Thin Black Line
Member
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/14158681.htm
But, we have the active duty federal Army staying home to do that, right?
But, we have the active duty federal Army staying home to do that, right?
National Guard low on firearms
- Thread starter Thin Black Line
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El Tejon
Member
The National Guard is the federal army.
Chrissy, instead of giving handouts to your voters in Seattle, i.e. the drug addicts and sofa sitters, maybe you could buy the boys who do the work some guns?
Chrissy, instead of giving handouts to your voters in Seattle, i.e. the drug addicts and sofa sitters, maybe you could buy the boys who do the work some guns?
Chipperman
Member
Clearly the NG should be disbanded, as GWB is just treating them as another branch of active military anyway.
Give the job back to the Well Regulated Militia, who were supposed to do it in the first place.
Give the job back to the Well Regulated Militia, who were supposed to do it in the first place.
Citizens have been wondering about this for decades.
Idea.
Seeing as the militia is an essential part of national security, remove all the laws that infringe on the peoples right to bear arms so they can buy their own damn guns and related machinery.
The Bill of rights, it works!
RevDisk
Member
I was one of the soldiers that was gutting armories, warehouses and bases. We stripped everything that wasn't nailed down, and checked the property books to make sure nothing was being hidden. We freakin hoovered the places.
We were informed that the equipment was going to Iraq (good), stay in Iraq (good), and not be replaced for the forseeable future (insanely not good).
From what I saw, there were enough M16's to get by (for personal protection anyways, not for offensive operations), enough M9's for officers, and a handful of 203's. Very very few crew served. Many units had none. Tis ok, in many cases we barely have enough ammo to do annual qualifications. Our ammo stocks are danger low. We're using it up much faster than ammo is being produced. Worse is the commo situation. We swiped every radio and pretty much every other commo asset of any use. Most units are trying to get by on personally owned cell phones or two ways bought from Walmart, often purchased at the soldiers' expense. The US Army admits to being 40,000 radios short of required operational minimums. From what I saw on the ground, that number is very optimistic.
Katrina showed that in any significant problem area, cell phones will not operate. Depending on them is suicidal. With a critical lack of tactical radios, there was often zero communication between units and higher headquarters, as well as unit to unit. With the material shortages and operational manpower requirements, the National Guard will not be capable of handling any real emergency. They'll try their best, but you can't wave a magic wand and have milspec ammo, radios, vehicles, parts, etc appear.
I know it's not an intentional gutting of the NG, but when you're standing at the counter at Walmart in uniform asking for every two way they have in stock NOW... Sigh.
We were informed that the equipment was going to Iraq (good), stay in Iraq (good), and not be replaced for the forseeable future (insanely not good).
From what I saw, there were enough M16's to get by (for personal protection anyways, not for offensive operations), enough M9's for officers, and a handful of 203's. Very very few crew served. Many units had none. Tis ok, in many cases we barely have enough ammo to do annual qualifications. Our ammo stocks are danger low. We're using it up much faster than ammo is being produced. Worse is the commo situation. We swiped every radio and pretty much every other commo asset of any use. Most units are trying to get by on personally owned cell phones or two ways bought from Walmart, often purchased at the soldiers' expense. The US Army admits to being 40,000 radios short of required operational minimums. From what I saw on the ground, that number is very optimistic.
Katrina showed that in any significant problem area, cell phones will not operate. Depending on them is suicidal. With a critical lack of tactical radios, there was often zero communication between units and higher headquarters, as well as unit to unit. With the material shortages and operational manpower requirements, the National Guard will not be capable of handling any real emergency. They'll try their best, but you can't wave a magic wand and have milspec ammo, radios, vehicles, parts, etc appear.
I know it's not an intentional gutting of the NG, but when you're standing at the counter at Walmart in uniform asking for every two way they have in stock NOW... Sigh.
Fly320s
Member
No worries, the FedGov will just buy some more goodies. I hear that they have a good credit line.
alan
Member
And whom might it be that is responsible for the FUBAR mentioned in previous posts?
Huh, and all this time I thought the National Guard was a Civil Militia where we all showed up with our weapons and kit in time of need and went to work!
Oh wait, that's right, according to the anti-gunners the National Guard IS a Civil Militia and all the goodies are provided by the Guard in time of need!
Oh wait, that's right, according to the anti-gunners the National Guard IS a Civil Militia and all the goodies are provided by the Guard in time of need!
K-Romulus
Member
Doesn't the anti-gun-owner crowd claim that NG units are "state militias" that will protect states from the Feds?
