Quote Originally Posted by Stan View Post
Hey Slap !

You're not too far off the mark here. When I retired most SNCOs already had at least a Bachelor's degree and could (academically speaking) attend the AWC. I've sent foreign officers to Army NCO basic courses because the officer advanced courses would have been too much on top of being in English. On the other hand, I've sent Estonian NCOs to Engineer and EOD courses designed for senior Captains and junior Majors. Most of these NCOs accelerate quickly and are eventually promoted to 3rd LT. (If you thought a butter bar was useless, well).

OCS attendance is already very possible for Army NCOs, but not without a degree. Some fair much better having had 5 to 8 years of real service time.

We do need to get involved more in 'writing' the manuals though, and the SNCO should not be left out of the equation. ...
The AWC shouldn't be a step too far but it probably is -- that doesn't mean NCOES couldn't stand a whole lot of tweaking and strengthening. We almost deliberately tend to create under performers.

OCS should be tweaked to allow non-degreed attendance. Give those graduates two or three years service as a LT then send the promising ones to get a degree. Those who don't rate a degree can go back to their prior rank or depart. Tough? Maybe -- it's a tough job...

During war time we directly commission sharp senior NCOs; we almost never do in peace time. The Brits do. They promote selected senior NCO for two or three years before their forced retirement date, they serve in one suitable job (Log types as S4s, Per wienies as Per wienies+, Line types as Co 2ic/XO) for one full tour and then retire.

Plenty of ways to make up the shortfall in Officers some see impending due to the societal changes in the world and the US. We also need to think of ways to employ all the SSGs that the reenlistment hump is going to produce against the drawdown in enlistments that is occurring and is likely to worsen.

Or, we could reduce the number of officers. The way we do it now, designed to provide a mobilization pool by by overstaffing Officer jobs is really sort of inefficient and, in its own way, is as tough on Officers as throwing out underperformers.

Most staffs are too big. Admittedly, everyone is busy, perhaps too busy -- but on what...

Being a Platoon leader is good training (and an Armored Cavalry Platoon Leader is the best combined arms training one can get) but NCOs can lead platoons quite effectively. The French (who have their strengths) traditionally have two of their four platoons per company led by NCOs (or used to, not sure what they're doing since they stopped conscription). The rather successful German Army in WW II had NCO PL.

Maybe what we've always done needs a look.

Now that would be Agility...
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