Defense Tech: Legislative Sausage in the Works


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Edited by Christian Lowe \| Contact

Legislative Sausage in the Works

[EDITOR: Good morning folks. I want to introduce to you a new guest blogger we're going to feature here occasionally. He's a defense insider and that's about all I can say here, but you'll recognize his post from last week on the HK416.

It's probably the jading effect of being so close to the biz that's made our new team mate boil over, so for now, we'll just call him "military curmudgeon" as he tells us how it really is.]

Earmarks are earmarks. I don't care what is being done with those earmarks right now.

That is not the case, from the perspective of American warfighting capability.

It is the DoD's responsibility to tell the President/Congress what they need, not for an individual politician to decide for himself what the military needs.

You assume that the people running the DoD actually have the best interests of the fighting man and woman at heart.

They don't. Not when it comes to funding unsexy things like trucks, amphibious ships and cargo planes over their favored toys.

The various services -- who write the requirements that DoD sends to Congress -- game the system to get the favored toys paid for, while ignoring the unglamorous and non-career enhancing.

The USAF's fascination with the F22 over everything has been much commented on here.

How the USAF shorts cargo plane and ground support plane production has been a US Army complaint for as long as there has been a separate air force. The A-10 would not exist at all were it not for legislative log rolling that over ruled the "Fighter pilot generals."

The Marines are in the same position versus the US Navy when it comes to amphibious transports with carriers, fighter planes and subs playing the "F22 role."

The US Army Generals from the "Treadhead," "Grunt," and "Gunbunnie" unions (aka Armor, Infantry and Artillery branches) always short the Army supply of trucks during peace time. (The USMC does not do separate unions, but they short trucks as well, since, hey! That is what the Army is for.)

All of the above play budget games shorting unsexy but mission critical trucks, cargo planes and troop transports for their favored projects.

There are no "white hats" in all of this.

This is the normal "clash of competing interests legislative sausage making that our founding fathers anticipated in the Constitution. It is not efficient or pretty, but it works.

The usual results when legislative reformers try and 'reduce the corruption' of normal legislative sausage making is that it empowers the permanent bureaucracy at the expense of both the troops and the general public.

Legislative sausage making has the ultimate accountability of elections.

The Permanent Bureaucracy is accountable only to itself.

-- Military Curmudgeon

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Posted by: pau at June 30, 2008 03:18 PM

"useless article"? "this contributes nothing"? Despite Military Curmudgeon's anti-American jab at religions in the HK416 article and the "uselessness" of this article, I say give him a 3rd chance and no more. If he doesn't change for the better, then keelhaul MC and have him walk the plank.

Posted by: WR at May 23, 2008 12:51 AM

When the U.S. Army can eliminate ticket-punching and career grooming officers maybe, just maybe the Army will be something special someday. A Patton or Ridgeway would never survive today. That is a problem.

There are only two services that provide true deterrence. They are the Navy and the Air Force. Operations Useless Dirt I and II provide absolutely no useful defense value to the U.S. Especially at the cost of $12-15 billion per month on Chicom inspired credit.

Posted by: ELP at May 20, 2008 08:06 PM

I think one thing about the Skycrane or a variant of it is that it could hopefully take the FCS vehicles a little further than the C-17.I mean,the C-17 could get the vehicle to the airport,but if you were in a mountainous region like Afghanistan,the Skycrane or variant could get it into the mountains.Forget capsules for carrying people,let the CH-47 carry the people,let the Skycrane or its variant carry the super heavy equipment that the CH-47 cannot lift.This would be very necessary if,heaven forbid,we actually decided to send troops into Iran or even the tribal areas of Pakistan.That is my argument for the Skycrane or its variant.As I said before,let the Skycrane both supplement & complement the CH-47 Chinook(work in tandem with).

Posted by: Roy Smith at May 20, 2008 11:38 AM

Roy,

Things to recall about the CH-54 include low airspeed while sling loading, extreme brown-out while hovering over loads in many current environments, and the nightmare process of hooking up the passenger compartment underneath when needed.

The Army operated both the CH-47 and CH-54 and clearly had a prefererence for one over the other.

