U.S. Army to Congress: No New Tanks

vira

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Mar. 7, 2012 - 05:52PM |
By KATE BRANNEN


U.S. Army officials are once again on Capitol Hill trying to convince lawmakers that they do not need new M1 Abrams tanks.

Not only does the Army not need new tanks, it doesn’t need to upgrade the ones it has for another few years, Gen. Ray Odierno, chief of staff of the Army, told lawmakers during a March 7 hearing of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

It is one of the most modernized platforms in the Army and has an average age of two-and-a-half-years old, Army Secretary John McHugh said.

The Army plans to finish out its Abrams buy in 2014 and then not begin upgrading its current fleet until 2017.

Full article: http://www.defensenews.com/article/...nks-Please?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
 
It is one of the most modernized platforms in the Army and has an average age of two-and-a-half-years old, Army Secretary John McHugh said

I don't think this is true, maybe refurbished. M1s around since late 80's and when I was in active duty, the Army was reburbishing M1A2s to MIA2 SEPs (the version of separate commander's targeting moduel and advanced eletronics).
 
Yes, that's the average time since a depot-level overhaul (Anniston Depot in conjunction with the General Dynamics Army Tank Plant in Lima). They restart the vehicle's life cycle clock after reset.

It's hard to see any reason to gripe about the Army spending money on uniforms. We have the worlds best tank and therefore the Army isn't asking for better. If only our sister services had any such concept of restraint.
 
Yes, that's the average time since a depot-level overhaul (Anniston Depot in conjunction with the General Dynamics Army Tank Plant in Lima). They restart the vehicle's life cycle clock after reset.

It's hard to see any reason to gripe about the Army spending money on uniforms. We have the worlds best tank and therefore the Army isn't asking for better. If only our sister services had any such concept of restraint.

"Kettle this is pot. Over."

"Pot, Kettle, go ahead."

"Kettle, pot. You are black. Pot, out."
 
Yes, that's the average time since a depot-level overhaul (Anniston Depot in conjunction with the General Dynamics Army Tank Plant in Lima). They restart the vehicle's life cycle clock after reset..

This is interesting, as I can only assume that not every piece of the tank is refurbished or replaced during each depot-level overhaul. Guess that's why they use the term "Built like a tank!" :thumb:



It's hard to see any reason to gripe about the Army spending money on uniforms. We have the worlds best tank and therefore the Army isn't asking for better. If only our sister services had any such concept of restraint.

By Title X, the folks here in the Puzzle Palace are required to support the troops in the field, providing oversight towards supporting, equipping, and training them to be able to provide for the National Defense.

Towards the "equip" side, despite common misconceptions on "wastefullness of the process", it really becomes finding the right balance to ensure we can replace equipment either worn out or no longer assurred of achieving mission success. That latter part is greatly influenced on the ENEMIES' capabilities, and usually not ours.

We have the best tanks in the world now, and that should remaina fact for a while. This is quickly becoming "not the case" in regards to air power and sea power. There are several potential opponents who are quickly catching up, and potentially exceeding, our ability to project air and sea power. This is why the services are now calling for better and more advanced aircraft, and better sea power projection capes.

Granted, it seems that constraint needs to also become a catch word here in the building. I think our current economic pressures, and the push to mostly solve it through defense cuts, will force ALL the services to increase that restraint.

And yeah, that includes not going out and replacing perfectly good uniforms just for the sake of replacing them.
 
If we had perfectly good uniforms, we wouldn't be replacing them.

The Army has one of the world's best tanks, which despite being a 35 year old design, is a great tank and will be carried forward. The Air Force has the best fighters in the world...so they had to get new ones...just in case. How many of those systems we need to keep up with belong to our centuries-old, treatied allies?

Again, hard to complain about uniforms, of which a large portion of the cost will be footed by soldiers. Meanwhile the Army upgraded 240 tanks for less than the cost of two F-35s. So yeah...we can buy some new rucks and ammo vests.

Anyhow, that's life. I hear the budget is just a big jar of jelly beans.
 
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If we had perfectly good uniforms, we wouldn't be replacing them.

The Army has one of the world's best tanks, which despite being a 35 year old design, is a great tank and will be carried forward. The Air Force has the best fighters in the world...so they had to get new ones...just in case. How many of those systems we need to keep up with belong to our centuries-old, treatied allies?

Again, hard to complain about uniforms, of which a large portion of the cost will be footed by soldiers. Meanwhile the Army upgraded 240 tanks for less than the cost of two F-35s. So yeah...we can buy some new rucks and ammo vests.

Anyhow, that's life. I hear the budget is just a big jar of jelly beans.

No.... you read that it's a big jar of jelly beans.

