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Post by quincannon on Feb 21, 2014 12:40:43 GMT -6
Fred: The C141 was manufactured by Lockheed, and at the time they had star incorporated into the names of their aircraft, Starlifter, Starfighter, Shooting Star etc.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 21, 2014 13:22:10 GMT -6
Getting back to the original question on this thread. Military units do stagnate in garrison over prolonged periods. It is for that reason they must have periodic training events inserted, and the more frequent the better. Even in the days of the Army in the west, there were always comings and goings in the same manner there are today. Only the guidon remains the same for units are ever changing. Field time is essential.
One of the real problems with LBH is that units did not operate well together. This is really an easy fix and involves usually about three weeks to a month training time. Time that was not spent, and no excuses were offered, or would be accepted (by me at least) for the time was available.
Officers and key leaders get stagnant as well. With long service in one unit you get into a leadership rut. My Rector at church I think expressed it best when he told me, it would take seven years on average to make that church his own (meaning differing policies from his predecessor) and by that time it would be time to move on as he would be fresh out of ideas. To me that both sounds reasonable, and applicable to any organization including the military. There is nothing worse than a stale leader, unless it is state rye bread with your corned beef sandwich, which even hot mustard cannot cure.
So Tom, all the ills of the military can be solved with enlightened, decisive, astute leadership, and without it even the best, highly motivated raw material produce nothing but a stale, moldy, corned beef sandwich.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2014 13:36:49 GMT -6
Can't hold a candle to you folks in flying tales but I'll add my 2 cents. Was ordered to USS Enterprise and after a couple days of transport from DC to the Philippines, got aboard a COD (think it was called a Greyhound then). Got a look from one of the few windows at Enterprise. We were at altitude and I thought my God, we're going to land on that!
Short story: I'd swim before doing that again. The experience gave me great respect for the fliers of the F-4's and others. Used to escape from the bowels of the Big E, when I could, and watch flight ops. The F-4 was incredible! On topic... I have nothing to add
Best. c.
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Post by fred on Feb 21, 2014 13:57:54 GMT -6
Alfakilo flew F-4s in Vietnam. In my opinion, the greatest plane ever, flown by the greatest pilots, ever. My goodness, how we used to cheer when we saw them flying overhead.
Best wishes, Fred.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 21, 2014 16:20:15 GMT -6
Greatest planes ever were the Spitfire, Mustang and Corsair. All in my opinion of course
Most significant aircraft to a ground soldier was the Stuka which started the trend to the A-10 which is one of the all time great battlefield weapons, Fred, if you loved the F-4, you would marry an A-10.
I hate F-4's particularly ones in 1/350 scale for the Enterprise that Chris sent me which I will be working on until the second coming the way it looks now. Each F-4 is a model kit unto itself with a good number of parts for my tired old eyes. I am not crazy about the sixty odd cable hose reels that line the flight deck either. Again small kits unto themselves. And I don't want to even mention all the new curse words I learned hand painting the lines on the flight deck which took me five days. All in all about 50% complete parts wise but the best (worst) is yet to come. Going to be a great model though, even though it is so big I will have to add onto the house to have a place to display it.
Did I mention that the instruction booklet is about as thick as War and Peace. There are two in the kit and the first one I picked up was in Japanese. Boy I am in real trouble now thought I, until I got to the bottom of the box and found the English version.
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Post by montrose on Feb 21, 2014 17:19:18 GMT -6
Ok, let's look at organization design and rotation policies.
1. Cadre model. A set group of officers and NCOs is formed as a core, then the unit is fleshed out with replacements. As discussed, the Germans had great success with this approach in WW2.
2. The infamous COHORT. The US Army conducted a unique experiment. They built a core cadre of privates, then fleshed out the unit with officers and NCOs. The privates were not regionally orientated,. They just lumped together whatever showed up at a basic training company, and made them a cohort. It was a disaster.
3. The GWOT approach. For the current war, we use a unit centered approach. The unit starts training 6 months out. Commanders and senior NCOs are locked in for the duration. 90 days out they lock all personnel transfers. The unit deploys and does a 12 month deployment. Upon return the unit is still locked for 90 days, to allow for leave, family time and recovery. This method has been holding up pretty well. In fact, I do not think the Army could have sustained a war going into its 13th year without it.
