Eric Umansky

Quite Cool

I just came across the latest edition of the U.S. Army's Military Review, a kind of scholarly journal for military folk. It's got some interesting articles--on the Anbar Awakening, on "Human Terrain Mapping" (fun!), etc--but what really caught my eye is that it has a version in Arabic. (And in Spanish, Portuguese.)   Al-hamdulilla!

Even Armored Humvees Now Inadequate

So says the top Marine's second-in-charge.   I missed this bit from Tuesday's USAT:

By John Diamond and Steven Komarow, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Even the most heavily armored Humvees may be inadequate to protect U.S. troops from ever-changing insurgent tactics, the Marine Corps' second-ranking general told lawmakers Tuesday. New vehicle designs, however, would take years to develop.

[...]

However, the roadside bomb attacks that have killed and wounded hundreds have forced the Pentagon to consider alternatives to the Humvee, he said. "If this is the threat of the future, the long-term utility of the Humvee has to be questioned," he said. "We have to take continued steps to find what will defeat this kind of a threat."

The insurgents are threating to outpace the U.S. in terms of technology and tactics. It's not that their technology is better it's that they're adapting faster. To put it in military geek terms, they're getting inside the our OODA loop.   

The solution to that is partially military and frankly bureaucratic. For example in May, the  Wall Street Journal recently detailed how  some insurgents  have figured out how to defeat the military's bomb-signal jammers. The jammer's maker has created an updated model, but the Pentagon procurement office seems to be dilly-dallying:

As soon as TMC engineers learned of the problem, they quickly figured out how to upgrade the Warlock-S [jammer] so it could counter the enemy's new tactics. The company briefed the Army on its plans in early March. Army officials told TMC they were interested -- but have yet to make the fix.

"The insurgents can make a switch in five minutes," says Troy Scoughton, a TMC senior vice president. "Unfortunately it takes us five months."

Let's hope the Pentagon can improve on that. But to me, there's another, much larger lesson hinted at here here:  The ultimate solution (or killer app)  isn't  tactics or equipment,  it’s political. If you're fighting a no-frontline insurgency, where your enemy has the home-court advantage--and hence a quicker learning curve-- you're unlikely ever be able to  'harden' your forces and equipment enough.

Air Force Training Cuts

Noah Shachtman flags a Defense News article reporting that the Air Force is seriously cutting combat pilot training hours:

Air Combat Command (ACC), the primary provider of combat airpower, is cutting 32,000 flying hours to help compensate for its $825 million operations and maintenance shortfall.

"Starting early this summer, units may have aviators unable to get required training to maintain full combat-ready status," Col. Jim Dunn, deputy director of flight operations for ACC, said in a written statement. "Overall effectiveness will become a growing challenge."

With this cut, the command now has 21,000 flying hours left of the original 53,000-plus hours programmed for the rest of this fiscal year -- a 60 percent reduction...

Retired Gen. Hal Hornburg, former ACC commander, said the cuts are "a big deal" and show the military's grim financial situation.

"They're not cutting fat, they're cutting to the bone," Hornburg said, noting the Pentagon has taken large sums of money away from the Air Force to pay for the Army in Iraq.

Noah calls this "another sign of how the

Iraq

war is slowly grinding down American military readiness." But it's also such  an obviously bad decision I wonder if there's some twist in the backstory.

 

Rumsfeld Unraveled

Read far enough in any blah profile and you're bound to find a nugget or two. See the NYT's take this morning on Rummy, and this line upteen paragraphs in:

"When it became evident that we were going to face a determined and prolonged insurgency, he was very resistant to increasing troop levels, stepping up production of up-armored Humvees, and modifying the game plan," said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

I must return to toiling on the papers. But let me leave you with two related items:

From yesterday's LAT piece about the troubled offensive in western Iraq:

"We require more manpower to cover this area the way we need to," said one military official, who requested anonymity.

The Marines have three battalions in Al Anbar, one fewer than six months ago — and each of those battalions is missing a company, say military commanders. A battalion consists of about 1,000 Marines and a company generally has about 150 troops.

From a Slate piece I did last year on the weird slack  funding for armor kits on Humvees and particularly trucks:

While the White House insists that there's plenty of money already budgeted to cover operations through the end of the year—mostly from the $87 billion that Congress approved in the fall—by the Pentagon's own estimate, the current budget already scrimps on retrofitting Humvees. According to an Army document offered to Congress, the military has an existing $323 million shortfall for add-on armor kits.

Most of that missing money would cover Humvees. But the military also wants other vehicles—trucks, tankers, etc.—to get the kits and, according to the Army, those are being underfunded, too. For instance, the current budget has just 27 percent of the money the Army estimates it needs to get medium trucks up to snuff. This situation doesn't seem to improve with the proposed 2005 budget. As Sen. Ted Kennedy noted in a recent Armed Services Committee hearing, "Medium truck add-on armor kits: zero '04 funding, zero '05 funding. Heavy truck add-on armor kits: zero '04 funding, zero '05 funding."

I'm not saying Rumsfeld purposely chose to skip funding on this stuff. I am saying he was more worried about other things, like high-falutin' transformation.

Stryker Stryker

The WP has a big takeout today documenting a bagful of problems with the Army's new armored vehicle, the Stryker. Its strap-on armor is too heavy, and only marginally effective. Its gun doesn't work on the fly. Its computers tend to freeze. Etc. etc.

As it happens, I was once looking into the Stryker myself last year, and in the process talked with the Pentagon's former chief tester. As he explained, the Stryker was rushed into production--and then combat--without proper testing. Hence the problems above that the Post details.

But he also explained the larger context, and one that the Post misses: The Stryker is indicative of what's wrong with the military "transformation" plans that Rumsfeld is so excited about.

The general philosophy of the Army's transformation plan is "lighter, smarter, faster." Basically, the idea is that vehicles won't have to be heavily armored since they'll be networked and filled with top notch sensors meaning they'll have so much information about the battlefield there won't be any need for head-on fighting. 

The problem with that approach when it comes to Iraq is pretty obvious: The  Pentium Power and Wi-Fi networks will probably help you spot enemy  tanks, but it probably won't be the deciding factor against the guys in the neighborhood hanging around with RPGs. For that, the best intel isn't tech-based but, it's from the guys' neighbors. And the belief that the high-tech stuff will provide solid enough intel so as to avoid major combat--and thus the need for heavy armor--seems  just dunder-headed. 

But don't believe me. According to the industry newsletter Inside the Pentagon, Rumsfeld (to his credit) recently recirculated a RAND paper offering lessons  learned on Iraq. Among them:

"Be cautious with respect to Army transformation plans that move to lightly armored vehicles and heavy reliance on networked information systems, given the difficulty in translating good sensor coverage of the battlefield into good situational awareness."

Again, to translate that into English: Just because you have a good computer doesn't mean you know what the hell is going on.

(Let's see if Rumsfeld really follows up.)