9 ms·

Military uniforms – Expense and stupidity too big to camouflage

101 points by couchand 12y ago

ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
Nope, they are dead wrong. I was in the Army during both Bush maladministrations, and the Marines doing their own thing was one of the proximate causes of the horrible Army ACU (as well as the weird Air Force and Navy blueish camo thingeys). From what I remember the Marines (RAWR, because they are MARINES, TOUGH!) didn't want their camo licensed out to the other branches, so the everyone went their own way. How is this cost effective? It certainly makes getting uniform apparel that much harder on joint bases (where they have to stock everything, like the Presidio of Monterey), or isolated people in Guard/Reserve units, whose nearest active duty installation may not be in their branch.
- walshemj 12y ago
  Reminds me of the long running fiasco over the new boots in the British army which lead to trench foot in the Falklands war. As the Army Rumour service (Arsepedia) says "All in all, the saga of British Army boot procurement is pretty pathetic: that we can consistently buy such rubbish, thus inevitably incurring far higher costs than would be necessary in buying one of the many excellent commercial products, is astonishing but symptomatic of British Defence Policy. At a rough estimate, 50% of British soldiers wear boots they have bought for themselves when on operations or exercise. "
  - arethuza 12y ago
    I found the ARRSE completely by accident - quite an amusing site (probably NSFW): http://www.arrse.co.uk/ http://www.arrse.co.uk/ e.g. "British Military Procurement Mysteries" http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/British_Military_Procurement_Mysteries http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/British_Military_Procurement_Mys...
- savszymura 12y ago
  I think MultiCam variations (incl. Camogrom) are the best "universal" pattern that will suit most envirnoments, it works well in various lighting contitions too.
- scott_s 12y ago
  I was confused reading your comment, because I assumed the "they" in your first sentence meant those that wrote the editorial. But based on the rest of your comment, the "they" must be the military bureaucracy, because your comment agrees with the editorial.
  - ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
    You are correct, I read the article early in the morning before coffee, and thought the Economist was taking the side of the Marines, et al. There's a lot of Marine veneration in the media, surprisingly.
- minikites 12y ago
  I believe the Marines are also responsible for ruining the F-35 to the tune of $1 trillion over the lifetime of the plane. > The Pentagon intends to spend roughly $399 billion to develop and buy 2,443 of the planes. However, over the course of the aircrafts' lifetimes, operating costs are expected to exceed $1 trillion. Lockheed has carefully hired suppliers and subcontractors in almost every state to ensure that virtually all senators and members of Congress have a stake in keeping the program -- and the jobs it has created -- in place. The Marines wanted VTOL and that made the plane worse in every other way.
  - walshemj 12y ago
    They probably wanted a V2 harrier - which I am sure BAE would have loved to make but politics got in the way of buying a foreign plane.
    - meritt 12y ago
      Correct. The Marines desired a plane capable of VTOL and when DOD forced the idea of a singular fighter, they said "okay but we need VTOL" (and the other branches had their own operational needs), and thus we have this great-at-nothing-horrible-at-everything F-35.
      - vonmoltke 12y ago
        Exactly. The Marines did not ruin the F-35. The planners and politics that insisted on a single, joint service aircraft ruined the F-35.
  - ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
    The Marines have a mindset that they are SPECIAL. I mean that in a serious way, despite the Marines rarely doing anything that's not also done by the Army. It'd make more sense for Marine air units to fly off of Navy carriers, rather than waste money on a VTOL version of the F-35.
    - wldcordeiro 12y ago
- pbreit 12y ago
  I don't see a big problem with each branch doing their own unis. They certainly are large enough. And the design costs are negligible in the scheme of things. Sure, they could share some best practices. Clearly they have different needs.
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
As a military member who has worn three separate uniform implementations over the past 10+ years I can tell you that no-one who is serving thinks the changes are anything but silly. Everyone I knew thought that the introduction of multicam in AFG was a great jumping off point for all the services to share a uniform - but of course that will never happen with all the GO level pissing matches that happen.
nbartlomiej 12y ago
Cached version, without login wall: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SZQxqxtz9aIJ:www.economist.com/news/united-states/21600700-expense-and-stupidity-too-big-camouflage-out-sight http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SZQxqxt...
- kephra 12y ago
  I wonder who upvoted this? Are there really 53 hackers paying economist.com to read it? " You have reached your article limit Register to continue reading or subscribe for unlimited access "
  - CocaKoala 12y ago
    A useful trick is to google for the article titles; it seems like paywalls tend to not pop up when google is in the referer header.
    - ghkbrew 12y ago
