Why?
Turbo-props can't be effective for external defense.
I'm just researching the viability of the F-16 in a COIN operations.

Snick wrote 'in a surgical mission or territorial patrols'. I agree with SpudmanWP about the turbo-props, but fast jets can also play usefull roles in COIN. In http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-5682.html Vipers are acting as airborne Snipers and maybe equipped with 'Snipers' and as non-traditional Intelligence Surveillance Recon platform. LGB's are released at 30,000 - 40,000 ft / 9 - 12 km, so you cannot hear the launchplane, the resulting surprise attack gives a demoralising effect at the insurgents.

Snick wrote 'in a surgical mission or territorial patrols'. I agree with SpudmanWP about the turbo-props, but fast jets can also play usefull roles in COIN. In http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-5682.html Vipers are acting as airborne Snipers and maybe equipped with 'Snipers' and as non-traditional Intelligence Surveillance Recon platform. LGB's are released at 30,000 - 40,000 ft / 9 - 12 km, so you cannot hear the launchplane, the resulting surprise attack gives a demoralising effect at the insurgents.

Because COIN ops are not suited to fast movers. If your worried about other AC, that's what CAP is for.

Good COIN ops requires Low and Slow for good target ID and loiter ability. Also, the ability to sneak up on the enemy is important.

The armed reconnaissance aircraft is part of a bold plan conceived by Col. Gary Crowder, commander of the Middle East-based Combined Air and Space Operations Center, to upgrade the Air Force’s theater control system, which the service uses for air-to-ground integration.

The core doctrinal principles of the system -- which “is showing a bit of its age” -- date back to World War II and the core organization capabilities, which includes structure and sizing, date back to the mid-1980s, when the United States was preparing for a potential Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

“What we have found over here is that the structure, which focuses almost exclusively on providing the Army kinetic . . . close air support, is being taxed pretty hard because that’s not what [they’re] asking us to give,” he said in an April 1 telephone interview referring to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The aircraft conducting combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan drop bombs, strafe targets, or perform a low-level show-of-force only 10 percent of the time. The jets and unmanned drones primarily are used for what the military calls armed reconnaissance, meaning their mission is to pass video and other data gathered through sensors and targeting pods back to an operations center where it can analyzed.

But in a world where irregular warfare is the primary focus -- and appears to be for the foreseeable future -- a balance of fighter jets and armed prop-driven aircraft could prove beneficial, Crowder said. “There really has not been a substantial . . . intellectual investment into what I think I would call air-ground integration looks like in the 21st Century,” he said. “Everyone’s going down this irregular warfare pike, and I think, in some ways, that’s a red herring, because, if you create an irregular warfare unit what do you do if you don’t have irregular warfare?”

“If 90 percent of what we do is armed reconnaissance, then why am I doing it with an F-16 that might cost me 30 times as much as an AT-6?”

“The challenge we face in this fight is we are fighting counterinsurgency with major combat operation forces, and that’s why it’s costing us reported numbers as high as $12 billion a month,” he said. “This is not an affordable long-term solution for the nation."

SpudmanWP wrote 'wonder who paid for that?'. Scaled Composites is now owned by Northrop Grumman, they use the ARES as a research testbed, equipped with dorsal radome, open gun-bay and underwing box fairings.

The ARES has the right parameters for a COIN-plane: cheap, simple, robust, easy to maintain /to repair /to fly, 4 hours endurance and it can be manufactured locally in The Phillppines. However, there is also a political parameter.