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 BrotherGecko wrote:

The military just burns money and then cries that its starving.

Units can't do a reset without civilians holding their hands. At my old unit as an E3 I lead the first in house deployment reset in almost a decade. Maintainers don't know the first thing about their jobs and are too used to civilians doing all the work for them. So I don't see it as stretched thin but rather incompetent and over pampered.

I was an electronics maintainer and, I can confirm that through my 10 years in, the "smart" play was to do your minimum time, and get that sweet contracting gig. It was only the "good" contractors who let us work on our own stuff (also, was a bit of OJT and recruitment in the process for those who became contractors)

And I am reminded of the old military folk tale of the marines one year being frugal with their spending, and when the budget committee met, they saw that the USMC hadn't spent all their money, and therefore cut their funding to that level, and as the tale goes, the marines have been shortchanged ever since.


I also agree that the DoD as a whole actually has the money to not have the problems outlined in the OP. They just don't want to spend the money that way. Neither party, despite the lip-service they play, is really the party "for" the military.

Yeah I think the US military has some issues to sort out. I think part of the problem is its identity and what kind of force it wants/needs to be.

Some questionable systems that come to mind are the F-35, the Zumwalt, the Littoral combat ships, and a lack of a replacement for the B-52 and B-1.

All three have some pretty cutting edge technology that is so new that they are having issues using it, or aren't even sure all that they can do with it. Another issue is that the more expensive they are, the less you are going to have of them.

In the case of the Zumwalt, I think the original request was for some 30 ships, which congress cut down to 3. 3 ships can't be everywhere at once, and some of the time will be spent being refitted, meaning you wouldn't have them available for quick reaction in any sea if needed. The gun system seems to be up in the air, and if one or two gets sunk, that's a lot of money tied up at the bottom of the ocean.

The Littoral is a fast ship, but its survival in a contested fight is of concern. In order to be light, it lacks armor, and the original idea to use different configurations for different missions was a little ridiculous. It actually takes some time to refit a ship, and swapping out weapon systems or other options would be take longer. They have since dropped those ideas and are now standardizing the ships, manly because of China. But weak armor means getting knocked out of action early, and these ships aren't cheap either.

The last I was initially really critical of, but have been more impressed with the F-35, so long as it is produced in the numbers planned. If they cut it short like they did with the F-22, meaning they can't field enough in meaningful numbers, then its going to be a bust. But from interviews with pilots and its performance at Red Flag, it seems to be the real deal.

I think the Navy has a tougher time figuring out what its mission is, and what weapons it needs to do it. If they keep designing ships too expensive to build, then they aren't going to get a lot of them and those ships could get overwhelmed when not supported.

Which does lead me to my next point. . . rarely does the US military fight in a void. Its a whole system that is able to take in a sick amount of information and act on it in various ways that would make most countries generals envious. I don't doubt that in a shooting war (non-nuclear), there isn't a air force or navy that can beat the US in any lengthy contest. Win a battle here or there, sure, but in a lengthy open-ended contest? No. Not Russia and not China. Not Russia and China combined. Not everyone else combined as a matter of fact.

But I do fear that there will be some kind of surprise, where there will be lack of support for some ship or unit that gets jumped, and nearby units wont be able to act in time because the one ship they have in the area isn't ready, or not all of the planes in a squadron are ready. That's my only fear. We'll have sacrificed numbers for some cool looking systems that there just wont be enough of.

Aye the zumwalt show one of the biggest issues. Well its final contract.

30 ships is great. 3... The sheer cost to design a class of 3 ships. The gearing up of shipyards and technical advancements. Its a great ship but costs a fortune.
And only 3... There's over a 100 or so of the Arlington burkhs.

(oh and they weigh so damn much cruiser is more accurate it seems)

Good project. Just bad final exacution.

KTG17 wrote:

But I do fear that there will be some kind of surprise, where there will be lack of support for some ship or unit that gets jumped, and nearby units wont be able to act in time because the one ship they have in the area isn't ready, or not all of the planes in a squadron are ready. That's my only fear. We'll have sacrificed numbers for some cool looking systems that there just wont be enough of.

But then the blame wouldnt be that the ships are too expensive, but we gave too little for them to have enough ships

The littoral combat ship fiasco blows my mind. Billion dollar coastal cutters with the armament of an Apache...

 redleger wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A lot of people highlight the terrible waste of money in the US Military, which is a fair point, but for a long time in US politics or society, nobody seems to ask a very important question anymore:

Why does the USA need such a vast military?

What are our aims? Our Interests? etc etc

That is a national conversation that badly needs to be had.

