BB Stacker

Pretty sweet rant, but you clearly haven't actually ever talked to a federal LEO because you've got a pretty idealized (read: not remotely accurate) portrayal of their life. Not to say that the AF isn't hopelessly broken, because it is, just that the FLEO grass isn't necessarily greener. Also Congress controls BRAC, not the USAF, the USAF even tried to close Cannon the last time around. It was all set up to be shut down but thanks to some last minute lobbying by New Mexico's Congressional delegation it got pulled from the list, which meant that the base sat open for over a year with no iron and no mission while the USAF tried to figure out what the hell they were going to do with it. I'm sure if the generals had their choice they would've much rather reopened Castle as the western home of AFSOC, but they don't control that, and if you haven't figured that out by now you might want to take a look about all the other shit that is out of the hands of those in uniform. Exhibit B regarding this: the Raptor. You want to talk about those who let that program be whittled away? The SECAF and CSAF both got shitcanned by their boss for their F-22 advocacy. Can't do all that much if the SECDEF, much less Congress, isn't on your side. Also also I'm not even a pilot and I know you should probably stay in your lane WRT U-28/RPA/NSAV/etc.

If you're talking about whoever was in charge of the 341st, that's on hold now that all this came out in public.

I was seriously considering going to the Supreme TCNs to get some uncooked bacon for the machine we had at KAF, that's how good it is (unfortunately it only really works with uncooked bacon, it frying up in the kettle is what does the trick.)

If you're not making bacon jalapeno corn you're behind the curve.

Everything I've heard out of that base puts it in a class of its own. I've known several people that have gone through various mx school houses at Sheppard at the past year (both E and O) and no one has relayed any stories that come anywhere close to the intel lunacy. Plenty of standard Airmen Eternally Treated like Children crap, but there's a colossal difference between "normal AETC" stupidity like making a Lt fill out a 29B to go to Dallas and making a Lt Col fill out a 29B to drive 5 miles outside of town. The closest thing I can think of that I've heard of would be when a certain TRW/CC a few years back got all pissy pants that some Ammo dudes were making fun of his son at a softball game and banned the Ammo team from playing in the base league, but that was just one shitty senior leader. All the shit I've heard from that hellhole indicates that it's a pervasive culture of idiocy that infects all the cadre there.

That is still my favorite AIB report.

CAFSC is Control AFSC, which is something officers don't have, that's an enlisted thing. You're going to be looking for "Core ID" on your SURF/in virtual (basically the same concept). Core ID is typically just two numbers and a letter...it doesn't have all the prefixes and suffixes that you see with PAFSC/DAFSC. Example with me, I'm a Core 21M. Even though my PAFSC/DAFSC are both currently 21A3, I will go up to the force shaping board as a 21M. Regarding the question about RPAs, look at your SURF, it should list your Core ID (which I would assume would be 11U). I wouldn't think that clause would apply to 11X's in RPAs unless you're going to be transitioning out of/into the career field, since unless you are coming in or going out sometime this year you wouldn't be retraining anytime soon. edit: Well that certainly is an interesting choice.

Thanks, 44% for me, whoo!

Anyone up for posting the FSB eligibility matrix?

While you're right I really hope it does happen, because witnessing the cluster of epic proportions that results from having the Army manage their own fixed wing CAS will put this stupid idea to death once and for all.

Not the case at KAF, at least not as of a couple of months ago. Maybe it's changed now that the completely worthless AEW has gone away.

If they are doing the bare minimum (i.e., meeting the terms of the contract), what is your justification for terminating the contract? Any company worth their salt is going to ensure that the contract is written in such a way that it is almost impossible to abruptly terminate the contract if they are meeting the requirements of the PWS, at least not without having the government pay a hefty termination fee. And like I alluded to before, if you want to write the contract in such a way that it can be terminated at the government's convenience, knock yourself out, but don't be surprised when the only business you can get to sign a contract written in such a way demands a considerable amount more money than if they were signing a more typically written contract. Furthermore, if they were doing beyond the bare minimum (i.e., going above and beyond the terms of the contract), whoever directed them to perform that additional work may have just obligated the government to pay money to the contractor to cover the cost of performing that work that they otherwise wouldn't have been getting paid to perform (since it wasn't in the terms of the contract). That person may even be held personally responsible for reimbursing the government for that money. Dealing with contractors is messy.

