That's interesting. Of course nobody else was really fighting American-style wars, at least not with with budgets that allowed for American-style air forces.Kasey Chang wrote:Other than the Russian equivalent Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot, and even that's not an exact matchup, there really isn't anything similar to the A-10 for close air support.
US military is interesting in that it has a lot of niche weapons that nobody else in the world wanted to copy. Nobody copied the AC-130 either. It's a very unique American weapon system.
The AC-130 is useless for anyone who doesn't have 100% air superiority. The Russians could have used them in Afghanistan, but they already had tactical bombers and no scruples about napalm or cluster bombs.
The A-10's original job was to kill hordes of Soviet tanks crossing the West German border. The Russians didn't build one because they expected the U.S. to have air superiority while their tanks did that thing. Plus they considered killing tanks from the air to be a helicopter's job, which is why they have the Hind (and also why it resembles an A-10 more than it resembles an AH-64).