You probably know that the M16 had all sorts of problems when first issued but they eventually figured it out. But I agree, they would've gotten it correct out of the chute going with Glock.

I'd hope we'd be doing better with quality control and product testing in the past 40 or so years.

Well maybe only if it is done:


That is not going to help confidence.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

They would have been better off with the Taurus

Last year I read the bio of an AF fighter pilot who re-invented fighter tactics during the 60's and 70's, among other things. Guy's name was Boyd. Towards the end he was heavily involved in military procurement. Was really an eye-opener about how dishonest the process can be. Military officers decided that their career advancement hinges on a certain "system" winning the bid and being successfully fielded and as a result all sorts of BS is pulled during evaluation and testing.

I have this naive vision of military leaders being the most honorable folks around us, so the chapters on procurement shenanigans, some of which would curl your butthair, went down particularly hard.

An example. There were lots of tests of the Bradley Infantry Fighting vehicle's ability to protect the Infantry squad inside. They'd fire various kinds of ammo at it and then inspect what happened. In order to game the tests, and with the full knowledge of some of the military leaders involved in the test, they drained the diesel out of the Bradley and replaced it with water. Obviously that would change the vehicle's tendency to brew up.

One change that resulted from Boyd being a complete bulldog on the issue of the Bradley being able to protect the Infantry squad and alienating the shit out of everyone involved, was the Army had to spec Kevlar sheets for the Bradley's interior walls to reduce spalling of the interior AL surfaces when struck by bullets.

Military procurement is a dirty business.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

That Bradley story is nuts. Reminds me of the Osprey program boondoggle.

They made a comedy movie / Mockumentary about that in 1998 called "The Pentagon Wars". It was funny but wow, having been at the sharp end i was pissed to see the corruption and lack of concern for the common soldiers safety.

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I'm partial to H&K. I'm always trying to come up with a reason to buy a Mark 23.

I have been in the Canadian military for 23 yrs, now retired... My experience with the military is that anybody with the rank of Captain and above are nothing more than politicians in uniforms. Passed that rank we have no leaders, just managers... JC

My perception was that the transition between "function" and "sounds pretty" was LTC/COL. Some Majors were, imo, very strong. Some not so strong. But that was about being bright, disciplined, and competent. Not about having lost the basic value of "plans needs to actually work, not just sound pretty".

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Your military is using a gun made by the Swiss. THE SWISS!!!

#MakeAmericaNeutralAgain

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Having worked with the PPCLI I disagree with you

To my mind it's more closely related to how close (or how far) you are from the troops who're out on the cutting edge doing the fighting. And I don't say that in a pejorative way as we need all these supporting organizations--and their officer/senior NCO 'managers' IOT do the things that need doing out on the cutting edge

For example

When i was a TF CDR in Iraq we lived, trained, and fought 'outside the wire' with our Iraqi Army counterparts. Occasionally i would hear my guys talking down about the "Fobbits" in a very derogatory and derisive manner. So a few times when we were all sitting down talking about things i would remind them: "who puts the latest armor on our gun trucks? who rigs us up with the latest IED jammers? who fixes our NODs, COMSEC, MGs, and gun trucks when they break? Who drives out once a week to bring us semi-decent chow? Who provides our mail?....."

These are all very necessary combat multipliers and if the officers/senior NCOs that 'lead' these organizations are more manager than steely eyed killer than so be it

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Steve

RangerGress wrote:

Last year I read the bio of an AF fighter pilot who re-invented fighter tactics during the 60's and 70's, among other things. Guy's name was Boyd. Towards the end he was heavily involved in military procurement. Was really an eye-opener about how dishonest the process can be.

John Boyd. Excellent book!
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War

I think you're way off-topic. There's been no criticism in the thread of support pukes (and of course I would only use that term fondly). I criticized those in the procurement process, both uniformed and not, that are not only dishonest, but are so in ways that are going to get people killed. The Bradley vignette in the Boyd book is so reprehensible that you'll want to throw up.

Then there was the Canadian that was hard on field-grade and higher officers. That's a fair point. Imo that Army "idea machine" got so out of control in the '90's that we got darn little useful stuff done. I was constantly being handed BS responsibilities for "look good" reasons, and I couldn't get anyone in my chain of command to care about important shit. My people couldn't shoot for squat and there were weapons systems in our load-out that few of us had any familiarity with at all. But trying to fix that was an impossible task because no one cared. What my chain of command cared about was the "look good happy horseshit" like "consideration of others training", "Dental statistics agreement with the DentAc", "inspecting the windshield wipers of soldier's cars", and "having soldiers stationed at the local HS and PX to "show a presence"".

