Archive for the 'Military Equipment' Category

In Micromanaging the Campaign in Afghanistan I said:

A strong NCO corps was and is something that the Iraqi Security Forces haven’t been able to implement despite the best efforts of U.S. trainers.  But the trend in U.S. warfare is going in the wrong direction.  While officers might like to claim that they have the utmost respect for and confidence in their Gunnys, First Sergeants, Sergeant Majors, and in the Army, Command Sergeant Majors, the practice of micromanaging conflicts shows this claim is to some extent wishful thinking.

The U.S. officer corps has unwittingly bought into the Western business and industrial model of high level managers micromanaging their employees, metrics, and even day to day actions.  Officers have become more managers than military leaders, and paradoxically this has driven the U.S. military away from the Western strength of the NCO corps and towards a more Middle Eastern model.

From North County Times, take a quick look at the new Major General who will be leading the Marines in Afghanistan.

Mills, the son of a World War II Navy officer, rejects the implication of a frequently heard phrase about Afghanistan that says U.S. and NATO troops have the watches but the Taliban has the time —- meaning the enemy force can wait out the West and take over when foreign troops leave.

“I don’t think they really do have the time,” he said. “If you look at what the II Marine Expeditionary Brigade has been doing in securing the countryside, it shows we can be successful for the long term. We can win over the people.”

The Marines he will command will conduct joint operations with Afghan National Army and security forces, and the troops will stay in the areas they are assigned and not live on fixed bases. That strategy is key in counter-insurgency operations, he said.

“You can’t fight just from forward operating bases,” he said.

The rules of engagement in Afghanistan are continuing to “mature,” Mills said, stressing that avoiding civilian casualties and proving to the population that U.S. forces can chase away and keep the Taliban from reasserting themselves is central to the mission.

As his Blackberry buzzed with incoming e-mails every 30 seconds or so, Mills said he stays in shape by running and working out every couple of days.

Folks, when you’re carrying a Blackberry which receives an e-mail every 30 seconds, you know that you’re micromanaging your reports.  It’s a model taken from American Corporate conglomerates, and it isn’t appropriate for the U.S. military.  It’s why General McChrystal feels that it’s appropriate to issue tactical directives that govern rules of engagement in very localized and unique situations, settings and situations about which he knows absolutely nothing.

It’s the same mentality that dictates that a Battalion of Marines in Fallujah in 2007 must jettison their lighter, more dust and desert friendly Bates Tactical Boots (purchased at TAGs before deployment in lieu of the heavier clodhopper Marine Boots) because they don’t all look quite the same as the issue boots to a camera mounted in Fallujah streaming to the Pentagon.  Or because of a MARADMIN on equipment.  That’s right.  Eight Hundred Marines throw away their boots with logistics having to ship that many more pairs to Fallujah because – they need to look the same as each other.

Regardless of the alleged trust that field grade and flag officers have in what they call our fine young men in combat, the reality of the situation is that they don’t trust the enlisted men or the NCOs to do the right thing.  If they did they wouldn’t need to deny artillery support for Marines in Kunar (killing four), take e-mails every 30 seconds, or in fact worry about tactics at all.  Generals worry over strategy, not tactics.  We have lost our way and become upside down in our focus, and unless we regain it, we – the premier Armed Forces in the world – we will lose our advantage to a bunch of ignorant, sandaled fanatics because we are being run by a group of control freaks who worry over the wrong things.

Richard at Defence of the Realm is furious over British warriors perishing in Afghanistan, because they didn’t have to die.  They were killed by an IED while aboard a Viking Amphibious Vehicle.

I am sorry if it offends – and it certainly does upset some of the military types, and the “consultants” and designers responsible for the Viking and the decision to deploy it to Afghanistan – but, on the basis of all the evidence we have, Booker and I both have come to the conclusion that Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe and Trooper Joshua Hammond should not have died.

That they did die is the greater offence and, while it must always be remembered that the proximate cause was a Taleban bomb, in a cold-blooded act of murder, the neglect of the MoD and all those involved with the deployment of this vehicle is a contributory factor. Thus does Booker in his column today point the finger squarely at the MoD.