Scout, understanding you are super informed, and totally connected to the inside, not to mention the worlds most perceptive O-3, going on O-10.... How much does the uniform change cost to develop and roll out? That's a number I'd love to see. Not, what is the cost of a single uniform to a soldier, but what is the R&D costs to the tax payer?

Just want you to be careful in your response. Understanding you're a big bad helo pilot, RIGHT NOW in the skies, don't want you to feel the need to respond. It's safer here at a desk, but it's good to know you can post to an internet discussion board from the sky.
 
No.... you read that it's a big jar of jelly beans.

Scout, understanding you are super informed, and totally connected to the inside, not to mention the worlds most perceptive O-3, going on O-10.... How much does the uniform change cost to develop and roll out? That's a number I'd love to see. Not, what is the cost of a single uniform to a soldier, but what is the R&D costs to the tax payer?

Just want you to be careful in your response. Understanding you're a big bad helo pilot, RIGHT NOW in the skies, don't want you to feel the need to respond. It's safer here at a desk, but it's good to know you can post to an internet discussion board from the sky.

You have a desk? I thought you had a couch. In your living room.

Beyond that, look it up yourself. I'm not going to make Bruno's job harder by getting into a peeing contest with you. You chose your career path.

Have a great Army day!
 
You have a desk? I thought you had a couch. In your living room.

Beyond that, look it up yourself. I'm not going to make Bruno's job harder by getting into a peeing contest with you. You chose your career path.

Have a great Army day!

WHAAAAAT? I thought you just KNEW this stuff. You mean you have to look it up? Wait.... you mean, sitting at a desk at Campbell, with all the wonderful things going on there, you don't have the time to google something you've argued about for the past two days?

I do have a couch, and yes, that couch is in my living room. Unfortunately my wireless router is down.
 
If we had perfectly good uniforms, we wouldn't be replacing them.
You are correct - they are not perfectly good- in fact they are no good - and they have to be replaced- it's not an option. This isn't a style issue like the snappy blue camo uniforms that the the Navy just transitioned to from dungarees and working khaki's - Soldiers live and die (not hypothetically- today in the real world ) based on the enemy's ability to see them - so their ability to blend into the environment is important.

Last I heard the Coast Guard requires flotation devices for personnel boarding vessels- quibbling over the need to replace the ACU with a functional Camo pattern is rather the equivalent of quibbling over replacing flotation jackets found to be unfunctional - because the Coast Guard has a bunch of the unfunctional ones on hand. Would you actually be advocating that? I qwouldn't think that would be reasonable.
You need to deal with the problem at hand separate from dealing with how you got there. So from the standpoint of cost- the issue is not replacing the ACU- those need to get fixed NOW. It was the previous decision that's the one to take to task. Now how they came to that decision - somebody ought to be held accountable because they bought something that started generating field complaints almost immediately upon fielding which didn't let up over time.


By the way- last warning about keeping this from being personal.
 
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Don't make me pull this internet over and separate you two! One more peep, and I'm turning this thread around and taking us all back home! :biggrin:

Worked for my parents years back. Of course, back then we young-uns rode in the back, without seatbelts, and sometimes climbed up into the area between the back window and the back seat and gave passing trucks the international "pumping arm up and down to show you I want to blow your horn and scare the bejeezus out of my dad while he's driving" signal :shake:

Meanwhile the Army upgraded 240 tanks for less than the cost of two F-35s.

1 x F-35 worth about 120 M1-A1s? Yeah, that seems about right.... :thumb::zip:
 
You are correct - they are not perfectly good- in fact they are no good - and they have to be replaced- it's not an option. This isn't a style issue like the snappy blue camo uniforms that the the Navy just transitioned to from dungarees and working khaki's - Soldiers live and die (not hypothetically- today in the real world ) based on the enemy's ability to see them - so their ability to blend into the environment is important.

Last I heard the Coast Guard requires flotation devices for personnel boarding vessels- quibbling over the need to replace the ACU with a functional Camo pattern is rather the equivalent of quibbling over replacing flotation jackets found to be unfunctional - because the Coast Guard has a bunch of the unfunctional ones on hand. Would you actually be advocating that?
You NEED to deal with the problem at hand separate from dealing with how you got there. So from the standpoint of cost- the issue is not replacing the ACU- those need to get fixed NOW. It was the previous decision that's the one to take to task. Now how they came to that decision - somebody ought to be held accountable because they bought something that started generating field complaints almost immediately upon fielding which didn't let up over time.


By the way- last warning about keeping this from being personal.


Not really....in fact not at all. I've been to units with 4 different kinds of PFDs. They replace them as they fail. They don't go out and get the latest and greatest, or the safest.

