Today's Army of little use in the Pacific

Maybe the reason the Army gets a bad rap in the Pacific emphasis by the U.S. DOD is that--as organized today--they bring so little to the table.

AIBANO TRAINING AREA, Japan — In a muddy field full of Japanese media and troops watching American military might in action, the Stryker Mobile Gun System unceremoniously broke down.

The vehicle — a variant of the fast, lightweight Stryker armored troop carrier that’s been deployed throughout Iraq and Afghanistan — was able to fire only three of the dozens of rounds that were planned Tuesday morning.

The mechanical glitch turned the demonstration into a watch-us-fix-it event, but the snafu wasn’t all bad. It underscored the point of Orient Shield, a field training exercise that the two allied armies conduct every year for the sake of “interoperability” — military-speak for teamwork.

“The MGS is a helluva machine, but it can break down at critical times,” Maj. Randall Baucom, U.S. Army Japan spokesman, said. The malfunction wasn’t good, but it was beneficial for the Japanese to see that “things don’t always go according to plan.”

Keep spinning it public affairs guy. Depending on the variant, the Stryker is $5~6M each. Useful against somethings (like low-threat wars) but a death trap against the NORKs or the Chicoms. And, the one pictured doesn't even have its Mel Gibson, Road Warrior cage on.

Fortunately, the 105mm gun reliability has never been a problem for this Stryker variant.

Just kidding.

This from the GAO in 2004:

The Mobile Gun System has a 105mm cannon with an autoloader for rapidly loading cannon rounds without outside exposure of its three-person crew. The principal function of the Mobile Gun System is to provide rapid and lethal direct fires to protect assaulting infantry. The Mobile Gun System cannon is designed to defeat bunkers and create openings in reinforced concrete walls through which infantry can pass to accomplish their missions. According to the Army's Stryker Program Management Office, the autoloader system was responsible for 80 percent of the system aborts during initial Mobile Gun System reliability testing because of cannon rounds jamming in the system. As of February 2004, the Army was planning additional testing and working with the autoloader's manufacturer to determine a solution. A functioning autoloader is needed if the Mobile Gun System is to meet its operational requirements because manual loading of cannon rounds both reduces the desired rate of fire and requires brief outside exposure of crew. In its March 2004 Stryker acquisition decision, OSD required the Army to provide changes to the Mobile Gun System developmental exit criteria within 90 days, including the ability to meet cost and system reliability criteria.

What a joke.

Well maybe things like the opening hours of Korea 1950 only happen once. We know the Army has such a good memory.

Just kidding again. As Colonel Hackworth stated, "The Army suffers from CRS:...

...can't remember shit."

I believe the Army has a place in the Pacific. But only with real combat readiness; with robust weapon's systems.

If not, there is always the Bataan Death March II awaiting.

Making the USMC worthwhile for a nation over $16T in the red

The U.S. cannot, and should not, fund, parts of the military that provide no value.

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) does have vaule. Just, not the way we are using it or funding it.

Unfortunately, today, the USMC depends much on its image as opposed to its actual vaule to America's warfighting ability.

Does it field nuclear weapons for strategic deterrance? No. Does it have the force to handle large wars? No. Is it useful in the National Guard structure? No.

Is the idea of fielding a large number of assets to refight Tarawa a good idea? No. For one reason being that against a real opponent, there is such a diverse collection of weapons to make plinking landing craft easy. Look again at the failed Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) requirement that got to $25M each. It was imagined that EFV ability would allow its big mother-ships to be farther out to sea when performing against opposed beach-heads. Reason distance from shore was used as a selling point? The diverse range of weapons available for a capable enemy to use.

History has not been kind to this kind of warfare thinking in an era where the military industrial congressional complex struggles to find an enemy worthy of American tax-payer support. A USMC amphibious landing could not be done in Desert Storm because it was too risky. Those forces sat out to sea. For starters, naval mines stopped that idea. Imagine if the enemy had been more capable. Also in Desert Storm we used a USMC land task force...doing the job of a second land army.

Like today, the United States Marketing Corps (Marketing is the mission not Marines) has to be where the main action is to keep funds rolling in, even if there is plenty of work for small-force USMC security actions in today's littorals. For some years now, new Marines have arrived in Afghanistan having never been near a boat.

We no longer have the funds to pay for such waste of resources.

Today, the second-land-army title fits. We do not need to fund a second land army. DOD planners should re-look at the map and recognize that Afghanistan is not a littoral environment. The littoral environment is the ONLY justification for having the USMC.

After Afghanistan, oh what will the United States Marketing Corps do?

This is how we won WWII... not...

This Operation:USELESS DIRT update is just more utter stupidity.

Look at all the wasted manpower and time better used to...oh, I don't know, try and win a war that certain fools think is so important.

As Rawley points out; garrison mentality.

Indeed.

Stryker upgrades

Not the biggest Stryker fan, but these upgrades are important. Be interesting to see a follow-on variant that is more Pacific oriented.

New York's last Vietnam War helicopter pilot honored

The Army and National Guard got top value for the dollar out of this guy...

H/T-Michael

The U.S. Army in the Pacific

OK fine. Interesting.

