Do agree with the Second part on Military Transformation - Part Deux of We Just lost the Initiative?

COL Mikel J. Burroughs — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 18:09:05 -0400

Transformation - Part Deux of We Just lost the Initiative...........This will take some time to read before you formulate your comments and thoughts.......Just a heads up for you "trigger finger" RP Pros!

Second part on Military Transformation

In the first post, the author advocated aligning Components as: Land, Air, Naval, and Special Operations Components. This time, he looks at how to align force structure across the Active Duty, Reserves, and National Guard.

Intersting article on the alignment of Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserves.

Do you agree or disagree or is this old news?

http://joetrella3.blogspot.com/2015/06/transformation-part-deux.html

We Just Lost the Initiative.....: Transformation - Part Deux

Response by COL Jon Thompson made Jul 1 at 2015 6:34 PM

COL Jon Thompson — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 18:34:26 -0400

Interesting how he almost switches the current force structure between the NG and the USAR in that the USAR is the combat arms reserve and the NG gets more assets that actually make sense for their state missions. I think that makes sense even though the political climate will never allow this. I am in favor of the recent Army decision to align attack helicopter units with the active force and give the NG the lift/utility helicopters they can use for their state missions. To me, that makes perfect sense but it also caused a lot of consternation with many NG Soldiers. I think the same thing applies to the other combat arms units in the NG. Do they need Bradleys, M1A2s, howitzers, etc. for their state mission? Hopefully not!

So I do think there is a lot of logical reasoning but I cannot imagine every seeing this take place.

Response by LTC Stephen F. made Jul 1 at 2015 6:43 PM

LTC Stephen F. — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 18:43:12 -0400

COL Mikel J. Burroughs After reviewing the article the author makes some good points. However i don't think that a requirement for "Active Duty to be fully self-sustained for 30-60 days" is sufficient. The idea that the Land Component should be primarily combat arms with sufficient combat support and though not directly mentions sufficient combat service support to fight for 30 to 60 days. To make this tenable forward deployed forces and prepo stocks would need to be distributed to cover reasonable contingencies.
Joint Sea basing would help in that it would be a platform for forward sustainment and billeting of Land Forces - currently USMC and Army.
Coast Guard's dual role and the National Guard dual role of Federal and Sate support need to exist for the foreseeable future.

Response by CW3 Kevin Storm made Jul 1 at 2015 7:06 PM

CW3 Kevin Storm — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 19:06:38 -0400

One of the reasons the helicopter issues has been such a hot button for the National Guard, was the way the Army went about it. The guard went through a lot to get pilots trained, units manned, spent a ton of money to get armories and airfields up to snuff, not to mention the amount of full time AGR positions that go with a flying unit. Now you want to snatch them away, after you have been pulling them for how many deployments? No sir, not without a fight. Poorly handled by the AD. As for the writers comments that Guard doesn't have a need for combat aviation, spot on. I also don't think we need armor units, systems are getting too complicated to train with for two weeks a year/ one weekend a month, and Class IX repair part budgets are shrinking fast to keep this equipment maintained, so why have it, if you are not going to fund it. My 2 cents.

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made Jul 1 at 2015 7:11 PM

Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 19:11:11 -0400

On first glance, he seems to be attempting to build the regular Army on the Marine Corps MAGTF model (30/60/90 day expeditionary capability), but when we get to Air Support, I think he has it reversed.

If you are going to have an Active/Reserve Air Component, you'd want to reverse his suggestion. You want the Support Helicopters on Active since they will "always" be needed, especially during training and sustainment, whereas the Attack Birds would only be needed during Contingencies. In other words, activate your Reserve Attack Helicopters as needed, but keep your Support up all the time.

All that said, I disagree with his proposal. It has some merit, but he's trying to do too much, in the wrong way.

My personal suggestion would be as follows:

Everyone is either Reserves (Combat Support, Combat Service Support) or National Guard (Combat Arms). Initial Enlistment/Service is Active Duty, and Subsequent Service is "Needs of the Army" (Reserve or "Reserve on Active Duty"). When you join, you are aligned with a Region (group of states), which aligns with Major Command (like PACOM, SOCOM, LANTCOM, CENTCOM, etc). Each each is manned, and trained according to current contingency planning, which allows expansion/shrinking based on the 2 year NDAA cycle.

USAF/USANG/USN would be aligned similarly. USMC units are already set up as "contingency" forces based on the MEU/MEF structure.

