Frosted Flake posted:

Aside, my ideal military is the parade ground Late-Victorian/Edwardian Army, with all of the pomp and circumstance, alternating with wholesome foreign service. Only instead of occupying India, doing something genuinely nice and helpful.


(but not racist)

Unfortunately, this is not really how foreign service works, unless someday in the future, the UN will issue robin's egg blue Wolseley pattern helmets with white puggarees.

But given the current socioeconomic and political system, anything we do will end up like the IDF, both in the sense of murdering innocent people for no reason, and the military devolving into MIC grift and atomized troops living in lovely barracks, who either hate their job or are there to murder innocent people.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

quote:

This is why I keep harping on about strategic bombing being overblown. A weapon that excels at making defeated foes feel more defeated doesn't seem very useful except as a method of terrorism. Terrorism that seems to rarely ever work at disheartening foes in any militarily useful way though I suppose it might improve morale of your own troops to see the enemy civilians massacred and driven to misery. Maybe the Dolittle raid is an example where that might've been somewhat consequential (for US troops and civilians I dunno how it made the Japanese feel though it certainly didn't seem to slow down their war machine or make peace factions any stronger).

I feel like the MIC driven strategic bombing advocacy coming out of the US has probably made war even bloodier and worse for civilians than it overwise would've been. Artillery can more thoroughly flatten a city, but the attacking forces have to drag the artillery to where it needs to be used. With strategic bombing a country in a fit of pique can order death and mayhem for a civilian population without air defenses at will. All that mayhem for such vague reasons even to this very moment where the IDF is massacring civilians while doing nothing for their troops getting ambushed by Hamas (dti).

I remember Fog of War being good, but it was still probably too charitable to McNamara who was an advocate for all this dumb poo poo even back to WW2.

quote:

It is just McNamara talking, and it is where the line "if we had lost the war, we would have been tried as war criminals" comes from. I wouldn't say he fesses up for everything he did (it is called Fog of War after all) but I think there is an acknowledge the damage that was caused in the name of empire.

As for strategic bombing, it arguably can make a difference but it arguably won't decrease the ability of an enemy's population will to fight if they have other means to do so. The Blitz nor the Royal Air Force's "dehousing" program stopped the war. Usually, it is most effective when the air defenses of an enemy are already weakened (Italy in 1943 and Germany in 1944) and continued bombing can be conducted. The USAAF eventually did damage to German industry, but arguably it wasn't the mustang that was the key, but the massive air losses the Germans were experiencing in the east.

That said looking at Gaza, despite massive damage being done, strategic bombing (even by tactical aircraft) hasn't achieved the result desired because the Palestinian people can still fight.

Ardennes posted:

I don't think directly beyond mentioning McNamara was generally part of planning at the time as a young man. The focus is on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I would say Hankou/Wuhan and Matterhorn in general was simply the United States having zero consideration for the bombing of (even allied ones) populations to achieve their goals. It was also only possible really when the US had bombers in range but also that Japanese air defenses had already become weak.

quote:

The Hankow Raid by Timothy J Kutta

As the 20th Air Force struggled to get its strategic mission moving towards success, the various ground commanders in the Pacific requested the planes be used in a tactical role to support their operations. Gen. Stilwell, in particular, was strident in his requests for B-29 support. But the Army Air Force's war making philosophy was still set in concrete: victory through strategic bombing. Any deviation from that approach was viewed as heresy, and tactical ground support missions were to be avoided at all costs.

But in the autumn of 1944, with the issue on the ground in China still very much in doubt, Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, at that time overall commander of US forces in China, asked LeMay to use his p lanes to hit the Japanese army logistics base at Hankow. Hankow had been captured by the Japanese in 1938, and since then it had been developed into a major military supply terminus, river port, railroad center, and road hub. Its facilities had been instrumental in supplying the 1944 Japanese spring/summer offensive, operation Ichi-Go, which had inflicted great damage on the Chinese army.

After much debate and in-fighting, the Joint Chiefs of Staff intervened from Washington to order "bomber Baron" LeMay to honor his superior's request and carry out the raid. The fact that the plan had the full support of Gen. Claire Chennault, who was then serving as the air advisor to the Chinese government, helped it win out over the air power purists.

The plan was simple; it called for all operable B029s then in China to be massed for one low-level incendiary raid over Hankow. Until then, the B-29s were not normally used to carry incendiaries, and they never committed at low altitudes. But LeMay agreed to the plan partly because it appealed to his own "hit`em hard" personality and partly to satisfy the "ground pounders" and get them off his back.

On 18 December, 94 B-29s, four our of every five loaded with incendiary bombs, attacked Hankow from 18,000 feet. All but 10 of the planes made it to the target, and the raid lasted 60 minutes, during which time over 500 tons of bombs fell on the city. Huge fires were ignited across Hankow; its three-mile waterfront burned for three days. The devastation was amazing: supplies, docks, warehouses and other facilities were simply burned out of existence.

The Japanese forces in China were forced to hold in place for the next month or so, until logistics facilities and stocks could be rebuilt. The raid had worked beyond all expectations. Of course, LeMay remembered and soon reapplied the lesson learned in the skies over that crowded Asian city. He and his staff improved and refine the technique and used it ruthlessly against the Japanese in their own homeland during 1945

Frosted Flake posted:

There’s a book on strategic bombing in the CBI theatre that might help. Title escapes me but I think it was USNI Press?

gradenko_2000 posted:

yeah McNamara became SecDef because he was known for having pioneered the statistical approach to area bombing in Japan

gradenko_2000 posted:

it's not "materialism" to reduce warfighting to a production plan while being ignorant of things like ideology and political economy. the US couldn't, and still doesn't, recognize that bombing everything into dust doesn't cause a Douhet-ian impulse to overthrow the current government just to make the bombing stop, and neither does "body count" matter to an enemy that's fighting for national liberation

yes, it's nominally good and productive to have a way to mathematically determine how much firepower you'd need to take out any one target, under certain conditions. what isn't being answered is whether why you'd want to target it, and whether it advances your goals to do so.

