South Africa's COIN war in SWA/Namibia/Angola

[JMA]

The US Army bought some CASSPIR Mk IIs in 1999 as a result of a Foreign Articles Test statute that had taken years to get through Congress (who are very much into a "Buy American" attitude regardless of the fact that other people make good or better stuff)...

IIRC, they had earlier -- in the early 80s -- bought a Nyala and wanted to buy some Buffels but the combination of Track-centric Armot Officers and Congressionally beloved and sponsored contractors defeated the idea of producing any here. Until...

The knowledge of need was there, it got sat upon.

You can't beat the procurement system. There are too many vested interests and...

I think we touched on this before. It should have been done at local (Afghanistan) level where a workshop could have been set up to do the work locally. Civvies or military who cares but what you need is some staff (foreman/welders/mechanics/etc) some armour plate (roqtuf or equivalent) and the appropriate chassis or drive train if you settle on a monocoque design) and some of that cash the US is throwing around all over Afghanistan and you are in business.

Had this started in 2006/7 then by now there would have been a improvements so lets say Mark 1 to say Mark 5. You set up a rotation to allow vehicles to be recalled for an upgrade to the latest Mark as improvements are signed off.

The ANA and ANP can be cut in on the deal and when ISAF force levels reduce the vehicle can be refurbished and then reissued to ANA/ANP.

It is easier than it appears. All you need to find one of those hard-charging officers who won't take no for an answer

[Ken White]

You can't beat the procurement system. There are too many vested interests and...Had this started in 2006/7 then by now there would have been a improvements so lets say Mark 1 to say Mark 5. You set up a rotation to allow vehicles to be recalled for an upgrade to the latest Mark as improvements are signed off.

I certainly agree I'm pretty sure we could and would do that in an existential situation. As you probably know, it was done, ad hoc, and on a unit by unit thus small scale in both theaters to an extent much as was done on a far larger scale in Viet Nam (LINK). Though the buried IED problem existed in VN, it was not as pervasive, thus no significant mine protection. Not many urban areas nor even much Bush so not that much close-in and heavyside protection either.

Still, today, I'll have to defend the Troops by mentioning the overwhelming, cumbersome US Army bureaucracy -- most of which is Congressionally induced -- is too unwieldy to do that lacking more cause than was extant in Afghanistan or Iraq.

It is easier than it appears. All you need to find one of those hard-charging officers who won't take no for an answer

Easier provided someone not risk averse has the authority to turn on the money spigot and fifty people are not looking over a shoulder to make sure it's spent 'properly.' This after all is the nation where a then sitting President, asked about a tax cut in a booming economy said "We'd give it back to you if we knew you'd spend it right..."

As to the hard chargers. Hmmm. Worked for several of those. Often lot of flash and dash, brave to a fault, aggressive, forward thinkers, some good guys, some arrogant ar$#'oles...

Gotta watch 'em all though, the long and the short and the tall -- good, bad and those in between. If you do not, they tend to get a lot of people killed -- unnecessarily.

[JMA]

I certainly agree I'm pretty sure we could and would do that in an existential situation. As you probably know, it was done, ad hoc, and on a unit by unit thus small scale in both theaters to an extent much as was done on a far larger scale in Viet Nam (LINK). Though the buried IED problem existed in VN, it was not as pervasive, thus no significant mine protection. Not many urban areas nor even much Bush so not that much close-in and heavyside protection either.

Still, today, I'll have to defend the Troops by mentioning the overwhelming, cumbersome US Army bureaucracy -- most of which is Congressionally induced -- is too unwieldy to do that lacking more cause than was extant in Afghanistan or Iraq. Easier provided someone not risk averse has the authority to turn on the money spigot and fifty people are not looking over a shoulder to make sure it's spent 'properly.' This after all is the nation where a then sitting President, asked about a tax cut in a booming economy said "We'd give it back to you if we knew you'd spend it right..."

As to the hard chargers. Hmmm. Worked for several of those. Often lot of flash and dash, brave to a fault, aggressive, forward thinkers, some good guys, some arrogant ar$#'oles...

Gotta watch 'em all though, the long and the short and the tall -- good, bad and those in between. If you do not, they tend to get a lot of people killed -- unnecessarily.

I feel I need to emphasise that this local solution (being the local construction of mine and ambush protected vehicles) is really pretty simple and does not require national existential circumstances.

Like with IEDs one needs to accept that they will learn and adapt to what you do and in turn you need to respond by modifying the vehicles in double quick time. Its a no brainer that Kabul or Kandahar are the places where this should be carried out. Modify/adapt/fix/improve/upgrade the vehicles fast. What other way can this be done other than in-country?

The solution is obvious given that these vehicles would be developed for local Afghan circumstances and not exported along with the troop draw-down (but rather handed over to the ANP/ANA).

The only problem (probably insurmountable) is how to side-step the formidable procurement machine the the commercial lobbyists who would see control and profits slipping through their fingers. The lives of soldiers have never been more important than "the process" or a juicy government procurement contract.