Edit:Word (MEF to MAGTF)

Response by LTC Stephen F. made Jul 1 at 2015 7:24 PM

LTC Stephen F. — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 19:24:49 -0400

COL Mikel J. Burroughs the issue with common configuration of unit structure and organization is one issue. One of the bigger issues is in sustainment. Army has been sustaining materiel that is common to Army and USMC for some time: helicopters, armored and tracked vehicles, tactical vehicles. Common support is considered an overall cost constraint and has been considered a limited force multiple in the past. Spares, munitions and supporting materiel have never been fully funded or resourced.
Overabundance of basing with a high potential for BRAC would be included with any significant realignment of forces because one of the goals no doubt would be reduction in footprint - home base and deployed and streamlining of forces [combat, combat support and combat service support as well as depot capabilities which may be forward deployable but usually function best when fixed locations.
Essential missions need to be thought through for proper balance of military and host nation and contractor support. Spiral development of new equipment and other materiel would help. Extended contract support for new and modified systems would reduce military asset requirements for sustainment, training, etc.
Redundancy is a critical issue. Necessary redundancy provides for a robust set of alternative options for employment. Unnecessary redundancy leads to unnecessary expenditures and too large a footprint. Right now there is redundancy between USMC and Army for land based capability including rotary wing combat and lift. There exists significant redundancy between Navy including USMC fixed wing and USAF fixed wing.
The aircraft carrier versus land based aircraft would be a issue. If there was to be an air power the air force would likely be tagged as the air power which would make sense if USAF has responsibility for carrier based and land based tactical aircraft. [Assume TRANSCOM would have strategic lift assets and STRATCOM would maintain its assets]. This would be a legitimate fight the Navy would stand up to.
COCOMs plans tend to tag the dominant force to support less dominant force structure. Army has been tagged to provide fuel for aviation assets - fixed and rotary. Army and Navy work together with ship to shore fuel flow and other common items. JLOTS can work well especially in littoral areas where sea basing can be force multiplier.
Any issue with modification of the way the Services are organized and equipped needs to consider modernization which is always introduced incrementally because funding is limited and there are different priorities of need in different scenarios and some units tend to be called upon more often than others as quick response forces.

Response by PO1 John Miller made Jul 1 at 2015 9:48 PM

PO1 John Miller — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 21:48:57 -0400

Just like with Part 1, I'm not sure I agree with the author. Sure it looks good on paper but he forgets to take one thing into consideration. The human factor.

"Combat units currently assigned to the Reserve Component and National Guard would be re-assigned to Active Duty to further bolster combat capabilities." I'm not sure that a lot of Reserve and Guard members would be willing to give up their civilian careers to transition back to active duty.

Also, the role of the National Guard is unique and even though the author acknowledges that I'm not happy with his explanation of how to integrate them. Leave the Guard alone, it's good how it is.

If I'm not mistaken, what he's suggesting is basically having a single military, with land, air, Naval, and Special forces. That to me sounds a little too much like communist China's way of running a military.

Response by COL Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 6 at 2015 6:02 PM

COL Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 06 Jul 2015 18:02:48 -0400

The "Part Deux" article, like most discussions and debates of this type, describes AC and RC to a single point of force application, neglecting the fact that wars last for years. Because wars, like the two most recent, Vietnam, Korea, and the world wars, lasted for years there exists a requirement for sustained levels of ground combat forces, necessitating identical sets of formation types in the AC and RC alike. Otherwise, AC formations would be exhausted in 10-18 months of conflict with no rotational backup or counterparts. So it's imparative that the RC (ARNG and USAR) contain the same spectrum of force types and elements to wage sustained combat operations. Citizen soldiers of the RC are integral to the US force posture from practical, economic, and political perspectives.

Any that reads this a thinks we won't fight "those type " of wars again, really doesn't understand land warfare. Even when the shooting part of warfare ends (seemingly), sustainment and rehabilitation of the host nation in inevitable and is the cornerstone for enduring success.

Now to debate structure, consider that the US, relying most heavily on the Army, fought 14 years of warfare in two separate areas of operations with a thorough mix of joint AC and RC units fielded doing equivalent actions against enemies and in support of partner nations, all the while preserving peace in other places on the planet, without drafting anyone. Maybe, the size and structure were about right? Modernization and organizational arrangement for the future not withstanding, the aggregate size was probably right for a military to contend with two major simultaneous threats and conflicts. Assuming Navy, USMC, and USAF capability and structures stay relatively the same, the land ground component of our military is about the right size (describing pre-war force structure), as the Army did not add new structure, but rather transformed astride conflict.