the role of F-35 in those missions as described - staying high, coordinating the mission, can be done by stealth drone like X-47B and similar. After reading the article i got the impression that they aren&#x27;t able to replace A-10 in those CSAR missions too. Mentioned some limited success with F-15&#x2F;16 instead of A-10 reminds about attempts in recent Russia&#x2F;Ukraine war on Donbass to use MiG-29 fighters (same gen as F-15&#x2F;16) for ground attacks when Ukraine&#x27;s fleet of Su-25 ground attack planes got depleted. The MiG-s, while being a good fighter plane, were easily shot down in ground attack missions - nobody can run high speed at low altitudes and not having armor is a strong weakness when low&amp;slow - while also not being very effective because they lack good powerful auto-cannon (attempts to use intensively even moderate 20mm actually bends the frame :).