      my go to is: right click link -> "open in incognito window" for chrome at least. Firefox has similar functionality, though I'm not sure if it can be accessed from a right-click.
      - scott_karana 12y ago
        It does, "Open Link in New Private Window" via right-click.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Some people have Economist subs. Some people haven't read any Economist articles this mobth and thus won't hit the paywall. Some people will evade the paywall.
gnurag 12y ago
hate paywalled articles posted here.
- couchand 12y ago
  My apologies. I'm not seeing a paywall on this page.
  - gnurag 12y ago
    I get a message saying: "Subscribe now for unlimited access, or register to continue reading. You have reached your article limit." Sorry about the rant though, I could read the article in incognito as @bryanlarsen suggested.
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  Given that a large percentage of the mainstream media is moving towards X articles/month free, register to get Y articles/month free, pay to get full access, you're basically asking that no main stream media links get posted here. That pretty much guarantees that the only posts we'll see are from the tech bubble, and one I'd like to avoid. As long as the workaround is as simple as it is here (right click, open in incognito), I don't think we should avoid posting articles from the Economist or other mainstream media sites here.
  - gnurag 12y ago
    Sorry, I didn't ask "that no main stream media links get posted here." - I just didn't want to register. In any case, I'm here for discovering non-mainstream-media news.
  - thwest 12y ago
    There are plenty of free outlets for political and economic news. Some examples include CEPR, DemocracyNow, Tom Dispatch, http://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/ http://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/, etc
hyperliner 12y ago
I see a lot of figures in the "millions" Pfft! That's like me buying an ice cream at McDonalds with the change I find in the little cup holder of my car. Wait! It also says 4b to replace all the "flawed" stuff. Hmmm, let me think: that like a small family dinner. In the overall scheme of things, this is nothing.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- acheron 12y ago
  Few billion here, few billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.
  - hyperliner 12y ago
    With government, the problem is that "here" is very different from "there." Which is why we really want the federal government to be really small or things like these happen.
    - kristopolous 12y ago
      "really small" won't fix "really corrupt" - how things are now, the first to go would be things such as laws keeping businesses honest.
      - seanflyon 12y ago
        "really small" means limiting power which reduces the effects of corruption.
        kristopolous 12y ago
        no. because with "really small" governments you still get "really big" companies. The term "deregulation" really epitomizes this - the idea that there should be fewer laws restricting companies from harming others and that the magical free hand of the market will miraculously prevent malfeasance and malevolent profiteering in some ayn rand utopia. what a lovely fantasy. The process I've seen called "decivilizing" - the willful dismantling of the post-industrial societal state back to some goal that is effectively an 18th century corporate oligarchy. The problem is that then you get companies which effect as governments - it's no mistake that the US flag is a spinoff of the maritime flag of the East India Trading corporation - it was effectively a de facto governing body - above the state. The corporate becomes the state when the state is weak. They are poised to fill such a power vacuum and it happens immediately. It's so clear.
chrisseaton 12y ago
People are scathing about the USMC's desire to look distinctive, and about senior officers' desire for soldiers to look good. Obviously fashion shouldn't trump everything, but looking and feeling the part is a considerable part of the moral component of fighting power. I think denying that is denying some basic human psychology. Why do armies spend money on flags, dress uniforms, buglers, horses, mascot dogs, medals, bands and so on? It's because the ethos they create is a seriously important part of building a group of men who can operate together in extreme situations. The USMC and other branches are worried about how their uniforms look and how distinctive they are because it's one essential part of preparing to fight a war.
- walshemj 12y ago
  Looking good is what dress uniforms are for in a fight you are concerned about other things than the CDI (chicks dig it) factor.
  - chrisseaton 12y ago
    My experience was that my soldiers took a huge amount of pride in looking like a British Army soldier from their particular capbadge - especially in an operational environment. Part of my unit's cohesion and pride when operating in joint environments was being smart in their own particular unique way. That pride and attention to detail then carries over into their fieldcraft and tactics. Young men don't fight for the Ministry of Defence, they fight for their regiment and their mates - a group created by looking and acting just a little bit differently to other people.
    - ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
      The US Military, surprisingly, survived for years with everyone wearing the same combat uniform (BDUs).
      - angersock 12y ago
        Yeah, but that was before 9/11, and since then we've won so cle--oh. Well fuck.
cec 12y ago
