by JOSEPH TREVITHICK

A-10 Warthogs are attacking Islamic State targets in Syria. But even with this newest round of combat, the U.S. Air Force still asserts that the venerable attack plane isn’t worth keeping around.

In November 2014, the flying branch sent the blunt-nosed, straight-winged attack planes back to the Middle East for the first time since the American withdrawal from Iraq.

The Warthogs and crews from the Indiana Air National Guard swung into action to help Baghdad’s beleaguered forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga.

Now, “the A-10s recently have been used for a limited number of strikes in Syria,” a public affairs officer for the American task force in charge of operations told War Is Boring.

We received the same statement from officials with the Air Force’s headquarters for the region.

The U.S.-led air campaign has destroyed numerous Islamic State camps and killed dozens of the group’s fighters in both Iraq and Syria. American flyers have blown up tanks, other armored vehicles and artillery pieces—some of which the Sunni militants captured from Baghdad’s soldiers.

The A-10s have joined the Air Force’s F-15E and F-16 fighter-bombers, F-22 stealth fighters, and B-1 bombers in the war against the brutal Sunni extremists.

But unlike those high-flying and fast-moving aircraft, the A-10 was specifically designed to help out troops on the ground.

The slower Warthogs are heavily armored and can carry up to 16,000 pounds of bombs, missiles and rockets. Even fully loaded, the planes can loiter in the skies above a battlefield for hours at a time.

The aircraft can also rip through tanks and buildings with its massive 30-millimeter cannon. This huge, seven-barrel gun can spit out more than 200 exploding shells in a three-second burst.