The US Air Force has been trying to retire the A-10 Warthog for years.

Too slow, they said.

Too vulnerable.

No place in modern warfare.

Then Operation Epic Fury began.

And nobody told the Warthog.

Because right now, that aircraft the Pentagon wanted to mothball is flying freely over Iran.

And what that actually means is something the official briefings are very carefully not saying out loud.

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Here is the logic that every military planner understands.

The order in which you send aircraft into a conflict is not random.

It is a direct readout of how dangerous the skies are.

You send your stealthiest, fastest, most survivable platforms first.

Your F-35s, your B2 Spirit stealth bombers, your F-22 Raptors.

Those are the machines built for airspace where the enemy can still fight back.

The machines that come after them, the A-10 Warthogs, the Apache helicopters, are a different category entirely.

They are slow.

They are loud.

They fly low.

They are not designed to survive in a contested environment.

They are designed to dominate when that environment no longer exists.

The sequence tells you the story.

And right now, those secondwave machines are flying over Iran.

On March 26th, Secretary of War Pete Hegith made a statement that landed hard inside the military analysis community.

Apache helicopter gunships are flying strike missions inside Iranian airspace and throughout the Strait of Hormuz at will.

Hegith said during his briefing, he also confirmed that A10 Thunderbolt 2 aircraft, the iconic Wartthog, were operating freely in that same airspace.

And then he delivered the line that closes the argument.

You only send these slow, low-flying, closeair support platforms when the enemy has no meaningful air defenses left.

Iran spent decades and billions of dollars making sure that line would never be said.

Russian S300 missile systems, domestically produced Bavar 373 batteries, layered radar networks, early warning infrastructure.

The entire architecture was built around one calculation.

make the cost of an American air campaign so high that Washington would hesitate before committing fully, force the US to rely exclusively on its most expensive stealth platforms, bleed the operation before it could reach its objectives.

Those plans are now rubble.

To understand how this happened, you have to go back before Operation Epic Fury launched on February 28th, 2026.

The collapse of Iran’s air defenses didn’t begin with this campaign.

It began more than eight months earlier.

In June 2025, the United States and Israel launched Operation Midnight Hammer, a targeted air campaign that devastated enrichment facilities at Fordo and Natans and destroyed the metallurgy complex at Isizvahan.

But Midnight Hammer didn’t only damage Iran’s nuclear program.

It punched holes in Iran’s air defense network that Iran never fully repaired.

By December 2025, Forbes was already reporting critical gaps in Iranian air defenses.

Former Iranian President Hassan Roani put it in terms that were extraordinary for their honesty.

The skies over Iran, he said, have become completely safe for the enemy.

We no longer have real deterrence.

Our neighboring countries, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, all have airspace controlled by the United States and Israel.

That was not rhetoric.

It was an accurate assessment of Iran’s actual position.

By the time Operation Epic Fury began, Army Technology reported that Iran had only around 100 air defense launchers remaining across the entire country.

100.

For a nation the geographic size of Iran, with no guarantee that all of those launchers were even compatible with the full range of missiles required to mount a coherent defense.

Iran was already losing before the first strike of this campaign landed.

Then came the opening hours of epic fury.

Within the first 24 hours, IDF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Ayel Zamir, stated that 80% of Iran’s air defense systems had been destroyed or disabled.

80% in a single day.

A figure that would have been called impossible a year ago.

It wasn’t impossible.

It was the result of years of preparation, intelligence accumulation, and the systematic targeting of every vulnerability Iran had failed to address after Midnight Hammer.

But even that number understates the reality because 80% destruction of a network already severely weakened didn’t leave behind a degraded version of what existed before.

It left behind scattered isolated remnants.

Soldiers with shoulder-mounted launchers, radar stations cut off from any command structure.

Older systems with no integration with each other.

The kind of fragments dangerous to individual aircraft in specific corridors, but completely incapable of stopping a sustained multiplatform air campaign.

That is the environment the A10 and the Apache now move through freely.

