During Vietnam days we had the A1 Skyraider which was an excellent CAS aircraft. The Army looked at the P-51 for a while in a study to see if using WWII aircraft had merit. The Air Force naturally took issue with the Army having such aircraft and raised heck over the armed OV-1's.
Along came the OV-10....nice aircraft but too lightly armed.
Then the A-10 was designed built for the task....but the fast fighter jock mafia wanted to do away it and was well underway in that process. Now we see the Hog being used for what it was designed for.
The thought of fighting the Chinese one day is very real. The thought of the RAF (or USAF for that matter) in its current numbers being effective against the sheer numbers of aircraft they will have to put up against us.....does not bode well.
Any thought of a conventional war against the Chinese has got to be one doomed to failure just through sheer numbers.