Frosted Flake posted:

I would disagree about the US not understanding wars in political terms. US use of airpower is the result of political decision making. Because of how the US military works, first the USAAF, then the USAF staked out missions that would allow them to operate as an independent service and part of the nuclear triad. Those missions therefore had to be at the level of grand strategy. If you announced to the Pentagon that you mission was destruction of rail lines, close air support, and tactical/interdiction bombing, you are first not going to be allowed to go from an Army Air Corps to an Army Air Force, then become an independent service, or maintain your importance, independence and budget. Each of those missions, essentially, support the Army in their objectives, therefore the air forces should be, if not subordinate to the Army formally, at least not achieve the same standing. Their missions would be dictated to them by the Army, in any case, which would be dictating the overall direction of the war and theatre.

gradenko_2000 posted:

I mean, that's domestic politics. Sure, the USAF knew how to maneuver itself into becoming its own organization unto itself.

Frosted Flake posted:

Yes. A lot of this was worked out in the Johnson-McConnell agreement of 1966 and earlier Key West Agreement.

Ardennes posted:

I would argue it wasn’t much of a deviation beyond utilizing strategic bombing at low altitude to support ground operations rather than industrial targets.

In the end it was only possible, if at a high cost, because Japanese AD was so weak.

Frosted Flake posted:

Well, see that was the problem. The Army asked them to bomb east-west, parallel the line of contact, following a road. The Air Force didn't want to spend all of that time over German flak, as both major roads and the front line had AAA concentrations, so decided on a north-south approach. So when they dropped their bombs prematurely...

Frosted Flake posted:

This ties into my favourite subject: liberal states hate that soldiers require social relations, they can't be motivated by the market, and they're not machines. Of course they want to privatize via PMC and automatic via unmanned systems everything they can, but it's proven, repeatedly to be impossible.

So, a soldier is not a "combat unit mk 1", they're a person, right? So assuming they do all of this poo poo they're talking about, what happens when they discharge that person into civilian life? I mean, because the military sucks (for aforementioned liberal states not understanding human relations), the average western soldier barely manages a 3 year hitch these days. They will spend, by far, the majority of their lives on civvy street.

What are the impacts on our society of soldiers who have those qualities? Does it effect the civilian labour market? What are the long term problems and effects of these treatments? They hate it, but they have a lifelong responsibility to veterans. So, growing super-tumours, obviously, that cuts into your recruiting, and that's a VA cost.

Idk, it's very funny that we're teetering on this edge and they really still think they have perfect control and can push things as far as they want, but - not an endorsement but a historical perspective - the point where those soldiers kill you for how you're treating them (or what you're doing to society) comes long before the point where you turn them into automatons that behave exactly how you wish and who you have perfect control over.

Frosted Flake posted:

Since the 2000's, I'm not sure about earlier.

Frosted Flake posted:

Nonsense posted:

Now that Kissinger, like Bismarck, has passed, war can begin!

Frosted Flake posted:

touche

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

don't underestimate the ideology of MBAs looking at the military and thinking "we just need better processes and tools here, the people aren't what matter" like they do with every other job

i don't know enough, though i'm sure some of you do, but i wonder if that's where the modern popular conception as soldiers being easily replaceable comes from? i've been thinking about FF's post about effective soldiering being about technique and mentality a lot lately

quote:

The AGCT was used in WWII in place of the Army Alpha and Army Beta Examinations. It was designed to better assess intelligence and learning ability in Army and Marine Corps recruits, as well as aid in their job assignment. Besides measuring intelligence, it was designed to measure specialized aptitude related to technical fields, clerical and administrative jobs, radio code operational tests, driver selection tests, and language tests.
The test was short lived, in 1950 the Armed Services switched to a single screening test, the Armed Forces Qualification Test. However, over the course of WWII over 12 million were screened by the AGCT.
The AGCT was similar to the Army Alpha and Beta in that it suffered from cultural bias.

Frosted Flake posted:

It's because in the 40's or whatever, they thought spacial awareness was a requirement for operating complex machinery, and being a soldiering was, and still is I suppose though not as dramatically, very technical. In the IJA, for example, there were soldiers recruited from rural Japan who had no idea how internal combustion engines worked that had to serve as mechanics. So the idea is if someone naturally understands shapes and space, they'll intuitively understand how to operate x or take apart assembly y.

Frosted Flake posted:

The more concerning thing imo is that it proves that colour revolutions can be induced to fight to the death and can't be rolled back.

I would expect a similar thing, liberal colour revolution paired with nazis, in Moldova, Georgia or one of the central asian republics.

Scarabrae posted:

https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-recruiting-service-tracking-data/

lol

Palladium posted:

look if you diverted more MIC pork barrels to the constituencies of the Ms. Insider Trader she might figure out the real problem isn't because of 70 days waiting for medicals

The Oldest Man posted:

...
The whole point here is that the Western MIC is so loving blinkered that it won't even try to adapt until forced to, very likely by a shocking military defeat, and that even once it starts trying it probably won't be able to because its cost basis and industrial capacity are totally hosed too

quote:

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

I'm trying to keep a low profile in the IP thread.

