“The Army just needs to adopt A10-style drones. Then the USAF can drop this horrible, horrible tactical mission they’ve been saddled with and obviously want no part of.”
Due to budget restrictions, the Air Force pilots are already being badly overworked to pilot the existing drones. As a consequence of this budget cutting and overtasking a severe pilot and crew retention problem has developed. The trainers have been sucked into operational duties to fill the gap in trained personnel, which has worsened their retention as well and bottlenecked their training of replacements. The Army has the same budget problems as the Air Force and cannot sacrifice its other critical missions either to embark on a drone mission large enough to replace A-10 support or even to supplement the overused Air Force assets. The time has come to recognize that the Congressional budgeting is now cutting into the sinew and bone of the armed forces to the point where their combat efficiency is going to be in grave doubt.
I don't believe that for a second. Not while sinkholes like the F35 charge ahead and forcing women into Infantry and Special Forces roles is the top priority for the brass. Hell, we had a commander drop a quarter-million on getting a command-wing bathroom installed near her office b/c walking an extra 100 feet was just too much for her.
The military is the epitome of "penny wise and pound foolish." We can't get paper towels for the bathrooms, but we can waste huge amounts of money on abandoned desktop PC virtualization projects.