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When I was in the army I use to rail against contractors all the time, until I got transferred to a maint. center for communications equipment. The equipment y

When I was in the army I use to rail against contractors all the time, until I got transferred to a maint. center for communications equipment. The equipment you get there is usually the result of a failed attempts by trained personal to fix things, but were trying do it in the field, without the proper reference materials, equipment, or parts. There units were issued all of these, but after several deployments, books get lost or destroyed, tools walk, etc... Half the times the equipment was fried by its own protection systems being tripped because it wasn't dissembled correctly, making the issue they wanted to fix a moot point. So some PFC just destroyed a $40,000 system because a Capt. was up his ass about fixing it right now, he has no ability to push back, nothing that can be done but to follow the order to the best of his abilities. If he destroys it, well if the capt. is a dick, he gets written up, and charged for it. If not, the equipment is still fried, and has to be replaced. With a contractor, they are outside the chain of command, and can tell the capt. to pound sand, and tell them the equipment will need to be shipped and fixed properly. And reminds the capt. that there are several dummy switches that without the right tools, and training, the equipment will fry itself, and if this is discovered to be the case, the indecent will be turned over to CID (army detectives) for investigation and that he should make arrangements to source a replacement from supply ASAP. Seeing the straight don't give a fuck of these guys could exercises, in relation to what is best for the equipment and not the commands ego was amazing, and made total sense why on the high end equipment this method was used.

