A-10 Warthog retirement slowed: Senate bill demands at least 103 remain in service
September 16, 2025
The latest version of the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) seeks to block the Air Force from eliminating its entire fleet of A-10 Thunderbolt II ‘Warthogs’ in fiscal 2026. At the same time, it would permit the service to continue its long-planned phase-out by sharply reducing numbers.
NDAA requires a minimum of 103 A-10s to remain in service
Section 137 of the Senate bill prohibits the complete retirement of the Fairchild Republic A-10 “Warthog” in FY26. Instead, it requires the Air Force to keep at least 103 aircraft in its primary mission aircraft inventory, excluding those in storage or listed as backup.
With about 162 A-10s currently in service, the Air Force would still be allowed to retire around 59 aircraft, a little over one-third of the fleet. The service’s FY26 budget request called for beginning retirements this year as part of a glidepath to divest the entire fleet by FY29.
It is important to note that this language is contained only in the Senate’s draft NDAA. The House has passed its own version of the defence policy bill, and the two must be reconciled in conference later this year before any provision becomes law.
The A-10 phaseout continues
The move to retain some A-10s comes as little surprise, as the USAF has been requesting to retire them for more than a decade. Retirements were blocked by Washington for years until the F-35A was able to enter substantial numbers.
Since then, Congress has permitted the Air Force to retire a few dozen A-10s annually. In 2024, The War Zone reported the Air Force sent another batch of 39 Warthogs to the boneyard. It also added that as of September 2024, 50 A-10As and 107 A-10Cs were in storage at AMARG in various conditions, on top of those still flying.
If the NDAA bill passes in the current form, then the phaseout is set to continue with the Wathog almost certainly set for complete retirement before the end of the decade.
If similar retirements are permitted in the next couple of financial years, then the A-10 may finally be fully retired in fiscal 2028 or 2029. The final A-10s left South Korea in 2025 and were replaced by F-16s.
A-10’s secret weapon may be anti-drone rockets
Despite its looming retirement, the A-10 still has operational value in permissive environments. The aircraft was seen firing its GAU-8/A Avenger autocannon in combat over Syria in late 2024.
The Warthog may also be useful in an anti-one-way attack drone role by shooting down Shahed-style drones. In July 2025, The War Zone reported that the A-10 is now capable of carrying the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System II (APKWS II). These are laser-guided variants of the Hydra rocket used by aircraft like the US Army’s AH-64 Apache.
The US Air Force urgently adapted the laser air-to-air version of the Hydra rocket in response to an immediate need for an affordable way to shoot down one-way attack drones in quantity. The rockets were first fitted to F-16s before being integrated with the F-15E Strike Eagle.
This means the A-10 is now one of three combat aircraft able to carry the new APKWS II rockets in an air-to-air role. These have been used to shoot down swaths of Houthi and Iranian drones in the Middle East during 2025.
Even so, the Air Force is now focused on countering China. In a peer-on-peer conflict, the A-10 would not be survivable.
