Chuck17

We’re working on it.... There won’t be a sea change overnight. The change will be generational. It’s a guerrilla war ongoing inside the MAF. Takes longer than you’d expect and there’s a lot of resistance - mostly by senior level and GS management. There’s also a significant portion of most MAF communities who want to do nothing more than ILS to a full stop and pad airline applications. Malaise can be contagious, especially when the economy is good. Furthermore you have a significant portion of Star-wearing leadership (And this their minions as well) which values EXPOSURE over EXPERTISE. Note I didn’t say ‘experience’ over expertise. In the MAF they want you exposed to all things MAF - mile wide and inch deep. They don’t care at all about big Air Force things or the application and control of Air Power as an integrated warfighting force, or expertise in employment. Just do MAF things and you’ll lead one day. Expertise is not valued as much as “MAF-exposure.“ The problem with that logic is that the CAF runs the Air Force. Literally the language of the service is that of the CAF. The vast majority of wings are CAF wings. The vast majority of GOs are CAF GOs. In the CAF when you show up in a new community, they wonder WTF is wrong with you that you got voted off the island. In the MAF if you become an expert, they scoff you for “only knowing one mission set.” It’s bizarre. The MAF scoffed the CAF for years, only wanting to build their mobility empire in the cornfields of southern Illinois, but the reckoning is coming... There’s a whole new service out there looking for another four-star, and there’s a lot of the staff function at both ACC and AMC getting gobbled up by the Air Staff... The MAFs lack of integration with the rest of the USAF will be its demise if we aren’t careful. That’s what many of us are working to fix, though that work and the results are seen by some as “un-MAF-like” endeavors.... Brought to you by your friendly (old) neighborhood Weapons Officer. Now... Get off my lawn, this grass is delicious. Chuck

This, along with uniforms and the logo, are the main things being talked about outside the USSF launch team, actually. (Not even joking. If you can’t do something impactful, better do something visible...). So far the lead contenders are “Vangaurds”, and “Sentinels”. Sounds a bit space-adventurey/2001-ish if you ask me. Im surprised they aren’t considering other options... Chuck

IPZ only, starting with the (now May scheduled) O5 board.... no more BPZ. And the Five year window (Once in place) starts on your fragged IPZ as well. These are big changes for the better for the service. Maybe we will gain some credibility in the joint world... They are So big In fact that the way I heard it was the “Senior Statesmen” (retired four stars) started lobbying the CSAF to slow or reverse the train... because, by god the promotion system (which hadn’t changed this substantially since 1986) worked for them. They were told their input was welcome and appreciated, but the train has left the station (AKA decision-made...). Chuck

I guess .... I don’t really know what your buddy expected her to do about it? I’d expect my boss to tell me to “figure it out” too... You’ll find that GOs rarely, if ever, have answers - let alone the power (Or intestinal fortitude) to sweep away problems all by themselves. They want solutions, on a platter. They’re so busy they only have time to process and decide, they don’t do the work, fix the thing, write the email, etc. The staffs do. GOs endorse, present, champion, award, coord on, etc etc. Asking for engagement better benefit the organization (or them) somehow, or it’ll die on the vine. I'm not being critical - I’m trying to highlight how you work the bureaucracy for your own interest. Im also not endorsing this particular GOs actions... simply telling it how it is. Chuck

Of course it can - and, as I originally posted, the info I have is it’s going to a five year window. Don’t care if you want to shoot holes in that information brother, do what you like. All I’m passing is that’s the brief I saw. Take it or leave it. Chuck

No... keep going. ‘‘(d) LIMITATION ON NUMBER OF OPPORTUNITIES SPECIFIED.— The number of opportunities for consideration for promotion to be afforded officers of an armed force within a competitive category for promotion to a particular grade, as specified or modified pursu- ant to any provision of this section, may not exceed five opportunities.“ Chuck

Source on the change to the five year window? It's in the NDAA. Read for yourself: https://www.congress.gov/115/bills/hr5515/BILLS-115hr5515enr.pdf go to section 507 subsection 649d. As to the rest, I'll leave it at "very important meeting slides." The products of the system by and large DO think it works, because it produced them (we had that conversation with one of them who was adamant there was nothing wrong with it). Yet the CSAF also sees how many people have been relieved of squadron, group, and wing command under his tenure. That's part of the logic. Something is not working... now theres a way to make a small change, hopefully for the better. Strats won't go away - they'll always be there in some form. Large organizations love easy to digest quantification of potential and performance. Nature of the beast... Change is hard, slow, messy and can only be driven by failure or strong (authoritative... bold...) leadership. We have an outgoing CSAF who wants to lead and leave a legacy, and a new SecAF with an open mind. The timing works... short of a crisis, only strong leadership will suffice. Chuck