worik 5y ago
That is interesting. Surely there is a middle way? This is a classic throwing the baby out with bathwater.
- vkou 5y ago
  The middle way is have fixed-cost civilian contractors for 'standard' maintenance, and contractors that bill by the hour for fixing fuck-ups caused by field repairs. You still have the issue of middle-managers in the armed forces asking enlisted men to do stupid things, that end up wrecking equipment, but the only way to fix that is for better accountability within the command structure. Good luck with that, since the lack of accountability shields the only people who have the power to fix it. [1] [1] See this outline of the fatal collision of the USS Fitzgerald for an example of how well accountability for stupid orders works in the US Armed Forces - https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/ https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgeral... [2] [2] The long and short of it is that someone above you tells you what to do, and if you can't do it, you get canned. So you do it, but you cut corners. If those cut corners cause a disaster, it'll be your ass on the line.
toss1 5y ago
>> were trying do it in the field, without the proper reference materials, equipment, or parts there is your problem. that does not mean that the fix is to have a 'nobody can touch this but the contractors' The US Military - all branches - have a long and great tradition of making field fixes. This is critical out there. Waiting 3 days for a 10min fix may be acceptable in a US base, but in a war zone it will get people killed. At the very least, they need to be able to get remote support for on-site personnel to actually implement the fix.
- Meph504 5y ago
  Man, I think you have a wrong impression here, field fixes are usually sacrificial, and are made in haste, and often on "this might work." A great tradition it isn't, coat it in 100 MPH tape and 550 cord, and hope it holds. is generally the the solution to most issues. Not to say there haven't been great innovation, but realistically most of these repairs are being made by guys that barely got out of high school, and had maybe 20 weeks of training. (I was one of them, its not a dig, its reality) And as much as it pissed me off when a piece of equipment was no longer available, because it got shipped off, I was also equally pissed off when my unit all got sick and was throwing up because our water purification system broke, and a commander told the cooks to add bleach to the water. That is something a soldier has to do, where as a contractor wouldn't be likely to. In the military you spend a lot of your time pissed off because someone, somewhere is doing something stupid, and it will probably get you killed.
  - JamesBarney 5y ago
    > In the military you spend a lot of your time pissed off because someone, somewhere is doing something stupid, and it will probably get you killed. This very succinctly sums up almost every conversation I've had with ex-military.
  - Nexxius 5y ago
    Bleach is perfectly fine to kill bacteria & some nematodes but, its like 1 cap full per 5gal and should be allowed to outgas after. Don't get me wrong, its not the best method but, it works.
avmich 5y ago
I don't understand. With pounding sand, don't contractors get tried with military tribunal if they interfere with field activities of the army? Like, SWAT team in the house, with "give us source code or we're going to the court with charges of treason now"? I'd assume Capt. is correct in attempting to fix immediately, and somebody who'd oppose him should be investigated, right? By CID or FBI? Because contractors can't likely make fixes more ASAP than operators in the field? Or is it the purchasers who're procuring the equipment which "needs to be shipped and fixed properly"? Are we fighting wars in a manner "wait a minute, dear enemy, I'll just fix this small issue in a gusto, and we'll continue"? Just curious.
- mierz00 5y ago
  Contractors don't fall in the military hierarchy and the example given isn't interfering with field activities. Basically, a Capt can say what ever they like but if it's just not possible to be fixed in the field then it's not going to happen. Also, you don't get thrown into jail everytime you disobey an order. Especially when it comes to technical equipment.
  - avmich 5y ago
    I'm not a lawyer, but I'd assume when a field unit conducts operations, in the field, and some equipment fails, it's the job of the supply chain to do everything possible to help mitigate the issue reasonably fast. Definition of "reasonably fast" would be an expectation, carried from previous history of similar cases, and definition of "similar" is carried from previous history of purchasing equipment for the army. In other words, one can't just say "oh, this is more complex, and suddenly you can't rely on your practices anymore" without first - when the equipment was talked about - making that clear. And "everything possible" would include tools, electronic or software, and software codes - and yes, possibly engineers who created them on the line, something like what was done when Apollo project had landings on the Moon. Only in this case I'd assume different kind of responsibility than just contractual. I don't fall in the military hierarchy at the moment, but that doesn't mean I can give aid and comfort to enemy. Again, I'm not a lawyer - that's why it's a tribunal - but for a court to give go-ahead to this (absent more prompt collaboration beforehand) would be something to expect. What would you expect if you'd be in the field in this case?
IX-103 5y ago
Oh military communications equipment. I can totally see that stuff bugging out if someone looks at it wrong. I actually worked a bit designing military comms when I was just out of school, but left because the politics was too crazy. Military comms seems to be held back in the 60s where everything had to be built for purpose and it doesn't matter that this radio uses 15 bit bytes and runs on 22 volt power and that radio uses 13 bit bytes and runs on -48 volt power since they were never designed to communicate or exist in the same system. Until a "Grand Program" is started to get them to talk. Then contractors comes out of the woodwork and eventually they come up with a design where the two radios (positioned next to each other) pass "XML" (<bit position:0 value:0\>) over a custom designed third pair of radios and can communicate only a small subset of what either radio was able to express. Of course none of that uses Ethernet or IP or even some standard military connection protocol, because that would make things less efficient and suppliers want the biggest numbers possible so they are competitive. If we are going to have a technology dependent military and they can't use COTS then they should at least make things modular so learning about one piece of hardware can be applied to other pieces of hardware. And hey, if it's modular then maybe military techs can at least swap modules to fix stuff.
- craftinator 5y ago
  There are a few reasons that military tech turns out this way. The largest I've seen is that the military doesn't actually make any money with it's tech. From a classic business perspective, it's just an end user. There isn't a monetary incentive to remake entire systems to work well together. Another big reason for the strange and overbearing standards is that there are so many different classified legacy systems that need to function, and no one is really allowed to alter, that newer systems need to be backwards compatible to work with them.
  - IX-103 5y ago
    I'm not sure I buy the argument about not making money. Sure there's not a monetary incentive to make the whole system work well together, but that doesn't mean that the military should ignore how failures in their communication infrastructure limit their ability to rapidly respond to threats and coordinate between different forces. Combined arms is a thing a after all, and it sucks when people have to spend time coordinating because targets or enemies show up in some units but not their attached units (or worse show up in different locations on each). Sure, legacy systems are an issue and compatibility is necessary (especially for systems we need to talk with allies who spends less money upgrading equipment than we do). But that doesn't justify the new things not working together. Is there a reason that we got MADL with the F-35 and IFDL for the F-22 and needed a special program (with unmanned airborne relays) to allow the two to talk? Those are both new systems, there just doesn't seem to be any overall coordination. Heck, to some degree it seems like this inability to interoperate is intentional, as one of the F-35 requirements was that it could receive but not transmit on the existing legacy waveform, Link-16. I don't mean to be so negative about it. The technology behind modern military radios is incredible and the radios effectively meet the requirements that the military specifies. This allows them to do amazing things. I just think that, particularly for communications, they need to look past the new hotness for something less exciting that both ages better and works well with existing systems.
amatic 5y ago
> The equipment you get there is usually the result of a failed attempts by trained personal to fix things Are there statistics on how many things were successfully fixed vs how many ended up in the maintenance center? If not, that is a possible survivorship bias, kind of.
laurent92 5y ago
So the equipment deployed in Afghanistan then needs to do a round-trip in US if it’s critical to the mission? I understand why Capt. insist so much to attempt a local repair. Are there repair posts in deployment?