What can the U.S. Army bring to the Pacific?

1. Training. The Army Special Forces, Rangers and Engineers should be used to perform continuous training (at an increased rate) with our Pacific Allies.

2. Provide 1 airborne brigade on alert, ready to deploy by C-17s from the U.S. within 48 hours.

3. Have 2 Stryker Brigades train for operations in the Philippines. Deploy pre-positioned equipment to the Philippines for these Brigades.

4. Provide 1 Stryker brigade to deploy to the Philippines within 1 week via military airlift and the civilian reserve air fleet. It would meet up with its pre-positioned equipment.

5. Provide (active,reserve,guard) support units to deploy to the Pacific within 1 week.

These assets should deploy in exercises once a year.

This capability would provide a demonstration of U.S. commitment, which is what any Pacific Rim strategy should be all about.

M113 low availability due to poor project management and leadership

I really, really do not like having to write stuff like what I will point to below.

I wish it was as easy as the wonderful Orion crew the other day. Make a few comments about something good in a Defence press release and reinforce to the average civilian all the really great things happening in the ADF. BTW, there are a lot of good things happening in the ADF, just that what I am going to illustrate next is to put it mildly; exasperating.

In what one experienced observer of DMO/Defence efforts mentioned to me as, "how not to run a project", we have this new release of an audit (PDF at the jump) on the M113 armoured personnel carrier.

As some of you know, you can do a lot of neat things with M113s and still provide a useful weapons system to the troops. The Army is very lucky in having their very skilled and able personnel and also the Bushmaster which has allowed many a soldier to return home alive.

A modified M113 adds to this powerful ability by given the troops an additional tool in the bag for off-road operations.

The quotes from the audit are just sad. We spend gig-dollars on gold-plated stuff every year and can't even keep M113s going. This is one thing where the Australian spirit (yes, I know I am still the new guy), should be able to come up with solid-home-grown solutions; pat themselves on the back for a job well-done, and move on to the next challenge.

I cringe at the problems of the Navy, hit myself in the head with a hammer over RAAF problems, but there just is no reasonable excuse for getting basic bread and butter things wrong for the Army who have bullets whizzing by their heads, risk IEDs or worse and if they aren't killed, risk severe injury that will be with them all the rest of their days.

The audit states that availability for M113s at the armour school has gone into the ditch. A high percentage of vehicles are not available due to lack of spares, lack of oversight of vendor performance and thus poor project managment. Considering the way senior Defence throws billions in impulsive purchases because the Project of Concern list is hanging around their neck and they feel money must be spent...on something, there is NO credible excuse for APCs to be short of quality spares.

The data indicate that, over the three years to December 2010, the proportion of vehicles at the School of Armour classified as Fully Functional decreased from an average of 62 per cent in 2008 to 38 per cent in 2010, as shown in Figure 5.1. This decline in Fully Functional vehicles was accompanied by an increase in Restricted Use vehicles awaiting repairs that required spare parts.

Defence was unable to provide trend data for the period after December 2010, however, informed ANAO as at March 2012 that the percentage of ‘Fully Functional’ vehicles for the upgraded M113 fleet was 39 per cent, ‘Restricted Use’ was 37 per cent, and Not to be Driven (XX) was 24 per cent. Defence identified that this was above the minimum requirement that 75 per cent of the fleet be classed as at least ‘Restricted Use’.

Take your time. Read the report. And, weigh in. Army officials have put their response at the end of the audit. I would think that if they were better at having their people running inspections, fixes would have already been long in-place on APC spares availability and in-turn because they are flag-ranks, telling the DMO what they can do with their balls-up style of project management.

I could bring up what I think about the DMO, senior Defence leadership and so on. But you know that drill already.

Imagine what the Army could do with $1.4B wasted on the C-27, or up to $1.7B of potential waste for obsolete Super Hornet jamming kit. How much would $214M have helped the M113 issue instead of being wasted on a rent-seeking submarine study?

Things mentioned in the M113 audit are a cancer that we must stop as a core interest in paying attention to the basics. If not, there will be no such thing as national security.

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Click on the following images to make them larger.

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H/T- Richard

Combat leader's dereliction of duty

Out of uniform (no helmet in a combat-zone) and thus also unsafe, a silly scarf (also out of uniform) to appease idiots. So what happens if an IED hits or a mortar round or whatever, and this person gets injured or killed in a situation where wearing a helmet would have helped?

Also, someone who is injured because they were not wearing a helmet is unsafe to their squad-mates as they are unable to help others in combat and or now take two or three other people to recover their dumb-ass.

I have nothing but contempt for senior leadership that allows something like this to happen.

Caption for linked photo: "U.S. Army Pfc. Kristina Batty dons a headscarf to meet with female Afghan villagers in Afghanistan's southern Ghazni province, May 5, 2012. Batty, a medic for a female engagement team, is assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod"

Supporting the Army

One would have hoped the USAF would want to support U.S. Army airlift requirements for Afghanistan.

I guess not.

Here in 2007 the Army gets a supply run from a private contractor (flying a C212) working for Blackwater, Xe or whatever they are called these days. 