From Mick Smith (and others) in The Sunday Times, we get the first published confirmation of that which we had already worked out, that Lt-Col Thorneloe was riding in the front passenger seat of the Viking. With his driver, they were in two of the most vulnerable positions in a dangerously vulnerable vehicle.

In other circumstances, writes Smith, Thorneloe would have travelled by helicopter; but it appears none was available. He notes, however, that the MoD declined to confirm or deny this.

Without this facility, and wanting to “get up among his boys at the first possible opportunity,” Thorneloe found that, “A resupply convoy was going up there and he hitched a lift on that.” As the Viking approached a canal crossing, it passed over a hidden IED which destroyed the front cab. Thorneloe and the driver, Hammond, died instantly.

The lack of helicopter notwithstanding, if Thorneloe had not been in the vehicle, someone else would have died. And the incident would already have been a footnote in the history of the campaign, blanked out by the operations being mounted, not least the big push by the US Marines further south.

As for the Viking, this was originally produced as an amphibious assault vehicle and delivered to the Royal Marines in 2001, for use in the Arctic Circle as a mobility platform when reinforcing the Nato northern flank, assisting the Norwegians against a Soviet invasion. It was a Cold War machine, designed for a different purpose.

In that role, the question of protection had been considered – and the machine was armoured against ballistic threats. However, within the “Littoral Manoeuvre” parameters set at the time, a decision was made deliberately to skimp on mine protection to save weight. This was to enable the machine to be lifted by a Chinook helicopter and to maintain the amphibious free board clearances.

Richard goes on to point out that the Viking doesn’t have a V-hull like the more modern MRAPs fielded by the U.S. forces.

Big fan: Marine 1st Sgt. Eric Rummel stands near a Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) truck in which he survived a blast from a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in 2008. Courtesy of Eric Rummel

Eric Rummel knows just how effective the V-hull can be at directing the force of the blast away from the vehicle.

It took a matter of seconds to make 1st Sgt. Eric Rummel a true believer.

The marine was driving through southern Afghanistan last year when his truck hit a roadside bomb buried in a gulch. The vehicle shuddered, popped into the air, and settled back down again in a cloud of desert dust.

The whole thing was over before he knew what happened, but Sergeant Rummel and the two other men in the truck that day all walked away. The truck was a Mine Resistant, Ambush Protected truck (MRAP) – a 16-ton behemoth that came to be regarded as the soldier’s lifeboat in Iraq, its V-shaped hull saving lives by deflecting the blast of roadside bombs.

Rummel’s story points to the same success in Afghanistan. “God bless the MRAP and what it does,” he says.

But the mammoth trucks are built for Iraq, where troops are fighting a largely urban insurgency on city streets. Afghanistan’s insurgency is rural, and the Pentagon is in a race to completely redesign the MRAP for its new duty, making it lighter, with a beefier suspension and better off-road capabilities for troops who launch missions into fields and up hillsides – often with no roads.

The effort, however, calls into question one of the bedrock tenets of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s regime: He wants to prioritize equipment that saves troops’ lives. But experts wonder if, in the process, he is saddling the military for years to come with a fleet of vehicles that can be used in only one spot on the globe.

“It’s not so clear that we can develop a new class of vehicles every time we go to a new country,” says Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a policy group in Washington.

The initial program to come up with a new breed of Afghan-friendly MRAPs, called Multi-Purpose All Terrain Vehicles, or M-ATVs, will cost $2 billion. The MRAP program has produced more than 16,000 vehicles in two years. This month, the Pentagon is expected to finalize a contract that would put more than 2,000 M-ATVs in Afghanistan – some by this fall.

The logic is clear: Roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan are up some 80 percent over last year.

The day Rummel’s truck was hit, he was using his MRAP as an ambulance to evacuate war wounded near the town of Now Zad in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, an area of intense fighting. Before his truck had even arrived in the gulch, four other improvised explosive devices had detonated in that area; two marines later needed amputations.

The explosion surprised Rummel, particularly because the Humvee in front of him had just driven through the same gulch unscathed.

As much as he loves the truck that protected his life, Rummel says the current MRAP isn’t the right truck for Afghanistan, adding: “It’s just too big of a vehicle.”