So we've spent 11 years fighting wars and now, with troop draw downs and shrinking forces, and leaving Iraq..... NOW it's about life and limb, 10 years after a war started? If that's the thinking Bruno, then I question far more than the waste changing uniforms so often leads to, I would question how much the U.S. Army cares about its own soldiers. Because what I'm hearing here is.... this has been a problem and it risks lives.... 10 years of risking lives?
 
We have the best tanks in the world now, and that should remaina fact for a while. This is quickly becoming "not the case" in regards to air power and sea power. There are several potential opponents who are quickly catching up, and potentially exceeding, our ability to project air and sea power. This is why the services are now calling for better and more advanced aircraft, and better sea power projection capes.

We have the best aircrafts and ships in the world now, and that should remain fact for a while. This is quickly becoming "not the case" in regards to land power :smile:

A Bradley Fighting Vehicle is a tin can. An insurgent with an RPG can easily ruin my day, so the Army needs to buy an infantry fighting vehicle that is protected from any RPG attack. Of course, I am not going to mention the reactive armor and our TTP to operating together to reduce a chance of an insurgent taking an RPG shot.

I know I should have kept up better, but from what I know.

Russia never had a blue navy. Not heard of any new advance submarines coming out Russia. The oil money is flowing, but not so much where Russia spends billions and billions more on their defense. Are MIG 29 or MIG 25 better our F 15 or F 18?

China's new mighty aircraft carrier is a concern. I don't think it's nuclear, so someone smart can tell me how much fuel it will require to venture out to the Pacific Ocean. I believe they are still expertimenting with vertical take off or assisted take off aircrafts. From what I recall, Russia never had a good aircraft carrier capable aircraft.
 
Russia never had a blue navy. Not heard of any new advance submarines coming out Russia. The oil money is flowing, but not so much where Russia spends billions and billions more on their defense. Are MIG 29 or MIG 25 better our F 15 or F 18?

The USSR had a quite capable blue navy, just different than ours. They had a LOT of subs. A lot of the late generation soviet equipment is still quite capable, if maintained and used correctly. Incremental improvements to soviet technology is some of the best non-US stuff out there.
Heck, a lot of our modern equipment is basically a legacy from the Cold War.
 
The USSR had a quite capable blue navy, just different than ours. They had a LOT of subs. A lot of the late generation soviet equipment is still quite capable, if maintained and used correctly. Incremental improvements to soviet technology is some of the best non-US stuff out there.
Heck, a lot of our modern equipment is basically a legacy from the Cold War.

Certainly better at breaking ice than the U.S.
 
Not really....in fact not at all. I've been to units with 4 different kinds of PFDs. They replace them as they fail. They don't go out and get the latest and greatest, or the safest.

Well then- "they replace them as they fail". Why? Because when you have something that doesn't work you get rid of it. It's a different question than: "should they have gotten the product to begin with"? The answer to the second questionis: No they should not. To the question: Do they need to buy a new combat uniform for soldiers? Yes they do and all the silly analogies about jelly beans aside, that's not even open for debate anymore than it would be replacing the PFDs that are available to a Coast Guardsman if it were found that a design flaw renders them dangerous.

I have a problem with the Army making service dress uniform changes "just because"- (especially when they surveyed about half the force and then disregarded their input in the design), but I have a real problem with them having rolled out the ACU in it's current design only to discover later what was apparently found and disregraded in early testing- that the pattern doesn't work. But as far as rectifying it- they need to do what they need to do which in this case is dump the uniform and find one that serves the purpose. If you can't understand that logic it's probably because you are missing the same point that the bean counters initially missed when fielding this albatross- that being that soldiers lives actually matter and that these uniforms are dangerous and counter to the safety and mission accomplishment of soldiers on the ground. As far as them living with it thru the war- well in fact they have been using a different unifrom for the last year in much of Afghanistan having adopted the short term field expedient of the multicam pattern so that guys on the cutting edge at least have some camo worth the name.

Ground level feedback is often a point easily missed in DC and in places like TACOM (where a retired LTC buddy of mine now a DAC tells me that the least respected opinion in the room is usually the voice of the user. As a CIB wearer he is frustrated to the point of despair at the smug disregard that he feels is shown to bottom up feedback- clearly this same thing happened with the uniform). In the case of the ACU- multiple and sustained complaints from the senior NCO's of the Army were the driving force behind getting the ACU Camo pattern revisited.
 
Well then- "they replace them as they fail". Why? Because when you have something that doesn't work you get rid of it. It's a different question than: "should they have gotten the product to begin with"? The answer to the second questionis: No they should not. To the question: Do they need to buy a new combat uniform for soldiers? Yes they do and all the silly analogies about jelly beans aside, that's not even open for debate anymore than it would be replacing the PFDs that are available to a Coast Guardsman if it were found that a design flaw renders them dangerous.

