Pentagon can’t count bullets
Paul sends us a link from USAToday which reports that the pentagon is about to destroy billions of bullets because no one knows how to count them properly. Singing a familiar song, their accounting systems between the services can’t talk to each other;
The result: potential waste of unknown value.
“There is a huge opportunity to save millions, if not billions of dollars if the (Pentagon) can make some common-sense improvements to how it manages ammunition,” said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “Despite years of effort, the Army, Navy and Air Force still don’t have an efficient process for doing something as basic as sharing excess bullets. This Government Accountability Office (GAO) report clearly shows that our military’s antiquated systems lead to millions of dollars in wasteful ammunition purchases.”
The Army and Pentagon, in a statement, acknowledged “the need to automate the process” and will make it a priority in future budgets. In all, the Pentagon manages a stockpile of conventional ammunition worth $70 billion.
Well, that’s reassuring – they’re going to make it a priority in the future, you know like the information systems between the Department of Defense and the VA has been a priority.
Of course, DoD could do like the Israelis and the Russians do – they could sell the surplus to private users…like me…and recover some of their money. But then, the Bradys and the Bloombergs would just shit themselves. So let’s just destroy the ammo. We can recover the cost from veterans’ surplus from paying their increased premiums on TriCare while we promise some nebulous fix to the system sometime in the future. Way in the future. In the meantime, we can just blame Bush for making us go to war and buy ammo, in spite of the fact that when he came into office, there was no ammo surplus.
Category: Big Army
So they’ve got a metric shit ton of ammo just laying around that they’re gonna have to destroy, yet during the sequester bs guys couldn’t get time on the range due to a lack of ammo….wtf. These are the type of things that make me wonder if we actually have real leadership or if it’s just a monkey with Down’s syndrome pushing randoms keys.
I’ll take “monkey with Down’s syndrome” for the Daily Double, Scott.
^^^^^
How dare you insult monkeys with downs syndrome!
I think the analogy does a dis-service to primates with down syndrome as I suspect the primate would at least put a minimum of thought into randomly pushing a button. I am convinced there is zero thought process in what the Pentagon does some days.
Umm… I have known several folks with Downs syndrome who are functional members of society. (Though I must confess I have never met a monkey with that condition.)
I am positive any one of them could do a much better job. Let’s not lump them together with worthless oxygen wastes like these please.
hasn’t been that long since DoD had to be stopped from scrapping used brass by crushing and melting. (Used cartridge brass is worth easily 15X bulk brass ingots, for anyone who isn’t clear on that.)
When dealing with Government bureaucrats and politicians ALWAYS expect maximum stupidity, incompetence, and all around chickenshit, and then you’re almost never surprised!
Proud…I had something in mind to post but after reading yours above…I’ll let yours lay. Well said.
They should just give all the excess ammo to a 2LT on a rifle range and tell him not to come in until it’s all gone. I had that happen to me twice. First, it was several thousand rounds of 5.56. That was a lot of fun. Second was a deuce and a half full of explosives – Claymores, military dynamite, C4, shape charges, and enough det cord and blasting caps to make it all go boom. That was the best day I ever had in the Army.
Was that out in Korea by any chance?
L.A. (Lower Alabama)
So YOU’RE the REAL reason Lake Tholocco went bye-bye for a while!
Don’t worry, the statute of limitations ran out a looooong time ago.
Just kidding, obviously. (smile)
(For those that didn’t “get” the joke: Lake Tholocco is at Fort Rucker, AL. It was formed by damming a local stream, and covered between 600 and 800 acres.
In 1994, the earthen spillway “gave way” during a flood, draining the lake. It was dry several years – until the dam was repaired and the lake restored in 2001.)
I was at Fort Rucker from ’80 to ’83, so you can’t pin that lost lake thing on me. Both stories were from my days with the 46th Engineer Battalion while I was there.
My apologies: I read a story on Ranger Up about someone who as a shiny new 2nd LT being tasked with ammunition disposal.
The results were rather…impressive.
Been there done that. Made a crater we could have parked a hummer in and knocked stuff off the shelf back at Range Control. I saw a lieutenant tell a bald-faced lie when Range Control called and asked him what the heck he just blew up!