Slavvy posted:

Cavalry charge = NATO air power

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Someone explained this better in either this thread or the Ukraine thread, but the idea that money is power has vaporized people's brains when they try to apply that logic to the military.

They really do believe that GDP is the same as national strength, because you can just buy military power. You give a trillion dollars to LockMart and then... you win. How much they make of anything, how long it takes to deliver, if it's even good, like basically doesn't enter into it. It's spreadsheet thinking, but, idk my brain can't tap into it.

I think the people who came up with the RMA in the 70's-80's were kind of bullshitting because they saw the military balance with Warsaw Pact. Reagan and Thatcher required, on an ideological level, that NATO was militarily superior, so these guys promised the moon to them, that somehow, qualitative superiority - which really only meant more expensive - would guarantee that NATO would have an advantage if only the projected equipment for the 80's, 90's, The Year Two Thousand was funded.

Then 1991 really pushed this into overdrive, and everybody believed the hype, even though the armies that defeated the Iraqis were actually not fielding the new equipment of the RMA in most cases - the Marines went to Iraq with M60s, only 7% of munitions used were smart, etc.

But now, it doesn't matter how many times this has proven to be a worse military system than the 1970's in, arguably, most ways other than communications and certain types of sensors, people take the RMA stuff as gospel, instead of failure after failure for 20 years.

Here's where I hit kind of my intellectual and theoretical ceiling, but probably one of you is better equipped to handle it:

I don't think the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs is unrelated to either neoconservatism or neoliberalism, the timing is too similar to be coincidental, and all three refer to the others, but I can't really prove it because I don't know why that would be. Obviously the belief in technological dominance is a bit part of the sales pitch for neoconservatism, Max Boot's insane book War Made New is worth reading to know how these people think. I think the relationship to neoliberalism must have something to do with the idea that producing things isn't just unnecessary, it's almost dirty.

Idk. People who believe in all 3 things run the world though, so maybe someone should look into that.

quote:

In pursuing this type of cooperation, it has become increasingly clear that
there is no single model for restructuring of defence industries. Although there
are common problems and challenges, it is in the interest of each country to
pursue its own specific policies, taking into account its political, social and eco-
nomic environment. In order to better understand this dualism and to draw
appropriate joint lessons, special emphasis is placed on the analysis of practi-
cal experiences of defence restructuring. This part of the work includes indi-
vidual case studies and draws on the experiences of a broad range of relevant
agencies, national administrations, the management side of private and public
companies, and local and regional authorities. It also allows the sectorial and
regional dimensions of defence restructuring to be taken into account.

Cooperation in this area will continue to be centred on practical aspects of
the restructuring and adaptation of the defence industry sector, taking into
account regional differences. In general terms, developments in the demand side
of the defence market, as well as the response of the supply side through indus-
trial restructuring, and the economic consequences of the latter, need to be care-
fully monitored. Moreover, defence industries are losing their singularity and are
being increasingly obliged to bow to market forces. It is therefore also crucial to
analyse effects on the economy of the privatisation of defence companies.

Security aspects of economic developments are discussed at an annual
NATO Economics Colloquium and other seminars and workshops. The
Economics Colloquium is attended by experts from business, universities and
national and international administrations, and provides a framework for an
intensive exchange of ideas and experiences in the economic sphere. Themes
addressed at recent Economic Colloquia have included the social and human
dimensions of economic developments and reforms in Cooperation Partner
countries; the status of such reforms, their implications for security and the
opportunities and constraints associated with them; and privatisation in
Cooperation Partner countries

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

I wonder if this would apply to artillery

fits my needs posted:

https://x.com/starsandstripes/status/1770862938565279843?s=20

quote:

The U.S. Marine Corps in Review
By Lieutenant Colonel F. G. Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve

The performance of IBM, General Motors, and Ford over the last few decades proves that organizational success is forged in a crucible of intense market competition. Long-term success requires a company to transform itself continually, in response to changes in the strategic environment and customer demands for new services and products. Failure to respond leads to obsolescence. The same is true for our military forces today. In the face of a dramatically different security situation and revolutionary technologies, standing still today equates to stagnation, operational failure, and-ultimately-irrelevance.

What separates successful visionary organizations from the pack is the cultivation of a culture that accepts change as an opportunity rather than a threat. The very few truly visionary organizations constantly adapt and breed ideas. More important, they transform the ideas rapidly into operational capabilities.

While the phrase "institutionalizing innovation" might seem an oxymoron, the Marine Corps made major steps in 1996 to do just that. Much of this effort took place at the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC) at Quantico, Virginia. Under the command of Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, Quantico is living up to its reputation as the intellectual crossroads of the Corps. General Charles Krulak, Commandant of the Marine Corps and a former commanding general at Quantico, calls it the crown jewel in what he describes as the Corps' two major purposes: making Marines and winning battles.
Institutionalizing Innovation

Innovation is hardly new for the Marine Corps. During the last major revolutionary era just prior to World War II, the Marines saw amphibious operations as an opportunity-where others saw only failure and limitations-when they anticipated the need to project U.S. naval power across the vast distances of the Pacific. From 1919 to 1939, the Marines studied the Dardanelles campaign, mined it for critical lessons, and reengineered amphibious warfare to produce an operational vision for the next generation of Marines. In experiments then known as Fleet Exercises or FLEXs, concepts developed at the Naval War College at Newport, Rhode Island, and Quantico were refined to make this operational vision a reality. The successes of the Pacific campaigns in World War II can be traced to this process. The FLEXs of the 1920s and 1930s produced a proven model for today's Corps to emulate.