worik 5y ago

That is interesting. Surely there is a middle way? This is a classic throwing the baby out with bathwater.

vkou 5y ago
The middle way is have fixed-cost civilian contractors for 'standard' maintenance, and contractors that bill by the hour for fixing fuck-ups caused by field repairs. You still have the issue of middle-managers in the armed forces asking enlisted men to do stupid things, that end up wrecking equipment, but the only way to fix that is for better accountability within the command structure. Good luck with that, since the lack of accountability shields the only people who have the power to fix it. [1] [1] See this outline of the fatal collision of the USS Fitzgerald for an example of how well accountability for stupid orders works in the US Armed Forces - https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgerald-destroyer-crash-crystal/ https://features.propublica.org/navy-accidents/uss-fitzgeral... [2] [2] The long and short of it is that someone above you tells you what to do, and if you can't do it, you get canned. So you do it, but you cut corners. If those cut corners cause a disaster, it'll be your ass on the line.

toss1 5y ago

>> were trying do it in the field, without the proper reference materials, equipment, or parts there is your problem. that does not mean that the fix is to have a 'nobody can touch this but the contractors' The US Military - all branches - have a long and great tradition of making field fixes. This is critical out there. Waiting 3 days for a 10min fix may be acceptable in a US base, but in a war zone it will get people killed. At the very least, they need to be able to get remote support for on-site personnel to actually implement the fix.

Meph504 5y ago
Man, I think you have a wrong impression here, field fixes are usually sacrificial, and are made in haste, and often on "this might work." A great tradition it isn't, coat it in 100 MPH tape and 550 cord, and hope it holds. is generally the the solution to most issues. Not to say there haven't been great innovation, but realistically most of these repairs are being made by guys that barely got out of high school, and had maybe 20 weeks of training. (I was one of them, its not a dig, its reality) And as much as it pissed me off when a piece of equipment was no longer available, because it got shipped off, I was also equally pissed off when my unit all got sick and was throwing up because our water purification system broke, and a commander told the cooks to add bleach to the water. That is something a soldier has to do, where as a contractor wouldn't be likely to. In the military you spend a lot of your time pissed off because someone, somewhere is doing something stupid, and it will probably get you killed.
- JamesBarney 5y ago
  > In the military you spend a lot of your time pissed off because someone, somewhere is doing something stupid, and it will probably get you killed. This very succinctly sums up almost every conversation I've had with ex-military.
- Nexxius 5y ago
  Bleach is perfectly fine to kill bacteria & some nematodes but, its like 1 cap full per 5gal and should be allowed to outgas after. Don't get me wrong, its not the best method but, it works.

avmich 5y ago

I don't understand. With pounding sand, don't contractors get tried with military tribunal if they interfere with field activities of the army? Like, SWAT team in the house, with "give us source code or we're going to the court with charges of treason now"? I'd assume Capt. is correct in attempting to fix immediately, and somebody who'd oppose him should be investigated, right? By CID or FBI? Because contractors can't likely make fixes more ASAP than operators in the field? Or is it the purchasers who're procuring the equipment which "needs to be shipped and fixed properly"? Are we fighting wars in a manner "wait a minute, dear enemy, I'll just fix this small issue in a gusto, and we'll continue"? Just curious.