You're just looking at the ops/mx relationship. if you look at it from a programmatic perspective, or even from the perspective of a blue suit mx/logistics organization working with those contractors, you would have a vastly different take on things. Contractors are far from a cure-all, and just because they are nice when dealing with ops does not mean they take the same approach to all the other entities they work with. FWIW, the reason they don't care about mx cnx vs ops cnx is more than likely because per their contract they aren't graded on abort rate...if they were, I guarantee you they would absolutely care about that. As for why they don't care about adding a sortie, if I had to guess I'd say it's because aircraft availability isn't an issue with your MDS...it is with the Bone. Comparing a low mx MDS to something like the Bone isn't like comparing apples to oranges, it's like comparing apples to a moon rock. And I'm saying that is a gross oversimplification...which goes to the root of the discussion. If we're cutting 25K people, cut the shitbags (of which there are still plenty, in every community), not just assume that because someone wears a flight suit they will be able to figure out a different job in 6 months without any detriment to the mission or the enlisted folks who work in that job.

Comes back to cost. You want to write a PWS/SOW that is extremely open ended, allowing maximum flexibility with what and how quickly a given contractor has to do something? Knock yourself out, but don't be surprised when the only way you can get the contractor to sign agreeing to that PWS/SOW is to pay them out the ass. Which just happens to be every officer not wearing a flight suit...noted.

But when you go the contract vs AF civilian route at home station, you open yourself up to a whole 'nother can of worms relating to the contractors. Do that and the phrase "that's not in the contract" will quickly become the new "closed for training." As for the deployed GS civil service aspect, you can deploy them depending on the circumstance (we deploy AFETS personnel on a regular basis), but yes, there are a lot of personnel/labor law considerations that would be problematic if that was the only force we had downrange in a given specialty. Again, like I said above, I agree that the greater evil is the fact that a significant portion of our currently deployed combat capability is flown and/or maintained by contractors, but we need to be very careful with what we do and don't contract out vs what we do and don't make AF civilians vs what we leave blue suiter. Unless we want to significantly reevaluate the way we write contracts/manage contractors, we're going to need blue suiters outside of a lot more units than just the CRGs in order to be able to effectively respond to contingencies. We're talking about two different things. You're talking about comparing at the brand new Lt level, I'm talking about comparing at the 6-9 year Capt level. Yes, as butter bars they're equal in that neither of them knows a damn thing about anything. But during the next 6-9 years that support Lt will get practical experience leading those shops and experience in the career field while the rated Lt will go through their training pipeline and then focus on being tactically proficient at flying. So by the 6-9 year mark they have diverged considerably in experience level. Obviously there are differing degrees here depending on the size of the organization and what it is they do...a rated Capt would probably do just fine running the PA or finance shop, but I see throwing them into an AMU or Aerial Port or SFS as being more problematic.

Contractors or GS/WG AF civilians? Because there can be a pretty big difference between the two. I would agree that some of those functions could and should be contracted (many already are are many bases, like housing) but as someone who has spent the past year dealing with a contracted logistics organization (as well as contracted maintainers), you need to be careful what you wish for with contractors. I would agree though that the greater evil is having contractors fly and fix aircraft downrange. As for the idea to just throw rated personnel into all support leadership positions....man, y'all don't have a clue. First off, there is a rather inflated view here of just how much large organization leadership ability your average rated mid level Captain is going to have. For every one good one that I've met there's another 5 who were absolute clowns when it came to that. In their defense, why would they need that skillset at that point in their careers? They've spent their first 6-9 years in the AF responsible for being tactically proficient at flying a plane and with whatever ancillary duties they got stuck with, not with rolling in the door on day one as a butter bar and being put in charge of a 150+ person flight. And before you say "leadership is leadership," it's not, not when you're talking about the difference between leading and managing 200 people versus a 20 person "flight" in an ops unit. Second, unless we cut out the insane amount of queep that exists within the support world, y'all are either going to be doing a lot less flying or your duties as Flt/CC are going to be significantly neglected, because there aren't enough hours in the day. Even if we cut out the queep, there's a lot more work in many of those career fields than I think many of you think to be the case. I know the counter-argument will be "Well, those are our future senior leaders, when will they develop those skills?" I'm not sure what the answer to that is, but it sure as hell isn't to throw them into the MXG and MSG worlds at their 7 year point. I do think that the idea to throw non-school select Majors at the 12ish year point into support squadrons as DOs might have more merit, but even then you'll need to judicious with who you put where...the idea of some of the non-select ops Maj's I've met being thrown into an AMXS/MOO position is making me laugh pretty hard. Fire was actually the one I was thinking of when I brought up AF civilians (AFETS would be another), since everything I've heard indicates that the civilian/bluesuiter mix seems to be working pretty well. The big thing with contractors and legal/contractual limitations is response time...sure, you can deploy them (I think that if there's one thing the past 12 years have demonstrated it's that we can deploy contractors), but you aren't necessarily going to have the quick response that you may need in certain situations and you may not have the flexibility you need at the deployed location, depending on how the contract is written. The obvious response to that is "make sure the contract is written the way we want it"...hoo boy, if it was only that easy.