The Commandant's Warfighting Laboratory at Quantico and its Sea Dragon experimentation process are today's vehicles for accelerating innovation. In order to fulfill the Commandant's intent that the Warfighting Laboratory serve "as the cradle and test-bed for the development of enhanced operational concepts, tactics, techniques, procedures, and doctrine" for introduction into the Fleet Marine Force, a fairly comprehensive experimentation plan has been developed. As of May 1997, the Marine Corps has completed the first of two increments of the first phase of this plan. This initial phase, known as Hunter Warrior, commenced in January 1996, and focused on the development of operational concepts and advanced tactics for operations in an expanded littoral battlefield. The first increment culminated in a major force-on-force Advanced Warfighting Experiment (AWE) during February-March 1997 at the Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center, 29 Palms, California.

The Warfighting Lab conducted a series of Limited Objective Experiments (LOEs) during 1996 as part of the buildup to the culminating AWE. These included battlefield engagement experiments, new targeting procedures, innovative means of providing timely and precise combat service support, improvements in small-unit tactical mobility, and the use of nonlethal technologies. The use of unmanned gliders as a way of resupplying units operating in an expanded battlefield without disclosing their positions was tested. In another experiment, a "Gecko," a wheeled ground robot, was controlled from a distance of two miles to examine its application as a ground reconnaissance and target acquisition system. If vision and experimentation are the sine qua non of long term success, then Sea Dragon, while not the answer, is certainly a means to that end.

The Corps is stretching its mental muscles with the New Sciences program, an effort to explore the potential of complexity, chaos, and other "nonlinear" sciences. Like the 19th-century theorists who relied upon the physical sciences to explain warfare, the Marine Corps looks to these new sciences for insights and explanations for the complex phenomenon of 21st-century combat.

Once limited to purely abstract theories in the pop-science literature, practical applications of the new sciences are making headway in the business world, where several firms are applying nonlinear solutions to economic forecasting and manufacturing problems. Thanks to these new sciences, an eclectic new lexicon has emerged in discussions about combat at MCCDC-chaos, complex adaptive systems, genetic algorithms, nonlinearity, and self-organizing systems are terms frequently used around Quantico and in doctrinal publications.

The Marine Corps views war as a nonlinear system and believes that the study of war can benefit from this approach. To support this inquiry, MCCDC has sponsored two conferences and promoted research projects with industry, academia, and think tanks, including the Santa Fe Institute-internationally recognized as the incubation center for ideas and research in this new discipline. The curriculum at the Marine Corps University includes an introduction to this emerging field, and students have explored the new sciences as part of their future warfare studies.

Operational analysis and computer based combat simulations are areas under consideration for applying these new sciences. Today's simulations are based on deterministic or attrition-based models that fail to capture the essence of warfare: an intelligent, adaptable foe. New computer models using genetic algorithms have demonstrated the ability to adapt and learn during battles. This is a risky area of research in an embryonic field, but risk-taking is part of "riding the dragon of change." There are no guarantees. "We continue to investigate this area not because [these models] will provide all the answers," said General Van Riper, "but because they offer the only known opportunity for exploring many of the important features of warfare."

The information age affects more than military organizations, and the Corps has reached out beyond what many construe as the traditional bounds of military theory; the relationship with the Santa Fe Institute is one example. Another initiative involves the study of environments where rapid decisions must be made in an environment of information chaos and overload. To learn from other professions with information-rich operating environments, the Marines have teamed with the New York Mercantile Exchange in a series called Trader's Games.

Of particular interest are the dynamics of decision-making processes coupled with absorbing large volumes of digital information and making decisions from pattern analysis and intuition. The Marines believe that in future, time-compressed combat environments, the leader who can develop decisions and implement them faster than his opponent will gain a major advantage. Traders in the volatile futures and commodities markets have similar problems. As one of the senior Marine participants put it during the third game conducted in February 1997 in New York, "If they want to ensure accuracy, the deal will go by, and if we wait, an opportunity in a particular battle will go by." Hence, their methods and techniques are of special interest to the Marine Corps as a possible baseline for future battlefield success.

From these experiences, the Marines recognized that the traders had something to teach them about learning to grasp patterns quickly from a seemingly chaotic display of varied forms of information, and how to use large information displays to identify patterns and gain feedback for faster decisions. From this exchange, the Corps has initiated a number of new training initiatives to permit Marines to get decision-making practice from daily discussions about military matters, small tactical problems, and computer simulation games.
Organizational Initiatives

The Marine Corps' recently established Chemical Biological Incident Response Force (CBIRF) is a clear example of the services' ability to meet rapidly a new requirement with a new capability. This unit was conceptually developed from January to March 1996, approved on 4 April, and activated on 15 June. It is composed of approximately 400 Marines and Sailors and based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Its mission is to respond to chemical and or biological incidents worldwide, with a focus on caring for the casualties and after-effects of a chemical or biological incident. The unit has access to the aggregate knowledge of leading U.S. experts through an electronic link. The CBIRF was first deployed last summer for the Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

Other organizational innovations include the development and use of nonlethal technologies. Leveraging recent Marine Corps operational experience with such technologies during Operation United Shield in Somalia in 1995, the Corps was designated the Pentagon's Executive Agent in March 1996, to ensure the further development and deployment of this capability throughout the armed forces. The capabilities fit the Corps' anticipated need for future conflicts that might preclude lethal and indiscriminate firepower. As Lieutenant General Anthony Zinni, the former Combined Task Force Commander during United Shield, noted, "With nonlethal weapons, we can address more situations effectively and have a better chance of controlling the escalation of violence in the complex environments we are most likely to encounter." Marine expeditionary units began deploying with these technologies in 1996.
Training and Education

The Corps continued to focus on the individual Marine, rather than technology or platforms. On the battlefields of the 21st century, according to General Krulak, "the junior enlisted Marine is going to have access to, and the need to use, more information than a battalion commander might today." Thus, to operate successfully in this environment, the Marine must be comfortable with high technology weapon and information systems, and trained to know what to do with them, all the while remaining a warrior without peer.

