'America's Broken Army' NPR Series. Cavguy makes COL Gentile proud ...
All,
I just learned an NPR interview the COIN Center gave in October was aired yesterday. In it, a MAJ "Neal" (can't anyone spell my name right?) Smith bemoans the lack of conventional competency in our force.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=99156039
Of course it's one quote out of an hour long interview we gave, but it does reflect the need for "balance" in the future between COIN and HIC tasks.
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All Things Considered, January 12, 2009 · America has the most battle-hardened Army in the nation's history, but it's an Army that may also be broken. The seven years of war — in Iraq and Afghanistan — have taken a toll on the troops, tanks and trucks, as well as on the Army's leaders.
.....
A Debate Over Training
That switch has sparked a debate inside the Army over what missions it can perform and how it should train its soldiers. The training, lately, is all about counterinsurgency, and some in the Army are wondering if the pendulum has swung too far.
"Obviously we can't go back to the extreme we were in 2003 where the force knew nothing about counterinsurgency," says Maj. Neal Smith, the operations officer of the Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center. He teaches people how to fight the kind of wars we're in now in Iraq and Afghanistan. "But we also can't go to a force where if a tank division is needed someday — no one knows how to move, defend, attack or move to contact anymore."
But even he worries about what today's soldiers are being taught: how to fight a classic ground war.
"The risk we run as a force is that we have a generation of officers [who] have spent five to six years [at war] that never have done their conventional competency," Neal Smith says. "And if we were expected on short notice to fulfill that conventional competency, we would struggle very hard to do it as well as we did in 2003 during the attack to Baghdad."
The problem is there simply isn't enough time to teach people how to fight both conventional and unconventional wars — the soldiers are simply at war too much and troops now have only about 12 months between deployments.
"The reality is we really only have enough time to prepare soldiers for the next mission they're going to face," says Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who runs the Combined Arms Center for the Army. He oversees 18 different schools and training centers, including the National Training Center. "Then as time permits, we'll operate across the whole continuum of intensity of ops."
The Army says it won't even be able to really begin training for all kinds of warfare until 2010 at the earliest, so for now, the focus is on hearts and minds, not tanks and artillery.
I think it went something like this...
yada yada yada... as Niel exposed his secret crush for Elaine:D
Yep listened to it this morn
Sure to be extremely popular in
some circles:wry:
Wake up, Reed, you spelled Nile
Nelly (not that there is anything wrong with that!!)
You just go ahead Nelly!!!
OK, you got me; I owe you one. First chance I get I will state publicly that the Army is loosing its Coin capabilities....NOT!!
But come on, dont ya' think that we knew just a little, little, tiny, winy bit about counterinsurgency in 2003 instead of as you say the extreme and "knew nothing" about coin?
Can ya help a fellow coin brother out here?
gian
Doctrine, Context and yet more...
I think there has to be a differentiation between doing some good training, because you are going to war in a place you know well, against folks you have fought before and the body of skills, drill and forms that you need to maintain an army to be ready for anything that it is likely to be asked to do.
I submit that the issue is doctrine. There is a pretty good body of best practice that can fairly easily accessed, by anyone prepared to take the risk of doing so.
Look at any military training problem and you'll usually find some idiotic body of opinion defending some ones empire or skill set.
Look out for people who believe that it is their job to "deliver training" instead of "teaching people how do things." and then testing them to make sure they can.
Could the 'truth' lie somewhere in between
Schmedlap and Eden? I place 'truth' in quotes because I fully acknowledge that 'truth' in training is very subjective, subject to interpretation and means different things to different people.
I think Scmedlap's version of unit training broadly tracks with my experience over almost 30 years of doing and another almost 20 of closely observing and 'overseeing.' I think Eden's comments also track with all that.
The important thing to me is to acknowledge that we are now training better at the unit level than we ever did -- but we still are not doing that as well as we can or should...
Eden says:
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"When is the last time anyone maneuvered a brigade in the US Army?... (and much else) ... Coordinated all of the above as a division staff within the space of three or four days?
We used to do that all the time...well, two to three times a year, anyway, and still screwed the pooch almost every time..."