When I did my first MFO rotation I was a M-60 gunner. The powers that be decided to rotate all the old ammunition. I fired over 20,000 rounds out of my gun. At one point my trigger finger reached muscle failure and I had to use my middle finger to pull the trigger.
Is nobody fired for results any more?
I clearly remember plenty of highers being fired of all sorts of petty bullshit recently though.
If you want to be overpaid, under worked, and stand nearly no chance of being fired for performing your job poorly, then the federal governmentt (non-defense) is the place for you! Here. Read it and weep:
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/overpaid-federal-workers
The article’s data and conclusions are bogus, 2/17 Air Cav. The article does not adjust for seniority and ignores the fact that the Federal government has few “blue collar” workers today.
In reality, Federal employees in the professional and technical fields – or 80+% of the Federal workforce – are somewhat underpaid vis-a-vis their private sector counterparts when longevity is considered. Only those few remaining Federal “blue collar” workers have a substantially better deal than their private-sector counterparts today.
Huh. How can’t they count? Better yet, WHY can’t THEY count? We had to separate ammo for turn in by DODIC, number of rounds and in some cases, by lot number.
The hard work has already been done by the guys at the range who have to turn the stuff in. There are spreadsheets that this info can be inputted onto and problem solved.
Non-problems like this are why we were issued British ammo in Kuwait for range and immediate force-pro and why we had Czech Republic 9mm ammo for our pistols IN Iraq.
I don’t understand this at all. We were constantly being told we couldn’t go to the range because we’d spent our alloted NCEA. Now they’re going to DESTROY ammo that we’ve already paid for, which will also cost money? I’d almost have to believe that there are a few politicians with interests in both ammunition manufacturers and destroyers.
“We” paid for that ammo. If “they” can’t find a use for it, they should just give it to anyone who paid federal income taxes this year.
Shucky darn, don’t waste a perfectly good excess supply of ammunition by destroying it!
Pass it on to US, the citizens!
I’m reminded of a passage in the book Freehold where that was exactly what happened. Military took their surplus gear (Weapons, ammo, etc) and sold it cheaply to the citizens.
Military gets some extra cash to offset purchase of new gear, citizens get well cared for blam.
Remember this is the Obama administration: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/3/obamas-backdoor-gun-ban/
It’s not that it’s ‘surplus’ ammo- it’s just not fresh anymore. It’s past it’s expiry date- kinda like milk does.
And who wants old, moldy, rotten ammo in their rifle?
If it’s free, nothing a little time in the tumbler couldn’t fix.
I’ll take a block or two (or 20) of gub’mint ammo
Typically with age ammo that has been stored properly only loses a fraction of its original power and for training purposes works with acceptable reliability…. I have seen people pull out old WWII ammo and other than having to clean up the corrosive primer residue, it shot just fine. I might not want to trust my butt to it on the battlefield, but on a training range at Lost in the Woods, it would do as well as the new stuff. No better way to learn to clear a dud round than to have to do it for real.
A few years ago, I pick up an M1A, a civilianized version of the M14/M21. I vaguely remembered having some M14 mags from when I ran an M21 back in Division during the early 80’s. I found my old M1956 webgear (The old H harness w/buttpack. Hella more comfortable than the LBE that replaced it.) That I used at the time. Sure enough, there were 5 M14 mags but they were loaded with 20 rounds of M852 Match. I about shit a brick over this because this rig had been moving with me for over 20 years at that point.
The head stamp on the ammo was “LC 72 MATCH.” The cases were discolored from age, but I took the ammo out and after a couple of test rounds, I used it to zero the rifle; shot like it was factory new. I continued to use the cases as reloads for four or five reloadings. The case to M852 Match had scoring near the case head to aid in extraction, but it also created a weak point for case head separation, so I discarded them at the first signs of incipient case head separation.
Never seen that score in Lake City brass. Did you keep any? Love to see a pic.
Read the entire article, it’s not really about excess ammo, it’s about how the Army doesn’t track its inventory, doesn’t know how much it has so they can’t put the excess out there for other branches who need it (or sell it, destroy it, whatever).