I guess they will have to ask the DOD nicely if they want to get those firearms . . .
Im not saying that this is not true but it is defintely hard to believe. If true that is ridiculous. I know someone who works for a Army Depot Plant and he has told me of some of the stuff that gets "thrown away" . Our military or NG should never be low even during war!
There is no conspiracy to disarm the guard. The fault lies in the method the Army uses to equip all of it's forces.
All Army units are given a Force Activity Designator or FAD. This is a number between 1 and 5 and is expressed by a Roman numeral. The FAD basically says when a unit is scheduled to deploy. Resources are allocated to units based on their FAD. The higher the FAD number, the lower on the resourcing totem pole the unit is. FAD I units would go immediately. There are very few FAD I units in the Army. Usually only the ready brigade of a division like the 82d Airborne has FAD I status, and they only keep that for the time they are in that status.
Most units in the regular Army and many in the Army Guard and USAR are FAD II. They are next on the list for available resources.
The rest of the ARNG and USAR are FAD III and FAD IV units. Units are considered ready on the unit status report even though they may be short major end items of equipment or have substitute items issued. As long as they have enough personnel and equipment to meet their ALO (Authorized Level of Organization) which coincides with the FAD number.
In other words, the readiness reporting system floats checks by saying that units are ready if they have enough enough resources to meet their ALO, even though it knows the ALO is short of being combat ready. It's a big gamble based on the world situation being stable enough to allow enough time to bring those units up to standard before they needed to deploy.
It goes back to how the Army procures equipment. When a new piece of equipment is adopted, they normally only buy enough to equip the FAD I and II units. The other units (which make up the bulk of the Army) make do until further buys of that item are made.
Take small arms. The M9 pistol replaced the M1911A1 in 1985. It took more then 10 years before there were enough M9s to equip the entire Army. It took even longer to replace the M16A1. The M16A2 was to be the standard rifle in 1985. When I retired in 2003 there were still many units that had the M16A1.
The Field Artillery branch was fielding 3 different digital fire control systems when I retired. None of which could talk to the others.
Some units are on the third generation of SINGCARS radios, while others are still using 1950s vintage VRC-12 series radios.
Remember the scandal about Intercepter Body Armor and SAPI plates at the beginning of the war? It wasn't the fault of Bush or Rumsfeld....It was the system, that decided that we'd probably only need so much body armor so that's all they bought.
The global economy doesn't work well when a nation has to produce large quantities of items in a hurry. No warehousing and just in time delivery are not good practices if you are faced with the possibility of having to equip a large number of soldiers in a short period of time.
Point Blank Armor (the producer of the IBA) didn't have the production capability to make enough IBA in a short period of time to meet the suddenly increased demand. Why would they build enough production facilitites to handle that? The Army was only going to buy so many a year.....
So what's happening is that units that aren't deployed are being stripped of the equipment they have so that units in theater can have it. Of course this brings further readiness problems because the units that aren't deployed have no equipment to train with.
Once again, (think 1860, 1898, 1917, 1940, 1950) our nation was caught with it's pants down when it came to readiness. Only now, we're no longer the arsenal of democracy, because we spent the so called peace dividend in the 1990s. Arsenals and ammunition plants were closed. Mothballed factories were sold off. Forts, bases and camps that gave us surge capacity in case we needed to rapidly expand the force we closed and sold.
Jeff
All Army units are given a Force Activity Designator or FAD. This is a number between 1 and 5 and is expressed by a Roman numeral. The FAD basically says when a unit is scheduled to deploy. Resources are allocated to units based on their FAD. The higher the FAD number, the lower on the resourcing totem pole the unit is. FAD I units would go immediately. There are very few FAD I units in the Army. Usually only the ready brigade of a division like the 82d Airborne has FAD I status, and they only keep that for the time they are in that status.
Most units in the regular Army and many in the Army Guard and USAR are FAD II. They are next on the list for available resources.
The rest of the ARNG and USAR are FAD III and FAD IV units. Units are considered ready on the unit status report even though they may be short major end items of equipment or have substitute items issued. As long as they have enough personnel and equipment to meet their ALO (Authorized Level of Organization) which coincides with the FAD number.
In other words, the readiness reporting system floats checks by saying that units are ready if they have enough enough resources to meet their ALO, even though it knows the ALO is short of being combat ready. It's a big gamble based on the world situation being stable enough to allow enough time to bring those units up to standard before they needed to deploy.
It goes back to how the Army procures equipment. When a new piece of equipment is adopted, they normally only buy enough to equip the FAD I and II units. The other units (which make up the bulk of the Army) make do until further buys of that item are made.