(click image to make larger)

Predictable

The United States Army of the Rumsfield era did everything possible to enable the tragedy that struck in Afghanistan today when one of their NCOs went on a killing rampage.

Before Operation: USELESS DIRT II (Iraq), there were those in the know who stated that it would take a lot more troops to do the job over the long haul. This disagreed with the Rumsfield (and his mind-guards) idea of a on-the-cheap op.

Those that decided to make a grand occupation out of Iraq had real troubles. Not enough people. The problem was that with a combination of the Peace Dividend as a result of the Cold War ending, requirements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea, the U.S. Army was short of manpower; with all the joys of multiple combat tours.

For years on end.

The short-term fix to manpower problems was to lower recruiting standards. The system looked the other way while people with questionable criminal records, mental illness, poor health and poor literacy were allowed to join up.

Undesirables that got that far had an easier time getting through the next "barrier"; basic training. The original goal of basic training is to weed out (without remorse) those that should under no circumstances hold a gun let alone be allowed to work in an environment that thrives on teamwork. But alas, training units had to meet their numbers.

It gets worse. The Army lowered the requirements of what it takes to be one of the most important people on or off the battlefield; the NCO or non-commissioned officer. These are the enlisted leaders, the sergeants, that make or break the goals of platoon and company commanders. Good sergeants make you. Bad sergeants break you. Unfortunately, many of the generals from Desert Storm who were young officers in Vietnam, are no longer around. Or as the great Colonel Hackworth stated some years ago, "The Army suffers from CRS; Can't Remember Shit."

We are experiencing another batch of hard lessons learned by the Army past.

So, in such a high profile and important mission as security ops and peace keeping where bad information travels at the speed of email, the Army, along with the U.S. Department of Defense, was complicit at allowing numerous high-risk people that should have never been there, to have access to weapons.

Over-sight and criminal investigations lagged behind too. All the misdeeds; the murders and abuse (blue on blue), illegal killings on the battlefield, and various kinds of corruption (fraud, waste and abuse) increased.

The mass killing like today was bound to happen. Just like the kill squad episode was bound to happen. Just like Bradley Manning was bound to happen. Just like the Fort Hood shooting was bound to happen. Just like Pat Tillman was bound to happen, and so on.

We will stop having problems like this when we stop involving people in the process. But, what we have seen today, is another example of what happens when standards are lowered: more people die.

And, in this case (not counting an incompetent political leadership) lowering of standards have helped to lose a war.

Big news for the Australian Army

The Australian Army--the least dysfunctional of the services--is expanding its capability with a major force structure reorganisation.

-The restructure of the 1st, 3rd and 7th Brigades to form new multi-role manoeuvre brigades. -These brigades will be fundamentally alike in structure to enable sustained operations within a new 36-month force generation cycle.
-The establishment of 10 battle group manoeuvre units.
-Realignment of the Army Reserve to be more integrated with the regular Army, forming an overall force of full-time and part-time personnel. The Reserve will assume a greater focus on operations.
-The 2nd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment (2RAR) will form the core of the Army's contribution to a future amphibious force capable of conducting humanitarian and disaster relief and other operations, particularly in the immediate region.
-Army working with the Navy and Air Force to enhance interoperability between the three services, in particular in operations with the Landing Helicopter Dock ships and other amphibious platforms.

In addition. Defence is ordering 2 CH-47 Chinooks, one of which makes up for a war loss.

Today, Defence also announced vehicle contracts for the Army.

With the national budget becoming a worry and if the government truly believes in this Army reorganisation (hint: it has to be paid for), we can see the jet-fighter force and submarine replacement sacrificed indefinitely.

The budget surplus was years ago. All gone.

Does Defence know the kind of equipment it needs?

The Australian Army’s effort to get new vehicles could run into trouble.

The Australian vehicle based on a variant that has saved numerous people from roadside bombs in Afghanistan may come in third in the competition. More, one of the main contenders which has components with less kinds of protection against threats, may win.

All of this makes you wonder if the Army has any real handle on their future vehicle needs. These are the same people that got the taxpayer to hand over money for scores of used American tanks that suck up fuel and spares at an alarming rate when on the march.

Also, do we have a handle on our “strategy” in Afghanistan? The troubled Tiger helicopter program is claimed by its cheerleaders to be good to go for combat in Operation: USELESS DIRT. However, that claim is only for daytime ops. Note; a Tiger variant used by the French has already seen a deployment there.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Apache, which can operate day or night and has become an effective COIN CAS aircraft has been doing this sort of work for sometime.

Off the shelf, and all that.

.

More work committed to combat troop survivability

It is nice to see articles like this even if I disagree with the Afghanistan mission.

Anything that continues to look at combat soldier survivability is a good thing. And even years ago with the fact that the Bushmaster vehicle initially started with a goofed up procurement contract, it is now sorted out to be a super-star lifesaver. Thank you to the Australian Defence establishment.

This trumps spending money on fantasy ships, submarines and aircraft. Maybe someday Australia will actually learn how to procure the big dollar platforms with some form of sanity. I hope so.

Until then, as Major Gen (Retd) Jim Molan points out, the beat goes on.