The Indispensable Role of
“Dirty Work” Weapons

The U.S.–Iran war that erupted on February 28, 2026, over more than 40 days of high-intensity conflict, has profoundly exposed structural deficiencies in the U.S. military’s equipment architecture. This paper focuses on the “dirty work” weapons that have long been marginalized by U.S. defense decision-makers — mid-to-low-tier combat platforms exemplified by the MQ-9 “Reaper” drone and the A-10 “Warthog” attack aircraft — and analyzes their irreplaceable battlefield value in actual combat. Research demonstrates that these platforms, slated for retirement, are precisely the core pillars sustaining intelligence chain integrity, ensuring strike efficiency, and controlling personnel losses. Their high attrition rates are not evidence of equipment deficiency, but proof of high utilization and irreplaceability. In stark contrast, the F-35 stealth fighter has revealed serious mission-suitability problems in ground-attack roles. This paper reassesses weapon system value metrics from a battlefield economics perspective and offers a critical reflection on the U.S. military’s long-standing procurement decisions oriented toward “great power competition.”

01Introduction: A War That Exposed Systemic Flaws

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a massive military strike against Iran under the codename “Operation Epic Fury.” The initial objectives — decapitating Iran’s leadership, crippling its nuclear facilities, and dismantling its air defense systems — achieved significant results at the technical level. However, as the conflict entered a sustained confrontation phase, an embarrassing reality gradually emerged: the U.S. military’s most expensive and most advanced weapons platforms performed far worse than the “obsolete” equipment slated for retirement when it came to sustaining long-term operational tempo.

As of April 12, the war has lasted over 40 days. During this period, U.S. forces have cumulatively lost at least 44 aircraft of various types, including 24 MQ-9 “Reaper” drones, 4 F-15E “Strike Eagle” fighter-bombers, 2 A-10 attack aircraft, 2 C-130 transport planes, and 1 F-35A stealth fighter damaged beyond repair after a hard landing. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted approximately one-fifth of the global oil supply, with Brent crude prices spiking to $154 per barrel.

In this high-intensity regional conflict, the MQ-9 and A-10 — deemed “outdated” and scheduled for retirement by U.S. defense planners — became the platforms with the highest sortie rates, broadest mission coverage, and most direct contribution to operational outcomes. This paper defines such equipment as “dirty work” weapons — they are unglamorous, non-stealthy, and subsonic, yet they bear the most frequent, most dangerous, and most irreplaceable missions on the battlefield.

02The MQ-9 “Reaper”: The Irreplaceable Eye of the Battlefield

2.1 Unique Operational Value

The MQ-9 “Reaper” is the U.S. military’s only ISR-strike integrated platform capable of sustaining continuous flight at 15,000 meters altitude for over 24 hours. Equipped with the Multi-Spectral Targeting System (MTS-B), the “Lynx” Synthetic Aperture Radar, and electronic intelligence equipment, it can provide uninterrupted full-motion video surveillance, signals intelligence collection, and precision strike guidance over vast areas. This “persistent stare” capability is something manned fighters simply cannot replicate — the typical loiter time of an F-15 or F-16 in a combat zone is measured in hours.

On the Iranian battlefield, the MQ-9 fulfilled three critical roles: continuous surveillance of Iran’s mobile missile launcher movements and deployment patterns; tracking and geo-locating shore-based anti-ship missile positions to provide coordinate data for precision strikes; and directly engaging time-sensitive targets using Hellfire missiles. As one U.S. military officer noted, the MQ-9’s persistent surveillance and precision strike capability makes it “more capable of completing the kill chain than most other platforms.”

2.2 Loss Data and Analysis

A loss of 24 aircraft appears staggering, but must be understood along two dimensions. First, operational intensity: the loss of 24 aircraft reflects the extremely high sortie rate that MQ-9s sustained over more than 40 days — they flew nearly continuous surveillance and strike missions over Iranian airspace. High attrition proves high utilization, and high utilization proves irreplaceability.

2.3 The Fatal Consequences of Shutting Down the Production Line

The more severe problem is this: the MQ-9 production line was shut down in 2025. Manufacturer General Atomics ceased production after building 575 units, and the U.S. Air Force placed its last order in 2020. This means the 24 combat losses represent pure attrition — irreplaceable. With approximately 284 MQ-9s in service distributed across multiple theaters worldwide, serious gaps have emerged in the Middle East theater’s continuous surveillance orbits.

Alternatives are nowhere near ready. The next-generation “MQ-Next” program remains in the conceptual design phase, with projected initial operational capability no earlier than 2030. General Atomics’ CCA (Collaborative Combat Aircraft) prototype crashed shortly after takeoff during its test flight on April 6, 2026. The U.S. military faces a 4–5 year ISR capability gap — and that gap has arrived precisely in the middle of a war that demands massive, sustained surveillance.