I say turn the entire mess over to Amazon, experts in inventory management, computer systems, and cloud systems. They’d have it straightened out in far less than decades the DOD has spent. For a lot less of our money too.
Stripes dot com article states that it is the Branches other than Army using a system that is non-Pentagon compliant. In fact the BotA that is water-borne and it’s smaller brother with the hardened skin on his neck request ammo from the Army that must be transposed into the Army system. Those facts notwithstanding this is some top brass and top GS-level mismanagement BS. Get those rounds out of AHAs and into mags and down f’ing RANGE! Heck, take some non-grunts “dangerously” close to the wire for some range time. This is only a waste if we don’t learn sum’thin’.
Give it to the reserves and national guard. Everything else we get is ages old. I’d be happy to take it since I’m really tired of hearing “that’s critically short ammo, don’t know if we can get it for you.”
I’ve been getting told for a decade certain types of ammo are “critically short” and that we might not get it.
Too many bean-counters in the pentagon right now and not enough “Trainers” there.
In 1973 my duty station was a nice air-conditioned US Army computer room at Fort Richardson near Anchorage Alaska. I worked the 11-7 night shift. Every month we ran a SECRET ammo report. It took about 8 hours to print. In an attempt to save about 3 hours of run time, I tried to spool the ammo report to tape instead of running it direct to the printer. I didn’t do it quite right and the boss was VERY upset that he had to destroy a tape — maybe $7, even for the government — and rerun the ammo report.
My point? In about 1973, the Army had a screwed-up system for accounting for ammo and, if the article is right, the passage of 40 years has not made it any better.
It seems to me that this is symptomatic of other DOD management. There is only one reason why the armed services cannot use the same accounting system for ammo — nobody forced them.
At this point in my life my interactions with the US Government centers on taxes and talking to you guys. Please tell me — what is wrong with putting ammo acquisition, storage, and disbursement under the control of an agency outside of DOD? The article said that DOD has $70 BILLION tied up in ammo.
In my opinion, the usable 9 mm, 45 acp, 5.56 mm, .30-06, 7.62 mm, and the 50 cal (12.7mm) should be sold to us. Destroy the corroded stuff and recover the lead and gilding metal from bullets and melt down the brass. Considering the cost of missiles, they should evaluate them carefully before destroying them.
Old un-corroded ammo can be pulled down for bullets and brass. Sell the bullets and brass and dump the ammo boxes and bandoliers onto the market. There are several companies who have accepted contracts for this in the past. Who doesn’t need more fat-50s?
If they’re gonna waste more money destroying all that ammo, I would be happy to take some off their hands for free…
Let me go borrow a dump truck and I’ll take some of that .45 ammo off of Uncle Sams hands.
You can pull it up behind mine, LOL.
Works for me.
COUNT ME IN for some 5.56mm & .45ACP!!
They cannot count “common sense” either.
Common sense and logic are complete and total anathemas to liberals, most politicians, and government bureaucrats!!
http://www.army.mil/article/56157/
This is the stuff we swapped out the old M855 ammo for in Afghanistan. No idea where all the old green tip stuff went. Wanna guess how many millions it took to develop it? 🙂
M855A1. How’s that working out for y’all.
Sigh…Gentlemen, I hereby selflessly volunteer to dispose of this ammo. I will hand-select a crew to help out; WhiteyWingnut will assist. Through several weeks on the range we will bring reduce the overage to zero, thereby squaring the books and saving tax payers millions. We will need 1911s, GAU/GUU-5s, assorted beltfeds, and M-11s for this exercise, as well as a few deuce and a halfs and five-tons to move the ammo. Volunteers form an orderly line to my left, have your ID cards in your hand.
They don’t have anyone who can count? Really? Last time I checked, it didn’t take a high school diploma or GED to be able to count. Why not hire these people they train called SUPPLY SPECIALISTS!!! Last time I checked, most of the branches represented in the Pentagon has access to them. That’s what they DO FOR A JOB!!!
‘course, they could always turn the job over to Department of Agriculture – they have shown they can track several generations of potentially infected calves to the third pen on the left on a 4-acre lot somewhere south of Bumfuck. Big square boxes with numbers wouldn’t even be a challenge.