Army says no to more tanks, but Congress insists

[dan_bgblue]

Same Old Story (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/28/army-says-no-to-more-tanks-but-congress-insists/?test=latestnews)

[badrose]

Smells of kickbacks.

[CitizenBBN]

Smells of kickbacks.

At least one component of the F-16 fighter was made in every congressional district in the US. There's a reason so many were made.

Congress forces projects on the military for the lobbying of the manufacturers. Part of that is about the directorships and lobbying deals they'll get when they leave office, but also for the jobs that will be created or saved in their districts. They force bases to stay open the military doesn't want for the same reasons.

That article says there are as many as 560 subcontractors involved in the production of the Abrams. That's how you keep support for a project in Congress, make sure every single Congressman will have someone in their ear about how they need that contract.


The tired argument is they must keep production going or they'll lose the ability to make new tanks or whatever in the future. There's less truth to it than it may seem, as things can be done to address those concerns, and evolution of our production is a normal and unavoidable reality of technological advancement. The guy who makes the seats for the Abrams probably isn't going to lose some unique welding expertise we'll never be able to recapture. We're talking about not making tanks for the US for a few years (we still make them for other nations), not burning the library at Alexandria.

[UKHistory]

I am 8 track kind of guy in an i pod playing world. I am all for the tanks.

At the end of the day armor and troop levels will determine what countries stays on top. We can talk about mobility, drones, delta and special ops all day. Sounds great. Sounds like modern warfare. The true lessons of warfare are bloody and barbaric. They are not clean or remote controlled.

What ensures total victory stays total victory and not the birth of revolution is troops on the ground supported and protected by armor.

[Doc]

So the Army said "tanks, but no tanks"




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oShTJ90fC34

[dan_bgblue]

Army wants to keep what they have and Congress says new is better (http://breakingdefense.com/2013/06/14/army-killed-new-carbine-because-it-wasnt-twice-as-good-as-current-m4/?test=latestnews)


The problem is that, despite five years of back and forth between government and industry, the gunmakers apparently still did not have a clear idea of what the Army actually wanted.

I can not imagine that, can you?

[CitizenBBN]

Army wants to keep what they have and Congress says new is better (http://breakingdefense.com/2013/06/14/army-killed-new-carbine-because-it-wasnt-twice-as-good-as-current-m4/?test=latestnews)


The problem is that, despite five years of back and forth between government and industry, the gunmakers apparently still did not have a clear idea of what the Army actually wanted.

I can not imagine that, can you?

This is how we ended up with the M16 in the first place. the military (all militaries) are notoriously conservative about changing equipment and weapons, esp. individual weapons. The Army was so reluctant to change they finally just got overruled altogether and got the M16. Had they been willing to be more open and had been more actively pursuing improvements and new designs as a normal course of R&D it may not have happened that way.

Not that I'm forgiving McNamara and the Whiz Kids for a damned thing. If it were up to me there would be a national holiday where once a year we dig up their bodies and desecrate them and bury them again till next year. the mistakes of the war are largely on him, even if the Army was in a case like the M16 no doubt infuriating and evasive to the point of "asking for" a forced on them solution.

That story is a GREAT example. The Army clearly rigged the whole test. They sand bagged the companies on using the new 5.56 round and then provided them almost no rounds for testing and none for taking back to work on in the lab. Think about that, they can't sit in the lab and test magazines and receivers and the most basic operation with the actual ammo to be used. Weapons are tuned to the power of the round, but they got no rounds to allow that calibration.

Without that ammo no way they could have made a "leap" forward except by near accident b/c they couldn't have tested any radical theories, so they stuck with more mainstream designs b/c that's all they could do.

Clearly the Army killed the project with various such maneuvers, from withholding the ammo to not releasing some of the criteria till test day on the range. this is EXACTLY how they behaved during the Vietnam era, so when McNamara said "the M16 is the new service weapon" nad they said it needed some things fixed McNamara nor anyone else in the White House listened b/c the Army had been crying wolf and using the same kinds of things as excuses to avoid changing weapons.

The people in the Army making this decision want the M4, period. They are as stuck on it as they were the M14 back in Vietnam, and as stuck on that as they were the M1 when NATO was formed and they had to move down to a smaller weapon and round. There's a great history on how Army Ordnance was against the Henry Repeating Rifle b/c of caliber differences and mostly the potential to waste ammo.

I don't think Congress should be telling the Army which weapon to use, but what happens is the Army shows so much unjustified reluctance to R&D new weapons eventually the critics both inside and outside the armed forces end run and force something on them.

As you know I'm a fan of the Soviet approach to small arms at least in the assault rifle category. Lose a little in accuracy but gain a lot in reliability and maintainability. This article was talking about how the new 5.56 round was wearing out barrels with fouling. the SKS/AK design chews ammo dirtier than a Victorian London chimney sweep. I wish I had the time and money and shop tools b/c I'd love to try to tinker with mythical hybrids between the AK/AR approaches. A gun that has the accuracy and flexibility of the AR and the rugged reliability of the AK. Something with a loose tolerance in the action but with a gas system that is tight enough to not upset bullet travel. The "perfect" rifle. There are some good ones out there already, and the M4 with the new 5.56 probably isn't one of them.