As everyone knows, the A-4 attacker played a very important role in the CAS history of the US Navy and Marine Corps. Yet in War Thunder, the US tech tree only has the A-4E Early (same BR as the Israeli A-4E but significantly weakened, including missing GBU-8s, missile pylon conflicts, etc.) and the A-4B (because it was given AGM-12s and AIM-9Bs, which currently do little in CAS, it has poor engine thrust, no pilot assistance systems, no RWR, and only three pylons, yet its BR is even higher than the Israeli A-4H, which has over 500 kg more engine thrust, a focus sensor, a better cannon, and an extra pair of pylons). But the important models that actually served in the US Navy—the A-4E (by which I mean the late version, not the perfunctory early version that is the US squadron vehicle), the A-4F (the US Navy’s upgraded A-4E), and the Marine Corps’ A-4M—still have not appeared in the tech tree or been added as premium vehicles to this day. However, Israel’s A-4H (some kind of Israeli modification of the A-4E), A-4E Late (which was even directly supplied by the US Navy to make up for heavy A-4H losses), and A-4N (the Israeli improved version of the A-4M) have already been in the game for five years. What was Gaijin thinking when it handed out the origin country’s vehicles everywhere and even made them another nation’s specialty, while the origin country can only watch—not even bothering to copy-paste them?
The bullpups are exellent at 8.7
That being said they probably havent added later versions of the a4 because they dont have a need, as they dont really have gaps, the israelis without the ayit wouldnt have dedicate cas with guided weapons from 9.3 up until 11.3
With the changes to the overpressure mechanic, there is now a CAS vacuum for the US at 9.3–10.3. With increased anti-air firepower, reduced lethality of Zuni rockets, intensified BR decompression, more heavily armored vehicles in certain tech trees, and the weakness of US ground firepower, I believe that “get later A-4 attacker airframes” has become a viable option.
By the way, I think that with the growing number of battle maps, the absence of attacker families like the A-4 and A-6 from the US tech tree is becoming increasingly obvious. We can’t keep counting on the A-10 to always be on the way.
The a4e is still more than viable from 9.3 to 10 and you also have at 10.3 the a7d, so there isnt nuch of a " vacuum" not to mention that there isnt a ground 10.0 line up aside from a couple of rare event vehicles on the br so there isnt really a need for it either.