Without doing a lot of stupid-study for myself, how survivable does anyone think they would/could be in a COIN role ??? Light Attack -- I LOVE it, and it's a 'nice concept', but the bird doesn't look like it would sustain a lot of 'hits' and keep on beating ... ???
As cool as the OV-10 was it had an exceptionally crappy survivability rate in ODS against AAA and MANPADS and it had one more engine than this (but it was neat to see them deck run on TR after the transit) . Hate to have to roll back the IADS even more for this to work. Now, if you suppose it would only be used at night with a standoff role then you've got something and it certainly has a role in the current threat environment and a few other places. The question is at what cost?