Last A-10 'Warthog' combat squadron at Tucson's Davis-Monthan retired

The last A-10 “Warthog” combat squadron has been retired at Tucson’s Davis-Monthan Air Force Base as the storied base shifts to a new special-operations mission.

The 355th Wing’s historic 354th Fighter Squadron and its maintenance squadron, the 354th Fighter Generation Squadron, were inactivated along with their 36 A-10 Thunderbolt IIs in a ceremony at D-M on Friday, Sept. 13.

Known as the Bulldogs, the 354th conducted 35,000 combat sorties, fired more than a quarter of a million 30mm cannon rounds, supported 1,300 troops in contact, and flew missions against numerous high-value targets and provided close air support in 71 successful rescues, D-M said.

“The Bulldogs have a rich history,” U.S. Air Force Col. Clarence McRae, 355th Maintenance Group commander, said at the inactivation ceremony. “You were a part of something much bigger than what the Bulldogs have done.”

Purpose-built for close air support of ground troops and updated with new systems over the years, the A-10 “Warthog” features a 30mm nose cannon providing accurate and devastating firepower, and arrived at D-M in 1976.

First used in combat during the Gulf War in 1991, the A-10 has been involved in every major conflict since then, as an effective tank killer and platform for close air support and rescue missions.

The Air Force has been trying since 2015 to retire the A-10 to shift money and personnel to new planes like the F-35, contending that the relatively slow- and low-flying Warthog is vulnerable to enemy air-defense systems.

But the A-10’s retirement was largely thwarted for years through efforts of Arizona’s congressional delegation and other lawmakers, who argued that no suitable replacement for the Warthog’s close air-support prowess had been developed.

Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, A-10s from the 354th were deployed to the U.S. Central Command, which includes the Middle East and Central Asia, as recently as October 2023.

The Air Force began retiring some single planes from the 354th in February, and in June the squadron flew its last training sorties out of D-M.

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The A-10 squadron inactivations leave D-M with one training unit, the 357th Fighter Squadron, which will continue training A-10 pilots for the time being, D-M said.

The Air Force has said it plans to keep six A-10 squadrons flying into the 2030s, though some could be mothballed earlier. The remaining A-10 units are based in Georgia, Michigan, Missouri and Maryland.

“The Bulldogs have been drawing upon decades of combat aviation, some lessons stemming back from World War II,” said Col. Sean Hall, 355th Operations Group commander. “The Bulldogs built the attack culture that surrounded the Hog then and it will outlast the Hog now.”

“Readiness, it was a core part of the Bulldogs; their bags were packed and Bulldogs were ready,” Hall said. “They were ready for that call, when someone on the ground was having their worst day.”

But former Sen. Martha McSally, a retired Air Force colonel who commanded the 354th in the mid-2000s and flew the A-10 in Afghanistan, called the planned A-10 retirement shortsighted.

“While I agree that the military must modernize to face future threats ... And understand that Americans are weary of long overseas deployments… It’s short-sighted to assume we will never need the unique CAS (close air support) and CSAR (combat search and rescue) capabilities that only the A-10 provides,” McSally said in a message on the social-media platform X.

“Pretending the F-35 can also do what the A-10 does is like claiming a Ferrari can do the job of a pickup truck,” she said.

“We were mourning the loss of a vital capability that keeps Americans safe,” McSally said after attending the inactivation ceremony. “This isn’t about nostalgia for a plane I flew. It’s about saving troops lives.”

Though the A-10s are gone, the Air Force said the future of Davis-Monthan is assured as it plans to open the 492nd Special Operations Wing, an Air Force Special Operations Command wing, at D-M over the next few years.

Also in August, D-M’s 55th Electronic Combat Group received its first of 10 planned EA-37B Compass Call aircraft, which will replace the aging EC-130H transport conversions and allow the group to continue its airborne surveillance and signal-jamming missions for years to come.