Since the plane's retirement, the U.S. Navy has had to rely on multirole aircraft with less range and less payload to deliver strikes on ground targets.

What's more, given that we have largely been able to achieve air dominance where we have been engaged in active combat operations since the 1990s, over the last 30 years A-6 Intruders would have been able to deliver far more ordinance for far less cost than the multirole planes we employed.

To be more specific, with a combat weapons load of 18,000 pounds, an A-6E Intruder had a combat radius of 867 nautical miles (NM) whereas the full combat load of the F-35 flying in stealth mode is less than one-third that (5,700 pounds) with a combat radius of 600 NM.

So, when using what is arguably its main advantage, its stealth, the F-35C can carry one-third of the weapons two-thirds of the distance of a 1960-era attack plane.

The counterargument is that the F-35C can deliver ordinance into areas where we have not achieved air dominance, whereas the A-6 is much more limited in where it can fly with a reasonable chance of making it back. This is true for many scenarios.

Thus, just as is the case with dedicated attack planes such as the Intruder, all multirole fighters, including the F-35, will rely on extensive, risky, costly, and lengthy SEAD operations when facing peer competitors before they can comfortably attack ground targets.

This brings us to the question of the practicality of modernization of the hundreds of A-6 Intruders that were retired, many of which received brand new composite wings shortly before being retired. Modernizing each plane would cost millions, but even at $10 million a pop, they would be a fraction of the cost of any new plane rolling off the assembly line today. And with the kind of upgrades planes such as the F-16, the A-10, and the F-15 have received over the decades, they would bring back an unrefueled long-strike capability that the Navy no longer has.

Surely, such a capable plane with CEC and upgrades to its precision strike capability could prove useful?