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Trillions and Trillions! Money for Nothing at the Pentagon

by | Sep 10, 2024 | ,

pentawaste

On this day in 2001 (the day before the 9/11 attacks), Donald Rumsfeld said this:

At the 14:15 mark, Rumsfeld says, “Our financial systems are decades old. According to some estimates, we cannot track 2.3 trillion dollars in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building. Because it’s stored on dozens of different technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.”

A DoD IG audit report was released on 25 February 2000 which said the following: “For the accounting entries, $2.3 trillion was not supported by adequate audit trails or sufficient evidence to determine their validity, $2 trillion was not reviewed because of time constraints, and $2.6 trillion were supported.”

In a July 2000 statement, Robert J. Lieberman, Assistant Inspector General at the time, also mentioned the $2.3 trillion number saying that the amount was “unsupported by reliable explanatory information and audit trails or were made to invalid general ledger accounts.”

The Pentagon just failed its sixth audit where 63% of four trillion dollars remains unaccounted for.

That’s approximately 2.5 trillion dollars.

2,500,000,000,000 dollars.

trillions

A stack of one billion dollars bills would be 67.9 miles high. A trillion dollar bills would reach 67,866 miles into space.
A trillion dollar bills, laid end to end, would stretch 96,906,656 miles—further than the distance of the earth to the sun.
A trillion dollars laid side to side, would cover more square miles than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.
A trillion dollars on skids would need to be transported by 478 semi-trailers. Unloaded, it would fill a football field from sideline to sideline, and almost goal line to goal line.
If you were to spend $40/second, it would take 289 days to spend a billion dollars. And that’s at a spending rate of almost $3.456 million per day.
At the same spending rate of $40/second, it would take 792.5 years to blow through one trillion dollars.

That means that a stack of of 2.5 trillion one dollar bills reaches approximately 169,665 miles into space (the moon is 239,000 miles from Earth).

Here’s the proposed breakdown for the Pentagon fat-cats for the 2025 NDAA:

  • President’s budget: $849.8 billion for the Defense Department
  • House NDAA: $849.8 billion for the Defense Department
  • House defense appropriations: Includes $833 billion in defense spending
  • Senate Armed Services Committee: $878.4 billion for the Defense Department
  • Senate Appropriations Committee: $852.2 billion defense spending

Topline budget numbers among the appropriations and authorizing committees aren’t apples to apples, with no single bill containing the whole of national defense spending.

The NDAA — which sanctions funds but does not actually obligate them  — includes the Defense Department as well as defense spending within the Department of Energy, but does not include about $11.5 billion in national security spending outside the jurisdiction of the House and Senate armed services committees.

Meanwhile, House and Senate defense appropriations bills cover the Defense Department and some intelligence-related spending, but not defense spending at the Department of Energy.

http://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/f-35s-frigates-and-fra-woes-here-are-the-issues-facing-congress-in-upcoming-fy25-budget-process/

No one is in control and no one is accountable.

No one.

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Dead in the Water: The US and Royal Gator Navies in a Death Spiral

by | Sep 9, 2024 |

iwo2

Remember when USS Bonhomme Richard caught fire and burned for five days in San Diego?

Or when the USS Boxer tried to deploy but broke its rudder.

screenshot 2024 09 09 at 08 05 52 8.5x11sheet amphib.pdf

The USS Iwo Jima is now crippled.

The Gator Navy is the amphibious warfare department of the USN and USMC. The USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) (landing helicopter dock) is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship; fully loaded, the LHD has about 3,000+ people total, less all those extra passengers it’s about 1,200 ship’s company. They will most likely discover these are rudder problems which will take months to resolve.

Don’t be awed by the infographic above, the US Navy has not conducted a contested amphibious landing arguably since WWII, one can make the argument that the Inchon landings (Operation Chromite) in September 1950 were such but it was lightly contested at best. Like the rest of the navy surface ship inventory, the chaos avalanche of maintenance backlogs and the increasing frequency of “engineering casualties” that force a ship back to port is becoming more common. The US Navy currently has 31 amphibious warships but those may be reduced in the future despite the USMC putting the minimum number needed at 31 is the baseline.

A funny thing happened to USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7)…

Lt. Cmdr. David Carter, a spokesman for Naval Surface Force Atlantic, confirmed that the USS Iwo Jima suffered “a non-propulsion-related materiel casualty in the engineering department” that forced the ship to return to Naval Station Norfolk on Thursday. That description could cover everything from a problem with the ship’s hydraulics to power generators to potable water equipment.

Rudder issues were the same problem that forced the USS Boxer to return from its deployment in April just 10 days after setting sail.

In March, a very similar series of events played out with the USS Wasp, the same class of ship as the Iwo Jima and in the same waters off of Virginia.