In chaotic situations, the Corps requires leaders and Marines who can tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty and make rapid decisions under stress. Accordingly, the Marine Corps continued to stress professional military education and daily tactical decision making, and took steps to acquire and distribute a variety of simple but effective computer games throughout the Corps.

The Corps' biggest efforts to enhance individual Marine training began in late 1996 at the recruit training depots at Parris Island and San Diego. The traditional transformation that takes place at these institutions was strengthened in an effort to produce a Marine totally imbued with the ethos and values of the Corps and fully prepared to win on the battlefield of the 21st century. On 1 October 1996, recruit training was extended to 12 weeks, for both male and female recruits. Supporting this change is a dramatic enhancement of core-values acculturation, totaling more than 60 hours of instruction, discussion, and training reinforcement critiques.

The capstone of this enhancement effort is the addition of what is called the "crucible" event-the culmination of the entire recruit training experience. It is a 54-hour field training evolution highlighted by food and sleep deprivation, physical and mental tasks, and a pace that relentlessly challenges the recruits while emphasizing core values and the importance of teamwork in overcoming adversity. The crucible is the defining moment of recruit training and establishes the foundation for continuing the Marine's values and character development throughout a career of three years-or 30 years. Those who complete it view a video narrated by the Commandant, which enables him to reinforce the significance of completing the test and, more important, address each one of them for the first time by the title "Marine."

Complementing these efforts is an initiative to enhance unit cohesion. Military history demonstrates time and again the enhanced combat effectiveness of military units with high cohesion. To make the most of the vast power of cohesion, the Marines want their new troops to join together, train together, and stay together longer than present recruiting, initial skill, and final specialty skill training programs permit. A team-integrity program at military-specialty-producing schools was established in late 1996 to synchronize the Marine enlisted training cycle with the deployment rhythms of the operational forces. This life-cycle approach should improve the Corps' use of personnel resources, reduce attrition, provide longer periods for progressive training, increase unit stability, and ultimately increase fighting power.

The Marine Corps stresses the moral development of its leaders at all stages of the educational system, beginning at recruit training but continuing throughout the full career. According to Brigadier General Rusty Blackman, President of the Marine Corps University, "While honor, courage, and commitment have been hallmarks of the Corps for more than 200 years, we wanted to reaffirm these values and their centrality in today's dynamic age." The Commandant is aware that generating cohesion and transforming moral values is an uphill fight and that these programs could easily be seen as a subtle criticism about the fraying social fabric of America today. He does not shy from the issue. "The parents of America are working overtime to build good Americans," he commented, "That's my struggle too."
Operations

The year's operational activities began in Haiti, with Marines supporting the United Nations and the U.S. Support Group, Haiti. Combat Service Support Units and Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams from II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), Camp Lejeune, assisted that struggling democratic state. Other II MEF Marines provided security and support services to Joint Task Force 160 in Operation Sea Angel, the migrant handling and processing task at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Counterdrug operations continued along the Southwest border of the United States, and in the Caribbean with Marine operational missions, radar support sites, and logistics providing a significant boost to interdiction operations in the region.

Marine strike and aerial refueling aircraft, as well as security elements, continued to support humanitarian relief tasks in Operation Provide Promise in Bosnia until March 1996. A Marine Expeditionary Unit-Special Operations Capable [MEU(SOC)] remained poised in the Adriatic as theater reserve for NATO. Since June, the Marine Corps has provided an unmanned aerial vehicle whose mission is imagery and intelligence support. Marine F/A-18 fighter-attack and EA-6B electronic-warfare aircraft, operating out of Aviano, Italy, continued to provide support to the International Force as part of Operation Decisive Edge.

The Persian Gulf may have dropped off the Cable News Network scope, but it remains a volatile region critical to the United States and its allies. The Marines provided support in the form of sorties from carrier-based squadrons and amphibious shipping as the U.S. continued enforcement of United Nations-imposed no-fly zones over Iraq. AV-8B Harriers made their first appearance in Operation Southern Watch in 1996, flying from the amphibious assault ship Peleliu (LHA-5).

The importance of the Pacific is well recognized by the Marine Corps. Almost two-thirds of the Corps' operational forces are assigned to this strategically critical theater, which includes half the globe's surface area and more than 60% of its population. It remains an economically dynamic region providing jobs to 2.5 million Americans and accounting for more than one-half trillion dollars in trans-Pacific trade with the United States. Not surprisingly in such a maritime theater, U.S. naval forces are heavily engaged, particularly in Northeast Asia, near Korean and Japanese allies. In December, 360 Marines from III MEF deployed to Guam for Operation Pacific Haven, to assist Kurdish refugees seeking asylum.