I don't understand why I had to put my browser into porn mode to read this.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- walshemj 12y ago
  Bitching about uniforms is a longstanding military tradition :-)
  - phrogdriver 12y ago
    Absolutely. The Marines designed an "innovative" uniform that worked better than the status quo and increased esprit de corps because it was distinctive. The problem is the ridiculous "me too" copycat designs that proliferated since then. Everyone I know hates the Army's "floral couch", the Navy's "hope I don't fall overboard", and the Air Force's tiger stripes.
    - LanceH 12y ago
      Don't forget the timeless envy of the dress blues.
jrs235 12y ago
To get beyond the paywall try this search link to google: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Out+of+sight+the+economist https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Out+of+sight+the+econom... EDIT: This one might be slightly better: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=military+uniforms+out+of+sight+the+economist https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=military+uniforms+out+o...
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  right click, open in incognito also works.
pjc50 12y ago
This is the "it doesn't matter if it actually works" factor rather than the "CDI" factor. America is not fighting a war of national survival on a limited budget. It's fighting some wars of choice and maintaining a defence procurement industry on a seemingly unlimited budget. There is no way even the total failure of the war will personally affect the people doing the producement, and there is no need for them to economise because they can't run out of other people's money. So, everyone involved is free to have endless meetings. Senior management can commission studies at great expense then ignore the result on a whim. They can engage in turf wars and internal empire building; after all, the real enemy is the people you're competing with for promotions. The procurements that have been successful are mostly those resulting from urgent operational requirements, when losing to insurgents with a tiny budget became embarrassing. (The UK is not immune to this; we've built an aircraft carrier that's supposed to use the F-35, which may not be available and we can't really afford)
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  Indeed - when you consider that the purpose of the US military machine is not to defend the US, but rather to be a vehicle for vast spending and dissemination of government funds to private contractors who lobby for their bread, it's fair to say that these uniforms work perfectly.
  - wdr1 12y ago
    So it's like just about every other type of government of spending?
    - gchpaco 12y ago
      The US military is unusually detached from reality. The ISS was under constant budgetary supervision and periodic redesigns despite costing, I think, maybe a tenth the F35 program.
- mathattack 12y ago
  I think it's a general problem of large organizations disconnected to their output, of which the US Army is one. So are most large public universities. When there is a large gap between the payer and the user of activities, and an organization has a monopoly or competitive moat, then inefficiency and rot happens.
chiph 12y ago
The Navy's camo looks bizarre (it doesn't blend with trees, ships, or office equipment), but turns out it's main purpose is to hide the stains that a sailor picks up during their duty day, from oil & grease to paint drips. So as a duty uniform, it succeeds. The Air Force camo was introduced as a pure ego move. It doesn't blend, oil & hydraulic stains can't be wiped off the boots, and it's too hot. And unlike the green polyester duty uniforms of the 70's & 80's you can't shorten or roll-up the sleeves. My understand why they don't all buy the multi-cam is that the design is copyrighted and the DoD and the owner couldn't come to an agreement on the licensing fees.
- badlucklottery 12y ago
  According to Caleb Crye the DoD reps just didn't want to come to an agreement: http://soldiersystems.net/2014/03/18/ssd-exclusive-crye-precision-speaks-regarding-us-army-efforts-adopt-new-camouflage/ http://soldiersystems.net/2014/03/18/ssd-exclusive-crye-prec... tl;dr: > Continuing its efforts to reduce costs to the Army and in an attempt to eliminate the Army’s concerns that MultiCam® was more expensive than UCP, Crye submitted several formal proposals which proved that the Army could procure MultiCam® gear at prices within 1% of UCP gear. Crye’s proposals additionally showed that this could be accomplished with no upfront cost to the Army. > The Army rejected all of Crye’s proposals and did not present any counter proposals, effectively saying that a proven increase in Soldier survivability was not worth a price difference of less than 1%.
m0llusk 12y ago
The Leapfrog project has been researching automation of clothing production which could be interesting. It seems strange that people are worried about diversity of clothing options causing waste when the clothing production process itself is what needs attention and if properly managed can generate diverse options with minimal additional overhead.
logfromblammo 12y ago