The same ship watcher spotted the Wasp having issues and abruptly returning to port. The watcher’s account reported that the ship suffered damage to its propeller shaft.

When asked about that March incident, Carter said that the ship “discovered an engineering irregularity” that forced it to return to port without confirming or denying a shaft issue.

“30+-year-old warships will experience materiel challenges,” Carter argued at the time, before noting that the commander of the Navy’s surface fleet in the Atlantic “focuses on … how we respond to those challenges.”

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/09/06/another-navy-amphibious-assault-ship-breaks-down-off-virginia-coast.html

None of this will improve readiness and is yet another indicator of a maintenance crisis in the Navy that will continue.

***

The Royal Navy continues to degrade and decay at a rapid pace in the Gator Navy follies in the West.

The HMS Bulwark, one of the Royal Navy’s two amphibious assault ships, has spent a significant amount of time out of active service, accumulating over 2,730 days in port (nearly eight years), which of course means the embarking of the Royal Marines would be a difficult enterprise outside of home waters.

Fast forward to 2020, HMS Bulwark entered dry dock for phase two of her optimised support period. At that time, the MoD anticipated that Bulwark would return to active duty by mid-2023 following the completion of a final phase three recertification. However, recent developments suggest this timeline has shifted.

As of March 2024, then-Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence James Cartlidge, under the previous Conservative government, indicated that HMS Bulwark would only return to active service “if required.”

This announcement has led many to question whether the ship will ever resume full operational duties. A source within the Royal Navy suggested that despite earlier commitments, it has been clear for some time that the vessel’s return to regular service was unlikely. The notion of readiness “if required” subtly confirms this.

Most likely, the ships will go dark and the Royal Navy will cease to have this capability. My suspicion is that Bulwark and Albion will never again set sail under the White Ensign. Figures published earlier this week show that the Royal Navy currently fields just 5,500 Royal Marines Commandos, with barely enough to field a brigade (they have a working internal training establishment) and for which the amphibious ships are designed.

The RN is a shambles:

Two active carriers
Two active T45s (destroyers)
Five active T23s (frigates)
Zero active SSN
Several of the inactive ships have been inactive for over two years and three Astutes inactive for 1.5 to 2 years.

If the current Starmer junta has its way, the forces across the board will experience even greater cuts than anticipated two years ago.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-assault-ship-has-spent-over-seven-years-in-port/

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The Carrier Narrative is Dying

by | Sep 6, 2024 |

fordcarrier

Carrier skeptics have been hammering away at the anachronistic cargo cult of the aircraft carrier. The Navy has invested a significant amount of political capital and mountains of budget dollars to maintaining a fleet of these allegedly deadly weapons of war that were recently steaming away with their tails between their legs from the Red Sea where the US Navy (in its own words) experienced the deadliest combat since WWII.

Against a foe with no navy to speak of (largest vessels in the Yemeni fleet are fifty year old patrol vessels).

Now Kat Klarenberg at Global Delinquents penned a brilliant jeremiad against these budget-busting behemoths that destroy dollars more effectively than anything else.

Stop building these things.

Stop funding and re-imagine the martial nature of naval combat in the 21st century.

Similar bombast was present in remarks Sullivan made in an accompanying “exclusive” interview with The Times. He spoke of how in the immediate aftermath of “Oct. 7”, his White House national security team decided strident “military muscle movements that could show decisiveness” were absolutely vital. As such, Washington sought to “over-deliver on speed, and scope and scale of American power protection to reassure the Israelis, and to deter adversaries.” USS Eisenhower’s dispatch was considered the boldest “military muscle movement” possible.

Sullivan expressed delight with the results of Operation Prosperity Guardian, suggesting USS Eisenhower’s “fight” with AnsarAllah in the Red Sea “showed that [aircraft carriers] could still battle effectively at close ranges.” This appraisal was echoed by US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro. He dismissed “critics” who “predicted the end of the usefulness of carriers”, claiming Operation Prosperity Guardian was a “valuable lesson” demonstrating how US aircraft carrier naysayers had gotten it badly wrong.

Sullivan and Del Toro can put a happy face all they want on the continuing efficacy of carriers but the evidence is now overwhelming that these enormously expensive aircraft ferries are a complete waste of money in the world of 21st century peer and near-peer warfare. These ships will go down ignobly in history as floating coffins that will seal the fate of thousands of sailors trapped in these missile sponges if the inevitable new wars in this century kick off.

A far more rational conclusion to draw from Operation Prosperity Guardian is that US aircraft carriers have been proven beyond any reasonable doubt to be a redundant relic of a bygone, unipolar age. The Empire’s bloated, exorbitantly expensive military machine built in recent decades, exclusively suited to one-sided gang-beatings of adversaries that can’t retaliate, is now unable to meet the challenges of modern warfare. By contrast, the Resistance have effortlessly innovated and equipped themselves for 21st century battle.

