Chuck Hagel’s big idea
Wayne sends us a link to Defense News in which they report that Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, had a big idea the other day – he could save the Army if they started a program for coastal defenses.
In a speech to a military and industry audience that mostly shied away from program specifics, the secretary suggested the Army should try and “broaden its role by leveraging its current suite of long-range precision-guided missiles, rockets, artillery and air defense systems.”
Hagel said these capabilities “would provide multiple benefits, such as hardening the defenses of US installations; enabling greater mobility of Navy Aegis destroyers and other joint force assets; and helping ensure the free flow of commerce.”
He also insisted that “this concept is worthy of consideration going forward” and that “such a mission is not as foreign to the Army as it might seem — after the War of 1812, the Army was tasked with America’s coastal defense for over 100 years.”
That makes complete sense since we’ve been invaded by sea so many times in our history. The Iranians almost sailed a warship to our shores recently, and who knows how soon ISIS will sail it’s Navy in our direction and cut off our commerce. And then there’s the Taliban which has made great strides in it’s swimming donkey bombs program recently.
I guess they’ll be reopening Fort Monroe and it’s Coast Artillery School that the Army foolishly closed in 1946.
With the Middle East in flames and the troubles in Africa, it only makes sense that we return to a 19th century strategy. Maybe they should dig a trench-works along the entire East Coast and put infantrymen with fixed bayonets every 5 meters or so.
I know that this administration wants the wars to end in the Middle East and Africa, but why are they acting like the wars have already ended?
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Big Pentagon
What the hell is he talking about? I have fairly good comprehension but when he mixes English with bureaucratic jargon and then talks around whatever point it was he is struggling to make, well, I’m at a complete loss.
Just Chuck being Chuck. Brain surgeon in training.
THIS JUST IN
News sources have reported that Chuck Hagel has changed his name to Chuck Biden.
I was just wondering if Biden and Chuck were seperated at birth.
I know I know!
They could call this Army branch, The. Coast. Guard.
Wait, what do you mean that name’s already taken?
I know how he could save the Army, he could quit and let a real leader take the position.
Or if that’s not a possibility, cut some of those “perks” for high-up mucky mucks who act like they are nobility.
Huh.
I didn’t know we had to watch for the Kaiser’s navy.
Damn. You think you take care of a problem….
Next summer all the officer’s will want to be here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Coast_Artillery_Corps
Go home, Chuck. You’re drunk (again.)
I understand the concept that you don’t prepare to fight the last war, but seeing as the war ain’t over yet, we should focus on winning this one first. And if planning to fight the last war is dumb, planning to fight the war from 4 wars ago is sheer stupidity. Did anyone give Lucky Chucky a Breathalyzer after that speech?
Hagel..What a maroon!!! I can’t wait till they shove everyone out of Battery Park in NYC and place several coastal defense positions there. Along with troops, barracks and all things needed to support a large detachment defending prime commercial real estate for our nation if not the world economy. Wow, Hagel is so, so, 19th century, ya know.
Memo dated 27 OCT 2014
To: Hagel, Charles, 1 ea.
From: Me, taxpayer, 1 ea.
Re: U.S. Coastal Defenses
In re: your idea that we need to have coastal defenses, and your suggestion that we incorporaate this into the Army’s area of expertise, I’m happy to inform you that we already have a Coastal Defense Force which has been in place for some time.
It’s called the U. S. Coast Guard. They do everything from busting drug runngers to rescuing stranded boaters and hunters to firing shots across the bow of ships illegally entering US coastal waters. They’re quite good at what they do.
You may or may not have heard of them, but they have a reality show on cable channels. You should watch it some time. Their cold water rescue training methods are stringent and demanding.
They not only maintain vigilance on coastal waters, they also keep shipping lanes open on the Great Lakes and the Seaway during the ice-up seasons. In fact, they had to use icebreaker ships back in May 2014, when the ice on Lake Superior still hadn’t thawed.
You might want to take a look at what they do before you engage in redundant force creation.
However, if you’d give consideration to increasing funding for practice and ammunition loads for the Coast Guard, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Army, especially the aviation divisions of all those service branches, I’d be more than happy to entertain a discussion with you on that subject.
Call me. I’ll make cookies and pie. And I’ll leave the light on for you.
Is it just me, or does he seem to be disconnected from the real world somehow?
He’s a glad-handing politician at heart, Ex-PH2. He’s treating it as a political/reelection problem – e.g., spread the wealth to get support.