Advances in computerized image processing and on-demand fabric printing have not only made camouflage patterns obsolete, but also the entire concept of choosing a camouflage pattern for all military uniforms worldwide. What quartermasters need is a machine that will take photographs of the local terrain as input, calculate a camouflage pattern from them, and print that pattern on unmarked uniforms. The result would be matched only by a ghillie suit, which takes actual landscape features and physically attaches them to the fabric. Such a machine would be rejected any day of the week by a council of colonels during peacetime. During actual wartime, captains will somehow fail to notice uniform violations where the approved patterns have been defaced by the very same equipment that civilian hunters had already been using for years on the canvas for their tree stands and duck blinds. Beware the military-industrial complex indeed. I'd say the sector was ripe for disruption, but disruptors will be shot on sight. If you want to get the military to buy something that actually works, you have to market it to civilian outdoorsmen and make it commercial off-the-shelf technology. Some soldiers will use it while off duty or after their service contracts expire, and if you get very lucky with the good ol' boy network, someone will quietly process regular small procurements to ensure that you will not go out of business before you get the chance to save America from a land invasion by the Commie Fascist Nation of Scary Bogeymen. There has always been a huge gulf between wartime military development and peacetime research. Peacetime always produces stuff that looks cool while doing absolutely everything that needed to be done for the last war, plus a boatload of things that might have been useful if that war had dragged on long enough. Wartime development produces stuff that is cheap, ugly, and works well for the current war. That's how a soldier's kit can end up with silly string from a toy store or laser levels from a hardware store. By the time the army starts issuing that stuff to its units, the enemy had already stopped using tripwires to trigger booby traps. They switched to non-metallic pressure plates that use the physical movement of reactants to detonate an explosive. And so maybe someone breeds special houseflies to be attracted to the detonator chemicals, and then some poor grunt is stuck feeding the bomb-detector maggots in camp. And you just have to hope the war doesn't end right there, because then that guy will be a professional maggot wrangler for the next 20 years, training flies to do everything from finding terrorists in truck stops to landing only on the poop from generals and admirals. The inefficiency is built into the system. You absolutely cannot fix it from where you are sitting. You can consider it a form of welfare for veterans, like VA health care, except with fewer suicides. It would be extremely embarrassing for the military to have to admit that they make some people less qualified to hold jobs in the public sector. Whether that is due to the brain damage caused by explosive shockwaves passing through the skull or the brain damage caused by filling out reams of pointless bureaucratic paperwork is immaterial. As long as stories about neglected veterans hit the news, discharged folks will need to be put into safe jobs. And that is how military contracts go billions over budget. That is why none of this crap ever works until after the war actually starts.
rgbrgb 12y ago
This has pictures of the described patterns: http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=USA http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=USA
Shivetya 12y ago
This rivalry between branches is probably the leading cause to the excessive military budgets the US has. Between the boondoggle that is the F35; the rivalry amongst the branches they would not compromise on a design so it had to do it all; to the ludicrous idea that super carriers have survivability in a world of submarines and drones. By being separate it introduces coordination problems, results in duplicated systems, and an all around pissing contest. Give them all one uniform, one set of regulations, and one source of funding. Then retire off all the desk jockey O-6 and and above who simply serve no purpose but to manage an acronym
- wdewind 12y ago
  > to the ludicrous idea that super carriers have survivability in a world of submarines and drones. Can you expand on that? Super carriers seem to be a central part of our ability to exert influence globally. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
  - ef4 12y ago
    In an infamous 2002 wargame, an American carrier and much of its fleet were destroyed by swarms of speedboats with missiles, simulating potential Iranian tactics. Also, anti-ship ballistic missiles keep getting better. It's not clear whether the US Navy could stop the latest generation of Chinese anti-ship missiles. In both cases, a supercarrier suffers a serious probabilistic problem: the attackers only have to get through once. The defenders need to be 100% effective. That's not realistic in a world where it's economically feasible to field thousands of cheap drones.
    - robotresearcher 12y ago
      Cheap drones have small payloads, and one small payload won't do disastrous damage to a carrier. The attackers have to get through once with a serious weapon, or many times with small, cheap weapons. Is there a small, cheap weapon that is nasty enough, without relying on crazy luck? Do carriers have known vulnerabilities to small weapons, as in Star Wars Ep. IV? Edit: Just read up on USS Cole, and a small boat made a 40ft hole in the side, killed 17 and injured 39 sailors. Very serious. Is this enough to disable a carrier? Also, small boats have enormously more payload than a drone. Wikipedia says an attack on USS Sullivan failed when the overloaded attack boat sank, so clearly they are using all that capacity.

