PC military in the officer ranks

[dilbert firestorm]

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...from-the-grave

apparently we have too many ass kissers in the upper ranks. Gen. Petraeous is one of them.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...from-the-grave

apparently we have too many ass kissers in the upper ranks. Gen. Petraeous is one of them.

+1

Great article!

[IIFFOFRDB]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art...from-the-grave

apparently we have too many ass kissers in the upper ranks. Gen. Petraeous is one of them.

Yes, I like the article.

[dilbert firestorm]

I think there was talk from about culling the upper ranks. some think we have too many generals and we are paying too much for them.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

I think there was talk from about culling the upper ranks. some think we have too many generals and we are paying too much for them.

Them and their associated high ranking and bureaucratic staffs. Further, recent events have demonstrated that the "leaders" in all of the services, with the exception, maybe, of the Marines, have displayed some level of incompetence; hence, one must wonder what merited their promotions to the level of the "Peter Principle" kicking in.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Them and their associated high ranking and bureaucratic staffs. Further, recent events have demonstrated that the "leaders" in all of the services, with the exception, maybe, of the Marines, have displayed some level of incompetence; hence, one must wonder what merited their promotions to the level of the "Peter Principle" kicking in.

I think they have those military projects and most of them are run by 1 & 2 star generals.

I think some of those probably could be handled i think by a colonel which is one step before 1 star general.

personally, I think the general staffing rank structure is screwed up.

I read some where that bases used to be run by 1 star generals, now have 2 star generals running it.

add to that we have too many overseas bases and there is talk of closing some more american bases.

the only thing they got right improving things is on the logistics side of things organized in a walmart like style.

[dilbert firestorm]

on the matter of incompetence: F-35

whoever dreamed up the specs thought they were brilliant in creating a fighter that barely outruns 4th gen fighters, doesn't carry enough ammo, doesn't maneuver very well in a dog fight.

Its basically a mini-awacs doing the job the F-4 was originally concepted to do which was fire the missiles before the enemy sees them.

they couldn't think to embed this technology in the F-15/F-16 platforms as force companion to the F-22 raptor.

[I B Hankering]

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Annual Gathering of Air Force Generals Showcases Manpower Abuse of Runaway VIP Culture

By John Q. Public|April 20th, 2016

In 1961, Gen. Curtis LeMay gathered his top generals together at Ft. Myer in Virginia with the objective of forcing them to work together as a team on big issues spanning the breadth of the Air Force. To kick off the meeting, he forced them to work as a team to move and arrange heavy office equipment within the meeting facility … before handing them celebratory glasses of brandy and expensive cigars. Those cigars gave the now annual tradition its name: Corona, which also, niftily, can mean “a crown” or “a gathering of stars.”

What LeMay couldn’t have foreseen is how vestigial the public smoking of cigars and sipping of spirits would become over the next several decades … and he certainly wouldn’t have guessed that in the future, officers with waistlines resembling his would never progress to command in the Air Force.

But the most profound symbolic contradiction between the Corona of old and the contemporary version is how the generals have gone from setting up their own conference room to being waited on hand and foot by a legion of uniformed service workers. To make matters worse, the men and women tasked with catering to the service’s gathered royalty must interrupt their normal jobs — in undermanned and overstretched offices and squadrons — to tend to the prestigious whimsy of star-shouldered modern Caesars as an additional duty.

That’s right. The service’s Secretary, Chief of Staff, senior enlisted leader, and the whole of its 3- and 4- star population come together for the valid purpose of sorting out the most pressing issues confronting the force … and they don’t even have the decency to ensure the proper resources are in-place to support their summit. Instead, those resources are stripped out of hyde … like so many other unfunded “non-negotiables” in today’s Air Force. This raises the question whether resources are being properly utilized … while service officials beg Congress for more money, claiming they’re making every dollar count.

But is this really a big deal? I mean … we can’t be talking about that many airmen, right? I mean, what does a general really need in order to sit with other generals and have a discussion?

A lot, it turns out.

Here’s an email sent out recently by a senior official at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base laying out the staggering manpower requirement for this year’s Corona. I’ve highlighted a few areas of particular interest.

Note how military members are preferred … because abuses such as weekend duty and overtime are contemplated, and it’s cheaper to overextend military authority than to pay civil service employees as their contracts require. This is basically an admission of military manpower abuse.

Note also the nature of the work involved. Baggage handlers. Waitstaff. Servers. This is a blatant and heartbreaking statement about how the generals view the rest of the Air Force. They use words and reinforce themes envisioning the Air Force as a team of equals, where rank only drives responsibility level but everyone is a professional.

But the truth is that rank is also about status, prestige, and privilege. Until you crack the general officer level, you’re just a servant, chauffeur, or butler. If you’re wondering how a fighting team can prevail with this degree of dissonance and this flagrant a disconnect between rhetoric and reality, you’re entertaining valid concern. People will follow imperfect leaders, but they won’t fight and die for megalomaniacs.

The real revelation here is the sheer size and scope of manpower abuse on display. This is a gross practice that doesn’t even attempt to hide itself. Given the numbers involved, this represents an estimated half a million dollars in productivity stripped out of Wright-Patterson over the course of a week and re-purposed to the fielding of a hospitality staff. This means either Wright-Patterson doesn’t have a real mission, or that mission is about to be severely degraded. If the generals had to represent the actual cost of this event in the budget, would they still conduct it in this way?

Maybe it’s better to ask a different set of questions.

Why can’t they unload their own baggage? In an era of smartphones, why can’t they keep track of themselves and coordinate their movements without staffing an operations hub? Why do they need a “heraldic dinner” served by uniformed waiters and ushers?

This whole mess revolves around a simple question: is being waited on hand and foot essential to the productive output of the conference? If so, pay for it. If not, knock it off.

