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Andy's avatar

Just as a point of order, I strongly suggest that the ammunition consumption rates used for planning assumptions in OPLANs were arrived at via Modeling and Simulation methods, which is very different than War Gaming. Also, I would not be surprised if we failed to procure at least some ordnance to the already too low forecast rates. When I was at the Pentagon, the catch phrase was that “ordnance is a bill payer.” That is, if a given resource sponsor had to take a top line cut for some reason, then that cut manifested itself as a reduction in a weapons buy. Turns out, it’s hard to buy 10% less of a DDG or F-35, but easy to buy 90 missiles instead of 100. I’ve been in the room when it was decided to “accept risk” in this way.

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Ron Snyder's avatar

Our current SecDef and the Joint Chiefs remind me of the senior French Generals/Admirals just prior to and during the early days of WWII- Self-serving, incompetent and supremely assured of their infallibility.

"We made mistakes in our estimates of the nature of war, and we're moving to correct them." None of our senior leaders at this point in their careers seem willing to admit that they were wrong.

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