101 points by couchand 12y ago

Nope, they are dead wrong. I was in the Army during both Bush maladministrations, and the Marines doing their own thing was one of the proximate causes of the horrible Army ACU (as well as the weird Air Force and Navy blueish camo thingeys). From what I remember the Marines (RAWR, because they are MARINES, TOUGH!) didn't want their camo licensed out to the other branches, so the everyone went their own way. How is this cost effective? It certainly makes getting uniform apparel that much harder on joint bases (where they have to stock everything, like the Presidio of Monterey), or isolated people in Guard/Reserve units, whose nearest active duty installation may not be in their branch.

walshemj 12y ago
Reminds me of the long running fiasco over the new boots in the British army which lead to trench foot in the Falklands war. As the Army Rumour service (Arsepedia) says "All in all, the saga of British Army boot procurement is pretty pathetic: that we can consistently buy such rubbish, thus inevitably incurring far higher costs than would be necessary in buying one of the many excellent commercial products, is astonishing but symptomatic of British Defence Policy. At a rough estimate, 50% of British soldiers wear boots they have bought for themselves when on operations or exercise. "
- arethuza 12y ago
  I found the ARRSE completely by accident - quite an amusing site (probably NSFW): http://www.arrse.co.uk/ http://www.arrse.co.uk/ e.g. "British Military Procurement Mysteries" http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/British_Military_Procurement_Mysteries http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/British_Military_Procurement_Mys...
savszymura 12y ago
I think MultiCam variations (incl. Camogrom) are the best "universal" pattern that will suit most envirnoments, it works well in various lighting contitions too.
scott_s 12y ago
I was confused reading your comment, because I assumed the "they" in your first sentence meant those that wrote the editorial. But based on the rest of your comment, the "they" must be the military bureaucracy, because your comment agrees with the editorial.
- ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
  You are correct, I read the article early in the morning before coffee, and thought the Economist was taking the side of the Marines, et al. There's a lot of Marine veneration in the media, surprisingly.
minikites 12y ago
I believe the Marines are also responsible for ruining the F-35 to the tune of $1 trillion over the lifetime of the plane. > The Pentagon intends to spend roughly $399 billion to develop and buy 2,443 of the planes. However, over the course of the aircrafts' lifetimes, operating costs are expected to exceed $1 trillion. Lockheed has carefully hired suppliers and subcontractors in almost every state to ensure that virtually all senators and members of Congress have a stake in keeping the program -- and the jobs it has created -- in place. The Marines wanted VTOL and that made the plane worse in every other way.
- walshemj 12y ago
  They probably wanted a V2 harrier - which I am sure BAE would have loved to make but politics got in the way of buying a foreign plane.
  - meritt 12y ago
    Correct. The Marines desired a plane capable of VTOL and when DOD forced the idea of a singular fighter, they said "okay but we need VTOL" (and the other branches had their own operational needs), and thus we have this great-at-nothing-horrible-at-everything F-35.
    - vonmoltke 12y ago
      Exactly. The Marines did not ruin the F-35. The planners and politics that insisted on a single, joint service aircraft ruined the F-35.
- ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
  The Marines have a mindset that they are SPECIAL. I mean that in a serious way, despite the Marines rarely doing anything that's not also done by the Army. It'd make more sense for Marine air units to fly off of Navy carriers, rather than waste money on a VTOL version of the F-35.
  - wldcordeiro 12y ago
pbreit 12y ago
I don't see a big problem with each branch doing their own unis. They certainly are large enough. And the design costs are negligible in the scheme of things. Sure, they could share some best practices. Clearly they have different needs.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

As a military member who has worn three separate uniform implementations over the past 10+ years I can tell you that no-one who is serving thinks the changes are anything but silly. Everyone I knew thought that the introduction of multicam in AFG was a great jumping off point for all the services to share a uniform - but of course that will never happen with all the GO level pissing matches that happen.

nbartlomiej 12y ago

Cached version, without login wall: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SZQxqxtz9aIJ:www.economist.com/news/united-states/21600700-expense-and-stupidity-too-big-camouflage-out-sight http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:SZQxqxt...

