The Army has had to cancel so much training that only two of its42 combat brigades are ready for combat, Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told reporters at the Association of the US Army conference here today. It’ll take until June to get a solid force of seven brigades ready for any unexpected contingency — and that’s assuming no further budgetary disasters.Odierno is full of shit.
Look at a quick roll call of Army Divisions. The 82nd is up to speed for sure. The 101st trains hard...even if its just garrison (but I know for a fact that they've been doing fieldwork real hard for the last 3 months). 10th Mountain? Ditto. 2nd Armored? Same. 25th out in Hawaii? Please, those boys run hills.
He's sounding the alarm to startle the uninformed but I seriously doubt every single word out of the guys mouth. But unfortunately what he's actually doing is giving the enemy a false impression of our capabilities.
The real question is why and the answer is in his statement. He wants sequestration to go away and since Obama won the last budget impasse, he's hoping to rally Republicans to move toward the President's direction for the sake of national security.
The JCS has become fully politicized. Every single one of them needs to be fired.
I am sure some of your senior US officers have a ready-use white flag and a sign saying "Welcome to our Chinese overlords" in various Chinese languages.
ReplyDeleteDon't kick the furniture too hard Sol mate.
i'm just getting tired of the woe is me from the pentagon when they have a huge budget, more personnel than any other govt agency and sequestration is only a tiny portion of the budget. it didn't even cut meat...it cut the increase in spending!
Deletequite honestly i'm glad i haven't met oderino. i'm real glad i haven't met amos. i'd love to punch them both.
i find it hard to believe that they were able to rise to the highest ranks of our military while being such ass kissing clowns. they're exhibit number one that the entire promotion system needs to be overhauled.
Over a year ago, Sep 7 2012, was the day by which under a law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama the White House needed to detail the defense cuts it would make to comply with the upcoming sequestration under the Budget Control Act. But that was messy in the middle of an election campaign in which voters might see what plants, bases and production lines might be slashed. So Obama ignored the law. No list.
ReplyDeleteSubsequently, from a senior Navy Official:
"The administration has all along been trying to force the Congress' hand on Sequestration using the military, which some HASC members picked up on. For example, the reason we didn't plan was based on a desire to force Congress to act, and in hearings last week we were told to 'show the pain.'"
Then came the BS and it's still coming.
ReplyDelete-Panetta: Sequestration Threat Hurts National Security
-Panetta to Congress: End Sequestration Threat
-Panetta: Sequestration a Meat-Axe Approach
-Panetta: Sequestration Would "Hollow Out" Military
-Panetta: Congressional Gridlock Affecting Strategy
-Little: Budget Impasse Could Hamper Disaster Response
-Carter: Sequestration Would be Chaotic, Wasteful
-Carter: Sequestration Would Demonstrate Failure of Resolve
-Carter Describes 'Crisis of Readiness'
-Carter: Sequestration 'Wolf' Eats at Nation's Readiness
-Dempsey: Sequestration Will Force Moral Dilemma
-Dempsey: Sequestration Will Gut the Military
-Odierno: Sequestration Would Impact Army Readiness
-Guard Chief: Sequestration Would Have 'Devastating' Effects
But of course there really was no decrease in spending.
Q: So reduced spending doesn't mean -- it just means slowing growth in spending.
ADM. WINNEFELD: Yeah.
SPOT ON! we haven't cut the budget at all! only the growth in the budget! i'm tired of the sky is falling routine. its like we've become a people thats scared to do the hard thing.
DeleteHoly shit.
ReplyDeletegraph of spending growth
ReplyDeletehttp://timemilitary.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/ww-fig1.png
Army's asking for four point five billion more this year.
