OT Why USAF reducing manpower

[Anupam Routh]

Greetings! Many of the members of this newsgroup are connected with military. You probably know the answer to my questions? Does any one know who started the process of reducing the USAF manpower and why? My son is a pilot in USAF. It seems strange to train a pilot at a cost of more than a million dollars and then asked them to retire after few years. With thanks.

 

[henry tanner]

they are doing for all the military. they tell us to do the sanme work with less. they think thye can save money. i`ve got my on hearth ach about it. but i`m not going to put it out here. i`ll be writing for days. and you do put that stuff out just any where.

 

[Tom Schindler]

Where do you think they are getting the money to fund that war in Iraq that "so many" think is worth it?





Tom

 

[Dale Carlson]

Rumsfeld started it a few years ago. At least part of his plan was to reduce the troop level in the Air Force by about 30,000 active duty members, AND increase the Army by that many (there's even a program that let's AF members transfer directly to the Army. It's called Blue-to-Green). It does seem kind of dumb that they would downsize personnel who are the most costly to train. But, in a similar drawdown over a decade ago, they didn't include the stick-actuators (endearing mechanic's term for pilots), and the AF ended up with too many pilots and not enough cockpits to put them in.



In a separate program, the Office of Personnel Management, has been trying to reduce the number of civil-service employees throughout the entire federal government through a process sometimes called A-76, or competitive sourcing. Basically, if a study finds that if a given function is not an inherently governmental function, and it can be done more efficiently (read: more cheaply) by a contractor, then that civil-service position is eliminated and the function is performed by the lowest-bidding contractor.

 

[Keith Lewis]

A-76 affects more then just civil-service, it also affects military positions. And when an A-76 study is done, it's done on an entire unit, not just a single position.



They've done it on comm squadrons (what I'm most familiar with) and have found it to bite them in the butt more often then not when they go to a contractor for the entire comm squadron function. Contractors tend to not be very accomodating when it comes to getting important things done if it isn't part of their contract.

 

[Larry Phillips]

The main reason we are reducing the force is to be able to afford to do more with the less funds that Congress is giving us. And the most expensive part of our Air Force is the people who make it what it is. The main problem right now is that alot of our aircraft are aging rapidly. The KC-135 fleet is the prime example, with the fleet averaging 50 years old, and the maintenance costs are skyrocketing. With the limited budget, we have to bite the bullet now, and upgrade to the KC-X to save operating and maintenance costs in the long run. The same will be true for the C-130 soon (even though the C-17 is taking the bulk of the workload)

And another problem is the lower uptime rate of the C-5 (I heard somewhere around 78%)



Arouth, what aircraft does your son fly? I'm currently a SSgt in a comm career field, but I'm looking to get into ROTC and earn my wings soon. I want to fly either the C-17, KC-135, or C-130.

 

[Keith Lewis]

C-130's will be around a while, especially if they can get the kinks worked out on the J models (vastly superior plane to the H models).

 

[Larry Phillips]

Yeah, but I know they're planning to start swapping out the oldest in the fleet soon with the J (which I agree, totally awesome plane). But the main problem right now is the tanker fleet. This is me sitting in a C-130J-30.



[Broken External Image]:

 

[Tommy Wright]

Here is the real reason for the drawdown. Right after 9/11, Congress allowed all branches of the military to exceed their max personnel numbers in all career fields. The Joint Chiefs tried to get Congress to increase their authorizations to the levels they maintain now and Congress said no we can not afford to continue to spend this much on personnel when we need ne planes and weapons syetems. The Air Force was the only organization that had exeeded it's manning numbers by a lot and some career fields were at 110 to 130% manned. By forcing cross-training and limitinf CJR's they were able to reduce their numbers some but no enough. We are losing good troops everyday that this continues to go on.



I was a tech school instructor during 9/11 and seen big spikes in my career field numbers (2FXXX POL). At one point and time we stopped all training (7-Level and advance courses) and filled our building with new troops straight from basic.

 

[Mark Grumpy]

There are many reasons, some mentioned above and the most accurate for the current state is by Tommy.



However, this has been going on since the 80's. Well, since the end of VietNam really. But the 80's is when we had the first round of BRAC. Due mainly to technology, not entirely - mainly, we need less people. This is why XP, or Manpower, now known as A1M, does Manpower studies. How many manhours does it take to complete a particular function? What used to take three bodies now only takes 1. And then Congress, not SECDEF, reduces authorizations. Also, (not real numbers) an F-35 or 22 does the work of three F15's. Now we don't need so many pilots, maintainers, fuelers and so on and so on.



grump

 

[Gerald Pierce]

In a separate program, the Office of Personnel Management, has been trying to reduce the number of civil-service employees throughout the entire federal government through a process sometimes called A-76, or competitive sourcing. Basically, if a study finds that if a given function is not an inherently governmental function, and it can be done more efficiently (read: more cheaply) by a contractor, then that civil-service position is eliminated and the function is performed by the lowest-bidding contractor.

The cost to train a new recruit and maintain the benefits package through their lifetime is astronomical. While I would love to see us better paid, given the hours we put in now with all the deployments, in peace time, given the education of most of the young recruits (not all), they are compensated quite well, especially with the non-taxable benefits (medical, dental, housing, education, etc). A few years back, DW went to work for a contractor on base and made pretty good money for the job. Salary was comparable to say an E6's base pay, but there were no benefits. The govt definately saved money there.



Bottom line on why they are cutting jobs in the military is that with technology, we can do more with less. Utilizing COTS (commercial off the shelf) equipment saves tons in parts alone, and reduces the manpower and training required to repair equipment. I have systems with $100k milspec computers (dinasaurs) that are being replaced with COTS laptops for 700.00, that perform hundreds of times better and if it breaks, I can buy another anywhere and reload it. I can train someone to reload a computer a lot cheaper than I can train one to troubleshoot and repair one, and it takes less people to do it.



Last ship had "smartship" installed. They replaced all the aniquated engineering control systems with PC's, and while the initial cost was very great, the manpower reduction would probably pay for it in a couple of years.



Problem with all this now is that with reduced numbers and assets, the folks now are spending more time gone in "the field" or "at sea", since there are less folks to rotate through. Personally, I spend 75 - 80 pct of my time gone, and while I understand why, it doesn't make it anymore fun.

 

[Nelson Atwell]

Personally, I think the Air Force cut to the bone a few years ago. They are cutting INTO the bone now. I don't know about everyone of course, but most of the people I know are tired of moving and deploying all the time. When we're not gone, we're in our home units preparing for our next deployment or move, and doing the job of two or three, because a few of our guys are deployed and the contractors aren't doing half of what the military workers did before they were replaced.



It's really crazy, and the sad thing is, the people they are cutting aren't the ones they need to cut. For instance, my old unit lost three young and able-bodied Captains through force-shaping. We only got to keep the twice passed-over Captain who has no hope of being promoted, and who has diabetes so he can never deploy. Heck, half our office couldn't do PT, because of some physical limitation, and we had 1/4th of our folks that were permanently non-deployable for everything from degenerative bone disease to sleep apnea. The last time I ran PT with those guys, I was the third to finish out of 10, and I was the oldest in the office by several years.