[Ken White]

I feel I need to emphasise that this local solution (being the local construction of mine and ambush protected vehicles) is really pretty simple and does not require national existential circumstances.

And I obviously need to emphasize that you have not dealt with the ponderous, inflexible bureaucracy that is the US government of which the US Army is a heirarchial, excessively conformity oriented extension.

The solution is obvious given that these vehicles would be developed for local Afghan circumstances and not exported along with the troop draw-down (but rather handed over to the ANP/ANA).

I totally agree -- you don't have to convince me. You could probably work on convincing those members of the US Congress (and they are many...) who think the US should NOT be in Afghanistan at all and try to hobble efforts there in any way they can to include reinforcing that conformity thing... .

You may also need to work on those members of the US Armed Forces (all ranks...) who are there but either do not want to be or do not agree with their mission and are not about to risk their 'careers' by being innovative in an organization that too often punishes innovation and initiative.

That kind of stuff is perfectly normal in most nations in peacetime. Only in an existential conflict do those chafing, foolish problems get significantly reduced -- they do not ever go away; they are human failings and we had them to a minor extent in WW II (which wasn't really existential for us though it was at least partly treated as such and thus was big enough to eliminate some of that idiocy...).

The only problem (probably insurmountable) is how to side-step the formidable procurement machine the the commercial lobbyists who would see control and profits slipping through their fingers. The lives of soldiers have never been more important than "the process" or a juicy government procurement contract.

Yes. You answered your own objections.

[Pete]

In theory at least it is the "combat developments" community that writes the requirements for future military systems and products. Those elements are part of the branch schoolhouses -- U.S. Army Infantry School, Armor School, etc. The combat developers write the system requirements documents which then have to be staffed and approved by a half-dozen echelons within the TRADOC/DA bureaucracy.

It is the "materiel developers" who cut metal and develop prototypes. Those organizations belong to Army Materiel Command, except for those of the Medics and parts of the crypto Signal community.

Even after the Soviets collapsed we continued developing weapons for Fulda Gap threats until the "Transformation" net-centric initiative started. The rest is fairly recent history.

[Firn]

I enjoyed the article in question very much, and he put the whole operation well into the strategic context of the time and the 20th brigade into the military historic one.

I read once a very good article by Breytenback about the formation and operation of the Buffalo Battalion, IIRC it had also a good deal of information about the transformation and 'up-gunning' for Modular.

And the article reminded me once again that the current TO&E of many/most Italian brigades (in fact the whole army structure) should really just be seen as peacetime bureaucracy.

[Pete]

The topic of DoD and Army policy for research and development is far removed from South African Army operations and the study of military history. It deserves its own thread rather than being here. Therefore I'll try to be brief.

When I began working in U.S. Army medical materiel development in 1986 I began reading the various directives and regulations that govern it. The impression I got is that all this policy guidance grew during the 1950s and 1960s in an effort to prevent various SNAFUs -- cost overruns, scandals, and failed weapons systems -- from ever happening again. In effect it was the bureaucratic equivalent of slamming the barn door shut after the horse had escaped.

Though all these regulations, directives and management procedures were implemented with the best of intentions by well-meaning officers, one step at a time DoD and the military services managed to create an impenetrable thicket of policy guidance and a veritable bureaucratic maze, the American equivalent of the Soviet Five Year Plans for the management of their economy. Piles and piles of paperwork were created, to the extent that only 10 percent of those in DoD R&D are doers who make things happen. The other 90 percent are staff weenies and their Highway Helpers who review the documents and sharpshoot from the sidelines. It's consulting firms who write most of those piles of DoD documentation, billing by the hour, like I once did.

About 20 years ago DoD standardized its systems development policy with its "DoD 5000" series of directives. It superceded the service-unique regulations and policies. Now we have standard life cycle names, terminology and acronyms. But the big-bureaucracy thing in military R&D endures.

[Pete]

One aspect of this systems development thing is a subject that Ken White has harped upon eloquently over the years, the personnel system. In the Army the hard-chargers are selected for the command and operations track at the major or lieutenant colonel level. Those non-selected for battalion command have to find a new way to earn a living in their alternate specialty so they can do the big two-zero.

(That is not to say that all of the guys on the command list should have been there, or that all of the non-selected ones shouldn't have been there. I crashed and burned as a captain so with all of these broken windows in my house I'm reluctant to be the one to throw stones.)

In any event, in the Army at the rank of major you often have to find a new niche -- it may be personnel, logistics, contract management, or perhaps systems development.

In DoD systems development the only programs that exist are those being conducted under an approved requirements document by a military service and that have the required funding, which usually takes at least four years to obtain by going through the POM/PPBES process. Everything else, including ideas from those in the field with mud or dust on their boots, is neither here nor there. I'm not trying to justify or make excuses for these basic facts of life, I'm just trying to explain them to those who have not been there.