We had created a culture where the chain of command would happily put silly stuff on us all day long, entirely forgetting that time was finite and that Quarterly Training Briefs run training. So there was never time/energy for good shit. The system had structural impediments for good shit, like programming ammo and range time a year out. And any task that didn't have it's on QTB slide wasn't worth doing. And because it was the cultural norm, instead of being outraged and pushing back, CPTs and Majors became the next generation of that same culture.

In my experience, it's the smooth talkers full of "look good" that get the stars, not the warriors. That lack of warrior culture trickles down pretty quickly.

I keep hoping that it will change. But my Army buddies say that it has not. Such a bummer.

But to re-iterate..... No criticism of support pukes in this thread, so no defense needed.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

You remember patrolling from Ranger School right? So go ahead and execute a listening halt right now after exiting the wire IOT get a feel for the sights, sounds, and smells of the battlefield. Hear that "whoose?" That's the sound of my point going over your head ;-)

My response was directly solely at our Canadian veteran brother who baldly asserted that there are no leaders above the officer rank of LT. Go back and read what he wrote. That's what I was responding to

A. Having worked with the Patricia's in peactime and combat I know he's wrong as I've seen many of their officers at CPT and LTC level perform in the field and they were exemplary Leaders

B. Following from that was my assertion that even if one is a manager--not a Leader--that's not really a bad thing in many cases outside the cutting edge forces.

Totally agree that our (USA) procurement system is FUBAR. There are many reasons for this. The SIG pistol came in to the field in an amazingly short amount of time comparatively, and I'm confident that eventually all these glitches will get worked out.

Carry on there Hi Speed :-)

/r

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Steve

I got wrapped in your paragraph defending support-pukes. I guess I felt obligated to push the point that no criticism of them was intended.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

 

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Steve

I’ve read the book about Boyd, and I also know a fair bit about USAF weapons and tactics, with about 3,000 total flying hours, to include combat time. Boyd, IMO, is very overrated. He did some great work regarding energy, and his concepts are still taught today, but he couldn’t ever envision a future where technology could come into play. He and his cronies, who were to go on to become known as the “Fighter Mafia,” believed very strongly in essentially pure maneuverability and short range weapons and tactics. They despised the F-15 Eagle due to it’s complexity and size; yet it is still undefeated in a combat air-to-air to engagement and still a formidable opponent. The F-15 and it’s capabilities are what allowed the USAF (and the IAF) to completely dominate any fighter force they’ve come into contact with. The Fighter Mafia wanted very simple day fighters with only ranging radars and short range IR missiles, which, if we had bought into their view, would have resulted in a USAF that would be unable to fight at night or even achieve air superiority against a number of third rate air forces equipped with aircraft with more complex radars and radar guided missiles.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

I hear you, but the AF seemed to have some crazy ideas in the 50s and 60s that Boyd was the man to kill. Like a fighter called the F-111. That said, I acknowledge that I'm an outsider. Except for some ground liaison officer work, the only interest I had in the AF was all your pretty girls.

I was heavily into an Internet air combat game 15-20yrs ago. I'd be embarrassed to state how many hours I was on line with thousands of others, fighting air battles in WW2 planes. It was pretty damned hard because, to the extent they could in that day, the game developers were running pretty realistic physics models. The idea of "energy fighting" was an obsession to us. We'd practice in the different planes to study their performance characteristics in great detail until we intuitively knew how much energy a maneuver would cost a certain plan at a certain speed.

I was stunned, decades later, to read the Boyd book and find that Energy Fighting was a relatively recent development, and one that the military was apparently pretty slow to adopt.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

The F-111 wasn’t the USAF’s idea, it was Robert McNamara’s. The USAF wanted a deep strike fighter (essentially more bomber than fighter) and the Navy wanted a long range interceptor. McNamara thought that the same plane could fit both requirements and forced the F-111 concept on the USAF and the USN. The F-111B (the USN variant) was hopeless as a fighter; in F-111 guise as a bomber, it was pretty damn good.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

Rats. I had higher hopes for the success of that F-111 point. <g>

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

My son was in the RCD and he doesn't have a lot of use for career officers that are stuck at Captain since getting to that rank is a mandatory promotion. He also didn't appreciate the fact that they seemed to have teflon suits when it comes to misconduct issues. And when an officer does care, this is what they do. People should go to jail, just not the one the politicians want.