Salute!
Folks keep harping upon CAS missions and relate to the classic videos and photos from those days of yore. 'Give me a Warthog, not an F-35" is a common theme. I and most of my CAS buddies will tellya that the low and fairly slow planes will get chewed up except in a very few scenarios. In fact, the Hawg would have been chewed up at Fulda in the mid-70's after hitting one or two tanks. Only reason it flew as many missions in the 'stan and during 'raqi II was the adversary training and such was not even a third as good as the Vee I faced and what the Royal Navy experienced at Port Stanley. Ditto for the IAF over the Sinai in 1973 when they were introduced to the SA-6. The A-10's long use in the 'stan was because the scenario was vastly different from those, and resembled what we saw In VietNam early 60's.
So I link to a Hollywood video that is very accurate for the time it portrays. I know because I arrived shortly after the battle it portrays and often flew my little Dragonlfly to drop within yards of the grunts when they were in dire straits. We were 100 knots faster than the A-1 and 100 knots slower than the Scooters and Huns, but were small and had lowest loss rate of the debacle after 5 years. That initial air cavalry unit learned and by the time I flew in their support we hit the LZ before them and had another flight or two overhead when the choppers unloaded. Anyone here not having witnessed the drill, it is an extremely accurate portrayal of what I saw more than just a few times and was impressed by the U.S. Army choppers' timing, skill and formation.
So this is what folks think of when you mention CAS, but the F-35 will never use such tactics because it doesn't need to be right on top of the bad guys, and Reapers or other plarforms can put a Hellfire or that Brit thing, which is even better, right on top and more accurate than I ever could hope for. Gotta admit, tho, that the nape is impressive and scary, I loved it.
Gums sends...