03The A-10 “Warthog”: A Battlefield Veteran Designed to Survive

3.1 The Triumph of a Design Philosophy

The A-10 “Thunderbolt II” (nicknamed the “Warthog”) was born in the 1970s with a design philosophy fundamentally different from modern fighters — not “make the enemy miss you,” but “get hit and still come home.” A 23mm titanium alloy armor “bathtub” protects the pilot and critical systems. Twin turbofan engines are mounted on opposite sides of the fuselage and widely separated, so that even if one is destroyed, the other can sustain flight. This “damage-tolerant” design philosophy has demonstrated irreplaceable value on the Iranian battlefield.

3.2 Combat Performance

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Caine confirmed that the A-10 was deployed for Strait of Hormuz patrol missions, hunting and destroying Iranian armed fast boats. Its GAU-8 “Avenger” 30mm cannon delivers devastating effects against small surface targets — the ammunition cost of a single strafing run is merely thousands of dollars, far below the millions required for precision-guided munitions.

The engagement on April 3 proved the value of the A-10’s survivability design: after being hit by Iranian air defenses near the Strait of Hormuz, the pilot flew the aircraft out of Iranian airspace on the remaining engine and ultimately ejected safely over Kuwait. The aircraft was lost, but the pilot survived.

04Battlefield Economics: Who Is the True “Cost-Effective Weapon”?

4.1 Cost-Effectiveness Comparison

This calculus clearly illustrates the true meaning of “affordable loss.” The losses of MQ-9s and A-10s are “cost-effective” in terms of battlefield economics — their attrition protects more expensive platforms and more precious lives. The total combat losses of 24 MQ-9s (approximately $720 million) are roughly equivalent to the cascading losses triggered by a single misemployed F-15E.

4.2 The A-10’s Cost-Effectiveness Advantage

Each round of the A-10’s 30mm ammunition costs merely tens of dollars. The ammunition cost of a single strafing run that destroys an Iranian fast boat may amount to only a few thousand dollars. In comparison, engaging the same target with a destroyer’s MK45 naval gun — in actual combat, there have been documented cases where multiple salvos failed to hit, requiring a helicopter-launched Hellfire missile to finally score a kill — runs into the millions of dollars. Using precision-guided munitions to strike dispersed small targets produces a severely imbalanced cost-to-effect ratio.

05The F-35 Dilemma: When PowerPoint Meets Reality

5.1 Hit for the First Time

On March 19, an F-35A executing a ground-attack mission over central Iran was hit. Iran employed not a conventional radar-guided surface-to-air missile, but an electro-optical/infrared passive guidance system — an infrared-guided missile costing approximately $60,000. The F-35’s radar warning receiver was completely ineffective because the adversary never activated a radar. This stealth fighter, valued at over $100 million, suffered structural damage from a “hard landing” during emergency recovery, effectively rendering it a write-off.

5.2 The Stealth Paradox

The F-35’s stealth capability depends on carrying weapons in its internal bay. But internal bay capacity is limited; when ground-attack missions require increased ordnance loads, external weapons pylons completely compromise the stealth profile. One analyst described this as “a knight in body armor who voluntarily removes his plate mail to swing his sword more freely.”

5.3 Why It Cannot Replace the A-10

The F-35 was designed around “you can’t hit me,” but once it is hit, it has zero redundant survivability features. The A-10 was designed around “you will hit me, but I’ll still fly home after you do.” Using a $100 million F-35 to perform the ground-sweeping work that an A-10 accomplishes with thousands of dollars in cannon rounds is not only economically absurd but tactically places pilots in unnecessary risk.

More critically, the fact that F-15Es were forced into low-altitude strike missions was itself a cascading consequence of massive MQ-9 losses — when ISR capability collapsed, manned fighters had to descend to lower altitudes to “find” targets on their own, thereby entering the engagement envelope of man-portable air defense systems. The absence of “dirty work” weapons at the front end forces high-value platforms at the back end to assume missions they were never designed for.

06Systemic Collapse: The Foundation Removed

6.1 The Across-the-Board Collapse of the “Dirty Work” Inventory

The MQ-9 and A-10 are merely the tip of the iceberg. The U.S. military’s entire “dirty work” weapons inventory has collapsed across the board. In 2024, four “Avenger”-class dedicated minesweepers were decommissioned from the Persian Gulf; when the Strait of Hormuz needed mine clearance, the Navy had to deploy destroyers to “create conditions.” All “Oliver Hazard Perry”-class frigates have been retired, the Littoral Combat Ship has proven incapable of performing escort duties, and the new “Constellation”-class frigate program is severely behind schedule.

These are all “unglamorous” capabilities — mine clearance, patrol, low-altitude fire support, convoy escort — none of which can generate the kind of excitement in a Pentagon briefing that impresses Congress. They are non-stealthy, subsonic, and lack “game-changing” selling points. But when war breaks out, they are precisely what is needed first.

