If and when the Army stops wanting the A10, they'll immediately take it behind the barn and shoot it. Meaning they'll more likely end up waiting for the remaining warthogs to fall to pieces (the youngest frames are reaching 40 years of age) so there's nothing remaining for the Army to use. And the article describes them wilfully accelerating this by actively sabotaging the program.
Unlike the airforce - that has a huge budget and an arsenal of all sorts of hardware from B2s to b1s to drones to f22s, b52s, list goes on.
Remind me again what happened in Afghanistan?
Apache, a10, mh6, ac130. These were the workhorses and of course reapers.
The A10 is amazing for CAS in that environment but against anyone tooled up by the russians/chinese with modern SAM's it'd be a different picture.
Now..whether the USAF needs both given that everything they've done for most of the last 40 years has been that type of air support is an interesting question, they like to have high tech toys which is why the A29 isn't apparently going anywhere.
In a modern conflict, CAS aircraft like the A10 would be vulnerable to MANPADs, AA guns, and SAMs which could all be hidden for extended periods of time in bunkers and caves, and would continue to be produced by peer adversaries for pretty much the entirety of the war. Even late in the war, manned CAS would require fighter escort, which effectively limits their dwell time and availability to that of the fighters. By the time the CAS can really do their thing, the war is essentially already won.
I agree with you that both the air force and the army would appreciate and gladly cooperate with such a transfer, if it were possible. But in this case, both of their hands are tied.
No, it would not. The MOU was between the SECAF and the SECARM, if the Air Force actually wanted to hand the A10 (and CAS missions) to the Army it'd have happened 50 years ago. The AF wants to kill the A10 without the Army getting it, and the latter takes much higher priority than the former.