The Captain’s Journal hasn’t any wisdom to convey regarding whether the newer all terrain MRAP should go forward, or whether the existing MRAPs should be made to work.  But either way, the use of amphibious vehicles in Afghanistan is about as stolid as I can imagine.  At least the MRAPs have been relocated to Afghanistan, and more and better ones are on the way.

Ultimately though, the best counterinsurgency is done on the ground.  Dismounted patrols must be conducted in force, by more troops that we currently have (or have planned) in order to ensure an acceptable outcome.  Infantry belongs on foot.

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The Future Combat System Vehicle is soon to bite the dust.

The $87 billion Manned Ground Vehicle Program will probably be killed this week, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee Tuesday morning.

Army Secretary Pete Geren also clarified one point that is sure to raise the hackles of Sen. James Inhofe — the Non Line of Sight Cannon was killed as well. Inhofe had the NLOC made a separate program in large part to protect it from any cuts made to FCS. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the decision that killing MGV also meant killing the NLOS-C, Geren said today.

An Acquisition Decision Memorandum should be out this week, splitting the Manned ground Vehicle from the rest of the FCS program and killing MGV, Casey told the subcommittee.  He said they have already instructed Training and Doctrine Command to being drawing up new requirements.  A new program outline for a new ground vehicle should be ready “after Labor Day,” Casey said.  The military will consider foreign vehicles, though Casey seemed reluctant to commit to the idea of buying one should it look tempting. (While the Army has bought excellent equipment from overseas in the past, it has been badly burned before over buying from foreign suppliers — remember those black berets made in China…. ) The first vehicles should roll out of the plant within five to seven years.

Sec. Gates and his budget experts have made very clear they expect MRAP will be a major part of the new approach to FCS. Casey and Geren were very cautious in responding to reporters questions about this after the hearing.  “We are working to incorporate the MRAP” into whatever approach the Army comes up with, Geren said. And Casey said the Army is already putting networked MRAPs — with other FCS spinouts — into testing at Fort Bliss.

And is being replaced with something that the Pentagon believes to be more conducive to fighting insurgencies and other asymmetric conflicts.  Concerning the first article on the FCS Vehicle, commenter NeoConVet gets it right.

As was the case with the Chinese made black berets…the emerging issue is our declining defense manufacturing capacity. At the outset of the current “over-seas contingent operation” (we used to call them wars) we did not even have the capability to manufacture enough 5.56 ball ammo! Most units crossed the l/d without the basic load!  This is not so much a ‘buy America” issue as one of being self sustaining.

Except that the problem actually runs deeper than that.  First as the commenter mentions, there is the need to be self sufficient.  The Captain’s Journal has mentioned the problems in the past with the loss of shipbuilding engineering experience, and it is no surprise that the USS San Antonio had so many problems straight out of port (see also here).

But remember that defense dollars also means development of both infrastructure and technology.  When money goes to contractors other than American, U.S. dollars are helping both to transfer U.S. technology overseas, and also to develop new technology in countries other than America.

Finally, it gets even worse when those assisted with U.S. defense dollars are criminals like Vladimir Putin, who now owns a signficant portion of EADS and who stands to profit from the Airbus refueling tanker if the contract is awarded to EADS.  This is the worst of all possible worlds.  In this case, the U.S. would lose the capability to manufacture this aircraft, technology would be transferred overseas, and communist criminals would become wealthy off of U.S. defense dollars.

But we just don’t want to learn our lessons.  Sarbanes-Oxley is bad law, contractors know how to game the system, and the low bid almost always means getting the worst equipment.

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S VISIT TO RIO RANCHO, NM

Today is May 14, 2009.  President Obama came to visit Rio Rancho, NM and hold a kind of “town hall meeting” of sorts.  I did not vote for Mr. Obama, however, I felt compelled to go and be present at his visit.  There was no way I could obtain a ticket so I contacted the Governor’s office and explained that my son is currently on his fifth deployment to the war zone and that we had lost our older son, eight years ago, who was a US Marine.  In short order, I received two tickets to attend.  I wanted to speak directly to the Governor and the President, but, that would not happen on this day.  Maybe some day in the future it will, we’ll see.