I agree. We should pull out of NATO, quit helping everyone else police the world, and let them take the brunt of it, then I would have to pay less in taxes. Fair point. Hey UK, wanna get a glove and get in the game?

Thank you for your gratitude for our political and material support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which led to doubling the US armed forces budget.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The littoral combat ship fiasco blows my mind. Billion dollar coastal cutters with the armament of an Apache...

Maybe the Royal Navy can sell you the design to our new Frigate class.
Long range modern Frigates to augment the type 45 destroyer.

 redleger wrote:
...many more NCOs...

As Terry Pratchett said:

Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants — the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare becoming a mere lower-class brawl.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 redleger wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
A lot of people highlight the terrible waste of money in the US Military, which is a fair point, but for a long time in US politics or society, nobody seems to ask a very important question anymore:

Why does the USA need such a vast military?

What are our aims? Our Interests? etc etc

That is a national conversation that badly needs to be had.

I agree. We should pull out of NATO, quit helping everyone else police the world, and let them take the brunt of it, then I would have to pay less in taxes. Fair point. Hey UK, wanna get a glove and get in the game?

Thank you for your gratitude for our political and material support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which led to doubling the US armed forces budget.

Actually I was not referring to OEF or OIF. Although I did look at the numbers on UK military website and the cost in dollars aside, the amount of personnel yall put in to combat in both countries doesnt even register in comparison, but the UK is also a much smaller country so maybe that is to beexpected. Honestly I met more Australians in Afghanistan than I did Brits.

I was referring to maybe taking on a bigger role in NATO, maybe shouldering it for a while so we can get our gak together internally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 redleger wrote:
...many more NCOs...

As Terry Pratchett said:

Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants — the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare becoming a mere lower-class brawl.

Yep. I never saw my Fire Direction Officer unless I needed him to run down something my stripes could not get. Smarter better educated "Sergeants" are making the need to Officer leadership smaller, hence my desire to see the General Officer ranks thinned quite a bit. I mean do we need a 3 star general in charge of our exchange services.(that is the store on every post that allows most installations to be self sufficient for goods and many services) Do we need 3 generals on an installation when you have brigade commanders handling most of the business anyway. In reality they are there to sign major awards, work relations with local civilian populace and conduct strategic planning for many operations. A commanding General usually doensnt handle those details anyway, his staff does. So in reality 1 General per post, 1 for Forces Command 1 for Traiining Command and 1 in the pentagon with lots more Colonels and the occasional 1 star staff position. You would see the budget for pay and allowances take a huge drop.

 redleger wrote:
Honestly I met more Australians in Afghanistan than I did Brits.

That may be because the Australian commitment was relatively so much smaller that they relied heavily upon the infrastructure created by others and so you would have more interaction with them. The Brits meanwhile were having fun in Helmand where you wouldn't have seen them unless you had cause to go there.

edit: If I remember correctly the Aussies were based at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, for a time which was also a route the US used to get into theater, so there's another possible reason for why you saw more of them (only relevant if you passed through Manas).

 Henry wrote:

 redleger wrote:
Honestly I met more Australians in Afghanistan than I did Brits.

That may be because the Australian commitment was relatively so much smaller that they relied heavily upon the infrastructure created by others and so you would have more interaction with them. The Brits meanwhile were having fun in Helmand where you wouldn't have seen them unless you had cause to go there.

Britain was deployed to Helmand.
They had own base at Camp Bastian that was set up with everything needed to sustain some 10,000 strong deployments at peak.

No doubt the size of each country's deployment can be found on the Internet somewhere, if people are particularly interested.

To return to the point about NATO, I would say first the the UK is one of several NATO nations that spends the target 2% of GDP on armed forces, and although not a major land power, we have a navy and air force plus a nuclear force, so it's not like we don't contribute in significant ways. Some of the other NATO nations are currently slack in their military funding and this is one of the few areas of policy where I agree with Trump.

Prestor Jon wrote:
Contracting work out is still cheaper for the govt. The govt has to invest all of the time and money into training to make sure everyone in the service has the skills they need so while the pay is lower the govt investment is higher. That same person can leave when his/her enlistment is up and get hired as a contractor with a much larger salary because they already have the skills needed to do the job. It's cheaper for the govt to hire somebody to fill a slot that is already qualified than it is to spend the time and money to create a new person to do that same job. It's also a lot easier for the military to contract out specific work to civilians than it is to try to fill niche slots through recruitment. It also lets the govt slap a temporary solution over the issue of retention and entering into prolonged conflicts without expanding the military.

It is true that paying someone you've already trained as a contractor can be cheaper than hiring a new recruit and training him up. However, what you're missing is that what's even cheaper is training that soldier up and retaining him is even cheaper still.