The A10 Thunderbolt 2 was built in the 1970s.

Its unofficial name, the Warthog, fits it better than any official designation.

It is ugly, heavy, and built to absorb damage and keep flying.

Its titanium bathtub cockpit is armored specifically to protect the pilot from ground fire.

Its redundant flight systems mean it can lose one of its two engines and still return to base.

Its GAU 8A Avenger 30mm cannon, a sevenbarreled rotary gun mounted in the nose, fires 3,900 rounds per minute of depleted uranium rounds capable of punching through tank armor.

Under normal conditions, in airspace where an adversary still has functioning air defenses, the A-10 is exposed.

Its service ceiling is just 20,000 ft.

The Russian S300 system Iran possessed can engage targets at altitudes up to 19 miles, roughly 100,000 ft, five times what the A-10 can reach.

In a country with functioning S300 batteries, sending a warthog in would be an unacceptable operational risk.

Iran doesn’t have functioning S300 batteries anymore.

Not in any meaningful integrated sense.

According to Flight Global, as of March 19th, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kaine, confirmed that A-10s are now flying combat missions over the Strait of Hormuz.

The A-10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank and is locating and neutralizing fast attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz, Ka said at a Pentagon press conference.

He also confirmed that AH64 Apache helicopters had joined the fight, operating on the southern flank and working against Iranian drone threats.

Iran’s strategy in the strait had centered on fast attack watercraft, small, highly maneuverable IRGC Navy boats capable of swarming larger vessels and threatening commercial shipping.

Oil prices surged past $100 per barrel after Iran declared the straight closed, choking a waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s traded oil normally passes.

Against this threat, the A-10 is a precise match.

Its GAU8 cannon, firing at nearly 4,000 rounds per minute, can disable a fast attack boat in seconds.

Beyond the cannon, according to the war zone, A10s operating in the straight have been carrying Mark 82 generalpurpose bombs, AGM65 Maverick air-TOS surface missiles, and laserg guided munitions.

The Maverick missile alone has a range of over 17 miles, meaning the A-10 can neutralize a vessel long before that vessel poses any threat.

A IM9 Sidewinder missiles give the Warthog self-defense capability against Iranian drones and older aircraft.

The air-to-air optimized APKWS2 rocket provides an additional anti- drone tool.

The scale of what has been executed is significant by any measure.

According to Secretary Hegsith, as of late March, the United States had struck at least 10,000 targets in Iran since the operation began.

Not 10,000 munitions fired, 10,000 individual targets struck.

The US has claimed that 92% of Iran’s large naval vessels have been taken out of the conflict.

Missile launches from Iran are down 90%, the result of a systematic campaign against launch sites, production facilities, and supply chains.

Former Supreme Leader Ali Kam was removed from command in the opening hours of Operation Epic Fury.

Command and control centers across the country have been struck repeatedly.

According to the Washington Post, which published satellite imagery on March 29th, at least 29 of Iran’s ballistic missile launch sites have been rendered inoperable since the operation began.

The strikes against missile production infrastructure.

The sites at Shahudi, Partin, Kojier, and Hakamya, all critical nodes in Iran’s ballistic missile supply chain producing the fuel that powers those missiles, have sustained damage exceeding even what they absorbed during the 12-day war in June 2025.

The logic is not only immediate, it is future oriented.

As Sentcom commander Admiral Brad Cooper stated in a March press briefing, “The objective is to systemically dismantle Iran’s missile production capability for the future.

You can destroy missiles, but if you also destroy the factories that make the fuel, you don’t set back the program for months, you set it back for years.

” The A-10 was part of this campaign from its earliest phases.

Army Recognition’s Analysis explains the mechanism.

In the opening days of Epic Fury, the stealth platforms, the F-35, the B2 Spirit, the F-22, led the strikes against hardened targets deep inside Iran.

But the US didn’t rely on stealth alone.

EA18G Growler aircraft equipped with advanced jamming systems systematically disrupted Iran’s radar and sensor networks.

