Posted on 06/09/2013 1:38:43 PM PDT by null and void
Here are some parts of an article from here. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/insight/2013/05/12/1-pattern-of-waste.html
In 2002, the U.S. military had just two kinds of camouflage uniform.
One was green, for the woods. The other was brown, for the desert.
Then things got strange.
Today, there is one camouflage pattern just for Marines in the desert. There is another just for Navy personnel in the desert.
The Army has its own “universal” camouflage pattern, which is designed to work anywhere. It also has another one just for Afghanistan, where the first one doesn’t work.
Even the Air Force has its own unique camouflage, used in a new “Airman Battle Uniform.” But it has flaws. So in Afghanistan, airmen are told not to wear it in battle.
In just 11 years, two kinds of camouflage have turned into 10. And a blessedly simple aspect of the U.S. government purchasing system has emerged as a complicated and expensive case study in federal duplication.
At the Pentagon, the saga of the multiplying uniforms has provided a step-by-step illustration of how duplication blooms in government.
“If you have 10 patterns, some of them are going to be good. Some of them are going to be bad. Some of them are going to be in the middle,” said Timothy O’Neill, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who studied camouflage patterns as a West Point professor. “Who wants to have the second-best pattern?”
At the Pentagon, a GAO study found that the services have spent more than $12 million on their separate efforts at designing new camouflage patterns. The cost of buying, stocking and shipping 10 different camouflage uniforms is believed to be millions more.
Is anybody trying to fix this?
“The Department of Defense continues to look for ways to streamline processes and implement better business practices,” a Pentagon spokesman said. He gave no details.
This, in brief, is how two kinds of camouflage became 10: The Marines started it.
The corps spent two years and $319,000 testing different patterns to replace the old green and brown ones. In the end, it settled on a digital design, which used a riot of small pixels to help soldiers blend in.
There were desert and woodland versions — camouflage patterns Nos. 3 and 4.
The corps did not intend to share them.
“The people who saw this uniform in a combat area would know (the wearers) were United States Marines, for whatever that might mean,” said retired Marine Gen. James Jones, who initiated the uniform’s design and later became Obama’s national security adviser.
After that, the Army set out to duplicate what the Marines had done, spending at least $2.63 million on its own camouflage research. The Army produced what it called a “universal” camouflage, in shades of green, gray and tan.
No. 5. It was not as universal as they said.
After complaints that the pattern didn’t work in Afghanistan, the Army had to spend another $2.9 million to design a camouflage specific to that country. The GAO found that the Army then spent another $30 million-plus to actually outfit troops with the new design, called “Operation Enduring Freedom Camouflage.”
No. 6. Now, the Army is already working to replace that replacement, with a new camouflage-design effort that has cost at least $4.2 million so far. It has given up on “universal.”
“A uniform that is specific to the desert and one that is specific to a woodland environment outperform a single pattern, a universal camouflage pattern,” said Brigadier Gen. Paul Ostrowski, who oversees the Army’s uniform and equipment research, in testimony before Congress last month. “ We’ve learned that.”
Camouflage No. 7 came from the Air Force.
Only a subset of Air Force personnel fight on the ground, including rescuers of downed pilots and battlefield air controllers. But the Air Force still spent $3.1 million to come up with its own ground-combat uniform.
But it was ill-suited to Afghanistan.
“They were not designed to hide anybody. They were designed to look cool,” said O’Neill, the West Point camouflage expert. “It’s what we call ‘CDI Factor.’ Which is, ‘Chicks dig it.’”
Finally, in 2010, the Air Force ordered its personnel in Afghanistan to ditch the Airman Battle Uniform, and wear Army camouflage instead.
The next three camouflage patterns arrived in 2011, from another unlikely source — the U.S. Navy.
“The Marine Corps, Air Force and Army had either all shifted, or were shifting. Which meant that — if we wanted to continue using (the two original camouflage patterns) — the Navy was going to have to pick up the entire contract,” said Terry Scott. “We knew we had to change.”
“I remember saying, ‘Why don’t we just use the exact same thing’ as the Marine Corps?’Scott said. “Well, the Marine Corps had embedded their symbol in the actual uniform pattern.”
It was true. The corps had embedded tiny eagles, globes and anchors into the camouflage itself — betting that no other service would go to war with somebody else’s logo on their pants. It worked.
The Navy spent more than $435,000 on three new designs. One was a blue-and-gray pattern, to be worn aboard ships. That was camouflage No. 8.
Sailors worried that it would only hide them at the one time they’d want to be found.
“You fall in the damn water and you’re wearing water-colored camouflage. What the hell is that?” said one active-duty petty officer. He asked that his name be withheld, since he was criticizing a decision by the brass.
For the desert, the Navy came up with another design, a tan pattern that resembled the Marines’ desert pattern. Except theirs had a small USS Constitution embedded in the pattern.
No. 9. To the Marines, it was still too close a copy.