ReplyDeleteFY2014 Budget Request
http://comptroller.defense.gov/budget.html
p. 24
Shifts in Base Budget
component--FY2013 enacted/FY2014 request
(dollars in billions)
Army--125.2/129.7
Navy--148.9/155.8
Air Force--130.1/144.4
Defense-wide--88.7/96.7
Total -- 492.9/526.6
http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2014/FY2014_Budget_Request.pdf
@Don. No one but only US DoD can cry poverty and famine, completely falling apart when they are getting more money than EVER before! Just incredible! It isn't like the DoD budget is getting slashed by a third or god forbid, in HALF!, at that point DoD would just have enough money to buy white flags! Because for $263 billion dollars, that's pretty much all they could afford!
ReplyDeleteRecent (since Sep 26) US Army contracts over $50 million only --
ReplyDelete--$240,000,000 to Phillips & Jordan Inc., Knoxville, Tenn. for debris management services
--$846,600,000 to Harris Corporation for country-directed, sole-source procurement of Harris radios in support of Saudi Arabia, Poland, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Latvia and Romania.
--$80,000,000 to various construction companies to provide design, build and construction capabilities for Access Control Point construction and equipment installation.
--$72,264,323 to DynCorp International to provide mentoring and training services for the Afghanistan National Army
-- $600,000,000 to various companies to assist the Department of Defense in support of energy conservation and development of alternative energy projects.
--$246,699,217 to Federal Prisons Industries to procure Interceptor Body Armor Outer Tactical Vests
--$64,784,278 to The Boeing Company for material and labor for various systems and components for the Apache-D helicopter
--$56,098,000 to River City Construction for construction of a new Defense Information Systems Agency facility.
-- $440,045,436 to GATR Technology Inc to procure multiple size Inflatable Satellite Antennas,
--$97,400,000 to Lockheed s for a continuation of information management technology services
--$86,556,544 to General Atomics for Gray Eagle Performance-Based Logistics product support for Block 1 program of record and quick reaction capability.
--$84,000,000 to Sikorsky Aircraft for support services and incidental material for foreign military sales and other government agency customers for the H-60 Black Hawk helicopter
--$78,237,601 to The Boeing Company for the MH-47G New Build (7 Aircraft).
--$62,267,353 to BAE Systems Land & Armaments for trade studies, design, development and testing to achieve a demonstration level of competency of Counter Improvised Explosive Device multi-cycle vehicle mounted system technology
http://www.defense.gov/contracts/
Odierno isn't exactly "full of shit" on this one, but on the flip side it isn't as bad as it sounds, but it is pretty bad. Every Brigade has a 100% turnover in commanders and staff about every 3 years (with a few exceptions for some folks who are a very small minority). After a Brigade comes back from a deployment, when they are "combat proven" that is when FORSCOM and HRC rape that Brigade for staff and push people around the Army to meet manning levels.
ReplyDeleteWhat it really means is that if you get a new BDE Commander, it is really a new brigade command team, including staff officers. So the Army Force Generation Cycle (ARFORGEN) goes into play and mandatory equipment reset and personnel management come into effect. You lose a lot of your equipment for 6 months (so you can't train on some of the big stuff like integrating key enablers) while it is reset, and you lose a lot of your leadership with experience so you have to start from square one on training.
The Army has a training pipeline that goes like this, buddy team live fire, fire team live fire, squad live fire, platoon live fire, company live fire. For the FA guys it is atillery gunnery plus a Brigade level Fire Support Coordination Excercise. For the Cav scouts it is Cav Gunnery plus the live fire progression the Infantry does. After all this, they have to go to a Combat Training Center for a brigade level exercise that gives the Brigade a "Task Force Ready" stamp of approval from FORSCOM which means they are ready to hand that Brigade off to a Title 10 COCOM Commander.
Any time you pull from the "mandatory training pipeline" then FORSCOM can't give the "Task Force Ready" stamp of approval. When my Brigade went through JRTC it was a 17 million dollar exercise to get the stamp of approval to deploy. So yes, a lack of training dollars is a serious issue, however the very rigorous training pipeline for a readiness stamp of approval needs to look at Brigades on a case by case basis because if a Brigade has done everything but a CTC rotation, they are probably good to go, but if a Brigade from the 101st just got back and is down to 60% strength on personnel with all their equipment turned in for reset, then they are definitely not good to go.