kephra 12y ago
I wonder who upvoted this? Are there really 53 hackers paying economist.com to read it? " You have reached your article limit Register to continue reading or subscribe for unlimited access "
- CocaKoala 12y ago
  A useful trick is to google for the article titles; it seems like paywalls tend to not pop up when google is in the referer header.
  - ghkbrew 12y ago
    my go to is: right click link -> "open in incognito window" for chrome at least. Firefox has similar functionality, though I'm not sure if it can be accessed from a right-click.
    - scott_karana 12y ago
      It does, "Open Link in New Private Window" via right-click.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- DanBC 12y ago
  Some people have Economist subs. Some people haven't read any Economist articles this mobth and thus won't hit the paywall. Some people will evade the paywall.

gnurag 12y ago

hate paywalled articles posted here.

couchand 12y ago
My apologies. I'm not seeing a paywall on this page.
- gnurag 12y ago
  I get a message saying: "Subscribe now for unlimited access, or register to continue reading. You have reached your article limit." Sorry about the rant though, I could read the article in incognito as @bryanlarsen suggested.
bryanlarsen 12y ago
Given that a large percentage of the mainstream media is moving towards X articles/month free, register to get Y articles/month free, pay to get full access, you're basically asking that no main stream media links get posted here. That pretty much guarantees that the only posts we'll see are from the tech bubble, and one I'd like to avoid. As long as the workaround is as simple as it is here (right click, open in incognito), I don't think we should avoid posting articles from the Economist or other mainstream media sites here.
- gnurag 12y ago
  Sorry, I didn't ask "that no main stream media links get posted here." - I just didn't want to register. In any case, I'm here for discovering non-mainstream-media news.
- thwest 12y ago
  There are plenty of free outlets for political and economic news. Some examples include CEPR, DemocracyNow, Tom Dispatch, http://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/ http://ceinquiry.wordpress.com/, etc

hyperliner 12y ago

I see a lot of figures in the "millions" Pfft! That's like me buying an ice cream at McDonalds with the change I find in the little cup holder of my car. Wait! It also says 4b to replace all the "flawed" stuff. Hmmm, let me think: that like a small family dinner. In the overall scheme of things, this is nothing.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
acheron 12y ago
Few billion here, few billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.
- hyperliner 12y ago
  With government, the problem is that "here" is very different from "there." Which is why we really want the federal government to be really small or things like these happen.
  - kristopolous 12y ago
    "really small" won't fix "really corrupt" - how things are now, the first to go would be things such as laws keeping businesses honest.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      "really small" means limiting power which reduces the effects of corruption.
      - kristopolous 12y ago
        no. because with "really small" governments you still get "really big" companies. The term "deregulation" really epitomizes this - the idea that there should be fewer laws restricting companies from harming others and that the magical free hand of the market will miraculously prevent malfeasance and malevolent profiteering in some ayn rand utopia. what a lovely fantasy. The process I've seen called "decivilizing" - the willful dismantling of the post-industrial societal state back to some goal that is effectively an 18th century corporate oligarchy. The problem is that then you get companies which effect as governments - it's no mistake that the US flag is a spinoff of the maritime flag of the East India Trading corporation - it was effectively a de facto governing body - above the state. The corporate becomes the state when the state is weak. They are poised to fill such a power vacuum and it happens immediately. It's so clear.

chrisseaton 12y ago

People are scathing about the USMC's desire to look distinctive, and about senior officers' desire for soldiers to look good. Obviously fashion shouldn't trump everything, but looking and feeling the part is a considerable part of the moral component of fighting power. I think denying that is denying some basic human psychology. Why do armies spend money on flags, dress uniforms, buglers, horses, mascot dogs, medals, bands and so on? It's because the ethos they create is a seriously important part of building a group of men who can operate together in extreme situations. The USMC and other branches are worried about how their uniforms look and how distinctive they are because it's one essential part of preparing to fight a war.

walshemj 12y ago
Looking good is what dress uniforms are for in a fight you are concerned about other things than the CDI (chicks dig it) factor.
- chrisseaton 12y ago
  My experience was that my soldiers took a huge amount of pride in looking like a British Army soldier from their particular capbadge - especially in an operational environment. Part of my unit's cohesion and pride when operating in joint environments was being smart in their own particular unique way. That pride and attention to detail then carries over into their fieldcraft and tactics. Young men don't fight for the Ministry of Defence, they fight for their regiment and their mates - a group created by looking and acting just a little bit differently to other people.
  - ZanyProgrammer 12y ago
    The US Military, surprisingly, survived for years with everyone wearing the same combat uniform (BDUs).
    - angersock 12y ago
      Yeah, but that was before 9/11, and since then we've won so cle--oh. Well fuck.