The 1876 Army most resembles the cadre approach. The officers and many of the NCOs and enlisted men formed a core, where many of these men had 5-10 years in the same company.
Just remember an annual desertion rate of 25%, in addition to all other losses means instability.
Also remember this is before the professional NCO corps. Officers were centrally managed at the Department of War level. NCOs were managed at company level. So you can go from private to 1sG and back to private, all in single day, at the whim of the company commander. Rank did not transfer, if you changed companies you were a private, unless you could make an arrangement with the new commander.
Now, we have discussed the experience of the soldiers in the LBH campaign. Because of a lack of horses caused by piss poor planning by the regimental commander, most of the new recruits did not go to LBH. But remember the unit picked up a 100 ish new horses that did go on the campaign. So inexperienced animals would have contributed to the straggling problems and weakness of the unit to fight mounted
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Post by quincannon on Feb 21, 2014 17:45:55 GMT -6
Anyone that had studied the Gyroscope program of the late 1950's where divisions would swap places between Europe and the States could have told the Army leadership Cohort would be a complete disaster. I think CMH tried and failed because some Army Chiefs of Staff know more than the tale history tells and Shy Meyer was no exception. Had the Faith-Ross (One a Brit and one a Canadian on loan to us for that purpose) Study been fully implemented however, I believe it would have worked. It was not and it didn't work.
The system we used in World War Two, replacement depots in theater, feeding individual replacements into units was without doubt the most efficient, but also without doubt the biggest hindrance to unit readiness ever conceived. A typical one size fits all approach, more like Ford Motors production line than an army
From time to time I have been very critical here of the 106th Infantry Division. They were by far the worst infantry division we have every fielded anywhere and at any time. To be very fair to them the division was fairly well trained here in the States, and about a month before deployment to Europe they were stripped of seventy percent of their personnel for the meat grinding replacement system. They were filled with personnel from the then canceled program (I forget its proper name) that sent rather bright draftees to college, in hope that once graduated they would become officers. Probably would have worked well if World War II had lasted until 1960. It didn't and the program folded in the fall of 44. Anyway these untrained, but better educated cannon fodder were fed into the 106th and the result was not pretty.
Training means something - life or death.
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Post by tubman13 on Feb 21, 2014 18:37:34 GMT -6
Ok, let's look at organization design and rotation policies. 1. Cadre model. A set group of officers and NCOs is formed as a core, then the unit is fleshed out with replacements. As discussed, the Germans had great success with this approach in WW2. 2. The infamous COHORT. The US Army conducted a unique experiment. They built a core cadre of privates, then fleshed out the unit with officers and NCOs. The privates were not regionally orientated,. They just lumped together whatever showed up at a basic training company, and made them a cohort. It was a disaster. 3. The GWOT approach. For the current war, we use a unit centered approach. The unit starts training 6 months out. Commanders and senior NCOs are locked in for the duration. 90 days out they lock all personnel transfers. The unit deploys and does a 12 month deployment. Upon return the unit is still locked for 90 days, to allow for leave, family time and recovery. This method has been holding up pretty well. In fact, I do not think the Army could have sustained a war going into its 13th year without it. The 1876 Army most resembles the cadre approach. The officers and many of the NCOs and enlisted men formed a core, where many of these men had 5-10 years in the same company. Just remember an annual desertion rate of 25%, in addition to all other losses means instability. Also remember this is before the professional NCO corps. Officers were centrally managed at the Department of War level. NCOs were managed at company level. So you can go from private to 1sG and back to private, all in single day, at the whim of the company commander. Rank did not transfer, if you changed companies you were a private, unless you could make an arrangement with the new commander. Now, we have discussed the experience of the soldiers in the LBH campaign. Because of a lack of horses caused by piss poor planning by the regimental commander, most of the new recruits did not go to LBH. But remember the unit picked up a 100 ish new horses that did go on the campaign. So inexperienced animals would have contributed to the straggling problems and weakness of the unit to fight mounted Damn, you bloody well scare me, as the Brits might say, not only do you nail Reno, you get GWOT, makes me think you still serve! That is coverage of 137 years. GWOT, could you explain the letters, I left the real world in 1996 and live on a farm in VA. Not being dense, just want to know?
