The U.S. Air Force’s A-10 Thunderbolt II and the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship are both aging platforms, yet they keep finding their way to the center of live-fire drills that look a lot like the conflicts planners worry about next. In a recent training event in the Arabian Gulf, an A-10 worked in tandem with the Independence-variant USS Santa Barbara as crews practiced coordinated strikes on sea targets under realistic conditions. The pairing underscored a blunt reality: hardware that budget documents treat as expendable is still doing some of the most demanding work in contested littoral environments.
The exercise, known as Killer Tomato, used a large inflatable as a stand-in for hostile craft while the A-10 and the Littoral Combat Ship rehearsed how to share the same battlespace without getting in each other’s way. The drill was less about spectacle and more about timing, communications, and the choreography of fires between air and sea. It offered a rare, unvarnished look at how two controversial programs perform when the only metric that matters is whether simulated threats are destroyed quickly and safely.
Inside the A-10 and LCS live-fire pairing
At the heart of the drill was the 355th Wing, whose A-10 pilots are steeped in close air support tactics and accustomed to flying low and slow over friendly forces. In the Killer Tomato scenario, those pilots shifted from supporting troops on the ground to backing a surface combatant, cueing their runs off the movements and targeting data of the Littoral Combat Ship. Reporting on the event describes how the Wing’s aircraft executed live-fire passes while the Navy ship engaged the same target set, a rare chance to practice truly integrated fires rather than parallel training lanes that never intersect in real time, as highlighted in coverage of the 355th Wing.
The naval side of the equation revolved around the Independence-class hull form, with the USS Santa Barbara serving as the surface node in this ad hoc kill chain. Accounts of the event emphasize that the ship’s crew conducted live maritime gunnery while the A-10 provided close air support, a pairing that turned the inflatable Killer Tomato into a shared problem set rather than a single-service target. One detailed description notes that a U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II provided close air support to the Independence-variant USS Santa Barbara during a live-fire gunnery drill, underscoring how the aircraft’s traditional role can be adapted to maritime scenarios when the ship and jet are trained to operate as a team, as described in a report on the Thunderbolt II.
Why the Arabian Gulf is a proving ground
The choice of the Arabian Gulf as the setting was not incidental. The narrow waterways, dense commercial traffic, and history of harassment by small boats make it an ideal laboratory for testing how air and sea platforms can respond to hybrid threats. In this case, the USS Santa Barbara, an Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship, carried out a live-fire maritime gunnery exercise in the Gulf, with the A-10 operating overhead in the same environment where U.S. forces routinely shadow potential adversaries and protect shipping lanes, as detailed in reporting on the Arabian Gulf.
Another account of the same series of drills notes that U.S. Navy sailors aboard USS Santa Barbara conducted live-fire maritime gunnery in the Arabian Gulf during Exercise Killer Tomato, practicing coordinated maritime and air fires against the inflatable target. That description makes clear that the event was not a scripted demonstration for cameras but a working rehearsal of how to bring together shipboard guns and an attack jet’s cannon in a cluttered, high-traffic body of water, as described in coverage of Exercise Killer Tomato.
Legacy platforms under retirement pressure
What makes this pairing so striking is that both the A-10 and the Littoral Combat Ship are under sustained pressure from within the Pentagon. The A-10 Warthog, beloved by many in the ranks for its survivability and its massive GAU-8 cannon, has been the subject of repeated attempts to retire it in favor of multi-role fighters, even as debate continues over its value in a future great-power conflict. One analysis notes that, in spite of ongoing debate over its value in such a fight, the Warthog remains popular with many in the Pentagon who see it as America’s “flying tank,” a label that reflects both its armor and its cultural status, as described in a piece on the Warthog.
The Littoral Combat Ship program has faced its own existential questions, with critics pointing to cost overruns, mechanical issues, and shifting mission requirements. Yet, in the Middle East, both the A-10 and the LCS have been spotted performing the very roles they were originally designed for, from close air support to littoral security. One report notes that the military is trying to scrap both systems, but they are proving useful in the Middle East for their original purposes, a reminder that budget line items do not always align neatly with operational demand, as highlighted in analysis of the Middle East.
Interoperability lessons from Killer Tomato
From a training perspective, the most important outcome of Killer Tomato is not the footage of tracers or the roar of the A-10’s gun, but the interoperability lessons that come from forcing two very different crews to solve the same tactical problem. Descriptions of the drill emphasize that U.S. Navy sailors aboard USS Santa Barbara conducted live-fire maritime gunnery while coordinating maritime and air fires with the A-10, a process that demands shared procedures, clear communications, and a common understanding of who is responsible for which slice of the engagement envelope, as described in reporting on coordinated fires.
Another account of the same event notes that the U.S. Navy Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship USS Santa Barbara carried out a live-fire maritime gunnery exercise in the Gulf, with the drill framed as part of a broader effort to strengthen regional security and deterrence across the region. That framing suggests that the value of the exercise lies not only in sharpening tactics but also in signaling to potential adversaries that U.S. forces can rapidly combine air and sea power in contested littoral zones, as described in coverage of the USS Santa Barbara.
What the drill signals about future fights
For all the focus on retirement timelines, the Killer Tomato exercise hints at how these platforms might be used if they remain in service longer than planned. One detailed description explains that the U.S. Navy Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship USS Santa Barbara conducted a live-fire maritime gunnery exercise in the Gulf on 16 December 2025, with an American A-10 jet participating in the drills, a scenario that, if it unfolds as described, would show how planners are still investing in joint tactics for these systems even as they debate their long-term fate, as outlined in reporting on the Independence-class.
Another analysis of the same trajectory notes that the military is trying to retire both the A-10 and the LCS, yet they remain useful for their original purposes, particularly in the Middle East where close air support and littoral security are daily requirements rather than abstract scenarios. That tension between planned divestment and ongoing utility suggests that, even as new platforms come online, commanders may continue to rely on these older systems in hybrid threat environments where their quirks are assets rather than liabilities, as highlighted in a piece on retirement plans.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