A recent Aviation Week article says that the Joint Heavy Lift Rotorcraft and Air Force AJACS have been combined into a common program. It also showed a concept for a STOL and VTOL aircraft with a common fuselage.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3A27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3A2198d393-0cbb-4057-adbf-7695511038e6

Suspect that with the VTOL version, with on board loads, your airspeeds would be twice as high and you have the potential for forward angling of the props for short take off to increase load and burn off fuel en route to allow a hovering landing.

Military Curmudgeon's (glad to see like-minded thinking) article illustrates that within branches of the Services, branches within branches (infantry,armor,FA,aviation), and specialties within branches (light infantry vs. mechanized)there is such specialization that knowledge of requirements outside their own area is often very limited.

Leaders who emerge with a particular background are expected to become non-specialists when they reach general officer level...but of course that only occurs in theory. The competetence/expertise that made them stand out in their particular field does not disappear when they become a general officer. Believe they make their best effort to remain objective, but it is hard to abandon engrained mentalities of how to fight, and what is most important.

But even though logistics and airlift should receive more procurement priority than it does, you need to help the logistician and airlift specialist to do their job with fewer assets. If a M1 tank requires 500 gallons a fill-up and burns 2 to 6 gallons a mile, or even if standing still...you have failed in your job of reducing logistics requirements to reduce numbers of trucks...and numbers of exposed logisticians.

The same is true for airlift. If Congress successfully pushes through another 15 C-17s, it will help the Army get to the fight faster....but not as fast as it would if it is transporting lighter FCS and Stryker armor. Logistics assets must be deployed as well. Additional mass for armor protection of logistics vehicles complicates both airlift/sealift and requires more fuel for both combat and logistics vehicles once in theater.

The C-130J is an example of attempts to help airlift that are short-sighted. It illustrates limits in the constant improvement of existing products. The Army cannot make FCS vehicles narrow enough or light enough to survive and fit aboard a C-130J. Earmarks to buy more C-130J is a waste of money.

One thing Sec of Defense Gates may be overlooking is the potential to support both the current wars and future requirements with common systems. The fact that we have had several major conflicts in the mideast in the last 20 years, coupled with the likelihood of future wars over resources and religion, means that a shortsighted view of current requirements being NOW and future requirements being only the distant future, may be a mistake.

Oil won't get cheaper with more users and less available. Food is getting more expensive because of oil and diversion of corn etc to ethanol. The U.S. is sufficiently wealthy to make the transition to new energy sources. Other nations may not have the wealth to pay $5-10 a gallon for fuel or pay food prices corresponding to that gas price and may seek other ways of gaining that resource within the next 10-15 years.

Posted by: Cole at May 20, 2008 09:47 AM

I mentioned the Sky Crane before because I actually saw a "model" of a CH-53 modified to appear like the CH-54 Skycrane.Now the modified CH-53 is just a concept that will most likely "never get off the ground(no pun intended)," but they do already have rebuilt CH-54s already out there & they have frames that can be rebuilt.Of course,there are also plenty of CH-53s out there that can be altered & modified to resemble a Skycrane,but I think people want something bright,new,& shiny instead.Personally,I'm for recycling & rebuilding.

Posted by: Roy Smith at May 19, 2008 11:09 PM

Roy Smith - In regards to your question on the Skycrane:

The CH-53E Super Stallion in service with the Marines since the eighties and is still in service today. It has a external load carrying carrying capacity of 15 tons. I believe that is two or three tons more than the Skycrane could ever carry, is that true?? The Sikorsky designation is S80E.

The Navy also uses a variant for minesweeping and for some heavy lift.

There is a CH-53K version coming out but will not be operational until 2015. But I am not sure of funding status.

Posted by: mike at May 19, 2008 10:58 PM

What a lot of people both in Congress, and, unfortunately, the Pentagon forget is that all these sexy weapons systems are fine and dandy, but one of the strengths of the US military has been its ability to move men and material across long distances in a short period of time. This ability is just as important as precision standoff weaponry, fast planes, and hi-tech grunt gear.

All that stuff is worth nothing if it can't be moved to the appropriate place on the battlefield when its needed.

