Advise the President re changing Officer Corps promotions

Dilandu wrote:And i agree with that completely. The physical test for the frontline troops should be unified, but if the female capable of meets the standards - it's just logical to use her.

Exactly. If someone meets all the standards, then that person should be seriously considered for the role. Simple as that. Sure, male people are more likely to meet those standards, but that is no reason to exclude the women willing and able to do the job just because they're women.

If I may be so bold, I'd like to revert to the original question...

Ensign Re-read wrote:One good book, this one on the Generals:
[*]“The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today” by Thomas E. Ricks
http://www.amazon.com/Generals-American ... 2+to+today


The problem with most of the above links, and other sources, is that they detail what is wrong with the officer corps, but they don't spell out how to CHANGE the officer corps, at least not in enough detail.
i.e.: What would you tweak, do away with or revamp and how, in order to get better performance out of our military in general, and its system of promotions in particular?

== CLIP ==

I finally got around to reading the EPILOGUE to the above mentioned book by Thomas E. Ricks.
He makes some good points, and I'd like to see them implemented. I _HOPE_ that in the days or weeks to come I will be able to write up a summary of his words in that Epilogue.

My problem is, he writes and ENTIRE book about what's wrong with the officer corps, but he does not spend anywhere near the same amount of effort, time or pages in a description of just exactly HOW a leader (Civilian or Military) would change the system.

In the mean time, while such a summary has not yet been composed, I recommend it to you as some short reading. i.e.: It's just one chapter.


ERR



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HB of CJ wrote:Not sure what you are looking for. To start with make 100% of all Service Acadamy cadets serve a minimum of 4 to 6 years as enlisted. Make selection to the various US military academies merit based on proven enlisted service ability. If possible proven combat veterans only.

Veterans only? That would be exceptionally stupid.

How likely is it that out of every generation of soldiers, the potentially best future officers are also those that happen to end up in "combat". And that adds another problem, how do you define "combat veterans"?

Serving on a ship blockading a port? Launching cruise missiles at an inland target from a submarine?

Many years of service or "veteran" isn´t needed, but having been trained as and served as a "regular soldier" is definitely a good start for aiming to become an officer.
However, "perfect score" as a soldier should not be THE determinator if they can enter officer training, as that cuts out the mavericks and oddballs, and there´s always some of those that end up as quality officers.

HB of CJ wrote:Next I would try to reduce the Brass Bloat. Too many officers. Not enough enlisted. The Air Force is particularly bad at this. Return to late WW2 officer levels. Add on several higher levels of enlisted ratings maybe to E12.

Brass bloat is only bad as long as you allow it to be bad. If you use officers actively in units rather than have them as paper pusher backseaters, it tends to raise efficiency of the units as well as making them far more tenacious.

My own country has used this way with very good effect for a long time now, of course once there´s conflict, your losses will include far more officers as well, but unit efficiency tends to go up quite a lot.

This is exactly why special forces units are often made up either from NCOs or officers only.

HB of CJ wrote:Stop the ticket punching. Create an environment where promotion is based solly on merit and ability.

That one should do wonders for the US military indeed. Not likely to ever happen, but it would be good.

HB of CJ wrote:Clean out all the non combat support services.

They already did that. Or tried at least. Used private contractors instead. Ended up more than a thousands times more expensive at worst.
With less capable support.

Face it, USA is an imperial military power, you NEED an oversized bunch of support services as you never fight on or near your own territory.

You know the saying, amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics.
It´s not really true, but it certainly has a degree of truth in it.

HB of CJ wrote:The Navy needs more smaller cheap ships.

Reduce crew sizes instead. Because building smaller ships are often NOT at all a good idea for a better navy.
Smaller ships handle weather worse, have a lower natural top speed and provides less efficiency per tonnage and manpower. Not to mention how they´re waaayy too easily missionkilled or destroyed by modern antiship weapons.
It´s been said that any ship shorter than 100m or less than 5kt is essentially unable to take even a single hit from modern antiship missile and survive. And that´s just talking about Harpoon level of threats, switch to a KSR-5 missile with a 1000kg warhead and smaller ships are automatic fishfood.