There is no way in hell that would stand. Congress (or more specifically, the affected States' Congressional delegations) will do exactly what they did with the Eielson situation...write language into bills prohibiting the AF from expending any funds to take any action and play the trump card of Senators, hold up nominations/promotions/appointments until they get what they want. A decision regarding moving that much iron/equipment/personnel from one base to another drives certain time consuming statutory requirements (big one is an EIS), so it would not be a quick process...plenty of time for that State's Congressional delegation to make all sorts of asspain for the AF to convince us of the error of our ways. And even if there was some way to just magically close up the base overnight so they wouldn't be able to do anything, they'll do like what they did with Cannon back when it was originally supposed to be BRAC'd back in 2005...hold up nominations, promotions, and whatever else they can until the decision is reversed and the base gets a mission back. So to answer your question, no, Congress doesn't directly control aircraft and personnel assignment actions...but just like anything in federal government, you piss off a Senator at your agency's own risk, and that is a battle that you will lose 100 times out of 100.

That's not how the relationship with Congress works; when it comes to stuff as significant/large impact as closing bases, DoD is at the complete mercy of Congress. The Joint Chiefs and top DoD civilian leadership have repeatedly told Congress that we need to consider a BRAC, both in formal hearings as well as less formally in discussions, interviews, etc., and the Executive specifically requested funding for another round of BRAC in the most recent budget that was submitted to Congress (albeit a BRAC that would be executed a couple FYs down the road, but still better than nothing). Congress responded by including explicit language in the last several NDAAs (including the most recent FY14) forbidding DoD from allocating any funds to even consider another round of BRAC. It's not a possibility because Congress isn't going to consider it. Period. They have made that abundantly clear. It sucks and it is incredibly stupid, but it is a fact of life. I'm not up to speed on what the "skeleton crew" mothball basing concept is, but given what it sounds like I will be shocked if Congress lets anything resembling that go through...the AK Congressional delegation about had Welsh's head on a pike over the Eielson debacle, and that wasn't even a mothball/warm storage thing, that was just removing the Aggressors.

Core ID...it'll be listed as a separate item on your SURF and should just be two numbers followed by a letter (i.e., just 21M instead of 21M3A, just 11F instead of K11F3B, etc)

That's what was in the budget request from the WH, here's the language from the FY2014 NDAA that was actually passed into law: “nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize an additional Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round, and none of the funds appropriated pursuant to the authorization of appropriations contained in this Act may be used to propose, plan for, or execute an additional BRAC round.” This type of language explicitly forbidding spending any funds on any sort of planning or even proposing for a BRAC has been SOP for the past several NDAAs. The lack of a (much needed) BRAC is pretty much solely on Congress at this point.

If you're going to make emotional historical arguments at least get them accurate...the Navy lost way more men in the waters around Guadalcanal attempting to protect those Marines than the Marines lost on the island. Hell, the Navy suffered more KIA in ONE NIGHT of fighting (First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal) than the Marines lost in the entire campaign. Implying that the Navy was "off fighting its own battles" while leaving Marines to die is inaccurate and an insult to the men who lost their lives in Ironbottom Sound.

