I have same results as you guys when playing A10 with Deffered Shading (DS) ON. But I noticed few more differences between DS on and off. Global Illumination was off.
With DS ON your NVG changes, flood light is not working and when firing the gun your smoke looks better. Same dark cockpit. mfds looks brighter.
With DS OFF NVG looks as in 1.5.8, flood light is working, gun smoke changes and I have feeling that new explosions are no more woking. When DS is OFF it looks to me like I am playing 1.5.8 version.
Some pictures:
DS ON
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hNUkqzy7DbXdzsAtHUlKavPfTcw0GTpY
DS OFF
https://drive.google.com/open?id=10mlI4dMqUxAXyfbbA8RshXWfefm6ZdLl
Graphics set
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1vLfss3T81lruzKwZ4KOGRz-jAyyuQOlv