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Post by quincannon on Feb 21, 2014 18:41:51 GMT -6
GWOT means Global War on Terrorism.
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Post by tubman13 on Feb 21, 2014 19:33:21 GMT -6
Thanks, Chuck, now I do feel stupid! Maybe I should stop posting.
Regards, Tom
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Post by quincannon on Feb 21, 2014 20:21:40 GMT -6
Why should you feel stupid? We are all here to learn/
Had a conversation today with a member on the telephone today. Both of us agreed that when you call most people ignorant they take it as an insult, just like calling someone stupid which is an insult. IGNORANCE is the absence of information and/or knowledge of a particular subject. STUPID is when you know the right thing and ignore it. All the difference in the world. You don't lose points for ignorance. You lose them for stupid.
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Carl
Full Member
Posts: 125
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Post by Carl on Feb 21, 2014 21:13:45 GMT -6
In re unit stablization. This is ancient history,but on 2 occasions I was involved in a unit that had a year or so of stability in personnel turnover.
In late 1950, every enlistment was extended a year, as well as overseas tour limits. Result was that units in Germany had minimal enlisted personnel turnover through the end of 1951. There is no doubt that the readiness level of my unit increased.
In October of 1952, the last 2 field artillery colored (or black) battalions were integrated. I went to this battalion, which initially had 15 percent of the existing soldiers remain (they were seleted by the officers). The rest were packets from 15 or 20 other battalions, selected my mos and grade by Eucom Hq. All , both existing and new had minimum overseas tours remaining. At The start point, the strength was about 80 Pct of full TO&E and in the next few weeks the unit was filled up with draftee replacments. This unit, then was extremely stable for about a year. That this unit benefitted by the stable personnel environment is proven by the fact that the Battalion in 1954 got the highest score on its Battalion test of all 40 plus Battalions in Eucom.
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Post by tubman13 on Feb 22, 2014 6:35:59 GMT -6
Hi Carl, you were a cannon cocker, I take it? I had 2 very good friends go to Ft Sill in the late 60's one went to Europe with missiles and the other went to Vietnam. Both say the training served them well, both draftees. Pardon me, but I looked up your profile and it seems you live very near the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant. Do you have any tie in with the place? My wife's mothers family was from Marshalltown, IA and one of her uncles worked at Aberdeen Proving Grounds after he got out of the Army, for many years. Lastly tell me about Snake Alley?
Regards, Tom
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Post by Yan Taylor on Feb 22, 2014 12:08:57 GMT -6
Did the US Army use places like the Philippines to train in troops during peace times? The British sent Battalions out to the various Colonies that dotted the globe, India, Egypt, Kenya, Malaya and Hong Kong just to name a few, even between WW1 and WW2 they had major skirmishes with Tribes men along the Northwest frontier of India, they trained a lot of men that way and most went on to be a NCOs in WW2.
Chuck, it’s got to be the Spitfire, Mustang and Focke-wolf 190 for me, but the Mosquito is too an aircraft to leave out, the Soviet Sturmovik was the beast ground attack aircraft, it was like a flying tank.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Feb 22, 2014 13:19:08 GMT -6
Ian: We did not have many foreign stations in those days. We sent troops to the Philippines on a rotational basis including the 7th Cavalry (twice I think) early last century, and if training includes being shot at during those troubles then yes. After things settled down there and a clear path was established toward independence, units stabilized in place, and individual rotation began.
We also sent the 27th and 31st Infantry to Siberia right after WWII, but we withdrew after a short time. The 15th Infantry was in China for some good time being withdrawn in 1940 I think. We also maintained garrisons in Panama, Alaska, and Hawaii. Operationally the Mexican Border was always a big deal in those years particularly involving the 1st Cavalry Division, headquartered at Bliss in El Paso.
The era between the wars did not see much in the way of Army employment, but from the turn of the century on the Marines were involved just about everywhere you can think of. Many of the people in leadership positions at Guadalcanal and beyond were China or Banana War vets, and the experience was invaluable.
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