Ethnic violence, famine, and disease continue to ravage parts of Africa. In response to these destabilizing influences, Marine forces were ordered to Liberia from their station in the Adriatic in April 1996. During Operation Assured Response, the 22d MEU(SOC) and the USS Guam (LPH-9) Amphibious Ready Group moved offshore Monrovia, Liberia, the site of Operation Sharp Edge in 1990. The commanding officer of the 22d MEU(SOC), Colonel M. W. Forbush, was designated commander of Joint Task Force Assured Response upon arrival on 20 April. In addition to reinforcing the U.S. embassy in Monrovia, the task force evacuated 49 American citizens and 260 other noncombatants. While in the middle of this tense mission, the Amphibious Ready Group and MEU were ordered to dispatch assets 1,500 miles inland to the Central African Republic of Bangui in an operation dubbed Quick Response to evacuate 448 noncombatants, including 208 U.S. citizens. Meanwhile, the USS Trenton (LPD-14) and the USS Tortuga (LSD-46) moved back to the Mediterranean to participate in a major allied exercise, Matador 96, off the coast of Spain. The 22d MEU(SOC)'s performance manifestly demonstrated the range (3,200 miles), flexibility, and responsiveness of naval forces.
Exercises

Cooperative Osprey 96 was conducted at Camp Lejeune as part of the Partnership for Peace program, a critical component of the ongoing NATO effort to establish a relationship with Eastern European nations. Under the direction of the Commanding General, Marine Forces Atlantic, Lieutenant General Charles E. Wilhelm, U.S. Marine Corps, this 16-nation exercise used a military-operations-other-than-war scenario to test the ability of a coalition force to conduct peacetime operations in a littoral area. As part of the exercise, Marine forces trained with forces from Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine, helping make Cooperative Osprey the largest North Atlantic Alliance Partnership for Peace exercise held on America soil to date.

Another highlight was the regular U.S.-Norwegian Exercise Battle Griffin. What made this an unusual exercise was the extensive Marine Reserve participation, including the commanding general and the Marine air-ground task force headquarters. Overall command of the exercise was assigned to Brigadier General Kevin B. Kuklok, who commanded the roughly 4,200 Marines and Sailors involved in the three-week deployment. Almost 90% of the force were reservists, who provided relief for active-duty forces while demonstrating their readiness. The exercise confirmed that the success of the Marine Corps Reserve in Desert Storm was no accident.

South America is familiar to the Marine Corps and the annual UNITAS deployment is one of the Corps' many concrete contributions to regional security relationships. This five-month-long deployment cemented friendships and provided solid evidence of our interest in stability throughout the hemisphere-with a total of six exercises involving nine countries and visits to 27 cities. This year's deployment was expanded to include participation by Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

The number and depth of exercises in the Pacific underscored the region's importance. RIMPAC is a biennial exercise to measure and improve the interoperability of multinational forces that might operate together along the Asia-Pacific Rim. RIMPAC 96 saw more than 1,200 Marines participate in a force comprised of 28 ships including the 11th MEU (SOC) with the USS Essex (LHD-2) Amphibious Ready Group. Ships from Canada, Chile, Australia, Japan, and Korea exercised with those of the United States. The 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, teamed with the 38th Japanese Infantry Regiment in a nine-day training exercise in Japan called Forest Light. Other Marines visited Vladivostok as part of Exercise Cooperation From the Sea 96. III MEF, commanded by Major General Wayne E. Rollings, U.S. Marine Corps, also participated in exercises Cobra Gold 96 and Freedom Banner 96, which were conducted concurrently. III MEF served as the joint task force headquarters nucleus and formed a combined joint task force with the assigned Thai forces. The highlight of the exercise-Freedom Banner-was an offload of two Maritime Prepositioning Force ships in the stream.

The biggest exercise of the year was Combined Joint Task Force Exercise 96. This combined-arms exercise, which involved more than 38,000 U.S. and nearly 16,000 British troops, was conducted at Camp Lejeune and the coastal region off North Carolina. It represented the biggest exercise between U.S. and U.K. forces since World War II-more than 50,000 troops, 300 airplanes, and 53 ships participated. The exercise was marred by the deaths of 12 Marines, 1 Sailor, and 1 Soldier when a CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter collided with a AH-1W Super Cobra in an early morning assault at Camp Lejeune. The crash was the deadliest accident of the decade.

In addition to supporting a strategy of engagement abroad, the Marine Corps also made invaluable contributions at home. Marine Reservists conducted a civic action exercise called Arctic Engineer in Noorvik, Alaska. In September, more than 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton, California, deployed to the Umatilla National Forest, Oregon, to assist the National Interagency Firefighting Center with firefighting efforts. Finally, the recently activated CBIRF deployed to Atlanta in support of the 1996 Olympics.
Total Force

Making Marines and winning battles pose special challenges to Marine Forces, Reserve, commanded by Major General Thomas L. Wilkerson. Reserves met this challenge in the Gulf War, but they cannot afford to stand pat if they expect to achieve integration in today's fast-paced operational environment. General Wilkerson agrees, noting "We can't afford to rest on past accomplishments. We have to constantly improve, innovate, look for smarter ways to do business. We have to learn to make change our ally."

Judging from Reserve performances from Operation Sea Signal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the cold weather of Exercise Battle Griffin, the reserves are living up to that task. Past recruiting and retention challenges were overcome in 1996. All unit commanders were tasked at the beginning of the year with giving their Marines a clear picture of their wartime mission, and realistic and rewarding training related to this mission. As General Wilkerson commented, "Our citizen Marines are willing to make the additional sacrifices Reserve participation entails in exchange for these challenges." Without such challenges, drill participation and unit readiness decline rapidly.

Increased mission readiness was evident in Kentucky last October in the first annual Gunnery Sergeant R. H. McCard Tank Gunnery Competition held on the Yano Range at Fort Knox. The competition pitted two Reserve crews against two active MlA1 crews, representing the best of their respective battalions. A Reserve crew, commanded by Corporal G. L. Dunkle, from 4th Tank Battalion, Boise, Idaho, took top honors in closely contested competition with their active-duty peers.

The Reserve Force has established a leading-edge information network called the R-Net, which will link the roughly 200 Reserve Training Centers to New Orleans. The R-Net provides the ability to pass or obtain information rapidly using a LOTUS Notes database and an advanced wide-area network system, something that the active force does not yet have. Given the geographic dispersion of Reserve units, R-Net's capacity to share information and coordinate training tasks will simplify administrative work.