If the effusive endorsements of Operation Prosperity Guardian issued by Del Toro and Sullivan are truly sincere, then unambiguous, urgent takeouts from the fiasco evidently have not been heeded. Eerily, such cecity was precisely foreshadowed by the July 2002 Millennium Challenge. Largely forgotten today, it remains one of the grandest war games ever mounted by the Pentagon. Costing $250 million – almost $500 million in today’s money – it involved both live-action exercises and computer simulations. In all, 13,000 real-life US troops participated.

Please read the whole essay because Kit does a great overview of the infamous 2002 Millennium Challenge exercise debacle in which GEN van Riper demonstrated the emperor had no clothes in the Pentagon.

https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/collapsing-empire-rip-us-aircraft

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Tanks for Nothing: The Era of Manned Armor is Over

by | Sep 5, 2024 |

m1 abramsx

The beat goes on.

I have made the outrageous claim that the era of the carrier is over and also infer that manned tanks are also way past their expiration date due to the demonstrative lop-sided opportunities in salvo competition that is seeing 7-10 million dollar tanks savaged by munitions a fraction of the cost. Even in peer wars of the past, industrial capacity would not be able to keep up with that attrition trade-off but in today’s severely degraded manufacturing environment in the West, this is an invitation to disaster with no capacity to replenish war-stocks lost in combat.

You want manned tanks? Build in smaller densities and revisit the CONOPs to reduce the size and signature by creating smaller unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) that are armed in a variety of ways to discover what the optimal form of this new vehicle will be. When the Iraqi tanks were destroyed at the Battle of 73 Easting in the First Iraq War (1990-91) by the superior tanks and crews with the Abrams, it was the high water mark for a tank first conceived in the 1970s. But over thirty years have past and the tank is overshadowed by many munitions that have become ubiquitous now that were scarce then. During the Persian Gulf War, it is alleged that M2 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles (IFV) destroyed more Iraqi armored vehicles than the M1 Abrams. A few kills against Iraqi T-72 tanks at close range are reported. A total of 20 Bradleys were lost; three by enemy fire and 17 due to friendly fire incidents. Another 12 were damaged.

Only four USMC Abrams were ever deployed to Afghanistan. The environment was totally unsuitable.

In the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Bradley IFVs fared poorly. In 2006, total losses included 55 Bradleys destroyed and some 700 others damaged. By the end of the war, about 150 Bradleys had been destroyed. Most destroyed by IEDs (nothing new here, merely a variant on mine warfare).

The ubiquity of drones for both munitions and third party targeting is quickly diminishing the utility of tanks in modern near-peer and peer warfare.

The manned tank era is simply over.

m1a2sep2006

M1A2 SEP belonging to 1/66AR, destroyed by IED on March 10, 2006; 2 KIA with an assumed 2 WIA.

m1cojone

It appears approx 35 Abrams were lost (enemy and friendly fire) in the 2003-2011 in Iraq. And very little of these were tank-on-tank encounters and many were IED with only one scuttled (deliberate abandonment and destruction). That M1A1 belonged to 1-64, 3ID destroyed April 6, 2003. The well known “Cojone Eh” was destroyed during Thunder Run; the tank was set on fire by either a RPG-7 or SPG-9 hit to the left side fuel tanks, eventually scuttled with guided air launched munitions and multiple sabot hits.

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is putting paid the very notion of utility and survivability of manned tanks on the modern battlefield much like my notion that exoskeletal armor so fondly portrayed in science fiction will not have humans in them but will simply be augmented ground combat drones in various modes of motoring (tracked, wheeled, bipedal, quad-pedal, etc) about the battlefield. Even the notion of mechanized or light combat infantryman needs a whole new reappraisal for survivability.

And now the mandarins at the Pentagon want a new Abrams that is, wait for it, hybrid electric. I have not taken the time to look at the Request for Proposal for a new tank but I will bet dollars to donuts the wizards of war in the DoD floated the suggestion of green technology to appease the usual suspects.

Neither the Bradley nor the Abrams should be replaced. It’s time for a complete reappraisal of armored and mechanized warfare in the West.

Stop the madness.

Now, General Dynamics is proposing the AbramsX, a next-generation tank featuring a hybrid electric diesel engine, artificial intelligence, and a smaller crew.

Last year, General Dynamics offered a short YouTube clip advertising the AbramsX. The video made a splash. “It’s the biggest upgrade of America’s military tank technology since early in the Cold War, The Washington Post wrote.

Naturally, the AbramsX will feature updated technology relative to existing Abrams variants. The biggest upgrade is the inclusion of a hybrid electric diesel engine, which is expected to make the AbramsX lighter and improve its fuel economy.

