To amplify what Tom said, Abrams came back
from Viet Nam and as CofSA almost immediately set out to move the bulk of the CS/CSS to the Guard and Reserve for two reason. First, to insure that no future President could go to war without calling up the RC and secondly, to put those kinds of unit -- even then having problems recruiting -- in the RC where they could better recruit and could allow unit members to work in their trade in civilian life as well as in training, thus enhancing their skills if they needed to be called up. To that end, some thought was put into what units went where in an attempt to locate units where there were likely locally required skills that would enhance the effectiveness of the unit.
Unfortunately, in the 80s, politics took over and two things happened. first, the ArNG got agreement to take over all CA units in the RC (bad decision on the part of DA) and the USAR picked up the majority of the CSS (read: all that the ArNG did not want) while both components shared CS elements. There was also some movement of unit locations based on politics and not on what native to the area skill pools might contain. Both of these actions were detrimental (IMO) to the concept, to the Army and to the RC.
Come Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Vouno tried to go to war without calling up the RC CS/CSS pool -- he couldn't do it. He and Benny Peay tried every trick in the book and couldn't make it work so the CS/CSS package had to be called up, thus units tabbed Capstone to VII and XVIII Corps had to be activated. Third Army's down trace was mostly RC, they had to be called up. Congress also insisted on ArNG Brigades being called up and sent (they paid for 'em and they and the Guard wanted to put 'em to work). So three Bdes were activated over loud protests from DA. The DA plan was to stall and not deploy them in order to justify a couple of full up, all AC deployable Corps so they decided the RC refresher training would entail a trip to the NTC. One Bde, the 48th from GA, went through that and completed it just about the time of the ceasefire in Kuwait. It never got certified for deployment by DA (a statutory requirement) on the basis "the war's over..." Fun and games the DA way...
Come this one, Tom's got it right plus the need for for more troops due to a rotation policy drove the deployment of ArNG Bdes -- all of whom have done pretty good. 278th from TN did exceptionally well.
There are a number of lessons in this for many, from Congress to DA to the RC to Defense contractors. Let's see how smart everyone is... :D
Balance and moderation in all things...
My mom told me. I think she was right and I think we've forgotten that...
Quote:
Originally Posted by
J Wolfsberger
Whatever I think of it, and I personally believe it has been dramatically over sold, the Army is becoming increasingly information centric.
Too true -- and that has one driver. Over centralization. :mad:
That, in turn is driven by the lack of willingness to trust subordinates induced by the experience in the last few years of Viet Nam where Bn Cdrs found out that instant NCOs and 2LTs were wonderfully willing and dedicated but didn't know much and required constant supervision. A partial solution to that is far better training and a better personnel system. Until those very significant problems are fixed, we will over rely on technology and pay the CLS price. Seems dumb to me but what do I know....
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And that's just one area. That sad truth is that the technical sophistication of our systems are (and have been) at a level where the Army can't compete with the private sector for the expertise required to keep them going. CLS is here to stay.
IF we keep edging reliability and and simplicity out for sophistication -- which the industry wants to sell, it's got a bigger markup -- and if we keep insisting on trying to solve human problems with mo' better machinery...
OTOH there may be other, less expensive and more reliable ways to do things.
Not to mention that in my experience, reliance on electronic systems is dicey at best. They have the annoying habit of working well for months on end for unimportant things and then failing when you need them most... :rolleyes:
Remember what Einstein said
Quote:
Originally Posted by
J Wolfsberger
I have this persistent vision of the next highly kinetic war beginning with a three or four day orgy of destruction of multi-million dollar systems ...
... followed by weeks, months and years of old fashioned infantry slug fest. :wry:
Something to the effect of ( Not sure about wwIII, but WWIV ; sticks and stones):eek:
Back to my original question...
OK, so how many cooks and other CSS folks you want to replace w/non-contractors does it take to sustain a force of 160k? Oh, and another 30k in OEF?
Now where do they come from?
1. Additional duty for each deployed unit. Just keep x% of your folks out of the fight to do sustainment activities. Been there, done that, and it hurt last time.
2. Find that number of folks lounging around the States on "dwell time" and send them over. Make sure you plan for a rotation cycle.
3. Replace the new BCTs coming into the force structure with CSS units. If we have held up under this PERSTEMPO so far, I'm sure we can do it for another decade or so.
4. Bring back the draft and plus up the armed forces to VN levels. Get back on a 3:1 rotation schedule.
I think you're missing a point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sargent
Anybody who threatens to quit a job -- even the most heroic of jobs -- if they are asked to anything that exceeds their comfort zone is vulnerable to a degree criticism.
That may be your opinion and you're certainly entitled to it. Others may not agree but that's really irrelevant in both cases. What's possibly relevant is that the issue isn't a comfort level on the part of those who want to do a particular thing, it's whether you can attract the numbers to do some things. As several stated above, we aren't doing too well at that in part because civilian industry pays better for the good stuff and not many really want to do the bad stuff.
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If you think that is insulting, well I can't do anything about it. Go back and read the descriptions of the soldiers offered up as evidence for why such an idea as I presented would not work -- none of them are particularly flattering. Perhaps you could share the joy and direct some of your ire at those who wrote the unflattering comments to begin with. They were, after all, the sine qua non of my conclusions.
Unflattering? Unappealing to you perhaps but not necessarily unflattering, it's simply reality. Personally, I see nothing wrong in a person wanting to hew to a particular line of work -- because that's what's at issue. You see it as being a Marine -- he may see it as being a Grunt, period. I don't think either of you are wrong but you do have different perspectives and unlike you, he has to live with his.
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Bottom line, "PFC Schmuckatelli will quit because he didn't sign up for that" is a bad argument against the idea, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that it does not reflect well upon PFC Schmuckatelli -- and I think this last part is important (hint -- that ought to suggest that I am not altogether keen to insult the good PFC to begin with).
Schmuckatelli will not quit -- he signed a contract and will do what he's told until his enlistment is up. The issue is not that, it's whether he will reenlist or not if you do that to him. You say he should or it will not reflect well on him. Frankly, I don't think he gives a hoot what others think. He's got to live with himself and by the time he comes up for reenlistment, he's old enough to have figured out that the opinions of others merit some consideration but cannot -- should not -- be a determinant for what he does.
There are a lot of combat arms NCOs in both the Marines and the Army who are perfectly capable of getting a commission -- and they opt not to do so simply because they know they'd have to 'generalists' and do desk things (and social things, for some... :D ) -- and they'd really rather not. As mentioned above, many CSS guys get reclassified to the combat arms when numbers get tight, most adapt pretty well to that switch but that is not true in reverse. My guess is that a healthy majority of combat arms guys would not reenlist if they were to be reclassified or had to serve in CSS positions. I would not have and as a Navy junior, I got a reasonably good grounding in responsibilities and duties. People are different...
None of which addresses the real issues -- raw numbers of persons available and the number who will enlist to do the CS/CSS jobs.