A larger issue is that considerations of the A-10’s survivability characteristics are not modeled or taken into account.
For example; the podded engines can still be damaged by a fuselage / fuel fire and similarly an engine fire still spreads to the fuselage even though it should be air gapped.
Also to some degree the degradation upon receiving damage to control surfaces is also an outlier, where it significantly hampers performance, let alone loss of a surface making control practically impossible even if its counterpart is retained.
The Late is still missing its Targeting pod (A-10A Plus)
This is caused by the way balancing works and as a specialist A2G airframe (a a premium) doesn’t have great stats or performance characteristics and being a fairly late development benefits from fairly advanced ancillary equipment & electronics.
It has not got the option to employ the MJU-12 (uses MJU-7 [1x2" flares] series) or -17 (MJU-10 [2x2" flares] series) Flare Magazines, which should trade CM count for size, also is effectively underperforming due to the way IR signatures are simplified and due to various abstractions erroneous.
On a separate note, the lack of Covert Flares[MJU-50 & -51] (no report in the visual spectrum), or Kinematic flares [MJU-47] also hampers performance.
At least historically There is no less performant option for the A-10 / LAU-105 than the AIM-9L, but at least as far as ARB performance goes, it is more a result of a lack of disincentives and poor objective and spawn placement that allow for Strike aircraft to be used in an ersatz fighter role. And removing their missiles will drop their BR through the floor which of course isn’t an option.
And its not like the Later Su-25s are better with their R-73 which even has IRCCM, and TVC control making it harder to employ the appropriate counterplay (let alone out run).
The PGU-14 DU HVAP shell is classed as APCR, and as such loses significant performance at low impact angles so it evens out. and has lacking post penetration capabilities on top of missing out on the pyrophoric nature of DU penetrators. The underwhelming nature of the PGU-13 HE shell against armor doesn’t help either especially considering that it cuts into the fire rate of the gun and means that you basically lose out on half or a third of the 4200RPM (2100 / 3000 RPM) and puts you on fairly similar footing with the relevant belts.
In comparison to the AP of the GSH-30, let alone the APHE do much more assuming that they penetrate (though the AP & APHE’s bounce angles being that high seems absurd at 47~65 degrees, which may be a contributing factor) and the fact that the HEFI takes up a smaller proportion of any given belt.
Yes sure the ammo capacity and thus the effective time on target / stowed kills is something in favor of the A-10 but missing ordnance (e.g. Cluster bombs & assorted (HE / Flechette) warheads for the 2.75" rockets), but should be relevant only when not in contended airspace which can deny overflight and so is rarely relevant in GRB since CAS / SPAA should be expected.
But in comparison the Su-25’s have access to a wide variety of HE rockets when combined with CCIP (and to a limited degree the targeting camera) allow similar performance against even armored targets with much less risk and greater effective range.
The A-10 is nowhere near what it could be, And I don’t think many would agree that the the A-10 is better than the multitude of Su-25s in the A2G role, let alone against expected threats like the SA-10, SA-19, or SA-22.
When compared to the XM975 and LAV-AD the Kh-38 / Kh-29T that the Su-25s have access to significantly overmatch them let alone the S-25.
Its not like the A-10C has been implemented with 16 x GBU-39A/B / AGM-187A, AGR-20, JDAM, AIM-9M, the AN/AAQ-33, CBU-105, HMD and asorted other stores.