Space-based systems added another layer of interference.

The result was not merely the physical destruction of air defense batteries.

It was the temporary blinding of the entire network.

The creation of corridors where the threat was suppressed long enough for non-stalth platforms to follow.

That is how A10s entered Iranian airspace in the campaign’s early phases, striking air defense units compromised by cyber and electronic warfare before those units could recover and re-engage.

There is a particular irony in that picture.

The platforms Iran’s defenses were built to counter became the platforms finishing those defenses off.

Two former commanders of US Central Command have now said the same thing on record.

Former Sentcom commander and CIA director David Petraeus said he would argue the United States has achieved air supremacy over Iran, not just air superiority, and that senior military officials were being cautious about stating that publicly while the operational reality already supports it.

Former SentCom commander and US Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie was equally direct, stating that he believes effective air supremacy has been achieved over most of Iran and that this has created the opportunity to locate and engage Iran’s remaining ballistic missile systems.

Air supremacy, not superiority, supremacy.

two former commanders, both using the strongest available language, both pointing to the same conclusion that current military leadership will not state publicly.

But 80% is not 100%.

And what happened in the past 48 hours is a reminder of exactly that gap.

On April 3rd, 2026, the United States suffered its first aircraft losses to hostile fire in over 20 years.

A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle was brought down over Iran.

One of its two crew members was recovered.

The search for the second continues.

Around the same time, a US Air Force A10 Thunderbolt 2 went down near the Straight of Hormuz.

According to two US officials who spoke to the New York Times, the A-10 pilot was successfully rescued.

Iranian state media claimed its forces struck the A-10.

Fox News, citing a well-placed source, reported the cause was hostile fire encountered during the rescue operation for the F-15E crew.

The cause remains disputed.

The Pentagon did not immediately clarify, but the fact itself is not disputed.

For the first time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, American aircraft are being brought down.

This does not fundamentally change the strategic picture.

Iran still lacks a coherent integrated air defense network.

The United States still maintains overwhelming air dominance across most corridors.

What two former Sentcom commanders are calling air supremacy, but it is a confirmation that scatter isolated remnants, machine guns, shoulder-mounted launchers, residual missile batteries are not zero.

They are a persistent, degraded threat that will continue extracting costs from this campaign.

According to the latest figures from military.

com, Operation Epic Fury has now resulted in 13 American service members killed in action and 365 wounded.

The human cost is real and it is rising.

The broader strategic situation is reaching a decision point.

President Trump extended Iran’s deadline to fully reopen the Straight of Hormuz until April 6th and then on Saturday, April 4th, posted on Truth Social that he had given Iran 48 hours before a significant escalation of force would follow.

A senior Iranian military official rejected the ultimatum, calling it, as reported by CBS News, a helpless, nervous, unbalanced, and stupid action.

The straight remains largely closed.

Oil prices remain above $100 per barrel.

A small trickle of merchant vessels is making its way through, but normal commercial shipping has come to a halt.

The economic pressure on the entire global trading system is severe.

Five European Union nations, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Austria are now pushing for a windfall tax on energy companies profiting from the crisis.

According to Reuters, Trump in a separate post wrote that with a little more time, the US can easily open the horn straight, take the oil, and make a fortune.

This is not a conflict winding down.

It is a conflict escalating, and there is a development that could change the shape of everything that follows.

According to Soft News, as of April 3rd, the United States has been briefed on a complex ground operation plan to secure or remove Iran’s remaining stockpile of highlyenriched uranium, approximately 970 pounds of uranium, enriched to 60% stored in tunnels more than 300 ft deep near Isvahan.

Executing that plan would require flying excavation equipment into the country and constructing a runway for cargo aircraft to remove the material.

It would take weeks, if not months, and would place American service members on Iranian soil under active combat conditions.

President Trump has requested and been briefed on that plan.

Whether he gives the order to execute it is the question now dominating every strategic conversation about this operation’s next phase.