As for my take on the so called “town hall” meeting, I have some comments to make.  Let me firstly say, Mr. Obama is all of our Commander in Chief, so, no matter what we think politically, left or right, Mr. Obama is the one who now controls my son’s destiny at war.  My son has now served under three Presidents in his nine year career as an Army aviator.  So I have a stake in what the current Commander in Chief has to say.  But what did this new Commander in Chief have to say today here in New Mexico…?

Observing the crowd, and listening to what was being said both verbally and non-verbally (body language), it seemed as though all I heard from the crowd was, “Mr. Obama, please pay off my credit card bills and please pay off my house mortgage.  We’ve been too irresponsible to do it ourselves and you promised to give us all this free stuff….”  That is what it sounded like to me.  But I kept my mouth shut.  I am always considerate of my surroundings, wherever I am at any given moment.

In all fairness to Mr. Obama, he said one thing I agreed with.  Credit cards are not free money.  Duh……However, for some reason the people in the audience today, almost 3000 of them, seemed to think it is the governments’ job to pay their credit card bills.  No wonder they think that, we’ve seen the current administration bail out big time bankers to the tune of trillions of dollars and rising, so, perhaps it is only fitting that the average dumbed-down New Mexican should think the same about their personal credit card debt…..What a country…!

I find it really tough to be in the crowd of 3000 whiny New Mexicans complaining about how deep in debt they got themselves in while at the same time I have to worry about my son flying combat helicopter missions in Iraq, again, protecting the rights of these New Mexicans to ask for more free money from Mr. Obama.  I remember back, exactly eight years ago to the day, when my other son, 2nd Lt. Jesse James Spiri, USMC was operated on for a serious medical situation and was told he would die and that his government would not spend one dime to help him.  And he was a United States Marine Officer.  I think there is something wrong with this picture.  Now granted, this did not happen on Mr. Obama’s watch, but what is currently happening on Mr. Obama’s watch is this.  Our nation is even the more so at war now in the middle east and my younger son is there again.  And he would go another five times if called upon.  He, like is father, is a true patriot.  If the Commander in Chief says, “jump”, we both say “how high?”.

But…Mr. Obama wanted to talk about New Mexican’s credit card debt, not my son at war, today.  I was almost called upon, but Mr. Obama chose his questioners carefully.  He did not call upon anyone that looked like me.  Rather he chose to call on people that were in unions, worked for the Congressman’s office from district 3, etc.  He should have called on me.  I would have asked him this question…

“Mr. Obama, when you are finished paying off the credit card debts of all these irresponsible New Mexicans, and bailing out all those fat cats on Wall Street and their banker friends,  will there be any money left to continue the maintaining of the CH47 helicopter fleet the Army is using whose funds you have scheduled to cut?  My son has served his country on five deployments in the war zones of the middle east and there is talk that cuts in the Chinook helicopter community is imminent.  You have asked my son to fight the country’s wars and he has done so valiantly, but now, you have his helicopters on the chopping blocks so these irresponsible New Mexicans who cannot seem to stay away from Wal-Mart and Best Buy, want you to take care of them, while they scream against those fighting for our freedom and safety…What’s up with that..?” I would ask.

But, Mr. Obama did not call upon me.  Maybe he knew who I was.  Maybe he knew what I would ask.  I’m not sure.  But I know this, when he asks my son to go to war, as my son has just done, two weeks ago, I am forced to say, “Amen”, again.

Today, I saw Mr. Obama and heard him speak.  Many say how smart he is, how intellectual he is.  I found him rather boring today.  Oh, he knew a little about how to talk to a crowd, but, on this day, there was nothing really earth shattering that he said that struck a chord with me.  He is still my Commander in Chief.  I respect his position.  But I am not impressed with his talk today.  He didn’t say anything relevant to things I’m concerned about.  Once before, my government told me there was not enough money to take care of my son, a Marine.  Now, my government is telling me there is plenty of money to bail out bankers and New Mexicans that cannot pay their credit card bill from Wal Mart.  But my government is not saying anything about taking care of the helicopters my younger son is flying in war to give these irresponsible New Mexicans the freedom to ask the current Commander in Chief for some money to pay their credit cards off.

I’m not impressed.  But I will still salute the current Commander in Chief and pray that my son will be safe in his helicopter while at war.

