Mechanized Infantry Perceptions 2010

[reed11b]

There's a psychological problem associated with rotating equipment.

I'll explain this with the same story as used to teach it to me years ago:

There were two large taxi cab companies in a city. One company is known for its nice, clean taxis and the other one for rotten, smelly taxis. The vehicle types are the same, the drivers are quite exchangeable (age, gender, ethnicity ...).
The difference? The clean taxi cabs belong to one driver, while the other company lets its drivers drive a different taxi every day.


Similarly, the (if I remember correctly) USN solved its major aircraft readiness issues decades ago by assigning one or two aircraft to one senior mechanician each, giving him responsibility for it. The mechanicians who previously worked based on assigned tasks (sent to aircraft x to replace spare part y) began to care about the state of "their" aircraft. This extended into black market activities to scrounge spare parts and working much more hours per week than official.


Equipment that requires care or is exposed to much wear should NEVER be rotated, but be assigned to a organisational unit (if not individuals) permanently.

Holy crap, I agree with Fuchs on something. The end is near.
Reed

[Fuchs]

Holy crap, I agree with Fuchs on something. The end is near.
Reed

Resistance is futile.

On a sidenote I think the Luftwaffe used a system in which 1-2 mechanics were assigned to a pilot rather then to his aircraft. (Aircrafts losses IIRC being higher then those of pilots). Only specialized tasks would be addressed by specialists at various levels of the organization. According to the various pilots the system worked well and the bonds between the pilots and 'their' groundcrew were usually very strong with all the resulting positive results...

I did not see any such thing in the modern Luftwaffe, and I was in close combat with a ground crew unit for a while during the 90's. I never saw them in contact with pilots, never saw them leave for meetings with pilots - what I saw was that the small unit leader assigned tasks and an Oberfeldwebel, possibly an Unteroffizier and one enlisted helper went with a toolbox and a spare part to the bunker where the minor repairs would happen. Bigger repairs (such as replacing an engine) were done in a large maintenance building and there was still rather a tasking top-down by the small unit leader.