They are beautiful machines. I hear they can take a lot of damage and still keep going.
When I was at England AFB the Deputy Wing Commander was flying one and the gun malfunctioned and blew the nose of the jet off. He flew it back to base and landed it with the nose gone. They redesigned the gun gas purge ducts on the GAU-8 after that.
I saw one in Desert Storm that was hit by a SAM and had one of the tails blown off and a large hole in the wing. He also made it back home.