defense One last week that their continued use against cheap, one-way attack drones is expensive and unsustainable. The U.S. has also relied heavily on aging B-1 bombers, which are slated for retirement in the 2030s.
On Thursday, an F-35 aircraft had to make an emergency landing during a combat mission over Iran, said Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a CENTCOM spokesperson. The fifth-generation fighter landed safely and the incident is being investigated. That afternoon, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps posted a video claiming to have hit an F-35.
