TOE

http://fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/

My respect for the FAS is quite low, but this is pretty

I go away for two weeks and we get into combat engineer stuff? It's a
conspiracy!

Oh well, somebody give me the archives URL and I will get to read it in a few
weeks...

Gracias, Glenn

On Sat, 3 Jul 2004 08:28:27 -0700 (PDT) John Atkinson
> <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> writes:

On Sat, 03 Jul 2004 17:33:23 +0200 Oerjan Ohlson
> <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> writes:
<snip>
> According to those Swedish ex-S-tank crew members I've talked to, the

Mil Specs. God's answer to "more is better."

Seriously, more 'capabilities' means more things to break/fix.

Based on personal experience in 7 years in the USAF and three years as supply
sergeant in a category 15 priority Army Reserve unit I (almost) believe the
report from years ago that a private broke a splinter shield off an old direct
fire artillery display piece unaided by power tools by accident. I have the
utmost faith that one of the worst things a sergeant can say is "What harm can
one private do to [fill in the
blank]?"

Gracias,

> At 1:50 PM -0500 7/3/04, <warbeads@juno.com> wrote:

Depends on the milspec actually. I'll bet my M813A1 against any of the newer
FMTVs for sturdiness. Its just heavier, noisier, a bit more service intensive
in daily maintenance and uses more fuel. But it's solid. Now, FMTVs when the
work all the bugs out and get the privates trained to not treat them like a
POS CUCV, then they'll be somewhere.

> Seriously, more 'capabilities' means more things to break/fix.

So you subscribe to the Russian model? "Feh, gunner doesn't need range finder,
just tell him to estimate....fire enough times, he figure it
out."

I'll stick with the extra bits....

> Based on personal experience in 7 years in the USAF and three years as

Nothing if private proof. Worse yet, I have a
co-worker at CNN that can managed to mangle
anything mechanical if you give him time. He can barely even install a system
level on the four corner in a rack frame. What's scary is that he was a West
Pointer.

> Nothing if private proof. Worse yet, I have a

Well, duh!

He's an officer...

> At 4:07 PM -0500 7/3/04, David Rodemaker wrote:

Actually I'm glad he didn't take a commission. But we have a few other
officers around and through work that were quite good at their jobs with good
attention to detail. We have one guy that used to work on secure coms that
would be a shoo in for a WO rank if he went reserve or guard. Barring the PT
test.

On Sat, 3 Jul 2004 16:29:02 -0400 Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
writes:
> At 1:50 PM -0500 7/3/04, <warbeads@juno.com> wrote:

My experience is things like maps and charts (the difference is important
but not as much as the hydro boys/girls like to believe.)   Of course
now
you can get a "TLM-'like' product" shudder.

> Seriously, more 'capabilities' means more things to break/fix.

No, but I do think we sometimes over design/complicate things.  The
early radar based AAMs were... inauspicious... initially. Tactical doctrine
made them useless but even when fired initially they were a flop because the
complexity required more rigorous testing then was applied to work the bugs
out.

> I'll stick with the extra bits....

Like computers, when they work they are awesome but when they don't they make
nice expensive paper weights.

Gracias,

> At 5:25 PM -0500 7/3/04, <warbeads@juno.com> wrote:

I'm rather fond of some milspect products as they're pretty tough for the
cost. But then the civilian's have better packs than the military guys,
they're just far more expensive...until the Molle system that is.

> No, but I do think we sometimes over design/complicate things. The

Its not always overdesigned, rather it's mission creep. In my industry we call
it scope creep. "you said you wanted a web server, you didn't say you also
wanted a data base server and a means to parse all the log files insitu."

> >I'll stick with the extra bits....

Part of the design process. Design something that works and keep the extra
bells and whistles out. (windows2000cough) Keep the product on the same track
and don't allow scope to creep and you'll make your target with a good product
(hopefully). Add bits and pieces and expect the cost to balloon, the weight to
increase and you'll find that your product is much heavier than expected.

Case in point the Bradly. A good vehicle, but with so much extra added on to
it they never swim as originally designed because they're too heavy to do so
safely.

> --- Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

According to my fiance (ex-88M) that's sort of a yes,
BUT.  The 800- and 900- are somewhat sturdier.
8-hundreds are stick shift, which is inconvenient at
best. LMTV and FMTV have other advantages. LMTV is
air-transportable by Chinook, and both of them are
much easier to put on cargo planes because they can be lowered. LMTV and FMTV
brake lines are less likely to
freeze solid.  Mounting a ring mount on an old 5-ton
is also more complex, while it is a ten minute procedure with a wrench and the
new ones. The mileage really isn't that different. The main difference, she
says, is really personal preference.