Not trickery or corruption...
planes do break and must be grounded for safety reasons. I will posit the USAF (as with all the services) will highlight problems when it is to their advantage and downplay them when it's convenient.
However, the savings from the personnel cuts do not pay for current ops, there are GWOT supplementals to cover those costs. What is not always fully covered is the additional wear and tear on the gear.
Here's where the USAF gets my goat: They whine and cry about recapitalizing the fleet AND buying new, very expensive systems. They continue to sink an inordinate amount of R&D money into go nowhere systems (ABL comes to mind). Finally, they are paying a high price in O&M because they decided to put people first (vice recapitalizing) when they were flush with cash and now have a very expensive infrastructure to maintain coupled with all sorts of monetary “entitlements” to pay Airmen (e.g. while we grunts lose our BAS when deployed, Airmen do not; while Marines are billeted in tents, the USAF uses hotels).
In these fiscally lean times you cannot have the trifecta of high tech gear, recap the old gear, and maintain an overly comfortable life style. As I said in another post the USAF has over the years developed a Champaign and caviar taste but now are faced with a beer and pretzels budget.
They seriously need to do a culture shift.
Oh, and one more thing...
There are now many AF TDY's to CENTCOM for a year. I myself may be taking one. I may be puttin' the I in indigenous, personally!
New Mantra Needed for USAF and the rest of the services
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jayhawker
Bottom line is we won't know what force we'll need for the next war as our track record on predicting that is a part of the problem manifesting itself now in the AF. Realizing that, we have to have a good mix of capabilities and even me (an AF guy who loves studying small wars) has to advocate for fast movers, efficient air lifters, effective bombers, and other things.
This would be less of a problem if the USAF learned to love "need to have" more than "nice to have." If you haven't spent decades trying to develop an aircraft that is the best in the world with every possibly conceived capability that ultimately costs more than the GDP of many small countries than it's not so much a problem if you don't get the future predicting just right.
The US and allies won WWII not with the best aircraft, ships, and tanks, but with the ones that were good enough and that could be gotten to the battlefield in a timely manner without breaking the bank.
I would suggest that the way to get to having this sort of frame of mind is to drop the idea that a force can arrive on the battlefield with "superiority" or "dominance" already settled. If that were the case, then war would be made relatively obsolete. To believe it's possible is not only problematic for R&D, acquisition and procurement, it's also the fast route to hubris.
Cheers,
Jill
True. I'd add that some small efforts by the
other services to attempt to match even partly the USAF largess in the TDY / Per Diem / Specialty pay areas has already had an adverse impact on total DoD personnel funding.
Oh, but they get paid extra...
for the "misery" Carl. :D
The Air Force has what I, somewhat derogatorily, refer to as "putting up with the Army pay.” You see, while the Airmen are living at the Soldier’s level, this is not amenable to “momma” Air Force who claims that the Army’s quarters are “substandard.” Thus they pay Airmen a stipend, as it were, to live on an Army base.
Also, when Marines and Soldiers deploy (which usually means they go somewhere hot, cold, wet, nasty, etc…) they lose their BAS. Why, cause they get their sustenance via MRE’s or the chow hall. Sailors also pay the price when they are afloat although this is somewhat offset by sea pay (which Marines can also qualify while afloat). Not so the Air Force, so while they might be eating on the Gubmint’s nickel they also continue to draw BAH.
The Air Force also has a unique definition of the term “deploy.” To the Army, Marines, and Navy this is time away from home often under austere conditions. The AF will “deploy” personnel from the Pentagon to Crystal City (if you didn’t know they’re walking distance apart). After this arduous deployment the Airmen gets the same two weeks of off the books leave as folks returning from the AOR do. That’s fair. :cool:
As to hotels, more QOL hocus pocus, since they could get by with AC tents, and do without the rental cars.
And I know some Airmen who actually resent the level of pampering; most do not enlist knowing their lifestyle “in the field” will approach the lap of luxury when compared to Marines and Soldiers.
The AF whines about it’s aging fleet and inability to recapitalize it, while Dunlap, et al rant about buying more. Yet it is a problem of their own making since they decided years back, when there was plenty of cash, to invest heavily in extra pays, perks, and infrastructure that has no other purpose other than QOL.