The force for such an operation is assembling.

The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit has already arrived in the Sententcom area of responsibility.

The 11th MEU is on route.

A second aircraft carrier departed the US East Coast and is heading to the Middle East.

Two new EA37B Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft specifically designed to deny, degrade, and disrupt Iranian communications, radar, and navigation systems, arrived in the United Kingdom and are now on route to the theater.

All the pieces of a ground campaign are in position.

General Kaine has confirmed that both A-10s and Apaches are operating on the straits southern flanks, striking fast attack boats and intercepting Iranian one-way attack drones.

America’s Gulf State allies are adding to that firepower.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE collectively operate dozens of AH64 helicopters, all of which represent additional capacity in the campaign to clear the waterway.

But clearing the straight will not happen in days.

It will take weeks.

Anti-hship missile batteries still need to be neutralized.

Fast attack boat fleets still need to be rendered inoperable.

Naval mines still need to be cleared.

Dozens of smaller military installations along Iran’s southern coast still need to be neutralized.

As recently as Friday, Iranian media reported that US and Israeli strikes had severely damaged 16 commercial barges in the port of Banderan.

According to the Jerusalem Post, Iranian forces are still resisting, still launching drones, still firing missiles, even if at a fraction of their original capacity.

Here is what has actually been built in under 6 weeks.

80% of Iran’s air defenses destroyed within the first 24 hours.

Iran’s former Supreme Leader removed from command in the opening hours.

10,000 individual targets struck.

92% of Iran’s large naval vessels removed from the conflict.

Iranian missile launches driven down 90%.

29 ballistic missile launch sites rendered inoperable.

Four of the most critical missile fuel production facilities in the country struck beyond the damage they absorbed in June 2025.

A10 warthogs, aircraft from the 1970s, slow and unstal, flying freely through Iranian airspace.

And now troops on Iranian soil is a live option on the table.

Now back to the aircraft the Pentagon wanted to retire.

The A-10 Warthog is scheduled, per Air Force budget documents, for 2026, as reported by Flight Global, to be phased out of service entirely by 2027.

The argument has always been the same: too slow, too vulnerable, too limited for modern warfare.

Operation Epic Fury is dismantling that argument in real time.

Retired US Air Force Colonel Kim Campbell, who famously landed a badly damaged A-10 without hydraulic power during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, predicted exactly this outcome.

In an interview with Flight Global, she said that if ground forces are committed and the conflict moves beyond its initial phases, there is going to be a role for a ground support platform.

She said that before this war began.

She was right.

The Warthog found its war, and its war found it.

Whether the A-10 survives its own retirement timeline is now a genuine open question.

Its performance in Operation Epic Fury, engaging vessels in the Straight of Hormuz, striking missile production sites, operating inside electronic warfare corridors cut by Growlers and space-based assets, has made the case for its continued relevance more powerfully than any congressional testimony or budget fight ever could.

Here is where this stands.

As of today, April 5th, 2026, the Straight of Hormuz remains closed.

Iran faces a 48 hour ultimatum.

An F-15E crew member is still missing inside Iran.

The A-10 pilot downed near the strait on April 3rd has been recovered.

Ground invasion planning is actively underway.

And the United States continues to fly A-10 Warthogs and Apache helicopters, slow, loud, visible from the ground over one of the most heavily contested airspaces on the planet.

With what two former Sentcom commanders are calling something approaching air supremacy, what comes next turns on a decision that may already have been made.

If Iran opens the straight, the A10s and Apaches will have completed their assignment.

The campaign moves into a new phase, consolidating the degradation of Iran’s military infrastructure and managing whatever political transition follows.

If Iran refuses, if the regime calculates that the cost of capitulation exceeds the cost of continued pressure, then American boots on Iranian soil becomes not a question of if, but when.

And that scenario carries implications far beyond the Persian Gulf, touching oil markets, NATO relations, global supply chains, and the strategic calculations of China, Russia, and every other power watching this from the outside.

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