In keeping with the economic theme, the AbramsX will operate with a smaller crew than its predecessors. And like most weapons systems being developed these days, the tank will also incorporate artificial intelligence systems.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/abramsx-us-armys-next-big-tank-nightmare-210113

H/T to R/Destroyed Tanks

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Reader Request

by | Sep 4, 2024 |

titanic1

Does anyone have the CRS or GAO report of the completed F35 OT&E [Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E)]? Any documentation will do.

They fielded the 1,000th airframe and it has NEVER jumped from initial operational capability (IOC) to full operational capability (FOC) until possibly this year.

To quote Lt. Gen. Michael Schmidt, the F-35′s program executive officer, said during a 30 March 2023:

The “F-35 is currently planning to achieve full operational capability status after the full TR-3 and block 4 capabilities of the aircraft are fielded in 2028 — 27 years after the program began…”

“That is by any measure unacceptable.”

27 years.

“While over 900 F-35s have been produced, the program has technically been stuck in its initial operational testing phase — and low-rate initial production — for years over the delayed completion of the trials, whose results DOT&E officials intend to use to support a full-rate production decision. The delays stemmed from technical issues and pandemic challenges impacting the program’s virtual Joint Simulation Environment (JSE), which hosts the combat trials for the tri-variant stealth fighter. Compared to an original plan outlined in 2012, the program formally entered the operational testing phase over a year late in 2018 and previously expected to achieve FRP at the end of 2019.”

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/09/f-35-program-completes-key-combat-simulations-could-pave-way-for-full-rate-production/

I have covered this in the past concerning TR-3 & Block 4 capabilities problems.

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Carrier Blues: Even the Mainstream is Waking Up

by | Sep 3, 2024 |

xr:d:dafh8gn6tqc:21,j:3975420477,t:23050409

The ice is breaking on the stonewalling of the defense community and external observers to have an honest conversation on the aircraft carrier; they may be getting the message on how indefensible and anachronistic this extraordinarily expensive weapons system is.

The Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition has already removed me from their Christmas card list.

More and more of the Coprophile Media is reluctantly waking up to the apparently intuitively obvious conclusion. The defense journalism industry, like the cultural critics in Hollywood, tend to be sycophantic and are very careful with criticism because then they lose the public relations contacts and open doors to the trillion dollar defense industry.

Thank goodness for the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and General Accountability Office (GAO) documentation and data palaces that show the keen observer what is really going on (even though I think the ground truth tends to be far worse than we even imagine).

I do wish a foundation with deep pockets or even Elon Musk would create a clearinghouse/analytical cell that goes through these mountains of data and evidence to show just how bad the American (and by extension, the Western) military establishment is. The US is not prepared to conduct a peer or near-peer war much less more than one conflict at the same time. And the trillions of dollars unaccounted for is another issue altogether.

Hence, America’s obsession with expensive and cumbersome aircraft carriers. The United States has not only committed to this weapons platform, but it has become a cultural symbol. That is why the cult of flat tops has taken hold to such a degree that to even point out that great state rivals, such as China and Russia, as well as the proxies for these nations, such as Iran or North Korea, have developed highly effective countermeasures is considered unpatriotic or worse, heretical. But this fixation on the carrier as more than just a weapons platform, as a cultural icon, is precisely what makes it such a terrible weapon to rely upon.

And then they say something in the major media that you dear readers know already.

Thus, Washington’s current war plans play right into China’s and Russia’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategies. If actual war erupts between the United States or any of its major rivals, these forces will do what they must to win the war—and that means going-for-broke and trying to sink US carriers before they can become a serious threat to their forces and interests. 

One way or another, thanks to the advent of hypersonic weapons and anti-ship missiles, such as China’s DF-21 series, American aircraft carriers will not be as effective against targets defended by these A2/AD systems. 

In the history of human warfare, large exquisite platforms always attract plenty of attention from the Roman destruction of Gallic fortresses before the birth of Christ to the use of longbows to defeat very expensive heavy horse at Agincourt to the Maginot Line and battleship dead-ends in the twentieth century.

And everything in between throughout history. The carrier is the crossbow and chariot of the 21st century.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/aircraft-carrier-age-could-end-disaster-us-navy-209915

The U.S. Navy’s other Pacific-based carriers are in port or in their maintenance availability period. Out of six carriers in the Pacific, the USS Carl Vinson recently participated in RIMPAC 2024, the USS Nimitz recently completed a six month planned incremental availability period for maintenance, the USS Ronald Reagan recently completed a homeport shift to Naval Base Kitsap, and the USS George Washington will remain in San Diego until the crew and equipment swap from USS Ronald Reagan is complete.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2024/08/no-u-s-navy-aircraft-carriers-deployed-in-the-pacific/

At least the carriers in port will be sunk in shallow water.

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