It´s only really if you want to focus on a coastal defensive doctrine that small ships makes sense.

HB of CJ wrote:Lean on new technology only slowly where needed.

Start by doing something about the hideously inefficient purchasing system US military has.
Then learn to make choices and compromise.

The Bradley is a perfect example of the opposite, being nothing like the vehicle it was meant to be from start.

Essentially, get your people to learn to say no, regardless if the ones asking are generals, politicians or presidents or whatever, if it´s a bad idea, say NO.

HB of CJ wrote: Do not get too technological. Keep it simple.

Depends on what you mean with TOO technological, because there´s a lot of things today that are highly technological, but not overly expensive or troublesome, while providing extremely useful ability.

HB of CJ wrote:Finally, get women out of all combat roles. They do serve a purpose. A very limited one. They do fine in support services, but only in a limited capacity.

Honor would be soooo disappointed in you.

So, you want to get rid of up to half the potential future officers of good quality.
For no better reason than "because".

Great move! Or more likely, an epically stupid move.


Change all mental and physical requirements for various positions to realistic ones and then whoever meets the requirements can be given the position.

Anything else is just utterly stupid.

HB of CJ wrote:Women do not belong in physical combat roles.

That´s just pure bullshit. That´s on the level of saying that men with beards do not belong in the navy because they might end up icy.

Or that any southeast Asians are unsuitable for combat roles because they are on average shorter than global average.

HB of CJ wrote:All females are not Wonder Woman. All men are not Super Man.

Exactly, so based on your own argument, neither women NOR men belong in physical combat roles.

HB of CJ wrote:But ... evolution pretty much has determined the roles of the various genders.

Did you know that some years ago, a study in a completely different area ended up finding that the most common cause for females to be shorter and less muscular than males were cultural.
Males are encouraged to exercise, women are not.
And most damning, even in industrial nations in Europe and USA, it was common for women to eat less.

Genetical differences came in second and were found to have less than half the relevance previously "known".

Ah yes, evolution indeed, what a comfortable excuse...

HB of CJ wrote:To even think that women can be as good in physical hand to hand fighting as mean is silly. Break through it. The average male combat soldier will defeat the average female combat soldier. That is mother nature. Duhh!

Even if hand to hand fighting was relevant, that´s rubbish.

Physically imposing does not equate skilled at hand to hand combat.

And as someone who has spent years with martial arts, i can VERY safely say that size and strength are most definitely not the only important parts.

Get thrown to the mat by someone that is less than half your weight a few thousand times and perhaps you might learn to understand that.

Or deliver the smackdown to someone stronger and bigger to yourself a few thousand times, and again maybe you might figure it out.

More importantly however, what kind of army is stupid enough to teach soldiers to go into hand to hand combat as individuals?

That´s just utterly incompetent. They´re soldiers, not streetfighters, act like it FFS.

And once you start fighting like soldiers, organised teams, instead of idiots, individual size becomes so utterly unimportant that it is ridiculous to even mention it.

You might also want to remember that there were more women in "hand to hand combat" or combat at all back in the days when weapons required greater physical strength.

The Hausa-empire was built on the strength of its mostly female cavalry. Just as ONE example.

HB of CJ wrote:I am thinking the grunts of the grunts here. US Marine Corps. Rifleman. Woman do great as support personal and we could use many more qualified females. But not in combat. Hello? Not in combat. Do we understand?

We understand that you´re prejudiced yes.

Please have someone video tape you telling Ronda Rousey that women can't be as good as men in physical hand to hand fighting.

HB of CJ wrote:To even think that women can be as good in physical hand to hand fighting as mean is silly. Break through it.

Now we are finding out the women Ranger graduates did not undergo the same training standards or qualifications as the men. Hummm. Combat veteran simply means that each and every applicant to the various US military academys has been in personal combat.

This means shooting, scooting, you know, like actual fighting. And, having done such they exhibited common sense, had situational awareness, could clearly think during such and successfully got them selves and their men through it without panic.

