Contractors Doing Combat Service Support is a Bad, Bad Idea

[Ken White]

My mom told me. I think she was right and I think we've forgotten that...

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.

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....

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...

[J Wolfsberger]

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...

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.

[Ron Humphrey]

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.

Something to the effect of ( Not sure about wwIII, but WWIV ; sticks and stones)

[Ken White]

We can't afford to fight $7M Tanks...