“I’ve never understood why they just don’t let the Army fly their own A-10s. They’d do a better job of CAS anyway.”
It is already problematic enough to coordinate an air force, a naval air force, and foreign air forces in the same theater of operations without committing fratricide and interfering with each others integrated operations planning. Secondly, the Army is having the same kind of budget problems as the Air Force and has already said they cannot even consider assuming the A-10 and its CAS mission. Keeping the A-10 in its CAS mission with the Air Force is very simple. All you have to do is compel Congress to fund the A-10 without defunding any of the other Air Force missions who were the alternatives to cutting the A-10: the B-1 strategic bomber fleet, the B-52 bomber fleet, the air refueling tankers, the air transport squadrons, the early warning air control aircraft, etc. Congress has dictated something has to be cut from the Air Force budget to free up funding for the F-35. So, either get more funding or choose which air squadrons are going to be retired.
Seems to me like the F-35 is actually the problem. We could have continued with upgrades to the F-18 series and got the job done.