Take small arms. The M9 pistol replaced the M1911A1 in 1985. It took more then 10 years before there were enough M9s to equip the entire Army. It took even longer to replace the M16A1. The M16A2 was to be the standard rifle in 1985. When I retired in 2003 there were still many units that had the M16A1.
The Field Artillery branch was fielding 3 different digital fire control systems when I retired. None of which could talk to the others.
Some units are on the third generation of SINGCARS radios, while others are still using 1950s vintage VRC-12 series radios.
Remember the scandal about Intercepter Body Armor and SAPI plates at the beginning of the war? It wasn't the fault of Bush or Rumsfeld....It was the system, that decided that we'd probably only need so much body armor so that's all they bought.
The global economy doesn't work well when a nation has to produce large quantities of items in a hurry. No warehousing and just in time delivery are not good practices if you are faced with the possibility of having to equip a large number of soldiers in a short period of time.
Point Blank Armor (the producer of the IBA) didn't have the production capability to make enough IBA in a short period of time to meet the suddenly increased demand. Why would they build enough production facilitites to handle that? The Army was only going to buy so many a year.....
So what's happening is that units that aren't deployed are being stripped of the equipment they have so that units in theater can have it. Of course this brings further readiness problems because the units that aren't deployed have no equipment to train with.
Once again, (think 1860, 1898, 1917, 1940, 1950) our nation was caught with it's pants down when it came to readiness. Only now, we're no longer the arsenal of democracy, because we spent the so called peace dividend in the 1990s. Arsenals and ammunition plants were closed. Mothballed factories were sold off. Forts, bases and camps that gave us surge capacity in case we needed to rapidly expand the force we closed and sold.
Jeff
telomerase
Member
Amazing. We spend tens of billions on "Homeland Security", and not even the storm troopers have gas masks... but somehow Switzerland, Israel, etc. etc. manage to get ALL their citizens at least basic equipment.
Jeff,
Thank you for the insight on this. It gives those of us who are civilians a better insight into how our armed forces actually work.
And it's also a damn good reason why WE THE PEOPLE need to be an armed society.
Errr, especially the coastal regions of the United States where there are large, open beach access points up and down 1600 miles of coast...
Now Cali, GIMME BACK MY AR15!!!
Thank you for the insight on this. It gives those of us who are civilians a better insight into how our armed forces actually work.
And it's also a damn good reason why WE THE PEOPLE need to be an armed society.
Errr, especially the coastal regions of the United States where there are large, open beach access points up and down 1600 miles of coast...
Now Cali, GIMME BACK MY AR15!!!
PlayboyPenguin
member
telomerase
Unfortunately most of that homeland security money went into the pockets of well connected contractors and multi-nationals to create these safety systems that we are yet to see any progress on yet. Like the airport systems that billions of dollars later have not produced one bit of added security. Every airport failed the last inspection. Maybe all that money could have been better spent just giving every citizen of adult age that uses the airlines a voucher for $500 to buy a nice concecaled firearm to carry on the flights.
Unfortunately most of that homeland security money went into the pockets of well connected contractors and multi-nationals to create these safety systems that we are yet to see any progress on yet. Like the airport systems that billions of dollars later have not produced one bit of added security. Every airport failed the last inspection. Maybe all that money could have been better spent just giving every citizen of adult age that uses the airlines a voucher for $500 to buy a nice concecaled firearm to carry on the flights.
alan
Member
PlayboyPenguin:
Re your suggesting of giving adults $500 to buy a nice "concealed weapon" that they might carry on airline flights, interesting idea, ad possibly cheaper than the dufus stunts ongoing.
One problem with that though, at least as I see it is the following. The bone heads at TSA are still slow walking the arming, actually it's the REARMING of airline pilots, and our elected things allow them to carry on this crap. Can yu imagine the same bunch of elected things funding civilian purchase of handguns?
I cannot, but then perhaps I'm missing something.
Re your suggesting of giving adults $500 to buy a nice "concealed weapon" that they might carry on airline flights, interesting idea, ad possibly cheaper than the dufus stunts ongoing.
One problem with that though, at least as I see it is the following. The bone heads at TSA are still slow walking the arming, actually it's the REARMING of airline pilots, and our elected things allow them to carry on this crap. Can yu imagine the same bunch of elected things funding civilian purchase of handguns?
I cannot, but then perhaps I'm missing something.