Sincerely,

Jim Spiri

jimspiri@yahoo.com   505-898-1680

The Obama administration has called for a 10% decrease in military spending to begin in fiscal year 2010.  At The Captain’s Journal, calling this irresponsible would be an understatement, and less than our readers have come to expect.  It’s just plain dangerous, considering the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan, Iraq being a likely protectorate of the U.S. for years to come, the resurgence of Russia flexing its muscle in Georgia and the Black Sea and Caspian regions, the growth of China and its naval forces, the need for growth of the size of both the Army and Marine Corps, and many other needs and dangers in the world as it now exists.

Then along comes a report like the one on the Internally Transportable Vehicle.

The Marine Corps is starting to deploy a jeeplike vehicle called the Growler, 10 years after conception and at twice the contract price, after delays that were caused by changing concepts and problems in contracting, development and testing, according to two reports …

The idea for such a vehicle was developed in 1999 by the Marine Corps, which wanted a vehicle that could be carried in the V-22 Osprey aircraft to support assault operations and that would tow a 120 mm mortar and an ammunition trailer.

Today, instead of one vehicle that could serve both functions, there are two — one for reconnaissance and a shorter version that tows the mortar and ammunition trailer — built by the same company.

The first Growlers in the mortar program — officially called internally transportable vehicles, or ITVs — have been deployed to Marine units, but with limited combat capabilities. Because of their light armor and ammunition safety problems, “you can’t run it up the highway in an urban area such as Iraq,” said John Garner, the Marines’ program manager for the vehicle. “But it could accompany foot-mobile Marine infantry in a not-built-up area such as Afghanistan,” he added.

The inspector general report said that the average cost of a single Growler has risen 120 percent, from about $94,000 when the contract was awarded in 2004 to $209,000 in 2008. The unit cost for the vehicle with mortar and ammunition trailer has grown 86 percent, from $579,000 to $1,078,000 …

… after the contract was awarded, Garner said, “there were significant additions made for capability.” For example, an air suspension had to be added to allow the Growler to get on and off the Osprey because it could raise and lower its height. The makers added a new cooling system, power steering and power brakes, along with a beefed-up General Motors engine similar to the one used in the GMC Yukon. Altogether, Garner said, about $50,000 of the cost growth was in additional off-the-shelf items that now permit the Growler to travel up to 45 mph on a highway.

To be fair, this concept wasn’t created out of nothing.  It goes hand in hand with the Osprey V-22, Amphibious Assault Docks and the expeditionary force structure that the Marines seek.  Also to be fair to the Marines, the Army has some on order as well.

But it’s time for some straight talk.  Here is how it happens.  Performance specifications are written.  Request for quotes are sent out to potential contractors, and bids are received and evaluated.  They are evaluated based on cost, which ones most closely adhere to the performance specifications, and so forth.  A contract is awarded, and rather than simply adapting the forces to the contract, the practice is to adapt the contract to every request for a modification.

It is the last part that adds cost, and the first part that causes price to be so high to begin with.  For the price of the Growler one could go down to the local auto dealership and order up eight to ten jeeps.  Doing so would require that unit-based enlisted men figure out a way to load them onto the V-22s with ramps, jacks, winches, or other means.

The Marines are, after all, supposed to be able to improvise, adapt and overcome.  The reflexive tendency for advocates for the military (like The Captain’s Journal) is to defend the program.  “But wait, you don’t understand, there are requirements that must be met in a war zone, there are compatibility issues, it just isn’t that simple.”

But in fact it is that simple.  We must learn to make do with less, even if the defense budget is not cut.  We must learn to husband our resources so that they will go further, arming the U.S. military to remain the best and best-equipped in the world.

If this requires the use of duct tape, cable ties, winches, hoists, bungee cords, jacks and chain falls, then so be it.  When we spend this much money on a vehicle, something else goes wanting, such as badly needed lighter body armor, open bolt designs for SAWs, and so on.  We simply cannot spend $200,000 on a 4WD vehicle and continue to be the best armed military in the world.

The program manager should be aghast as the cost of the vehicles, and should never have let it enter the production phase.  It’s not a matter of funding the military.  It’s a matter of putting the funding in the right place and husbanding our resources.  Every family member on a budget does this every day, and it isn’t unreasonable to expect that military equipment design programs do it too.