Posted by: Mystick at May 19, 2008 03:03 PM

Here's a political reality that apparently Curmudgeon hasn't considered.

The reason things like trucks and transports are left for earmarks is because Congress wants the congressmen to get political credit for it. That's basically it. If we got rid of the earmark process in military budgeting, we wouldn't lose these vital purchases; they would simply be included in the larger budget.

Above all other considerations, including party affiliation, all congressmen have the mutual self interest of getting re-elected. So they help each other out by maximizing the appearance of value that the individual congressman brings to the district. They want to be able to point to something tangible and tell constituents, "I di that for you!"

The only reason F22s and aircraft carriers aren't funded by earmarks is that it would appear too obscene and backfire. Otherwise, I guarantee they'd be for it.

So if you eliminate earmarks, you don't eliminate these vital purchases, you just eliminate the political pandering and ego stroking. And you also force militarily useless projects to be considered by committee and voted on, which would reduce wasted money on programs that were glibly ignored by the original post.

Posted by: Nessuno at May 19, 2008 01:59 PM

IMHO, if earmarks are a solution to balancing the DoD acquisition process... Then I think it's time to reform the entire system.
.
"Defense Budget Process"
http://www.csbaonline.org/2006-1/2.DefenseBudget/Process.shtml
.
"Annual Defense Budget"
http://www.csbaonline.org/2006-1/2.DefenseBudget/Annual_Defense_Budget.shtml
.
.
"The Love Guru Trailer" :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLB1r9lh7gY

Posted by: Camp at May 19, 2008 12:37 PM

What the...? This contributes nothing. If Military Curmudgeon has a point to make about the appropriations process, then he should state it clearly along with some organized supporting evidence. If he just has a gripe about our entirely terrible senior military and political leadership, then he should shut up and get out like I did. But either way, no more of this pointless moaning, please.

Posted by: TDS4S at May 19, 2008 12:22 PM

This has to be the most useless article I've seen on here before. Nothing informative about it... just a bunch of whining.

If the quality doesn't improve quickly, DefenseTech needs to remove this "blogger".

Posted by: DFW at May 19, 2008 11:56 AM

I'd buy this argument if there wasn't a 99.9% correlation between congress critters pushing for more of X and X being built in their district.

The DoD's priorities may be out of whack, but at least they are defense-related. Congress forces buys of lots of unecessary stuff and impedes cancellation of white elephants, too. You really have to close your eyes and squint to see Congress' contribution as positive, instead of entirely self-centered.

Posted by: Tim at May 19, 2008 11:47 AM

http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/bym/img/feb05/oshkosh022205.jpg
The new army truck?

They are working on a new truck. I can't remember whats so special about this truck... but I remember hearing its the new one.

Posted by: Foreign.Boy at May 19, 2008 11:28 AM

Kind of reminds me of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie series where ol' Captain Jack Sparrow plans on getting Davey Jones heart with a "picture" of a key.The Military-Industrial Complex is also wasting our time showing us pictures,I wonder how many "billions" of tax dollars those "paintings/artistic concepts" cost us tax payers to "paint"?

Posted by: Roy Smith at May 19, 2008 08:44 AM

I asked a question in another thread about either contracting from or buying back from Erickson Air Crane some of the CH-54 Tarhe Skycranes to supplement our CH-47 Chinook fleet & to help carry the equipment too heavy for the Chinooks to lift to areas unreachable by Military Airlift planes.Now I understand that the idea of bringing back something "long dead" is total anathema to those who want bright shiny new things,but we have nothing serious that could do what the Skycrane could.I've seen "artistic concepts" &/or "scale models" of someone's fantasy,but nothing official.In fact,I've seen nothing official in terms of "tiltrotor" either.God,I've seen so many "paintings" of weapons concepts that we are to take as an article of faith that "they are coming" that they could fill a museum in the "fantasy/fiction" section.

Posted by: Roy Smith at May 19, 2008 08:39 AM

>They don't. Not when it comes to funding unsexy things like trucks,

You are waging a war against Patton :-)
FTTS is sexy!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: pedestrian at May 19, 2008 07:49 AM

Legislative Sausage in the Works

Comments

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