Andreas Posted March 20, 2007 Share Posted March 20, 2007 Interesting article in the lefty-liberal-satan-worshipping NYT. I would be interested in comments from serving/recently serving US military members of the forum on the accuracy. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/us/20army.html?th&emc=th All the best Andreas 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SSgt Viljuri Posted March 20, 2007 Share Posted March 20, 2007 It seems like it would be a good time for Dorosh to invade and annex most of America in order to create an independent Alberta-led Confederation of Western Provinces and States of America or somesuch. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 20, 2007 Share Posted March 20, 2007 Originally posted by SSgt Viljuri: It seems like it would be a good time for Dorosh to invade and annex most of America in order to create an independent Alberta-led Confederation of Western Provinces and States of America or somesuch. Stop polluting Andreas' discussion! If you want to talk about me, I have to believe that is worthy of its own thread. Perhaps even its own forum, to be honest. Send me the URL and if I approve of the layout, font, colours, header art, and domain name, perhaps I shall restrain from unleashing my legal team on you. (More than likely, really, since Mom is going in for surgery next month. But she can still write vicious emails from her hospital bed. :mad: ) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted March 20, 2007 Share Posted March 20, 2007 Well, lefty-leaning-traitorous-scum-rag or not , this is old news. The Pentagon has been raising this issue repeatedly for years. Last year the commanding General of the National Guard gave an extremely bleak assessment of the Guard's ability to perform. It's one of the reasons why some in Congress have been trying to set standards on readiness before troops get sent over to Iraq. The right wingers scream bloody murder about this, but there is legitimate reason for Congress to be concerned since COIN ops are tough enough even when fully staffed, fully equipped, and fully trained. Sending troops over that are lacking in any of these three areas is not serving the best interests of national security of the soldiers themselves (both from the ill prepared unit or the ones that will be working with them). Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M1A1TC Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 Well, I am in a Guard unit, currently deployed for over a year, little over a month left. We are doing fine, even with all the old eqipment we got. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 Then count yourself lucky since you appear to be in the 35% part of the Guard that was seen as being fit enough for deployment Remember, the regular Army raided a LOT of National Guard equipment because they simply ran out of their own stuff. The quantity of material that has been deadlined through nothing more than use is staggering. The "dirty little secret" was that prior to 2001 a significant portion of the vehicles sitting in motorpools were at, or far past, their operational age. Some Guard units went into Iraq with equipment that was older than its soldiers. In a few cases the equipment was as old as the parents of the soldier operating it Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imported_Wildman Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 Really? Welcome to the airforce...where I've worked on BUFFs of 1960-61 constructions. C-130E of 80s construction. The F-15E-220s are mid 80sm the F-15E-229 are early 90s. the F-16CJs were the newest at 1996. The problem is that the Army hasn't spent any money on War Reserve Material in a decade or more. Heck they have a $20B shortfall in WRM ammo alone...not counting continuing training requirements or replacing ageing stockpiles. Welcome to the world of the DoD, we're all working with equipment that is at best 10years old. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 21, 2007 Share Posted March 21, 2007 My impression was if you're in-theatre you're likely to still reasonably supplied but that they're stealing from Peter to pay Paul. The next rotation of Guard and Reserves is going to be... um... interesting. Rememeber, not long before the much-publicized 'surge' the Pentagon had been pleading that any troop increase not exceed 9-10 thousand troops because it simply couldn't be sustained without gumming up the whole machinery. [ March 23, 2007, 08:58 AM: Message edited by: MikeyD ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sixxkiller Posted March 22, 2007 Share Posted March 22, 2007 And if you want to see old equipment, look at what the insurgents have. Funny but they seem ready to fight occassionally. But this is nothing new, the most important part is if the men are ready to go, and so far they havent done too badly. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted March 22, 2007 Share Posted March 22, 2007 Heh. I remember talking with a recently retired Colonel friend of mine who went to work with a big defense firm just before 9/11. When the fight was going on in Afgahnistan he was saying how they were cranking out ammo as fast as they could because the reserve stocks were low to begin with and were rapidly running out of some types and calibers. Then around the same time I saw something on the news about it. The problem was training had been using up stocks that weren't being replaced for years and, due to that fact, the production lines had been scaled way back. The probably also had whatever stocks there were spread out all over the place. And when that happens it takes the Army about 4 years to figure out where they put it. Then all of a sudden Uncle Sam wants to put more than just one cap in someone's ass and woooop... lots of people running around leasing factory space and moving in equipment. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted March 22, 2007 Share Posted March 22, 2007 Originally posted by Wildman: ...where I've worked on BUFFs of 1960-61 constructions. C-130E of 80s construction.Hi Wildman, Do you happen to have any (unclassified) pictures of aircraft structures (fuselage, wing internal structure) that I can use for educational purposes, or maybe details like stringer-skin/spar joints? I am always on the look-out for that stuff! Best regards, Thomm 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imported_Wildman Posted March 22, 2007 Share Posted March 22, 2007 I could did out my B-52 CAST book, but its pretty generic. Steve, As for ammo, that is for sure. The Army bought 5.56 from the ROK for USFK training and 5.56 & 7.62 (I think) from Isralies for Iraq. There just isn't the surge ammo capability in the US any more. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted March 22, 2007 Share Posted March 22, 2007 IIRC my friend did mention Israeli ties with to their own company. The big guys are all inter-related so even if I didn't hear that it is probably true 5.56, 7.62, and 40mm were ones he mentioned specifically as being run through quickly. There were also specific types within that were more or less in need. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imported_Wildman Posted March 22, 2007 Share Posted March 22, 2007 Ya, we sent a bunch of stuff from Korea to CENTCOM as well as the prepo ships dumped a lot of stuff in there recently. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted March 23, 2007 Share Posted March 23, 2007 I think I heard civilian production of the baseline Hummer® was stopped awhile ago. It was billed at the time as some eco-friendly corporate stance, but I suspect all humvee chassis on the assembly line were being shifted to military to replace rapidly attriting warstocks. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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