Proven performance during combat. Very simple. Some people fall apart when the shit hits the fan. Others seem to thrive on it and are also probably not a good selection. A few keep their heads, do not like it, but function anyhow without loosing it.

Those are the ones who should absolutely get a chance to go to the academies. Taking 18 year old untried untested kids and making officers out of them with knowing if they can actually hold up during the shooting is a great weakness of our present system.

HB of CJ wrote:Now we are finding out the women Ranger graduates did not undergo the same training standards or qualifications as the men.

Are we? Care to link to an article or something that goes into more detail?

HB of CJ wrote: Combat veteran simply means that each and every applicant to the various US military academys has been in personal combat.

This means shooting, scooting, you know, like actual fighting. And, having done such they exhibited common sense, had situational awareness, could clearly think during such and successfully got them selves and their men through it without panic.

Proven performance during combat. Very simple.

Simple... Yeah right. So you´re going to make sure there´s always a war going on somewhere just to make sure you have officer candidates?

Seriously man, that´s beyond BAD IDEA with a cherry on top.

Also, you´re cutting out HUGE sections of potentially good officers with that.
For what?

Oh right, the good old "battleproven" bullshit.
A measure that doesn´t actually tell you anything beyond "this time this person seems to have handled things ok".

HB of CJ wrote:Some people fall apart when the shit hits the fan. Others seem to thrive on it and are also probably not a good selection. A few keep their heads, do not like it, but function anyhow without loosing it.

Those are the ones who should absolutely get a chance to go to the academies.

Another of those legends that in reality is not really a good measure.

Rommel certainly thrived in warfare, would you call him a bad choice for officer?

Model totally fell apart even when he was a general, repeatedly. Yet he STILL managed to be one of damned amazing leader, pulling together defences out of apparently thin air.
He tended towards "emotional wreck", yet he kept pulling miracles out of his hat.

HB of CJ wrote: Taking 18 year old untried untested kids and making officers out of them with knowing if they can actually hold up during the shooting is a great weakness of our present system.

No argument there! Your current system is a relic from the good old gentlemans club era, and works as well as it would be expected, as in not very well at all.

Tenshinal; Respectfully. You seem to spend a lot of time bashing other experienced persons opinions. You also walk a fine line between discussing the argument and making it personal.

Being from Sweden, did you enjoy your 2 years of military service? Do they still have that? I for one did not enjoy what I had to do. Very non pleasant infact. But we both did it?

Yous seem determined to make your own points the only points. Not true sir. Other individuals also have memories, experiences and points of view. Again I am just going to ignore your input.

Apparently you are quite liberal. Obviously I am extremely conservative. We seem to live and function in totally different worlds. I for one have little time here on this forum. You more so.

Please have a nice day and you and I will probably never agree on anything ... which is good. But ... please do not spend so much time trying to make yourself always correct. It don't work.

HB of CJ wrote:
Apparently you are quite liberal. Obviously I am extremely conservative. We seem to live and function in totally different worlds. I for one have little time here on this forum. You more so.

And i'm rationalist. And as rationalist I state that your arguments aren't rational at all.

Regardless of Tenshinai's arguments, you have yet to provide anything concrete to support your arguments except personal opinions and un-cited facts.

HB of CJ wrote:Tenshinal; Respectfully. You seem to spend a lot of time bashing other experienced persons opinions. You also walk a fine line between discussing the argument and making it personal.

Being from Sweden, did you enjoy your 2 years of military service? Do they still have that? I for one did not enjoy what I had to do. Very non pleasant infact. But we both did it?

Yous seem determined to make your own points the only points. Not true sir. Other individuals also have memories, experiences and points of view. Again I am just going to ignore your input.

Apparently you are quite liberal. Obviously I am extremely conservative. We seem to live and function in totally different worlds. I for one have little time here on this forum. You more so.

Please have a nice day and you and I will probably never agree on anything ... which is good. But ... please do not spend so much time trying to make yourself always correct. It don't work.