Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II A-10A

The A-10A entered service as a dedicated close air support and armor-killing platform. Although A-10s saw considerable activity between 1991 and 2001, their combat use skewed more toward general ground attack than pure close air support; the Air Force even considered replacing them with F-16s, and in 1994 offered to transfer the A-10 and the CAS mission to the Army, but the renewed presence of troops on the ground brought the mission back to the fore. A-10s did not take part in the initial phase of the invasion of Afghanistan; squadrons deployed to Bagram from March 2002 for the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, taking part in Operation Anaconda and remaining afterward. They deployed to Iraq in 2003, returning to Afghanistan in 2005. Although F-16s in Afghanistan outnumbered A-10s three- or four-to-one, A-10s flew half of all close air support sorties, prized for their ability to strike within 50 meters of friendly troops and to fly low and slow enough to tell friend from foe, plus their Link 16 datalink to other aircraft and ground forces. From 2005 the fleet began converting to the A-10C standard under the Precision Engagement program, so the original A-10A was never retired outright: it was progressively transformed into the A-10C (and, in some airframes, redesignated OA-10A for the forward air control mission) until the A-10A designation lapsed from service.