Well to a certain extent. But you do know we build our Virginia boats ad getting ready for the Constellation boats right?
And my bad, I said Constellation, that’s the frigate coming out, I meant Columbia SSBN. My bad. Damn, the Lions really made me drink today.
China’s massive industrial base means that the US is going to get buried if we get into a conventional arms race with China.
Whatever technological advantage the US once had is rapidly evaporating as well.
This current spiral is a result of hasty Google searches.
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Most definitely. The command atmosphere begins at the top. Sticking with the personnel issues right now, I believe that what we are seeing reflects issues with both in service retention and new recruitment. I must admit I find the in service retention to be far more troubling than the new recruitment, though I believe what is leaking out to the civilian population about the current state of what is happening inside is affecting new recruitment.
I know that the failure to retained experienced Sergeants and Staff Sergeants hurts readiness at the squad/team level. This is where the rubber meets the road in in deployable combat units. These are the team leaders, squad leaders, gun crew sergeants and tank commanders. They are the ones who are supposed to take recruits fresh out of basic and turn them into trained and competent individual soldiers and effective members of of teams executing collective combat tasks. Those staff sergeants are also the future Platoon Sergeants and Battle Staff NCOs needed to help manage unit operations and train future new Sergeants to advance to their level. I know that a unit short on key trained personnel in the mid-grades is not rated 1A on the combat readiness scale of the personnel section of the USR. This type of defeciency will also spill over into the training status portion of the USR.
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Actually we would have used it in live fire training by our forces. By giving it to Ukraine we have most likely had to cut our own live fire training, reducing the readiness of our units.
I saw this in 1990, when we gave a big chunk of our small arms training ammunition to support a raging counter insurgence in Central America. A whole bunch of units had to wait an extra 6-12 months to conduct gunnery qualification, reducing their combat readiness ratings.
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Okay. A legitimate point of view. Some would argue that those munitions are better used taking out Russian tanks, helicopters, and other equipment as opposed to US troops practicing taking out Russian tanks, helicopters and other equipment.
We don’t practice taking out Russian anything specifically. The purpose of gunnery in the US Army is to maintain each units’ readiness to effectively employ their assigned individual and crew served weapons systems if called upon to do so. It is about those units being able to effectively hit what they aim at, no matter which nation we might be facing on the field of battle.
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That in my opinion has already taken place.
The US has to be the world leader when it comes to corruption and inefficiency in its military procurement system, and its NATO allies have similar problems.
NATO has exhausted it stocks of weapons and ammunition to send to Ukraine. At the same time, Russia has been using several times the NATO production of artillery shells and missiles with a tiny fraction of NATO’s military budget.
The US is grossly unprepared to fight a conventional war against a near-peer adversary. That was the conclusion from simulations in 2019 of wars against Russia or China individually. Since then closer relations between Russia and China mean that any major war against either one is likely to include both.
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Why did your friend leave the service?
The modern ■■■■■■■■ everyone has talked about at length. He didn’t see the point in staying in an organization he was starting not to recognize anymore.
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How do you think Tuberville blocking promotions plays out in the context of developing a positive attitude amongst leadership?
Did he share any specific examples?
Tuberville isn’t a member of the chain of command. He does not set the command environment in any unit. Contrary to reality, the fact that he hasn’t allowed confirmation of promotions has not left any command or unit without a commander. This is all just political theater, as the senior member of a command always takes charge. If there are personnel actually assigned to a unit, one of them is the senior ranking member and in charge until relieved, period. It doesn’t matter if they came to that position because of a personnel action, or enemy action.
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That’s understandable.
Are the reports of disruptions to service member’s lives, ie: expecting to be promoted and transferred, and all the life chores surrounding that (moving your kid’s schools, spouse finding a job in the new locale), and enjoying the increase in pay, etc… and their negative affects on morale over blown?
A lack of focus on the mission. Making things “softer,” instead of weeding out those he felt couldn’t hack it. He’s only 3 years older than me but he has the mindset of an old school Marine. He expects recruits to be challenged in the same way marines of the Vietnam era were challenged. He doesn’t accept any sort of downgrade to the Corps in any way. He basically said “our job is to make ■■■■■■■ die. If that isn’t the main objective then what the hell is the corps even doing?”
Basically he got sick of the politics.
He’s Latino and black and grew up in the one of the worst hoods in New Orleans. He doesn’t accept any excuses from anyone for anything.
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You are talking about the lives of Flag Officers, who live in Senior Officer Housing and make over $10,000 a month base salary, with additional allowances. They are probably feeling politically frustrated, but not so much life frustrated. And they are career officers, which means moving at unfavorable times of the year and the traditional side issues of moving every couple of years are nothing new to them, or their families.
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That Marine is spot on correct. I always get distasteful looks when I point out that the mission of the US Military is to deter aggression against the United States, and its interests, by demonstrating overwhelming combat capabilities and readiness: and where deterrence fails, close with and destroy the forces of the enemy through superior fire and maneuver, in close combat, on any battlefield, at any time. That means be the very best at breaking things, and killing people, on a grand and unproportionally overwhelming scale.
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Nope.
