The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, aka the “Warthog” or just “Hog,” is a very fascinating close air support aircraft of the American Air Force and a literal marvel of engineering. The Warthog has become a symbol of American power and a favorite among American troops calling in air support.

Around 716 A-10s were built for the United States Air Force and around 282 of them remained in use as of 2017. They are set to defy those seeking to retire them and remain in service for many years to come.

Here is everything you forgot about the A-10 Warthog, America's legendary close air support aircraft.

The A-10 was designed to destroy Soviet tanks. While it is well adapted to destroying enemy tanks, targeting their soft upper side with its heavy gun, it is unlikely to do that in the real world today.

War is constantly changing. While the A-10 is well adapted to destroying tanks, on the modern battlefield, it is likely to be too vulnerable to enemy air defenses, being low flying and the opposite of stealthy. Today, it retains a very useful role once air supremacy has been established.

The A-10 Warthog was designed with a particular part of Germany in mind. During the Cold War, if the Soviets were to attack the Allies in Europe, the likely battle zone was likely to be a place in Germany called the Fulda Gap.
This corridor was likely to be where the Soviet armor would have pushed towards Frankfurt, the Rhine River, and France. In order to counter this potential massed Soviet armored formations, the A-10 was developed.
The Warthog is a close air support platform. In that role it was always likely to be under hostile enemy small arms fire. Accordingly, it was designed to take
a heavy beating.

Flying so low to the ground meant that everyone with a gun would be taking a pot shot at the plane. Often, the A-10s have managed to return to base having taken severe damage that would easily have downed another plane.
To provide this level of support, it would constantly need to be at the ready. Ready to fly in support of the front-line soldiers at a moment's notice and to do that, it would need to be deployed at the forward air bases.
The forward-operating air bases would often be lacking the equipment and standards that many other airplanes require, but these bases were perfectly suitable for the A-10.

The forward-operating air bases would often be lacking the equipment and standards that many other airplanes require, but these bases were perfectly suitable for the A-10.

To provide this level of support, it would constantly need to be at the ready. Ready to fly in support of the front-line soldiers at a moment's notice and to do that, it would need to be forward deployed at the forward air bases.

Central to the A-10's design was ease of manufacture and low cost. The A-10 was designed to be the cheap and a hardy workhorse of the Air Force, much like the M4 Sherman tank was for the Army in World War II.

The Warthog is a rare example of a whole aircraft designed around a gun. The gun was selected first, and the plane was designed around it. The A-10 is literally built around the 30 mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon manufactured by General Electric.

This six meter cannon delivers its rounds to its seven rotating barrels. The spent shell casings are also pulled back into the plane to prevent the hot spent shells from damaging the airplane.

With planned upgrades (including replacing the wings), the A-10 could remain in service until 2040 or so. Despite numerous calls to retire the Warthog and replace them with the F-35 Lightning II, they have remained in service, albeit in reduced numbers.

The A-10 was first introduced back in 1977 during the Cold War. If they do manage to remain in service until 2040, that would mean they would serve an impressive 63 or so years in service.

The A-10 has been designed with a raft of redundant systems to maximize its survivability.

If one engine is taken out, or if a whole hydraulic system is disabled, the airplane can still continue to fly.

Like all airplanes, they can't be heavily armored with armor protecting the entire plane; instead, the limited armor is focused on protecting the pilot.

The armor is a titanium tub that surrounds the pilot and is reportedly able to withstand direct hits from armor piercing rounds.

The recoil of its insanely powered main cannon is some 44.5 kN, which is so powerful that it effectively halves the A-10s forward thrust (each of its twin engines only produce some 41.0 kN of thrust).

To counter this, the pilot only fires in bursts of one to two seconds so that he doesn't need to worry about stalling the airplane.

In summary, the A-10 Warthog is one of the greatest marvels of American engineering that focuses on off-the-shelf products and cost.