I definately see this stripping the guard units as bad, but a necessary evil. If the quickest way to replace a hummer destroyed by a roadside bomb is to take em from the national guard. I't would be nice it the US had spend some capitol and was ready to kick manufacturing of these things into high gear, or would buy larger quantities per year rather than just a trickle and slowly upgrade all the units.
However, what made me wonder about these numbers is the 5% of lightweight rifles they are authorized to have. I just don't buy that 19 of 20 guardsmen who are supposed to have rifles have broomsticks instead. I SUSPECT it is something along the lines of the NG would like to have M-4's, and are authorized to have M-4's, just currently aren't issued M-4's, but still have M16A2's. Hell, some of em may have M16's even.
It makes me wonder about the other numbers too.
PlayboyPenguin
member
Alan
I agree it would probably take a long time...but a free gun is a free gun. I am willing to wait.
I agree it would probably take a long time...but a free gun is a free gun. I am willing to wait.
Thin Black Line
Member
Yes, there are problems in _____ and I know of them personally.
You would
and 
if you saw the stuff that was thrown away that would be useful.
Yet people could privately purchase IBA and plates, LaBelle mags new
in the wrapper, Lake City SS109 ammo "overruns" (like I did in 04) while
soldiers had to swap plates, magazines, ammo, etc with each other
before they went outside the wire.
The problem with the "system" was that these things were in PLENTIFUL
supply, just not getting to the soldiers, because they were sitting in
warehouses and conexes. So, in the meantime, soldiers are getting killed,
their families are getting pissed while the CiC and SoD are saying "Stay the
course." That's fine, let's put some
under their butts so they can put some
under the butts of the people who need to push these supplies to the soldiers.
I know for a FACT that this was not happening because I was there.
So who is responsible for making sure the supplies get to the soldiers?
The soldiers on the recceiving end who have absolutely no power and
are told **** and to do the mission or those who lead?
We all had promasks --they were at the bottoms of our duffles for the entire
deployment
It was in case we found the chemical WMDs that we have now been told never exisited
But, hey, I don't blame Bush since any of the other so-called choices for
president would have had us there as well for Operation Irai Liberation.
(Not my term, it was originally used by the White House).
Thin Black Line
Member
Did anyone catch the show on the US vs the Japanese on the islands
off AK? The US soldiers arrived in summer uniforms with summer boots
and there was 20% casualties due to exposure alone. They were also
in OD uniforms which made it easy for the J's to pick them off as they
were spotted against that white snowy background in AK.
Some of the J's were actually armed with "pointy sticks" (!) and were
expected to use the weapons from fallen comrades or the enemy,
which they did.
The US has come a long way in respect to boots and clothing --I carried
a duffle full of deep winter clothing and five pairs of boots. I never used
the deep winter clothing in the desert, I gave away a pair of boots to a
soldier that lost all his gear, wore two pairs, and mailed the rest home.
My DCUs and goretex were extremely well-made and blended well where
I was at. The new ACUs also blend, but fall apart after 3 months.
My grandpa who fought in the Battle of the Bulge would have laughed
about all the useless stuff I carried, but would have given his right foot
(others he knew did to frostbite) for my 3-layer sleeping bag system, of
which I used one layer. He would have thought a 400 yd walk for a HOT
shower would have been great, too.
There's been some great improvements since his time and even since
Desert Storm and OIF1. We should expect to build upon past improvements.
This is what makes an efficient and effective military.
Devonai
Member
I agree with others who have wondered whether these definitions are too narrow. I can only speak for the New Hampshire National Guard but we have more than enough M16A2 rifles, M249 SAWs, and M60s (which are in great shape).
BigFatKen
Member
sixty cents on the dollar
A long time ago one of the big ariplane plants said that it could make what costs $100,000,000 to make for $60,000,000 if it had a ten year contract for the jet. The problem is it would go to just one congressman's district.
Since the budget is much shorter, that just does not happen now.
A long time ago one of the big ariplane plants said that it could make what costs $100,000,000 to make for $60,000,000 if it had a ten year contract for the jet. The problem is it would go to just one congressman's district.
Since the budget is much shorter, that just does not happen now.
alan
Member
PlayboyPenguin wrote:
I agree it would probably take a long time...but a free gun is a free gun. I am willing to wait.
------------------
Given that blue is not really my best color, I have questions re the wait that you mention. Iam however, perfectly willing to provide what is needed from my own small store.
I agree it would probably take a long time...but a free gun is a free gun. I am willing to wait.
------------------
Given that blue is not really my best color, I have questions re the wait that you mention. Iam however, perfectly willing to provide what is needed from my own small store.
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