Just a friendly reminder that from 2007 up until last year Art 120 (the UCMJ Article concerning rape and sexual assault) was written in such a way that anyone being prosecuted under that article was guilty until proven innocent. This was thanks to a Congressional "ready, fire, aim" approach to writing laws: So I can't wait to see what Congress comes up with this time.

This will be from a mx perspective because it's what I'm most familiar with but the principles should largely be the same for ops. PAA - Primary Aircraft Authorized. This is the number of aircraft that you are assigned on paper for the execution of your mission. This is what you get manning, equipment, and money against. Think of it as a "UMD" for aircraft. BAA - Backup Aircraft Authorized. This is the number of aircraft that you are assigned on paper to help plug in the holes that will inevitably exist in your PAA because of stuff like phase/ISO, depot, etc. Again, this is an authorization so it's a number on paper, not iron. PAI - Primary Aircraft Inventory. This is the number of aircraft you've got on the ramp up to your PAA (your PAI can never exceed your PAA). BAI - Backup Aircraft Inventory. This is the number of any aircraft you have on the ramp above and beyond your PAA up to your BAA (similar to above, your BAI cannot exceed your BAA). AR - Attrition Reserve. This is the number of aircraft, AF wide, that the AF determines it needs to procure above and beyond the PAA and BAA numbers to deal with expected attrition over the lifespan of the MDS. When a new MDS first comes online there won't be any AR, since they will be filling all the PAA and BAA authorizations. However, as the PAA and BAA becomes full, AR tails will start being distributed to bases AF wide. Not all MDS's will have an AR. TAI - Total Active Inventory. Your PAI + BAI + AR (if any); the total amount of iron your unit possesses. If I screwed any of that up, anyone feel free to jump in and correct me. AFI 16-402 is the relevant pub on the subject. Also with this subject you start to get into PPI codes...I'm not going to discuss those because that's a topic worthy of a BQZip powerpoint or a nsplayer dissertation, but AFI 21-103 is the relevant pub there if you want to get into it. As for the rest of it, I'll just echo JS and bring up a couple of quick examples to hopefully hammer home the point...you talk about including "operational costs," and list mx and phase as examples of this. So that covers flightline maintainers and one backshop function, but what about the rest of the MXG? How do you factor in the costs of the other backshops? If I'm at a base with multiple MDS's, how do I divide up the cost of, say, AGE? None of the aircraft at that base can function without it, but what's a fair share distribution? Of course AGE flight is going to gain manning and equipment based on the PAA of the various MDS's, but there's several different ways you can twist that data. Step outside the MXG for a second to a favorite (sarcasm) subject of mine...supply. Maintenance would eventually come to a grinding halt if we had zero supply support for an extended period of time...so they should probably be included in the "operational costs" section right next to mx, right? But who gets included? Just the folks like COSO and MSL who work directly with the MXG? Do we take the amount of people/money/equipment that LRS Supply gains as a result of the PAA for that MDS that are assigned to that base? But can we stop at just the base? When I go MICAP, there's an entire worldwide network that is working to get (or not) me the part in a timely (or not so timely) fashion. How is that divided up across multiple MDS's? Bottom line is that you have to draw a line somewhere, and where that line is drawn will influence the final results of your study.

They haven't shut down Kaesong yet, so I feel fairly confident in saying that nothing is going to happen, at least not in the short term. That said, the point about "one errant shot" kicking something off is very well taken. The ROK govt/military have made enough public statements that it seems pretty clear that if there is another non-deniable kinetic event (i.e., shelling an island or something else that is similarly easily traceable to the North, as opposed to sinking a ship or a terrorist attack or something) shit's gonna get real very quickly, much more so than the non-response that occurred after the YP-do shelling.

So something that is supposed to be for an achievement equivalent to that required to earn a DFC (and for which the USAF has identified something like a whopping 6 individuals it is even considering for award, going back retroactively for over a decade of war) should be in-line/below something that you get for boring holes in the sky in a "combat zone." Got it. Remember that half of every MQ-1/9 crew is enlisted (not sure what the breakdown is on the cyber side but I'm sure it's not all officers) and that decs, and more specifically the precedence/points associated with decs, play a role in promotion. This isn't just an academic argument over which fiddly bits of ribbon the O's get to wear on their chest.