This situation is unacceptable, and ought to be investigated by the Department of Defense Inspector General as a Fraud, Waste, and Abuse complaint. Air Force generals are not entitled to use professional members of the all-volunteer force to aggrandize themselves. If the rules don’t allow for it, those doing it should be disciplined. If the rules do allow for it, it’s time for those rules to be re-written.

The Air Force had 821,151 airmen on active duty in 1961. Even at that manpower level, Curt LeMay expected his generals to move their own office furniture and light their own cigars. Today’s Air Force is as small as it’s ever been at 310,000 … and is probably 100,000 airmen short of what it needs to be sustainable. For the generals to do this at this particular moment in service history shows how grotesquely out of touch they have become, and how little they actually care about making their words and deeds match.

This is not the behavior of a responsible organization.

© 2016 Bright Mountain, LLC

(John Q. Public)

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

on the matter of incompetence: F-35

whoever dreamed up the specs thought they were brilliant in creating a fighter that barely outruns 4th gen fighters, doesn't carry enough ammo, doesn't maneuver very well in a dog fight.

Its basically a mini-awacs doing the job the F-4 was originally concepted to do which was fire the missiles before the enemy sees them.

they couldn't think to embed this technology in the F-15/F-16 platforms as force companion to the F-22 raptor.

True. And there's the issue with these effete assholes wanting to scrap the Warthog without having a platform with comparable close support capabilities.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

.
True. And there's the issue with these effete assholes wanting to scrap the Warthog without having a platform with comparable close support capabilities.

forgot about the A-10.

said F-35 could do CAS like A-10 does. only problem is F-35 does CAS just as well as F-15/F-16 could do in that category.

A-10 note of interest. U.S. is the only operator of the A-10 aircraft.

seems no-one is interested in this aircraft seeing its does a number of low level activities very well. it is perfect for long distance search & rescue and anti-insurgency suppression. could be that $20,000 per aircraft is too much to support.

If they decide on a new A-10 variant, I think it would be a good idea for it to have a 20mm gun instead of a 30mm gun, more ammunition to have around.

read that AF actually brought back the OV-10 Bronco out of retirement and put it to test in the contested environment in syria/Iraq. it did very well.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by dilbert firestorm

forgot about the A-10.

said F-35 could do CAS like A-10 does. only problem is F-35 does CAS just as well as F-15/F-16 could do in that category.

A-10 note of interest. U.S. is the only operator of the A-10 aircraft.

seems no-one is interested in this aircraft seeing its does a number of low level activities very well. it is perfect for long distance search & rescue and anti-insurgency suppression. could be that $20,000 per aircraft is too much to support.

If they decide on a new A-10 variant, I think it would be a good idea for it to have a 20mm gun instead of a 30mm gun, more ammunition to have around.

read that AF actually brought back the OV-10 Bronco out of retirement and put it to test in the contested environment in syria/Iraq. it did very well.

The A-10 is an excellent, in fact, unsurpassed CAS platform, but it cannot survive on a modern battlefield against today's ground-to-air missile systems and Man-pads. However, the Air Force's claims that the F-35 will perform comparably is pure BS, and it hasn't honestly addressed that shortfall. Until it does so, the A-10 needs to stay in service.

[Rey Lengua]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

The A-10 is an excellent, in fact, unsurpassed CAS platform, but it cannot survive on a modern battlefield against today's ground-to-air missile systems and Man-pads. However, the Air Force's claims that the F-35 will perform comparably is pure BS, and it hasn't honestly addressed that shortfall. Until it does so, the A-10 needs to stay in service.

Right on with the A-10. Ask any of the people that have had it as their CAS platform when the shit was hitting the fan ! Some of the more ingenious pilots that flew the A-10 in the first Gulf War would use their Maverick missile's TV camera as a " poor man's " IFF and targeting tool for some of their other weapons and ordinance. And, again if the first Gulf War, the Iraqi's learned to un-ass their vehicles real quick if they even heard the engine shreek of an A-10.

[I B Hankering]

Originally Posted by Rey Lengua

Right on with the A-10. Ask any of the people that have had it as their CAS platform when the shit was hitting the fan ! Some of the more ingenious pilots that flew the A-10 in the first Gulf War would use their Maverick missile's TV camera as a " poor man's " IFF and targeting tool for some of their other weapons and ordinance. And, again if the first Gulf War, the Iraqi's learned to un-ass their vehicles real quick if they even heard the engine shreek of an A-10.

Good news.

Revealed: US Air Force Is Planning to Build a Super A-10 Warthog

July 11, 2016

The Air Force is beginning to work on how fast, lethal, durable and capable a new “A-10”-like aircraft would need to be in order to provide U.S. military ground troops with effective close-air support for decades to come.

Senior service officials are now exploring “draft requirements” concepts – and evaluating the kind of avionics, engineering, weapons, armor and technical redundancy the aircraft would need, Air Force officials told Scout Warrior.

(source)

[Rey Lengua]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Good news.

Hope it goes beyond the " draft requirements " stage. Our next wars will probably be like the one's in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy isn't a " standing army " . The demands for a CAS airframe sure won't diminish, for sure, and might even grow with these types of wars. I just hope that someone with some sanity can get a grip on the process of procuring aircraft better than it's been done in the past and currently. The " power's that be" decided way back in the late 1950's that the F-4 Phantom wouldn't need a built-in gun or cannon, since " all future air combat would be done long range with missiles. Too bad no one told the North Vietnamese Mig pilots. And look at how the F-16 and F-18 has morphed into a " multi-mission " platform from what it was originally designed for.

[dilbert firestorm]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

Good news.

AF, giving their batting record, will fubar it and file it away.