Probably the most far-reaching initiative was the new Readiness Support Program. Employing more than 600 reservists assigned in small teams to each training center, the program aims to resolve a number of deficiencies that surfaced during the mobilization for Desert Storm. The program created peacetime-wartime teams to solve these problems, as well as to assist the inspector-instructor staffs with grass-roots community support.
Programs

In 1995, the Marine Corps got modest increases from Congress to meet pressing modernization demands for the Fleet Marine Force. In 1996, however, Congress finally realized how real the Corps' hardware needs were, and appropriated $1.5 billion more than the Pentagon had requested (see Table 1). Personnel and readiness accounts received modest increases, but $50 million was added for quality-of-life enhancements. Most of the increase went to procurement and R&D accounts, and more than $161 million was added for ground modernization. Most of this went to fund ammunition and the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES), a training simulation system. Aviation got the lion's share of congressional generosity, with almost $935 million added to the $1.5-billion request. The additional funds were to increase procurement and long-lead items for MV-22s, KC-130s, and 6 F/A-18s. The R&D appropriations also were increased by more than $300 million, including $35 million for the Commandant's Warfighting Lab and $10 million for nonlethal technologies.

The Corps moved forward with several major acquisition programs in 1996 that continue to receive congressional support. These programs, notably the MV-22 Osprey and the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle, are essential to bring to fruition the Corps' principal operational concept-Operational Maneuver From the Sea (OMFTS).

The concept requires Marines to strike from over the horizon and to project land forces deep into an enemy's rear areas. The current medium-lift helicopter, the CH-46, simply does not have the range or lift capability to do this. In contrast, MV-22s carrying 24 combat-equipped Marines-flying more than twice as fast and with four times the range of the venerable Sea Knight-offer commanders a revolutionary capability for power projection. The Corps hopes to receive the first of 425 production models in 1999 and to achieve an initial operating capability by 2001. Congress saw fit in 1996 to increase the Pentagon's plan for initial production funding from four to five in 1997. The Corps continues to lobby for an accelerated schedule that should save billions over the current Pentagon-imposed plan, which drags out production over several decades.

The new Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV), together with the V-22, will complete the amphibious portion of the operational maneuver triad: V-22, AAAV, and the Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC). Each component is critical for the execution of operational maneuver from the sea. The ability of the AAAV to transition swiftly from high speed sea movement to high-speed land operations gives Marines a great increase in their ability to apply force at operational depths. With three times the water speed and twice the current armor protection of the 40-year old model it replaces, the AAAV will permit the projection of forces from sea to inland objectives using its high speeds-up to 45 miles per hour-to exploit weak points in an enemy's defense. The AAAV program made several major strides in 1996. In June, General Dynamics Land Systems beat out United Defense to win a $216 million demonstration-validation contract. General Dynamics, which will develop three prototype systems, has opened a facility in Woodbridge, Virginia, to maintain a close relationship with MCCDC and the Marine Corps Systems Command at Quantico. The Marine Corps will seek initial fielding sometime in 2005. Congress provided $20 million in additional funding for 1997 that will accelerate final development by one year.

A Navy-Marine Corps power-projection force creates significant opportunity for strategic and operational maneuver, but the opportunity is predicated upon sufficient naval platforms to lift and maintain a sea-based posture. Inadequate amphibious shipping, however, precludes sea basing and maneuver from the sea. Thus, the December 1996 contract award for the USS San Antonio (LPD-17), lead ship of a new class, was good news. The ships will have a crew of 493 and carry more than 700 Marines. Capable of sustaining a speed of 22 knots under way, the LPD-17 class has deck space for two CH-53Es or two MV-22s, and carries two LCACs. The first LPD-17 is scheduled to arrive in 2002.

No congressional authorization and appropriation cycle would be complete without a little excitement. Since the Goldwater-Nichols Reorganization Act was passed in 1986, the Corps has been underrepresented in joint commands and external billets. The Corps has the fewest general officers, in relative terms, but a few critics objected to the Corps' request for additional generals. In the end, the Corps got an authorization for an additional 12 generals, who will be assigned to joint warfighting or operational billets.
Assessment

Last year's assessment identified three challenges for the Corps: maintaining a credible Pacific presence, acquiring money for modernization programs, and preserving the primacy of personnel over technology. The present Commandant has made significant progress on all three fronts.

With a projected 30% of U.S. trade dependent upon overseas markets by 2010, threats to the global economy will have a direct impact on U.S. economic health-and the Pacific Rim could account for as much as half of U.S. exports by then. With seaborne trade quadrupling, protecting sea lines of communication therefore will become a vital U.S. national security interest. Accordingly, the Commandant pursued a new training initiative with Australia, which was eventually approved by then-Secretary of Defense William Perry and the Australian government. The number of exercises held in the area will increase in 1997, as will an exchange of school quotas between respective staff colleges. The Corps also dispatched a survey team to explore potential training sites.

Adjustments to Marine presence on Okinawa were negotiated with the Japanese, leaving the Corps' critical position astride the major Pacific sea lanes relatively intact. Regional training and exercise programs have been improved, but more can be done with educational programs and language training in the Corps.

Congressional funding brought operational maneuver from the sea a small step closer to reality. The Corps has been long on vision and short on cash for about a decade now; Congress seems poised to change the cash trend, but the line-item veto could hamstring the Corps' usual supporters. The Marine Corps' ground modernization program is about to reach several critical milestones-the AAAV, artillery, and tactical mobility. All require a major cash infusion. The most significant obstacle will be battles over future military requirements in the Quadrennial Defense Review and the National Defense Panel. Getting the new Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, to increase the glacial MV-22 production schedule also is critical.