6.2 The Lesson of the B-52 and B-1B

The same logic applies in the strategic bombing domain. The B-2 stealth bomber exists in a fleet of only 20 worldwide, with demanding maintenance requirements that preclude the sortie rates needed for 40 days of high-intensity sustained bombing. The platforms that actually served as “battlefield workhorses” were the B-52 (in service for over 60 years, 31-ton payload capacity) and the B-1B (34-ton payload capacity), which flew continuous high-frequency sorties after Iranian air defenses were suppressed, completing the sustained area-strike missions that the B-2 simply could not maintain.

07Structural Failures in Decision-Making

7.1 The Distorting Influence of the Military-Industrial Complex

The root of the problem lies in the fact that peacetime decision-making logic is the exact inverse of wartime logic. During peacetime, the interests of the Pentagon and defense contractors are perfectly aligned — selling the next-generation program. The F-35 ($1.7 trillion), the CCA Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the Zumwalt-class destroyer ($7.5 billion per ship, whose main gun ammunition proved too expensive to purchase), the Littoral Combat Ship (tens of billions spent before early retirement) — each came with a dazzling concept and an enormous budget. Meanwhile, phrases like “continue producing the MQ-9,” “retain the A-10,” and “maintain the minesweeper fleet” hold zero competitive appeal in budget hearings.

The A-10 is a textbook case. The U.S. Air Force has annually requested the A-10’s retirement, but Congress — driven by defense industry interests and district employment considerations — repeatedly blocked it, inadvertently saving lives. However, the motivation behind this intervention was not strategic judgment but political gamesmanship. The A-10’s reprieve was an accidentally correct outcome.

7.2 The Inertia of Counterterrorism Thinking

Two decades of counterterrorism warfare created dangerous habits. When fighting the Taliban and ISIS in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military enjoyed absolute air supremacy. MQ-9s could loiter overhead for entire days, A-10s could orbit above enemy positions at will, and F-15s could deliver ordnance at low speed and low altitude — because the adversary had no credible air defense capability. The tactical thinking formed in this environment was transposed directly onto the war against Iran.

But Iran is fundamentally different. It possesses a multi-layered air defense system, mobile surface-to-air missiles, large numbers of anti-aircraft guns and man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), and has absorbed lessons from the Ukraine war and the Houthi insurgency on “passive detection + mobile launch + multi-source intelligence fusion” — the modern air defense paradigm. Applying counterterrorism-era tactics against a nation with a professional air defense force has exacted an extraordinarily heavy price.

08The Strait of Hormuz: Strategic Consequences of Missing “Dirty Work” Assets

8.1 The Mine Clearance Vacuum

On April 11, U.S. forces officially launched mine-clearing operations in the Strait of Hormuz, with two guided-missile destroyers transiting the strait into the Persian Gulf. But this operation itself exposed a capability deficit — dedicated minesweepers were decommissioned in 2024, and the Navy could only deploy destroyers to “create conditions,” with plans to use underwater drones as a substitute. Using a $2 billion destroyer to perform a minesweeper’s work is itself a microcosm of a force structure out of balance.

8.2 Escort Capability Shortfall

Even more critical is the escort capability gap. After the complete retirement of the “Oliver Hazard Perry”-class frigates, the U.S. Navy can only rely on expensive “Arleigh Burke”-class destroyers to perform convoy escort duties. Analysts note that a basic escort operation requires 8 to 10 destroyers to protect a convoy of 5 to 10 merchant vessels, yet the total number of destroyers available to U.S. forces in the Middle East is approximately 8, with most tied to carrier strike group air defense assignments.

Pre-war daily strait transit of approximately 130 vessels plummeted by over 95% during the conflict. As of April 11, roughly 3,200 ships remained backed up on the western side of the strait. The global oil market faces the most severe supply disruption in its history.

09Conclusion: Redefining Weapons Value

The most brutal lesson of this war is this: the battlefield does not need the most advanced weapons — it needs the most appropriate ones.

The role of the MQ-9 and A-10 in this war is analogous to a pair of work boots — they wear out fast, not because the boots are poorly made, but because they are worn every day for the heaviest labor. Without those boots, wearing dress shoes to do the same work will destroy your feet first. The loss of 24 MQ-9s and 2 A-10s bought the maintenance of the entire battlefield intelligence chain, the safety of numerous manned aircraft and their pilots, and strike efficiency far superior to any alternative.

What U.S. defense decision-makers have been doing for two decades is sharpening the fist to an ever-finer edge while dismantling the foundation underfoot, brick by brick. In the Iran war, the foundation collapsed.

Urgent priorities include: emergency assessment of the feasibility and timeline for restarting the MQ-9 production line; accelerated procurement of the MQ-9B SkyGuardian as a transitional solution; halting the A-10 retirement program and exploring modernization upgrade pathways; rebuilding dedicated mine-clearing and escort capabilities; and fundamentally reforming the “PowerPoint competition”-driven defense procurement system to establish an equipment evaluation framework centered on “battlefield completeness.”

This war has demonstrated, at the cost of blood and tens of billions of dollars, a simple truth: a football team with only strikers and no midfield or defense cannot win a league, and a military with only high-end platforms and no mid-to-low-tier backbone cannot sustain a protracted war.