US Army's Deficiency List

[Kirkhill]

http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2005/Army_Badly.htm

This article points out that the FCS system which the Americans were investing in was predicated on defeating large conventional forces.  The appreciation now is that nobody (and I assume the authour knows about China) is investing in those types of forces.

Big issues are communications, light armour and intelligence as well as logistics and training.

The comments on Sigs/Comms are particularly interesting.

Cheers.

 

[pbi]

Very interesting. Clearly all armies have their problems. One of my observations here in Afgh is that the US Army is facing many of the same problems we are, just on a much larger scale and with bigger stakes. The thinking in the article leads me to ask if maybe our current direction on Transformation is not so far off the mark after all. Cheers.

 

[oyaguy]

Interesting read.

Ummm Kirkhill, about your little aside about China, was that a point against the author, mentioning no one is investing in big conventional forces? Or for, in that the biggest forseeable strategic competitor of the US, isn't investing in conventional forces. I wasn't entirely clear on that, and that fact you threw it in as an aside means you might have some special knowledge, if you care to share.

 

[Kirkhill]

Ummm Kirkhill, about your little aside about China, was that a point against the author, mentioning no one is investing in big conventional forces? Or for, in that the biggest forseeable strategic competitor of the US, isn't investing in conventional forces. I wasn't entirely clear on that, and that fact you threw it in as an aside means you might have some special knowledge, if you care to share.

I should be more careful with my asides Oyaguy.  No I don't have any special knowledge about China.  My sense is that while China is maintaining a large standing force and buying some new platforms with new capabilities I have not come to believe that they are replacing all their "legacy" systems with new systems - but that is just my impression.

My comment was offered more in the spirit of 

for, in that the biggest forseeable strategic competitor of the US, isn't investing in conventional forces

.  I was anticipating those that might suggest that if we get into a punch-up of the conventional type the most likely opponents would be places like N. Korea and possibly even China and that that requires a heavy "conventional/legacy" force.  I don't know the truth of that.  I was putting my faith in the author and the author's statement about no one investing in conventional forces and assuming that the author, having better access to data than me, was aware of China's purchasing habits.

My own position on RMA vs Legacy is neutral.  I think you have to work with the tools available and using them to their best advantage.

Cheers

 

[oyaguy]

Hmmm, okay. I wrote a paper on the subject of China as the future super power, but it was very superficial. I can't say I'm up to date on China's military affairs. From the little reading I did for my paper, China's military is mostly focused on an invasion of Taiwan, so it's not a huge military threat against its other neighbours. Some other reading of mine, shows China has a military participation rate, equal to Canada's {I wish I had the web address}. The same site also showed China spends something like $30,000 per soldier for their military. Canada was something like $80,000, and the US was a little more. Also China doesn't really have a blue water navy{which can, and is going to change} so they have a smaller expeditionary force capability than Canada does.

All of this info came with the impression that China is trying to upgrade their military to a more modern standard. I think I just said what you said, Kirkhill, with some interesting but not really important ifo thrown in.

 

[Kirkhill]

It's all grist for the mill Oyaguy.  Keep contributing -  folks like Rusty Old Joint, Infanteer and pbi appear to be particularly well-read on China.  I rely on them and the rest of the members on this board to straighten out my more egregious misconceptions and misrepresentations.

Cheers.