While retention has always been an issue, it's mostly been due to people getting sick of the life, wanting to spend more time at home with their families and things like that. People who want to remain in an active role haven't been a tought retain for the army, because they're the only game in town, unless soldiers were happy to go work for a shady mining company keeping assets safe from disaffected locals or other fairly unappealing kinds of work.

That was until the army started using private contractors at which point trained, experienced soldiers could finish their service and then go work for a contractor who then worked for the army. Effectively the army put itself in a deal where it spent a pile of money training up soldiers, and then saw the soldiers leave and charge the army for their value as trained soldiers, effectively the army was being charged for the value the army itself added to the soldier.

It's like renting some land, putting a house on it and then having your rent go up because the house you put on it made the land more valuable. It's not great business, basically.

We're always going to have a fethed up wasteful military budget because the budget is controlled by Congress and it's always politically expedient to spend money so Congress will make sure budget decisions also benefit themselves regardless of the impact on the military.

That's part of the issue but its far from the whole of the issue. There is a bigger issue that the US has simply lost track of what is an acceptable risk. Consider for instance the question of the whether the US needs 200 F-22s and another 200 F-35s? Maybe, if it goes to war with one or more other powers who have their own advanced fighters, then it will be nice to have absolutely superior planes of your own to give you something close to air dominance very quickly. Of course, if you end up fighting nothing but scrub wars in the ME for the next decade then those planes are more like a trillion dollars wasted.

I'm not saying you don't build capability based on potential conflicts, you absolutely have to. And I even think that probably includes the massive spend on those latest generation fighters. I am saying that the potential conflicts you are willing to be more or less equipped to handle grow as your budget grows. Other countries, on tighter budgets, prioritise what risks they are willing to accept. Many of these countries have budgets that are too tight, and they accept risks they shouldn't. But the US is miles the other way, it is flush with cash, has built a national understanding that accepts no potential risk at all, and then demands whatever budget to reach that state.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 redleger wrote:
...many more NCOs...

As Terry Pratchett said:

Most armies are in fact run by their sergeants — the officers are there just to give things a bit of tone and prevent warfare becoming a mere lower-class brawl.

That just unearthed a ten-year-old memory of The Scarecrow and his Servant.

This is not what I expected from this thread.

Well, I also think that asking if the US military readiness is at a proper level needs a little clarity. Readiness for what? And based on that, what are our rivals readiness at? Who even can come close?

No one has the ability to project force beyond their region anywhere close that the US can, if at all. Russia, regional power. China, regional power. NATO without the US, mostly regional. And I am not talking about sending a few planes over the skies or a brigade. I mean, pack up and move men and material in vast quantities. No one else can do it. And you can thank the US Navy for that.

And even if anyone could, lets say, threaten the US mainland, the US would see it coming. Besides a few rapid response units, it takes time to mobilize and move divisions, let alone army groups, and keep them supplied. There is a whole apparatus needed and no one else has the infrastructure nor the experience in doing it lately.

So that is what makes the US so dominant and actually helps its readiness. Could a US ship, plane, or unit get surprised and jumped? Sure. Then what? What would the US response be? Overwhelming. But if anyone were trying to amass forces to hit the US I doubt they could leave their port let alone make it halfway across the Atlantic or Pacific without the US obliterating it.

So at this point its really about: is the US Readiness at a level to protect its interests. I think that might be a little more of a struggle than defending its territories.

The other item of note is the new battlefields. Cyberwarfare will be key in future engagements. Indeed why we aren't wasting ISIL messaging and PR capability is inconceivable.

 Frazzled wrote:
The other item of note is the new battlefields. Cyberwarfare will be key in future engagements. Indeed why we aren't wasting ISIL messaging and PR capability is inconceivable.

Because sometimes it is a lot more useful to listen in on people rather than shut them up.

If you're trying to gather intelligence you set up a wiretap rather than cutting the phone line.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
The other item of note is the new battlefields. Cyberwarfare will be key in future engagements. Indeed why we aren't wasting ISIL messaging and PR capability is inconceivable.

Because sometimes it is a lot more useful to listen in on people rather than shut them up.

If you're trying to gather intelligence you set up a wiretap rather than cutting the phone line.

That... and it's almost impossible to stop them from using the internet.

 whembly wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
The other item of note is the new battlefields. Cyberwarfare will be key in future engagements. Indeed why we aren't wasting ISIL messaging and PR capability is inconceivable.

Because sometimes it is a lot more useful to listen in on people rather than shut them up.

If you're trying to gather intelligence you set up a wiretap rather than cutting the phone line.