I do not dispute that was done nor that it was training but I will point out that it was generally done poorly -- as Eden acknowledges -- and in my observation unrealistically only once or twice a year and with no penalties for failure or error.
That's a long way of getting to the major point -- how you train is a great deal more important than what you train.
It is far better for combat forces to do the basics well than to do the exotic or upper levels poorly...
Added: Wilf said:
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"Look out for people who believe that it is their job to "deliver training" instead of "teaching people how do things." and then testing them to make sure they can."
YES!!!
Acquisition for the next war
I suspect that because most of us who haunt the forum are or were Army or Marines we miss the big point about designing forces for the next war. Land forces are much more flexible and adaptable (and considerably cheaper) than the air or sea services. You can take an armored battalion or an air defense battalion, park the vehicles somewhere, and use the personnel for a variety of purposes; we've been doing just that for years. When I was a tank battalion S-3 we guarded Haitian refugees at Gitmo and fought prairie fires - and this was in 1995. So you can design an army for high-intensity warfare and still be comfortable that you will have at least some capacity for lesser contingencies.
Not so much for the really expensive parts of the armed forces. Yes, carrier battle groups and F-16 squadrons have utility in small wars - but if you are designing a Navy or an Air Force to support wars like Afghanistan or Iraq, and 'accepting risk' like Sec Gates says we are, the weapon systems you buy would look much different from the ones we are currently acquiring. You would want air frames, for example, designed almost solely to accurately deliver ordnance (or bags of food); air superiority would not be a consideration.
Force structure would be even more different. What is not commonly realized is that cost is less of a consideration in force structure than manpower. There is always more money available, but congressionally mandated manpower caps are much more difficult to move. So the 10,000 or so bodies that we invest in a carrier battle group (a swag from a groundpounder, by the way, so don't quote me) would ideally be reinvested in brown water forces, CBs, special forces, or in the Army.
Gotta disagree with some things...
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Land forces are much more flexible and adaptable (and considerably cheaper) than the air or sea services. You can take an armored battalion or an air defense battalion, park the vehicles somewhere, and use the personnel for a variety of purposes; we've been doing just that for years. When I was a tank battalion S-3 we guarded Haitian refugees at Gitmo and fought prairie fires - and this was in 1995. So you can design an army for high-intensity warfare and still be comfortable that you will have at least some capacity for lesser contingencies.
People are always going to be more adaptable than equipment - that much is obvious. So too is the fact that air and naval forces are more dependent on equipment to operate in their domains and so can be considered less flexible. But for "high tech" warfare, the Army is pretty much just as equipment dependent as the Navy and Air Force.
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Force structure would be even more different. What is not commonly realized is that cost is less of a consideration in force structure than manpower. There is always more money available, but congressionally mandated manpower caps are much more difficult to move. So the 10,000 or so bodies that we invest in a carrier battle group (a swag from a groundpounder, by the way, so don't quote me) would ideally be reinvested in brown water forces, CBs, special forces, or in the Army.
You're completely correct about the limitations of manpower on force structure, but I think you're completely wrong in the assertion that manpower is cheap. It is not, especially once one considers that some legacy manpower costs are not part of the defense budget. Moreover, the budget for personnel is much less flexible. You can't save money and divert it to other things nearly as easily as you can with procurement and O&M money.
Additionally, moving personnel from one area (carrier battle group) to another (brown water, CB, SF, Army) is neither easy nor cheap. The skills and equipment requirements are quite different and, in a volunteer force at least, one cannot simply order that nuclear reactor tech to become a SEAL or CB or whatever. You can force them out and recruit replacements, or offer incentives to change, but both of those are expensive, and that's not even discussing the recruiting, retraining, decommissioning costs as well as costs to equip the force for the new task. And by "costs" I'm talking both money AND time. Changing force structure is therefore an expensive and slow process.
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Not so much for the really expensive parts of the armed forces. Yes, carrier battle groups and F-16 squadrons have utility in small wars - but if you are designing a Navy or an Air Force to support wars like Afghanistan or Iraq, and 'accepting risk' like Sec Gates says we are, the weapon systems you buy would look much different from the ones we are currently acquiring. You would want air frames, for example, designed almost solely to accurately deliver ordnance (or bags of food); air superiority would not be a consideration.