cec 12y ago

I don't understand why I had to put my browser into porn mode to read this.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

walshemj 12y ago
Bitching about uniforms is a longstanding military tradition :-)
- phrogdriver 12y ago
  Absolutely. The Marines designed an "innovative" uniform that worked better than the status quo and increased esprit de corps because it was distinctive. The problem is the ridiculous "me too" copycat designs that proliferated since then. Everyone I know hates the Army's "floral couch", the Navy's "hope I don't fall overboard", and the Air Force's tiger stripes.
  - LanceH 12y ago
    Don't forget the timeless envy of the dress blues.

jrs235 12y ago

To get beyond the paywall try this search link to google: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Out+of+sight+the+economist https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Out+of+sight+the+econom... EDIT: This one might be slightly better: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=military+uniforms+out+of+sight+the+economist https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=military+uniforms+out+o...

bryanlarsen 12y ago
right click, open in incognito also works.

pjc50 12y ago

This is the "it doesn't matter if it actually works" factor rather than the "CDI" factor. America is not fighting a war of national survival on a limited budget. It's fighting some wars of choice and maintaining a defence procurement industry on a seemingly unlimited budget. There is no way even the total failure of the war will personally affect the people doing the producement, and there is no need for them to economise because they can't run out of other people's money. So, everyone involved is free to have endless meetings. Senior management can commission studies at great expense then ignore the result on a whim. They can engage in turf wars and internal empire building; after all, the real enemy is the people you're competing with for promotions. The procurements that have been successful are mostly those resulting from urgent operational requirements, when losing to insurgents with a tiny budget became embarrassing. (The UK is not immune to this; we've built an aircraft carrier that's supposed to use the F-35, which may not be available and we can't really afford)

madaxe_again 12y ago
Indeed - when you consider that the purpose of the US military machine is not to defend the US, but rather to be a vehicle for vast spending and dissemination of government funds to private contractors who lobby for their bread, it's fair to say that these uniforms work perfectly.
- wdr1 12y ago
  So it's like just about every other type of government of spending?
  - gchpaco 12y ago
    The US military is unusually detached from reality. The ISS was under constant budgetary supervision and periodic redesigns despite costing, I think, maybe a tenth the F35 program.
mathattack 12y ago
I think it's a general problem of large organizations disconnected to their output, of which the US Army is one. So are most large public universities. When there is a large gap between the payer and the user of activities, and an organization has a monopoly or competitive moat, then inefficiency and rot happens.

chiph 12y ago

The Navy's camo looks bizarre (it doesn't blend with trees, ships, or office equipment), but turns out it's main purpose is to hide the stains that a sailor picks up during their duty day, from oil & grease to paint drips. So as a duty uniform, it succeeds. The Air Force camo was introduced as a pure ego move. It doesn't blend, oil & hydraulic stains can't be wiped off the boots, and it's too hot. And unlike the green polyester duty uniforms of the 70's & 80's you can't shorten or roll-up the sleeves. My understand why they don't all buy the multi-cam is that the design is copyrighted and the DoD and the owner couldn't come to an agreement on the licensing fees.

badlucklottery 12y ago
According to Caleb Crye the DoD reps just didn't want to come to an agreement: http://soldiersystems.net/2014/03/18/ssd-exclusive-crye-precision-speaks-regarding-us-army-efforts-adopt-new-camouflage/ http://soldiersystems.net/2014/03/18/ssd-exclusive-crye-prec... tl;dr: > Continuing its efforts to reduce costs to the Army and in an attempt to eliminate the Army’s concerns that MultiCam® was more expensive than UCP, Crye submitted several formal proposals which proved that the Army could procure MultiCam® gear at prices within 1% of UCP gear. Crye’s proposals additionally showed that this could be accomplished with no upfront cost to the Army. > The Army rejected all of Crye’s proposals and did not present any counter proposals, effectively saying that a proven increase in Soldier survivability was not worth a price difference of less than 1%.

m0llusk 12y ago

The Leapfrog project has been researching automation of clothing production which could be interesting. It seems strange that people are worried about diversity of clothing options causing waste when the clothing production process itself is what needs attention and if properly managed can generate diverse options with minimal additional overhead.

