Well they put a Jaquar into a mountain side while Stan and I were in Goma. There was great discussion of this decline in the late 80s when I was in UNTSO serving with French officers. Looks like it came true
Tom
Well they put a Jaquar into a mountain side while Stan and I were in Goma. There was great discussion of this decline in the late 80s when I was in UNTSO serving with French officers. Looks like it came true
Tom
This is what happens when you have to pay for all those hefty pensions for the '68ers.
Look for the same thing elsewhere.
Everything has gotten so expensive that the maintenance and infrastructure costs are killers. Defense procurement generally fails to account for the fact that annual O&M costs are typically 10-20% of purchase price and long term support typically adds 25-35% to the per item cost.
A Viet Nam era camouflage band cost Seven cents; today they're over a buck. The average Joe in an Infantry unit has about $12K worth of gear vs. his 1960s counterpart's $500. An M1A2 costs over $4M, UH-60s are up to around $20M.
Not to mention that each $10.00 per Barrel rise in oil prices costs the USAF about $600M...
The Anti War types will win; soon no one will be able to afford a war...
Speaking of this
The military has its own capabilities for building hydro electric dams and purifying water, etc.Originally Posted by Ken White
Everything has gotten so expensive that the maintenance and infrastructure costs are killers. Defense procurement generally fails to account for the fact that annual O&M costs are typically 10-20% of purchase price and long term support typically adds 25-35% to the per item cost.
A Viet Nam era camouflage band cost Seven cents; today they're over a buck. The average Joe in an Infantry unit has about $12K worth of gear vs. his 1960s counterpart's $500. An M1A2 costs over $4M, UH-60s are up to around $20M.
Not to mention that each $10.00 per Barrel rise in oil prices costs the USAF about $600M...
The Anti War types will win; soon no one will be able to afford a war...
MAAYbee OILRIG anyone
Any man can destroy that which is around him, The rare man is he who can find beauty even in the darkest hours
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur
Which begs the question; is the material-heavy approach to modern warfare useful?The Anti War types will win; soon no one will be able to afford a war...
The situation has changed in comparison to the 60's - material is extremely expensive, manpower is expensive - but all Western nations have significant unemployment, including the age group 18-30.
Probably not,
however, it won't go away. No one is prepared to cede an advantage to others.True, though I'd say much of that material is more over priced than it is actually expensive. Manpower is expensive because the legislatures of the West have made it so -- unintended consequence of trying to be all things to all people (and buy votes...).The situation has changed in comparison to the 60's - material is extremely expensive, manpower is expensive - but all Western nations have significant unemployment, including the age group 18-30.
No matter. The unemployed 18-25 year olds are a far greater problem that will get worse before it gets better. You'd think people would realize what causes that overpopulation. The fun thing is that the so-called have-nots are reproducing at twice to three times the rate of the more (in their own minds) civilized nations. That, I suspect, is going to provide employment for all that materiel heavy military force...
We live in interesting times...
I think it still is. Fad logsitics concepts (JIT, et al) that are wildly successful in corporate environments fail when LOCs/LOSs are under fire or don't have the structure set up to make them work. In recent memory, the "Drive to Baghdad," while tactically neat, was not logistically sustainable after the push. Heavy units MTOE organized around the newer, untested support structure had to beg, borrow and steal from "legacy" division wedge units.
Why? Simple: the "Iron Mountain" is effective because it leaves little to chance. Decimating support units in favor of more infantry is a good concept if those units don't actually have to be supported. You make that worse when you strip your "tail" out in the hopes that higher-echelon support units will be there to help, and said units aren't on the battlefield yet.
I'm not a cheerleader for bringing back DESERT STORM-era SUPCOMs or anything like that. That said, I've watched the 82d Busborne in action, and I did not like what I saw.
I didn't think so much about force structures and such when I wrote that.
I thought rather about the expectations that we have.
We expect good camps and plenty fire support everywhere.
Our MBTs were not designed with much thought about fuel consumption (I know that even in armor divisions the thirst of the MBTs is a minor problem).
The Truck fleets aren't up to date, old designs (70's designs quite often, French even use some 50's designs) are thirsty by default.
MRAP vehicles are extremely heavy in comparison to their transport performance.
Food is not being purchased in the theatre, but being imported most of the time afaik.
But the most obvious problem is that we expect to be everywhere strong at once, every company in action has as much support as in earlier wars only companies at the centre of gravity.
The expectations are so incredibly high. Operations would be much cheaper, often more agile and certainly less bureaucratic if we would be ready to tolerate some more suboptimal results.
It's a huge topic and I certainly didn't formulate it very well.
Carts and horses...
Risk mitigation as TTP? Okay. Mayhap you're looking at the wrong end.Which brings up two questions; why aren't they there and, more importantly, does that mean the design of units that are on the ground is flawed in that they need (want?) too much 'stuff?'Decimating support units in favor of more infantry is a good concept if those units don't actually have to be supported. You make that worse when you strip your "tail" out in the hopes that higher-echelon support units will be there to help, and said units aren't on the battlefield yet.S'okay, most of the bus riders aren't too impressed by the rest of the Army either....That said, I've watched the 82d Busborne in action, and I did not like what I saw.
Sorry to say it...
Actually, military equipment SHOULD be getting cheaper, and so should armies.
The IT and solid state electronics evolution and all it's spin-offs should have created considerable savings, and actually has, in terms of procurement and ownership. Civilian cell phones are far more complex than a lot of military radios, yet cost nothing.
If you want to see true corruption, look at the companies that build Sniper Rifles!! Gold Plated Wheel Chairs!! UAVs cost vastly more than they should, and the list is almost endless.
The problem is how the equipment is procured and how the money is spent.
One day this will all bite us in the ass as folks like Hezbollah and Venezuela can go out and just pay for military capability, and not worry about the budget shell games of the DoD and MoD.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I'd argue it's not TTP. Rather, it's TTP (and materiel)-driven. Complex systems (and tactics that use them) require more support. We went through a brief infatuation with "FedEx Logistics", which was mercifully killed in 2004. Corporate management principles are fine, but tend to have unforeseen consequences when applied to an army (especially one in a war).
Why weren't high-echelon support units afield? Talk to the planners about that one, but if I remember the traffic correctly, it was as it usually goes: planners weren't really thinking about that sort of thing. Some had drank the 4ID Kool-Aid and went in very light on the support end in the hopes that corps support units were going to magically quark in from the Twilight Zone to keep non-existent LOCs open. Bottom line is that we paid for our post-DS sins from an MTOE standpoint with horrible post Phase III readiness.
So yeah, I would agree that the unit designs are flawed. I don't think they "want" too much. As both a combat arms and a support weasel, I never have considered a desire by a unit for support to be a "want". However, I think complex weapon systems intrinsically require complex support solutions, unless said support solutions are designed as such that the majority of the support is done on a modular basis further back in the field. Most of our systems aren't built like that, and the Army's attempt to "replace forward, repair rear" only works when the systems themselves can support that.
My crack about the Imperial Army only applies to their desert mobility. I've worked with them in combat, and they do fine. They just can't support themselves or move well.
Risk mitigation as TTP? Okay. Mayhap you're looking at the wrong end.Which brings up two questions; why aren't they there and, more importantly, does that mean the design of units that are on the ground is flawed in that they need (want?) too much 'stuff?' S'okay, most of the bus riders aren't too impressed by the rest of the Army either.
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