Unfortunately, his military background is rather limited (2 yrs enlisted service, with combat time in Vietnam; I’ll give him credit for that, but it hardly qualifies as being highly relevant in providing strategic leadership to DoD). He’s been disconnected from DoD pretty much ever since (lobbyist/politician/management of service and financial organizations). So he simply doesn’t really understand the functions and missions of the organization he’s charged with leading.
Yes, as I recall, the US Coast Guard was part of the naval blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, wasn’t it?
So how does anyone this dimwitted get an important job like SECDEF when he’s this clueless? Oh, wait! I forgot! He’s a political appointee with his head jammed right up someone’s anal orifice. My bad. Sorry.
Stop it.
The Kaiser is coming.
gawd don’t you guys listen to the radio!
What an asshat.
I heard that Hagel’s first plan before announcing this one was to create an impenetrable “Maginot” style line at the US-Mexican border…
Coastal Defense units and missions? Those were abandoned for a reason. Perhaps the esteemed SECDEF need to get a briefing on the concept and problems of “Line, Maginot”.
Is this what Chuck is talking about?
Damn, I LOVE old archived WWI film! I just LOVE it!!
Call me crazy here but I’ve also thought Army = land. How about we use the Army to secrue our land borders? O wait that wouldn’t fit the current party line.
I have an idea,
Take the role of air support for the Army away from the Air Force and give it back to the Army.
THIS
The Defense News article isnt very clear. I read it as Hagel saying the Army can help defend Naval installations around the world while citing the Army’s former role in coastal defense as an example that the it’s well suited for that mission.
I can see why everyone else read it as Hagel speaking about domestic coastal defense, and maybe that’s exactly what he was talking about, but the article could be more clear.
There is a force for protecting naval installations, it’s called the Marine Corps.
Okay, okay, I think I have this. I read the whole, boring speech. What Chuckles seemed to be saying was this: You know how we think of the Army as land-based forces and the Navy as essentially all wet? Well, how about we sorta kinda merge the two for certain ops, such as flying Apaches from Navy ships? And that’s where his 1812 reference came in, to point out that it won’t be the first time the Army did the Navy’s job. I have a question for Chuckles, though. What do we call this joint tasking, Armvy or Navmy? Oh, and Chuck used the word littoral in his little talk. I had to look it up. (No, get your minds out of the gutter!) It means the ocean areas that are close to shore.
I know! I know!
We’ll call them, “Naval Infantry”
Wait for it….
Sort of along the lines of The Peoples Revolutionary Army Navy. That’s what the Chicoms call their navy. Their naval units are just army units who wear a different uniform and serve on boats and ships.
Damn. Make that the Peoples Liberation Army Navy.
Godzilla could be a threat.
What scares me most isn’t that Chuck Hagel had a bad idea; everyone has those. The fact that not one of the worthless yes-persons at the Pentagon told him it was a horrible idea scares me. If I was the Sec-Def, I would come up with an obviously completely stupid idea like this, propose it to a large think-tank of officers, and then fire every single person who agreed with it on the basis of incompetency.
Now if he said border instead of coastal, I’d be with him 110%.
Personally, I’ve alway thought it would be cool to reactivate Fort Ord and the San Francisco Presidio, if only to piss off the fine folks of the Gay Bay. But there’s a lot of more important priorities the Army should focus on first.
Man you guys are short sighted; its a great idea. I envision adding dirigibles to our coastal defense (New set of wings for the uniform!) and we could line the beaches with steel tetrahedrons and triple strand concertina….tourists would eat that up.
To provide elan to the coastal defense forces we could bring back spats and think of the possibilities for additional cool patches, badges and ribbons. It would also be a great opportunity to form up some targeted specialized units like a Tranny Brigade covering the Cali coast or maybe an all Maine unit on the north east coast which would open up some opportunities for interpreters.
Chuck is on the right track here with his expansion of Army duties what with fighting Ebola, terrorism, natural disasters and the like.Go Chuck!
New set of wings for the uniform!
I think that’s been done before:
http://militarywanted.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/airship-badge.jpeg
http://media.liveauctiongroup.net/i/11585/11821298_1.jpg?v=8CEA33F370091F0
Yep. Airship Pilot Badge of the USAAC, now obsolete.
Maybe they can reactivate the Naval Air Station in my home town who had Blimps as a part of their mission capabilities… Know the runways are almost all but gone, but Blimps don’t need one.
Great forward thinking by Sec. Hagel.
Battleships.
Battleships and diesel-powered submarines.