“We objected to that. We just said, ‘Look, there are plenty of patterns that are out there that are effective,” said Gen. James Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, recounting that complaint during a Senate hearing in 2010. The reason was not battlefield safety: it was Marine pride.
“Even though (the Navy) is not using the patented pattern, I guess that it’s so very, very close,” Amos said. “It’s a point of pride, sir. It’s internal pride.”
That seemed a good enough reason for the Senate committee: “Well, pride and unit elan is certainly an important factor. I appreciate your response,” said then-Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. The next question was about helicopters.
It was also good enough for the Navy. After the Marines objected, the Navy decreed that its new desert uniform would only be given to a select few: Navy SEALs and other personnel serving with them.
The rest of the Navy personnel who might serve in the desert — more than 50,000 of them — were issued another Navy camouflage pattern instead.
This was camouflage No. 10, a “woodland” pattern. The Pentagon’s long and expensive search for new camouflage uniforms had defied logic. Now it would defy camouflage itself.
It ended with U.S. service members wearing green in the desert.
We don’t need women in combat units and mixed throughout the military, if there is a new female language/interrogation specialty that we never needed during our entire history and 200 year history of fighting Muslims to accompany some patrols in this current war, then we can treat it as such, just like nurses, it is a specialty, it does not require the current effort to make the military non-gender specific.
The effort is to make the military be 50% female, it isn’t about needing a special female to search females.
Having all these camo variations is certainly wasteful, but we’re only talking millions of dollars. On the other hand, our debt level is approaching an astonishing $17 trillion which is threatening the viability of our economic system and could well lead to a national economic meltdown. The uniform issue is insignificant in the overall scheme of of things. Believe me, a few million dollars is insignificant, even to a single federal agency. Congress needs to focus on solving more serious and pressing problems IMO.
I think the solution to women in combat is to have all women battalions. I’ve heard women living in close proximity to each other cycle at the same time. So have about 4 battalions scattered around the country and see if they can’t get each one that cycles a different week out of the month. That way you always have a PMSing group always ready to kill. They would be crack troops. And the way the military is changing they can just go with the flow.
Thomas, you said:
their party affiliation .... Librarians would be able to come and go as they wished and could choose what they wanted to eat from a cafeteria.
Why do you pick out librarians as a political party? I have always seen them as a occupation that deals with books of all types. I have two librarians that work for me. Their work is a-political.
Did you mean libertarians?
This is your solution to government waste, to defend government waste?
I think that the Navy camo uniforms are easily the most ridiculous looking uniforms in all God’s creation. And having served in the Navy during Zumwalt’s idiotic utility smock period that’s saying a lot. What are they trying to camouflage from?
Their division officers. ;-)
How about making Congress and all federal employees subject to military pay scales.
Same percentages in each pay grade.
No one in Congress, elected or staff, makes more than the equivalent military pay. And no, lawyers don’t make any more in Congress just because they have a law degree. No hazardous duty or combat pay unless they are actually getting shot at. (no Hillary under fire in Kosovo shenanigans!)
While we’re at it, trim the superfluous flag officers in the military.
Esprit de Corps
it matters
Just take all our troops out of South Korea, put half on the border and pocket the difference.
By this logic all the services should have the same dress uniform, too. Why stop at the utility/combat uniforms?
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You know that’s coming. Just another way to beat down the warrior culture. Next up, they will probably require the uniform to be without a fly so as not to offend the females in the ranks.
Powerful forces are at work to destroy America’s ability to defend itself.
((
Exactly.
Funny you should ask. In today's New 0bama Army the gay swishers and their sponsors in congress are more interested in fashion. Good old "kicking ass" has turned into kissing ass and so much more.
It isn't about cost savings, it is about more money for some factory in a Congressman's district.
The military Operations and Maintenance budget is down 40-50% due to the Sequester taking 50 cents of every dollar of "savings" from the US military. This isn't where the military wants to spend it's budget.
By this logic all the services should have the same dress uniform, too. Why stop at the utility/combat uniforms?
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True. And same rank designators, as well!
Let’s just destroy it all..... (The Progressive way!)
We don’t need women in combat units and mixed throughout the military, if there is a new female language/interrogation specialty that we never needed during our entire history and 200 year history of fighting Muslims to accompany some patrols in this current war, then we can treat it as such, just like nurses, it is a specialty, it does not require the current effort to make the military non-gender specific.
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Well said.
The problem begins by admitting women to our service academies. The virus has been injected at that point.
It has always surprised me that the Navy thought they needed a camo pattern uniform at sea, just don’t understand it.
NEWS FLASH to the NAVY: YOUR SITTING ON A HUGE FLOATING BULLS-EYE GUYS.
If the Navy thinks they have to give the squids ( no disrespect meant guys, you do a hell of a tough job)a new work uniform, give them Red, Orange or Yellow. At least it would make them more visible and recoverable when; not if, they get blown over the side.
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