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Subject: What Can We Do To Fix The US Army?
Softwar    2/13/2009 3:50:26 PM
Besides spares and maint. - Let's go with aviation equipment for starters - the Army needs a replacement for the remaining UH-1 choppers, a new light observation chopper to replace aging Kiowas, upgrades to the AH-64 force, and a new series of heavy lift choppers (or more Chinooks) to maintain air mobile levels. Now armor - we need to upgrade the Stryker and add more to replace low armored HUMVEEs in front line service. Ground transport - better armored trucks seem to be in order here. Artillery - can someone please finallly pick a SP 155 platform that makes sense?? Infantry - we have the M-4 procurement to complete and Geeezzz Louise... replace the 9 MM pistol with the 1911. Buy more 50 cals. Improve local intell - small UAVs, trained translators and handlers instead of tearing around town trying to be nasty. ID systems for both captured enemy as well as friendly forces. Training and logistical support - develop and deploy small unit tactics - these were very ineffective especially in urban environments. A NTC for small unit and urban warfare is in order here. Make use of combat experience vets instead of simply letting them wander off. We did that in WII and Korea - it works and saves lives. Instead, we muster them out after being assured they will not go bezerk and pop a cap in someone. Leadership!!! The patrol and plaster tactics used during OIF took too many casualties and left guys with their butts hanging out without proper communications, air support or control. Officers were slow to utilize unmanned/robot systems - instead they opted to bust down doors with the old bad-ass entry and shoot 'em up. Top brass are more interested in micro managing unit activity than trying to supply them with the tools and turning them loose.
 
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JFKY    USMC Attack Helicopters   2/19/2009 3:33:53 PM
You might ask two questions, for which I don't know the answers...
1) How much deck space does an AH-64 take up as compared to an AH-1; and
2) The maintenance burden of the AH-64 v. an AH-1W or T...
 
The Marines are limited in their deck space, so they will choose the smaller bird all other things being equal, and having less room to operate OR MAINTAIN their a/c they will opt for the a/c with the lessened maintenance burden, in terms of personnel, space, equipment or parts.
 
I would bet that the Marines opted for the AH-1, in the beginning because it was CHEAPER than the Ah-64, and that it offered a commonality with the UH-1 it was using...the Marines are cheap, or starved of resources, your call...and in the era that the Ah-64 came on-line the USMC may have prioritized its money elsewhere, the AV-8, the A-4M, the F/A-18 and the LAV...I don't claim to know that either, but it's something you might look into.
 
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verong    jfky   2/19/2009 3:56:39 PM

You might ask two questions, for which I don't know the answers...

1) How much deck space does an AH-64 take up as compared to an AH-1; and

2) The maintenance burden of the AH-64 v. an AH-1W or T...

 

The Marines are limited in their deck space, so they will choose the smaller bird all other things being equal, and having less room to operate OR MAINTAIN their a/c they will opt for the a/c with the lessened maintenance burden, in terms of personnel, space, equipment or parts.

 

I would bet that the Marines opted for the AH-1, in the beginning because it was CHEAPER than the Ah-64, and that it offered a commonality with the UH-1 it was using...the Marines are cheap, or starved of resources, your call...and in the era that the Ah-64 came on-line the USMC may have prioritized its money elsewhere, the AV-8, the A-4M, the F/A-18 and the LAV...I don't claim to know that either, but it's something you might look into.


Hey There,
I agree on some of that, but the AH-1 came a decade before the AH-64. TheUSMC decided much like you thought in that it believed it not worth changing attack helos, since they could upgrade the AH-1 for similar capabilities!
 
Sincerely,
 
Keith
 
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HERALD1357    You just called me a liar?   2/19/2009 5:14:55 PM

Why do we need to rip off others when we've crammed more military experience in 240 years than most EU states have in the last 600?

 

Like any good evasion, half-truth or distortion, this is true...as far as it goes.  The US has crammed more military experience in its 240 year history than Monacco, or Andorra or Luxemburg...but it has NOT crammed more in its 240 years than RUSSIA, FRANCE, and PRUSSIA.

 It is EXACTLY what I wrote. Now you may not like it, but it is a FACT that France or Russia has had.LESS.  Prussia no longer exists. Tbis is why you make no sense. Just how many Native American Wars do you think the US Army fought? How many campaigns on our frontiers against the European interlopers? How many interventions? How many Banana Wars? How many Colonial Campaigns? Only the British have fought more.than we have.      

I think I did respond to what you wrote....And I will repeat it, the US did not fight it's first major, modern war until 1861....the Russians, the Prussians, the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch, and the French had been fighting with hundreds of thousands of troops and several battles involving 100,000 plus BEFORE THERE WAS A US.  They have a longer and richer military history....

BULL. A major war is not measured by how many huge armies are in the field but upon the decisive outcome achieved. I invite you to review the 14 major campaigns of a certain General Andrew Jackson.  Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and to some extent Mississippi are his legacy to us-by force of arms. British, Spanish, and half a dozen Native American Tribes curse his name down  to the present.

The US, until the 20th Century, really did not have a large scale military tradition.  This is HISTORY and FACT, you to put yor spin on it.

I suggest you go back to school. We certainly had a NAVAL one, starting with the undeclared war against the French, the Barbary Wars (note the plural), our extensive actions in the Caribbean, the Mexican War, our colonial wars of aggression on Central America, our Pacific escapades,  our first actions against Japan and Korea, and a little thing I like to call the Spanish American War. And of course you contradict yourself with the CIVIL WAR.
 