I have a problem with the Army making service dress uniform changes "just because"- (especially when they surveyed about half the force and then disregarded their input in the design), but I have a real problem with them having rolled out the ACU in it's current design only to discover later what was apparently found and disregraded in early testing- that the pattern doesn't work. But as far as rectifying it- they need to do what they need to do which in this case is dump the uniform and find one that serves the purpose. If you can't understand that logic it's probably because you are missing the same point that the bean counters initially missed when fielding this albatross- that being that soldiers lives actually matter and that these uniforms are dangerous and counter to the safety and mission accomplishment of soldiers on the ground. As far as them living with it thru the war- well in fact they have been using a different unifrom for the last year in much of Afghanistan having adopted the short term field expedient of the multicam pattern so that guys on the cutting edge at least have some camo worth the name.

Ground level feedback is often a point easily missed in DC and in places like TACOM (where a retired LTC buddy of mine now a DAC tells me that the least respected opinion in the room is usually the voice of the user. As a CIB wearer he is frustrated to the point of despair at the smug disregard that he feels is shown to bottom up feedback- clearly this same thing happened with the uniform). In the case of the ACU- multiple and sustained complaints from the senior NCO's of the Army were the driving force behind getting the ACU Camo pattern revisited.

We're getting close to a relationship that works between ACUs and PFDs. There difference to me, did the Army honestly have no idea of these issues when they ordered them in the first place? The Coast Guard couldn't order failed PFDs and then use them for a decade. So, the failure here isn't that they not need them, it's that they ever purchased the old ones in the first place. How is that even justified?

"Hey, we got you PFDs, but they don't float"

It's not like there was a mechanical failure with the ACUs or something suddenly happened. They were purchased and worn by U.S. soldiers and civilians for how long? We're admitting these were issues before correct?

You don't put on a bad PFD... why did the Army feel the need to put these POS ACUs on? Can't even roll up the sleeves! :eek:
 
I have a problem with the Army making service dress uniform changes "just because"- (especially when they surveyed about half the force and then disregarded their input in the design), but I have a real problem with them having rolled out the ACU in it's current design only to discover later what was apparently found and disregraded in early testing- that the pattern doesn't work. But as far as rectifying it- they need to do what they need to do which in this case is dump the uniform and find one that serves the purpose. If you can't understand that logic it's probably because you are missing the same point that the bean counters initially missed when fielding this albatross- that being that soldiers lives actually matter and that these uniforms are dangerous and counter to the safety and mission accomplishment of soldiers on the ground. As far as them living with it thru the war- well in fact they have been using a different unifrom for the last year in much of Afghanistan having adopted the short term field expedient of the multicam pattern so that guys on the cutting edge at least have some camo worth the name.

Since the Army can operate in many different environments (Desert, Urban, Arctic, Jungle, etc.) Why doesn't the Army just issue those specific types of camo to the troops deploying in that specific region. In other words, why not just have a state-side fatigue for the majority of the Army and specialized camo for the deployed forces?
 
We have the best aircrafts and ships in the world now, and that should remain fact for a while.

Russia never had a blue navy. Not heard of any new advance submarines coming out Russia. The oil money is flowing, but not so much where Russia spends billions and billions more on their defense. Are MIG 29 or MIG 25 better our F 15 or F 18?

China's new mighty aircraft carrier is a concern. I don't think it's nuclear, so someone smart can tell me how much fuel it will require to venture out to the Pacific Ocean. I believe they are still expertimenting with vertical take off or assisted take off aircrafts. From what I recall, Russia never had a good aircraft carrier capable aircraft.

How do you define what is the "best" aircraft or ship? This is a question that reveals some insight into the design processes of the Russian vs American Military. From an engineering perspective...

We like things that are technologically advanced and cutting edge, but that means we spend a LOT more money in the R&D department. A lot more than the USSR did. The USSR favored getting a bunch of ships/planes/weapons out at the cheapest cost possible.

Example: F86 Sabre vs the MiG 15. We spent a lot of money on the swept-back wing design to find a way of cutting down on Edy currents with fast speeds. The Russians idea? Bolt pieces of metal onto the wings to control airflow. Not as advanced as new air foil designs, but certainly a lot cheaper and more efficient economically.

Another Example: USSR Subs vs USA Subs. The USSR focused on putting a bunch of weapons on their ships and didn't take crew comforts or livability into consideration. Americans wanted their ships to be more comfortable for the crew so they could stay out at sea longer. Our idea was that we would want our at sea endurance to be longer, while the Soviets wanted to fight as much as possible.

"Best" really depends on what you're looking for in the design. If China can produce more fighters than we can of the F-35 that could spell trouble for us. 10 high tech aircraft can't deal with 100 aircraft of slightly lower quality. You only have to look at WWII to see that economies, not armies, win wars.
 
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