A directed energy weapon could also be mounted on an MH-60 Black Hawk, he noted. Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said based on the relatively small size of a helicopter the laser would likely have between 15 and 30 kilowatts of power. “That would pack a pretty good punch” at short ranges against a soft target, he said…

However, Mark Gunzinger, senior fellow at the Center for Budgetary and Strategic Analysis and a former Air Force colonel, disputed the idea that Welsh and Goldfein’s comments represented a veiled attempt to retire the jet. Instead, they should be seen as a “huge signal” that the service remains committed to the close air support mission, he said. If the Air Force does press on with a new program, the service will have to establish what capabilities will be needed to perform the CAS mission in a more highly contested environment. Potential adversaries in the Asia-Pacific and Europe already maintain capable air defenses, but Middle Eastern and African state and nonstate actors also are gaining access to more sophisticated weaponry capable of bringing down a slow, low-flying aircraft like the A-10, Gunzinger said. With that in mind, an A-10 replacement should look a lot like an F-35, Gunzinger said: stealthy, capable of data fusion with other aircraft, and with the ability to fire off a variety of precision-guided munitions, including joint direct attack munitions and small diameter bombs. Couldn’t the F-35 just be used for close air support missions, as was the Air Force’s original plan? “The Marine Corps thinks so,” Gunzinger said, but added that another option is to develop an A-10 replacement with lower operating costs than the F-35, perhaps with less stealth and a larger payload…Gunzinger was more supportive of buying a purpose-built A-10 replacement, but the service should not rush procurement of a new aircraft during the near term, when so many acquisition programs are in their beginning stages. Until those programs mature, “fly the wings off the A-10,” he said

As Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments senior fellow Mark Gunzinger attests, "the technology is ready" for the deployment of laser cannons on AC-130s. Further out, the Air Force is working to continually shrink the size and weight of its laser prototypes to a point where, at "5 kilograms per kilowatt," these weapons could be installed on a whole host of smaller aircraft as well, both manned and unmanned…

Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, told Millitary.com other positive signs for the F-35 program included a decrease in developmental problems, indicating that the platform is maturing, and a decrease in unit cost, as predicted by the Joint Program Office. Gunzinger said he had spoken with test pilots and trainees who raved about the aircraft after having the chance to familiarize themselves with it. "It's well known the F-35 really does have a magic cockpit and the ability to take multiple sources of information,: Gunzinger said. "Its situational awareness is unparalleled."..

“We’ve been out to the labs, we’ve seen the technology at a classified level, and we’ve come to the conclusion independently, as have others in the DoD, that the technology is ready,” said Mark Gunzinger, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments...

“It’s lower hanging fruit, (but) it’s also an acknowledgment of the growing threat,” said Mark Gunzinger, a retired Air Force officer and laser expert at the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), which co-sponsored the conference with Booz Allen Hamilton. “It’s not a fad,” Gunzinger told reporters. “It’s based on where the community sees the threat going and the potential for direct energy to actually have effects against those kinds of systems.”..