Of all the success stories in 1996, none offers more significant or more subtle change than the "transformation" program. In an age where an inordinate emphasis is placed on technology, the Corps continues to recognize that highly trained and educated people are the ultimate military platform and the cornerstone of the Corps. With its transformation program, and related training components, the Marines appear committed to ensuring that tomorrow's leaders have the proper training, education, and character to succeed both in operations short of war and on the chaotic battlefields of the 21 st century.

The entire Marine Corps is undergoing a far more significant, but less visible, transformation. In all the ongoing programs at MCCDC, from the warfighting lab to the new sciences, the Marines are pressing forward across a wide front. This institutional transformation, which refocuses the Marines on the needs of the next century, will, like all forms of innovation, involve some degree of debate. The interwar development of the Fleet Marine Force and the Tentative Landing Manual did not emerge without opposing views, and many Marines still do not perceive a need for change, continuing to focus myopically on the tried-and-true expeditionary skills that are today's tool kit for crisis response. The Commandant will have to educate his Corps on the need to look forward and adaptor be swept aside. The Corps cannot afford to wait until the 21st century to react.

Many ideas will be put forward in the near future, and they should be put to the test in war games, exercises, and actual operations. Some of these ideas will be found far beyond the bounds of traditional science and military technologies for new tools and techniques, which is why one finds Marines at the stock exchange and the Santa Fe Institute. Some ideas will succeed, and surely some will flop. The prognosis looks good, but stimulating progress while retaining core capabilities can be a daunting task. Moving ahead while defending the Corps' stake in the upcoming defense reviews will require a highly focused effort in 1997.

Cao Ni Ma posted:

At the same time army G1 sent out a communication on the procedures to voluntary come back into active duty if you retired. lmao we are just a few steps below involuntary callings

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

There’s been some work done on this since the 70’s at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and UofT.



(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

quote:

What confuses me is that the Americans broke up each one of the ferocious German armoured counter attacks thrown at them: El Guettar, Gela, Salerno, Anzio and Arracourt.

So, even if the scale of the armoured attacks in Russia was larger, the Americans therefore defeated the 10th Panzer Division, 21st Panzer Division, 1st Fallschirm-Panzer Division Hermann Göring, and 11th Panzer Division, which were each as good or better than most of the units the US would subsequently idolize for fighting in Russia. In the Battle of the Bulge, the Americans defeated practically all of the famous Waffen SS formations: LSSAH, 12th SS, Das Reich, 9th SS Panzer plus Panzer Lehr.

Who are the mythical German formations worth idolizing the Americans didn't defeat by war's end? Großdeutschland?

zetamind2000 posted:

"no question but the Germans were brilliant in all things military (even if they didn't win many wars)" might be one of the most nearly getting the point things I've read in a while

atelier morgan posted:

you don't need to defend them, it's simple posiwid

cybernetics strikes again

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

I'm going to stop you right there. Canadian Forces Spousal/Partner Employment and Income Project: Research Framework and Methodology makes it pretty clear they have made single income households impossible, even on officers' pay, and military spouses make 50% of their civilian-married equivalents with the same education and work history. This is after they privatized housing and set the remaining housing at market rate. Several family and dependant programs and benefits are administered through SISIP, a subsidiary of Manulife (Manufacturers' Life Insurance Company) with the incentives and results you'd expect.

atelier morgan posted:

(the firepower disparity gets even more lopsided at the company/battallion/brigade/etc level)

Morbus posted:

Americans already carry way more poo poo than any soldier should be, to the point that High Speed Low Drag Operators got so famously run down like dogs by Afghans (despite being uphill of them) that they had to make a movie about it. They are just ridiculously inefficient about what they spend that weight on. 14" carbine that somehow weighs 10 lbs? Sounds great. Machineguns all heavy pieces of poo poo compared to a 60 year old PKM? This is fine. loving compass: that'll be half a pound. *Slaps AN/PEQ-15* this 2 gram laser diode comes in a 213 gram package!

gradenko_2000 posted:

I know it's Sorkinesque slop, but there's that scene from Charlie Wilson's War where Gust Avrakotos decries the CIA's policy of dismissing a bunch of first-generation hyphenated-American agents over suspicions of insufficient national loyalty because "they're barely Americans themselves" and that sort of contradiction undergirds this particular aspect of imperialism where America is supposed to extract the brains of their colonial holdings and create legions of compradors raised on American culture that will ensure pro-USA politics in their home countries... but it's constantly tugging against the latent xenophobia. You can't plant native-speaking saboteurs inside China (or wherever) if you refuse to let them attend your universities for fear of them being spies for the other side.

quote:

African American Atlantic Treaty Organization

Tankbuster posted:

well he ruined a country trying to do socialism. Its as american as it gets.

Orange Devil posted:

I'm like 90% sure I've played this map in a CC5 mod.

quote:

You gotta defend the whole line because you don't know where the enemy will attack. Even once the attack starts you can't all go help out because what if it's a faint? What if there's two attacks? So a bunch of you just sit there twiddling thumbs while looking alert and really hoping not too many of your friends are getting blown to shreds. Meanwhile the guys being attacked are deep in the poo poo throwing out everything they got keeping the enemy off.

They probably either get blown up by a preparatory barrage or rack up real good K/D ratios due to defenders advantage. Though in real life it turns out you don't care so much for the K part once you do the D part.

The Oldest Man posted:

[tank destroyer doctrine has entered the chat]