We need them. Start cranking up.
Battleships actually might still be useful to the modern Navy, just like horses still have a limited purpose for the Army in undeveloped places like Afghanistan. Besides, the whole Iowa Class cost less than one Zumwalt-class “destroyer” (not sure what the hell that thing should really be called).
I actually AM a fan of bringing back the battleships, but hey, I was a Navy Gunners Mate in my first hitch. 16 inch guns solve a LOT of problems. NOTHING says AMERICA like 2500 (or 2800 depending on projectile) pounds of RDX falling out of the sky like the Hammer of God.
Correction:
Nothing says AMERICA–FUCK YEAH!!! like 2800 pounds of RDX falling out of the sky like the Hammer of God!
How in the name of Thor’s underwear is a micro army supposed to take on the coastal defense role? We are told that we can fight a maneuver war with a smaller more mobile force and then Chuck wants to put large numbers of them in static defensive positions. Does this mean that the troops fighting Global Climate change/warming/disruption will be redeployed to coastal artillery/missile/rocket bunkers?
It is obvious that Chuck Hagel never took a modern history class. Since 1945 no nation on earth has had enough navy to threaten us within 200 miles of our coast. The only navy that ever has a chance ended the war on the bottom of the ocean. And they were not destroyed buy coast artillery. They were destroyed by airplanes off carriers, torpedoed by subs and sunk by ship to ship gunnery. Billy Mitchell demonstrated that the airplane could destroy a ship well before it could get in range of the coastal guns. On that day the Coast Artillery was obsolete, Yamamoto proved that carrier borne aircraft could destroy land based facilities without the ships ever seeing land.
Strangely, chuck must never have heard about this, or forgot these facts.
To Ex-Ph2, You asked how someone as stupid as Mr. Hagel could be appointed. It’s simple really,just look at the man who appointed him. Incompetent people never surround themselves with competent people. Especially those with fragile egos and thin skins.
“Does this mean that the troops fighting Global Climate change/warming/disruption will be redeployed to coastal artillery/missile/rocket bunkers?”
They’ll get back to the coastal bunkers right after they finish fighting Ebola in Africa…
Just more gross stupidity form this administration. They can’t or won’t secure our southern border, but are suddenly concerned about a non-existent threat from the sea. You just can’t make up that kind of stupid.
Call it Coast Artillery – no, that’s been done – 100 years ago. Maybe he thinks he has found a way to combine the above ideas and put 16 inchers around the coast… we may not have battleships but we by Gawd recycled their armament. In a world where significant battles occur half a world away, he is worried about controlling 20 miles from our immediate coast.
Hey, don’t knock it! It would give us old farts jobs! Think about it! We could sit on our asses along that beautiful coast line, manning artillery while watching over those poor, helpless bikini clad young ladies who populate the beaches in the summer. In the winter we could sit on our asses inside warm fortifications playing cards and drinking beer, and waiting for the Taliban Navy to arrive. And for this we could get dangerous duty pay, and all kinds of future benefits!
Sure, Chuckles, we’ll get right on that, as soon as you successfully defend the borders. You know, those things which are actually being breeched every day by folks intent upon doing us harm. Not sure I care if you defend us using bunkers, towers, fences, walls, trenches, aircraft, canoes, all the above, plus speedboats and other things which float, but get it done!
At least get out of the way while governors do the defending themselves.
The article is more than misleading, it is wrong. In his speech Hagel is clearly suggesting forward deployed forces to protect joint bases from a wide range of threats, to include rockets and guided missiles. The marines may guard the gate, but they don’t have that capacity. I wont say that this is a good idea, but it isnt as dumb as the article makes it out to be. He is clearlly outlining what he sees as a capability gap.
As far as Apaches on carriers, that is a demonstrated capabilityand a significant increase in lethality in littoral combat.
Apaches on carriers will not work unless they are fitted for sea duty. Things that take off and land on a pitching flight deck need extra beefy suspension, which would probably require airframe modification. Other things would include fitting the apache out with corrosion resistant components, and fitting it out with some way to store it (folding blades and wings, for instance). We can probably fit two super cobras in the space of one apache, which is why the marines continue to use it.
I don’t think the beefed up suspension applies to helps but corrosion resistance certainly is.
We’ve already done it in testing, and the Brits have done it operationally.
On top of that, the 10th Mountain Air Assau,t into Haiti was done from a carrier (50 or so helos of different types.
Also, Operation Earnest Will included 160th Little Birds operating from Navy ships