That... and it's almost impossible to stop them from using the internet.

Why is it almost impossible? Thats my point. The future wars will have a strong cyber component. This should be extremely do-able.

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
The other item of note is the new battlefields. Cyberwarfare will be key in future engagements. Indeed why we aren't wasting ISIL messaging and PR capability is inconceivable.

Because sometimes it is a lot more useful to listen in on people rather than shut them up.

If you're trying to gather intelligence you set up a wiretap rather than cutting the phone line.

That... and it's almost impossible to stop them from using the internet.

Why is it almost impossible? Thats my point. The future wars will have a strong cyber component. This should be extremely do-able.

Do you want the Cliffnotes or full blown techie answer?

... You can't even get your own President off twitter so it's a bit much to etc etc etc

 reds8n wrote:
... You can't even get your own President off twitter so it's a bit much to etc etc etc

Sure we can. Just give him a fake PDA.

Just chiming in here.
I think the major issue for the US military is the massive costs of its equipment. Especially the newer stuff.
The Russian military can get the cutting-edge 4th generation Armata tank for about half the money the US needs to spend to get an Abrams, which is just an updated version of an old tank that has been around since the 70's. And it is not just tanks or Russia, the same holds true for the costs of most American military equipment vs the equivalent equipment of all of its major rivals.
Not only do these high costs mean that the US could have had a much larger, more powerful army for the massive amount of money it spends on defense, it also means that the potential of the US to engage in any large-scale attrition based conflict is severely limited (the costs would cripple the economy). In short, American equipment and development of new equipment costs more than absolutely necessary.

At the root of the problem I think is the fact that the factories that produce equipment for the US military are all private companies (that are out to make as big a profit as possible). Russia or China meanwhile have state-owned factories that can produce the same for a fraction of the cost (because they do not need to make a profit on it).
Ergo, the US needs to nationalise the defense industry. Initially that would require a load of money, but on the long term it could result in either a drastic decrease in military spending (with no reduction in capacity) or a major increase in capacity if military spending remains on the same level.

To be fair, Russia and China have much lower labor costs, and tend to steal tech from other countries rather than spend the $$$ to develop it themselves. Those factors go a long way towards explaining why their stuff is cheaper.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Just chiming in here.
I think the major issue for the US military is the massive costs of its equipment. Especially the newer stuff.
The Russian military can get the cutting-edge 4th generation Armata tank for about half the money the US needs to spend to get an Abrams, which is just an updated version of an old tank that has been around since the 70's. And it is not just tanks or Russia, the same holds true for the costs of most American military equipment vs the equivalent equipment of all of its major rivals.
Not only do these high costs mean that the US could have had a much larger, more powerful army for the massive amount of money it spends on defense, it also means that the potential of the US to engage in any large-scale attrition based conflict is severely limited (the costs would cripple the economy). In short, American equipment and development of new equipment costs more than absolutely necessary.

At the root of the problem I think is the fact that the factories that produce equipment for the US military are all private companies (that are out to make as big a profit as possible). Russia or China meanwhile have state-owned factories that can produce the same for a fraction of the cost (because they do not need to make a profit on it).
Ergo, the US needs to nationalise the defense industry. Initially that would require a load of money, but on the long term it could result in either a drastic decrease in military spending (with no reduction in capacity) or a major increase in capacity if military spending remains on the same level.

I don't think the public would tolerate the government nationalizing the Defense industries...

We'd see a national single-payor healthcare system before that.

I'd be just fine with it myself. Cut out the middle man.

 Frazzled wrote:
I'd be just fine with it myself. Cut out the middle man.

The procurement system definitely needs an overhaul.

I'm not sure what's the right answer is, but i'm sure the way we're doing now isn't cost effective.

Same issue with every bureaucracy. Fire half of them and prohibit people from working in the industry for ten years once they leave the military or politics. These are perfectly legal. Now my idea that politicians must have their children serve in active combat units while more helpful would be less legal.

Nationalizing production, besides being unconstitutional is just fething asinine. Many defense firms produce all kinds of stuff for non-govermental clients. For example, Boeing makes more than fighters, Oshkosh makes more than trucks for the Army. Those companies share resources (both engineering/design services and manufacturing capacity as well as admin services).

 CptJake wrote:
Nationalizing production, besides being unconstitutional is just fething asinine. Many defense firms produce all kinds of stuff for non-govermental clients. For example, Boeing makes more than fighters, Oshkosh makes more than trucks for the Army. Those companies share resources (both engineering/design services and manufacturing capacity as well as admin services).

Spin them off. I'll handle the M&A.