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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 h
by 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 agoReminds 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 agoI 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 agoI 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 agoI 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 agoYou 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 agoI 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 agoThey 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 agoCorrect. 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 agoExactly. 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 agoThe 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 agoI 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.