Wasn't it the USAF that sent F-4's into Vietnam without a gun because in the "new" air war a gun on a jet wasn't needed, that 'winders and such were all that was needed? That didn't work out so well as I recall. And, the M14 was "replaced" by the M16 as our main battle rifle and then we had to dust off the M14 for use in "the sandbox" cause the M16 didn't fit the need. We seem to do this to our selves over and over again. Sometimes "old" is good because it works. Are all the "bugs" worked out of the F-35 now?
The same folks who HAD to prove how obtuse they were by taking the guns off of modern warships after WW2 to make some sort of snobby "point" about "how much we reject outdated gun philosophy in naval warfare", just to drag heavy cruisers and battleships back form the mothballs for shore bombardment? Asinine political showboating and boasting in the State capital, with the same results. Instead of focusing on making a better military, they were parading around the State capital culture trying to be hip and cool with the new trends. "Anti gun" was super cool post WW2, and it was more important to be anti gun than pro military.
Get your steel toed boots on, boys, we have another pariah to kick to death!
Certainly, I can see with aircraft that as they age they do eventually warrant replacement. They aren't a machine gun, or a T55 or Centurion tank, even some worn out old ships are easier to keep running. Replacing the A10 because of cost maintenance issues is understandable, as others have posted. The B52 is strangely unique in its ability to justify itself for potentially a century.
But, also true is the problem with the bois at the capital, doing strange bizarre things to make asinine points that.... have no point. Missiles will never replace 6 inch naval guns, or 155mm towed guns, or dogfighting canons on aircraft. Sometimes, potentially far too often, we are more concerned with the new shiny offerings than what actually works. We re supposed to buy the new thing simply, purely, 100% "cuz its new therefore better hurrr". Attitudes of concerning oneself with lynch mobs and defining yourself by
what you hate and are against rather than defining yourself as
objectively seeking to be the most effective and pro military we can be. Bashing battleships may be super mondo cool on the hill, but it doesn't do us a damn bit of good. We need to be focusing on the new designs and ideas that will carry us forward, not wax about Toronto and Pearl Harbor and talk about "HO BOY WE SHOULDA SAW THAT COMING HA HA". We need to focus on better infantry, not mock bayonets. A negative culture.
Maybe the A10 isn't worth the money and effort. But the criticisms of the people in charge being obsessed with new and shiny, and especially hateful towards what is old and proven (and still
NECESSARY), are not unbased. Rather they are very legitimate indeed.