For someone who is easy with the liar accusation, I'd be careful. Your knowledge of history is highly suspect if you don't even realize what America's armed forces were actually doing when you claimed they had no large scale military tradition. I suppose Commodore Perry on Lake Erie was playing tiddly winks? Quite a LOGISTICS feat that was building a fleet out of nothing but plans he carried in his head with a bunch of knuckleheads who'd never even seen an oar.

Herald
 
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DarthAmerica       2/19/2009 5:45:44 PM

Is the Army broken?

Is it a case of, after 7 yrs of non-stop, continuous deployment, that it (the institution) is simply tired.

 


Not 7 years, closer to 20 actually if you include the 1st President Bush and President Clinton years. We haven't had a major overhaul since the end of the Cold War. Our force has been reduced while our global commitments increased. American security is the USA's most prized and expensive export and the neglect is starting to show.

-DA 
 
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JFKY    Why yes Herald....   2/19/2009 8:44:54 PM
I guess I did call you a liar, "of sorts".  Did that poke the little Herald ego?  Your statement, as written, contains many weasel words
..EU Nations, and MOST....
1) EU nations....since the EU did not come into existence until 1993 it is quite easy for the US to have a more successful history than....
 
2) "most."  Now most doesn't mean all.  So technically, any number of EU nations don't have a successful military tradition, and so YES it IS true that the US has a longer, larger and more successful military history than they have....HOWEVER, the US does not have a longer or more successful military history than the MAJOR EU or European powers, Russia, France, Prussia, or even Great Britain.  And yes, being capable of wielding, effectively a large number of troops, IS a measure of generalship.  THE measure of generalship until the 20th C.
 
The US fought a small British army at the end of a long supply line in an unpopular set of wars...beat up a poor Mexico.  Until 1861 the US had NEVER needed a large number of troops and the need to arm and supply them.  And then two generations passed before the US needed to do so again.  In between it managed to defeat an nearly bankrupt and incompetent Spain, and botched its mobilization and deployment.  Which lead to Upton's and Roots reforms.  So over all the US had almost NO military tradition to speak of until the 20th C.  And evidence of that is that the US Army felt the need to emulate the French, and later the Germans.
 
Which is what I assume you truly meant by EU powers, but your argument is true as written, as compared to MOST EU powers, certainly is true...but it is also a MEANINGLESS statement.  So yes, your statement is a mass of half-truths and distortions...I'm just analyzing what you wrote.  Can't help it that you wrote an essentially true and meaningless phrase.
 
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Parmenion    A non-American perspective   2/19/2009 9:11:47 PM
 
You guys get about $500 hundered billion a year (whole US millitary not army), and that's just what's declared openly. In the UK we get a tenth of that, and this has been a good decade. I'm sure alot of you thank God you were born American anyway, but really, I don't think you've got alot to be worried about. If you want to feel real terror, imagine being a British patriot thinking about which part of the military david cameron will cut if the little weasel rat is voted in. You guys worry about a ten percent cut? I think DA pointed out you could pretty much pay for that out of spare materials and the DoD paperclip budget. I think it's likely that the UK will never see our Queen Elizabeth class carriers http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emcry.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />. Have some pity for the poorer countries. (i.e. every other nation of the world).
 
As for the issue of the US army, I'm no specialist but isn't it fairly normal for every world class military of it's day to have some problems and redundancies? Continually fixing them is good practice. If you want to look at a military system that really needs fixing, look at those that think they have no problems. You guys are fine, just relax http://www.strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emsmiled.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />
 
 
 
 
 
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JFKY    Oh Herald   2/19/2009 10:41:13 PM
One of your examples is laughable...Perry on Lake Erie?  That's logistics, wow then the what the Royal Navy accomplished on a far more massive scale, over vaster distances from 1789 until 1815 must be a MIRACLE,,,,and of course if Perry performed a miracle, so did the British.  They fielded an equivalent naval force on the same body of water, thousands of kilometres from their manufacturing base(s).
 
 
 
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verong    JFKY   2/19/2009 11:51:45 PM

One of your examples is laughable...Perry on Lake Erie?  That's logistics, wow then the what the Royal Navy accomplished on a far more massive scale, over vaster distances from 1789 until 1815 must be a MIRACLE,,,,and of course if Perry performed a miracle, so did the British.  They fielded an equivalent naval force on the same body of water, thousands of kilometres from their manufacturing base(s).

 

 

 
Hey There,

That reminds me of the US Navy and  USMC now. The USA is having a hard problem keeping enough ships and aircraft to rule the waves and will likely concede coast lines to the enemyhttp://strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emcry.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />
 
Sincerely,
 
Keith
 
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verong    JFKY   2/19/2009 11:58:00 PM
Hey Folks,
 
I feel one much lacking capability that could easily be fixed is helo numbers in Afghanistan. The US Army mothballed thousands of UH-1 helos in the last decade. Many of these helos could be brought out of mothballs and reset and  have years of useful and heavy use time allowing the US Army time to build more new helos or V-22 with less stratergic riskhttp://strategypage.com/CuteSoft_Client/CuteEditor/Images/emsmiled.gif" align="absMiddle" border="0" alt="" />
 
Sincerely,
 
Keith
 
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HERALD1357       2/20/2009 3:58:20 AM

One of your examples is laughable...Perry on Lake Erie?  That's logistics, wow then the what the Royal Navy accomplished on a far more massive scale, over vaster distances from 1789 until 1815 must be a MIRACLE,,,,and of course if Perry performed a miracle, so did the British.  They fielded an equivalent naval force on the same body of water, thousands of kilometres from their manufacturing base(s).

 

 


The RN imported everything including experts and LOST.
 
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