logfromblammo 12y ago

Advances in computerized image processing and on-demand fabric printing have not only made camouflage patterns obsolete, but also the entire concept of choosing a camouflage pattern for all military uniforms worldwide. What quartermasters need is a machine that will take photographs of the local terrain as input, calculate a camouflage pattern from them, and print that pattern on unmarked uniforms. The result would be matched only by a ghillie suit, which takes actual landscape features and physically attaches them to the fabric. Such a machine would be rejected any day of the week by a council of colonels during peacetime. During actual wartime, captains will somehow fail to notice uniform violations where the approved patterns have been defaced by the very same equipment that civilian hunters had already been using for years on the canvas for their tree stands and duck blinds. Beware the military-industrial complex indeed. I'd say the sector was ripe for disruption, but disruptors will be shot on sight. If you want to get the military to buy something that actually works, you have to market it to civilian outdoorsmen and make it commercial off-the-shelf technology. Some soldiers will use it while off duty or after their service contracts expire, and if you get very lucky with the good ol' boy network, someone will quietly process regular small procurements to ensure that you will not go out of business before you get the chance to save America from a land invasion by the Commie Fascist Nation of Scary Bogeymen. There has always been a huge gulf between wartime military development and peacetime research. Peacetime always produces stuff that looks cool while doing absolutely everything that needed to be done for the last war, plus a boatload of things that might have been useful if that war had dragged on long enough. Wartime development produces stuff that is cheap, ugly, and works well for the current war. That's how a soldier's kit can end up with silly string from a toy store or laser levels from a hardware store. By the time the army starts issuing that stuff to its units, the enemy had already stopped using tripwires to trigger booby traps. They switched to non-metallic pressure plates that use the physical movement of reactants to detonate an explosive. And so maybe someone breeds special houseflies to be attracted to the detonator chemicals, and then some poor grunt is stuck feeding the bomb-detector maggots in camp. And you just have to hope the war doesn't end right there, because then that guy will be a professional maggot wrangler for the next 20 years, training flies to do everything from finding terrorists in truck stops to landing only on the poop from generals and admirals. The inefficiency is built into the system. You absolutely cannot fix it from where you are sitting. You can consider it a form of welfare for veterans, like VA health care, except with fewer suicides. It would be extremely embarrassing for the military to have to admit that they make some people less qualified to hold jobs in the public sector. Whether that is due to the brain damage caused by explosive shockwaves passing through the skull or the brain damage caused by filling out reams of pointless bureaucratic paperwork is immaterial. As long as stories about neglected veterans hit the news, discharged folks will need to be put into safe jobs. And that is how military contracts go billions over budget. That is why none of this crap ever works until after the war actually starts.

rgbrgb 12y ago

This has pictures of the described patterns: http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=USA http://camopedia.org/index.php?title=USA

Shivetya 12y ago

This rivalry between branches is probably the leading cause to the excessive military budgets the US has. Between the boondoggle that is the F35; the rivalry amongst the branches they would not compromise on a design so it had to do it all; to the ludicrous idea that super carriers have survivability in a world of submarines and drones. By being separate it introduces coordination problems, results in duplicated systems, and an all around pissing contest. Give them all one uniform, one set of regulations, and one source of funding. Then retire off all the desk jockey O-6 and and above who simply serve no purpose but to manage an acronym

wdewind 12y ago
> to the ludicrous idea that super carriers have survivability in a world of submarines and drones. Can you expand on that? Super carriers seem to be a central part of our ability to exert influence globally. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
- ef4 12y ago
  In an infamous 2002 wargame, an American carrier and much of its fleet were destroyed by swarms of speedboats with missiles, simulating potential Iranian tactics. Also, anti-ship ballistic missiles keep getting better. It's not clear whether the US Navy could stop the latest generation of Chinese anti-ship missiles. In both cases, a supercarrier suffers a serious probabilistic problem: the attackers only have to get through once. The defenders need to be 100% effective. That's not realistic in a world where it's economically feasible to field thousands of cheap drones.
  - robotresearcher 12y ago
    Cheap drones have small payloads, and one small payload won't do disastrous damage to a carrier. The attackers have to get through once with a serious weapon, or many times with small, cheap weapons. Is there a small, cheap weapon that is nasty enough, without relying on crazy luck? Do carriers have known vulnerabilities to small weapons, as in Star Wars Ep. IV? Edit: Just read up on USS Cole, and a small boat made a 40ft hole in the side, killed 17 and injured 39 sailors. Very serious. Is this enough to disable a carrier? Also, small boats have enormously more payload than a drone. Wikipedia says an attack on USS Sullivan failed when the overloaded attack boat sank, so clearly they are using all that capacity.