Turn your argument on its head. Suppose we build a specialized force for small wars - what happens when a big war comes around? Then you're stuck with capabilities you can't use and then the argument is turned upside down. Better, I think, to have capabilities that can do both imperfectly than try to bet the farm on what the next war is going to be and create an ideal force for that particular war. This is actually what both the Air Force and Navy have been doing for almost 20 years now - getting rid of "one-trick-pony" capabilities in favor of more flexible capabilities. Does that have costs? Sure, but what is the alternative? Try to reconfigure most of your force with every new conflict? One can certainly do that to some extent (and all the services are), but changing a carrier battle group into something optimized for small wars may not be practical or wise for a whole host of reasons.
I'm not sure he said what you think he said...
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Originally Posted by
Entropy
You're completely correct about the limitations of manpower on force structure, but I think you're completely wrong in the assertion that manpower is cheap.
He didn't say it was cheap; he said -- fairly correctly I think, that there's plenty of money. See below.
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You can't save money and divert it to other things nearly as easily as you can with procurement and O&M money.
That's true but that revolves around Congress' penchant for micromanaging personnel issues simply because Service people can vote (wrongly in my view but that's another thread). More important to Congress, so can their families vote (as they should be able to). All that said, it has been done and can be done.
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Additionally, moving personnel from one area (carrier battle group) to another (brown water, CB, SF, Army) is neither easy nor cheap.
He didn't say that either. I'm the one that used the CVBG example and you noted, I hope that I postulated that well in the future -- IOW, yes, it takes time to do that. However, it has been done and can be again. Likely will...
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Changing force structure is therefore an expensive and slow process.
I think we all agree on that; today's arguments by those that count, not by us, translate into 2018 or later actions.
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...This is actually what both the Air Force and Navy have been doing for almost 20 years now - getting rid of "one-trick-pony" capabilities in favor of more flexible capabilities.
True, they have -- but I'd be remiss if I did not point out that over the last 20 years, both those services (and the Army and Marines) have not been very astute in pursuing that flexibility until someone forced their hand. Alacrity is not a strong point...Nor, regrettably does vision seem to be.
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but changing a carrier battle group into something optimized for small wars may not be practical or wise for a whole host of reasons.
It's a trade off and I suspect that decisions already been made. It'll be fought, no matter which way it goes, that's all American. :D
Your argument might be more appreciated if the Navy had not gone through the Burke / Zumwalt fiasco, had not decided the LCS was not really the ship needed for the job and if the USS GHWB didn't cost about $2B MORE than her class predecessors (and considering that the MPN and OMN annual cost is about 20% of build cost...). Carriers are great, no question. The issue is how many CVBGs are needed...
Oh, I've also heard on pretty good authority that smaller carriers are being relooked -- again... ;)
You kids mess up all the old cliches...
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Originally Posted by
Bob's World
...I've always said "train as you fight" is a ridiculous cliche'. My position is: "You will fight as you have trained, until the enemy trains you to fight differently."
Never heard 'train as you fight." In my day it was ALWAYS "you will fight as you train." Not the same thing at all.
I disagree quite strongly with the thought "You will fight as you have trained, until the enemy trains you to fight differently." That accedes the initiative to him and I don't buy that for a second. I'll set the mood and tempo, thank you very much. I know that can be done because I've done it in my own little corner of a number of fights...:cool:
In the last 30 years, a lot of things that were learned the hard way were thrown out by a bunch of smart people -- who should have known better -- and we're now getting to relearn them. We no longer use random names for operations but use catchy titles. That's dumb.
Our training is seriously deficient and the word Warrior is vastly overused. A good soldier should be able to whip a good warrior any day of the week. A warrior is an amateur fighter. He may be experienced but he's an amateur. A soldier by definition is a professional in today's Army and a good pro can whip a gifted amateur any day of the week. Or should be able to. If our performance in today's combat is merely okay and is not superb it is because we have not properly trained...