Melchett,
I've got no problems with the OV-10's speed - my comment was directed at the FJ-Centric hierarchies who run most Western airforces, and who continually plan to fight the war they want to fight (shuffling F-22s and Typhoons against a hypothetical enemy in 2020) than adjusting doctrine, procurement and priorities to fight the war(s) we are fighting. The OV-10 simply isn't "punchy", and the USAF has been trying to kill-off the A-10 to buy more F16s for ages, only recently, reluctantly, funding an upgrade. For an area the size of the current AoR the OV-10's speed isn't really an issue.
In the UK we hear rumours of attempts to kill of the Harrier. Apart from removing a high pitched whining noise from the front line (and their aircraft..
) it threatens the only dedicated CAS aircraft we currently field.
Taxydual, I believe we ticked the "delete all hardpoints and wiring" option when we bought the Tucanos and it is prohibitively expensive to retrofit. A DESO chap I once spoke to moaned about this saying that we could sell them all in an instant if they were armed as they have useful extra grunt over the PT6 version.
Double Zero, if the Tally-Tubbies start lighting up fire control radars for AAA I'd guess that they'd get a visit from Mr HARM quite quickly...also large calibre weapons are hard to conceal and "shoot and scoot" with. A DSHKa is about as big as you'd want to try to move and hide - ask the IRA. I'm guessing that the Bronco would be much cheaper per unit cost than A10/AH64 and is already designed for the role. I'd also wager that the operating costs are far smaller. If we're in for the long haul then these costs are important.