mierz00 5y ago
Contractors don't fall in the military hierarchy and the example given isn't interfering with field activities. Basically, a Capt can say what ever they like but if it's just not possible to be fixed in the field then it's not going to happen. Also, you don't get thrown into jail everytime you disobey an order. Especially when it comes to technical equipment.
- avmich 5y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, but I'd assume when a field unit conducts operations, in the field, and some equipment fails, it's the job of the supply chain to do everything possible to help mitigate the issue reasonably fast. Definition of "reasonably fast" would be an expectation, carried from previous history of similar cases, and definition of "similar" is carried from previous history of purchasing equipment for the army. In other words, one can't just say "oh, this is more complex, and suddenly you can't rely on your practices anymore" without first - when the equipment was talked about - making that clear. And "everything possible" would include tools, electronic or software, and software codes - and yes, possibly engineers who created them on the line, something like what was done when Apollo project had landings on the Moon. Only in this case I'd assume different kind of responsibility than just contractual. I don't fall in the military hierarchy at the moment, but that doesn't mean I can give aid and comfort to enemy. Again, I'm not a lawyer - that's why it's a tribunal - but for a court to give go-ahead to this (absent more prompt collaboration beforehand) would be something to expect. What would you expect if you'd be in the field in this case?

IX-103 5y ago

Oh military communications equipment. I can totally see that stuff bugging out if someone looks at it wrong. I actually worked a bit designing military comms when I was just out of school, but left because the politics was too crazy. Military comms seems to be held back in the 60s where everything had to be built for purpose and it doesn't matter that this radio uses 15 bit bytes and runs on 22 volt power and that radio uses 13 bit bytes and runs on -48 volt power since they were never designed to communicate or exist in the same system. Until a "Grand Program" is started to get them to talk. Then contractors comes out of the woodwork and eventually they come up with a design where the two radios (positioned next to each other) pass "XML" (<bit position:0 value:0\>) over a custom designed third pair of radios and can communicate only a small subset of what either radio was able to express. Of course none of that uses Ethernet or IP or even some standard military connection protocol, because that would make things less efficient and suppliers want the biggest numbers possible so they are competitive. If we are going to have a technology dependent military and they can't use COTS then they should at least make things modular so learning about one piece of hardware can be applied to other pieces of hardware. And hey, if it's modular then maybe military techs can at least swap modules to fix stuff.

craftinator 5y ago
There are a few reasons that military tech turns out this way. The largest I've seen is that the military doesn't actually make any money with it's tech. From a classic business perspective, it's just an end user. There isn't a monetary incentive to remake entire systems to work well together. Another big reason for the strange and overbearing standards is that there are so many different classified legacy systems that need to function, and no one is really allowed to alter, that newer systems need to be backwards compatible to work with them.
- IX-103 5y ago
  I'm not sure I buy the argument about not making money. Sure there's not a monetary incentive to make the whole system work well together, but that doesn't mean that the military should ignore how failures in their communication infrastructure limit their ability to rapidly respond to threats and coordinate between different forces. Combined arms is a thing a after all, and it sucks when people have to spend time coordinating because targets or enemies show up in some units but not their attached units (or worse show up in different locations on each). Sure, legacy systems are an issue and compatibility is necessary (especially for systems we need to talk with allies who spends less money upgrading equipment than we do). But that doesn't justify the new things not working together. Is there a reason that we got MADL with the F-35 and IFDL for the F-22 and needed a special program (with unmanned airborne relays) to allow the two to talk? Those are both new systems, there just doesn't seem to be any overall coordination. Heck, to some degree it seems like this inability to interoperate is intentional, as one of the F-35 requirements was that it could receive but not transmit on the existing legacy waveform, Link-16. I don't mean to be so negative about it. The technology behind modern military radios is incredible and the radios effectively meet the requirements that the military specifies. This allows them to do amazing things. I just think that, particularly for communications, they need to look past the new hotness for something less exciting that both ages better and works well with existing systems.

amatic 5y ago

> The equipment you get there is usually the result of a failed attempts by trained personal to fix things Are there statistics on how many things were successfully fixed vs how many ended up in the maintenance center? If not, that is a possible survivorship bias, kind of.

laurent92 5y ago

So the equipment deployed in Afghanistan then needs to do a round-trip in US if it’s critical to the mission? I understand why Capt. insist so much to attempt a local repair. Are there repair posts in deployment?