Should be changed (kinda) by the end of next year - promotion window will go to a five year block. That's right five looks where you are eligible, no more BPZ, IPZ, APZ. CSAFs main hangup is going to the five year look vs killing BTZ altogether (USMC) vs limiting BTZ to one each per grade for O5/O6 (Army). Time will tell how it falls out, but my gut is he will push toward using what the law authorizes for the service secretaries to use (five year window). The info backing up he change is pretty amazing - we don't retain BTZ superstars at anywhere near the rate we retain on time dudes... so the data is showing we invest lots of time, money, leadership opportunity in these folks, and they bounce by the 25 year point. Which makes sense considering when the old "pole year" was - if they don't make GO, they retire... so we end up pushing people and weeding out other potential leaders to end up holding an empty bag when the shiney pennies retire... thereby calling into question the entire logic of how we position and choose leaders. ...You get promoted earlier, you get more opportunities... Either way, the 'BTZ' tag will be removed from SURFs/records. You'll just be promoted earlier should that be the case. The end result will likely not change much, but there won't be a moniker hanging on anyone's record. Chuck

Bold prediction: Once the GOs return from CORONA, this program will die a quiet death... The E-pilots will be offered officer commissions or retraining, and Congress will get told how unsustainable an idea this was. Chuck

WOW. Normally responses are somewhat bell curving with a vocal minority dominating the comments, both good and bad. No wonder this guy got canned (results are required to be briefed up the chain). This report is astounding. Chuck

Okay.... Im saying there will be an end of August bump based on the list going public, no comment on the quality of dudes - going merely a comment on the data. Chuck

School list doesn't drop until next week - that release will change things somewhat. It'll still be lower than desired & needed. Chuck

Cut up BOne parts roasting on the desert floor at DM as B-21s roar overhead...Thats the future. The crews are staying put for the most part because of assignment cycles (systemic reaction is slow), and because the initial AFGSC plan to take care of them was unrealistic - things that take a lot of time/money/approval/basing decisions and/or are competitive. It’ll likely be a mix of most of those options, but no one place will get all the BOne dudes - you’re not all going to school/staff/UPT. That takes time to settle. And just because your airplane takes a dump doesn’t earn you any extra points in the eyes of big Air Force. Luck and timing. Make your choices appropriately and remember rule #1. Chuck

Not to worry, with the BOne on it’s ass there will be plenty of staff jobs for those dudes soon. Problem solved. Chuck

I mean if you took the combined total courseware length of all the courses and experience that went into building the 13O curriculum alone, it would take you nearly five years to complete it the traditional way. They’ve frankensteined the 13O curriculum together from AOC/C2, Joint planning, AFFOR staff, WIC, ASG (and more) courses, and are doing it at a breakneck pace that doesn’t remotely enable a basic understanding of the operational level of war, let alone “Multi-Domain C2.” But the CSAF wanted something quick. (Fast, cheap, good. Pick two.) So this is what we got. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally scoffing it. I am simply saying you can’t mass produce experts at the operational level like you can from a traditional training pipeline. It takes years AND education to build the required level of understanding. Chuck

Concur. So far the program is designed to not only create a new AFSC and MDC2 experts, its designed so that in the future the vast majority of GOs and C2 leadership will be 13Os (at some point) via one of several on-ramp timelines... which doesn't pass the sniff check as yet. This one still has some baking to do, and its going to take some strong advocacy to live in the future. If you're willing to step out and try something new, break new ground, and don't really care about glass ceilings, this is an option. IMHO, its a particularly good option to get some smarts and training that would otherwise take over 5 years to get by a conservative estimate (Operational level of war education + ASG level planning education + Doctrine/C2 education) through a number of selective courses and assignments. But the bumpersticker is still attached - new is different, different is odd, odd is non-essential, non-essential gets cut when the belts tighten - and you can bet the belts are going to tighten. Chuck.

Close -- try a narrative only PRF for an In-Res IDE student with a 1/XXX strat - say from a NAF/CC - that will get you there. (I saw 2x like that with Ps from the student MLR when I was at IDE -- both were great folks) I bet historical averages is a good place to start - especially given this years results. This BS is why the Line split has to happen ASAP. Chuck

It's one of the benefits of the split line competitive category.... Flyers wont be competing with graduated Sq/CC's for O-5 promotions. It wont fix everything but it will fix that. Chuck

The selection rate for APZ was 6.2% overall (76/1219)... APZ with a P was 3.7% (44/1176), w/ a DP 91.4% (32/35). Without a DP, it's a steep climb for APZ promotion... Chuck

My guess is the last thing they need going into a long weekend is to set folks up to celebrate or drown themselves in Jack-Daniels-flavored sorrow for four straight unaccountable days. That’s how OPREPs get generated... So Monday at the latest, one way or the other. Chuck

When I was a part of a standup we had to deal with this too. I’d ask him who the AF level CS manager is and where they work... Elevation around obstruction is an avenue of approach. Then let me know. I might know a guy... Chuck

To paraphrase the greatest of all cargo pilots, “Who’s gonna fly em, kid?” Another of the multitude of reasons this one’s got issues - pilots - but they’re not insurmountable. This concept could be manned if the AF loosened its grip on “all pilots must be officers” with the officer career progression that goes along with it. But we’ve refused to change that, entertain warrants or enlisted pilots (a program that’ll be quietly killed) in force. Contract pilots are a possibility, along the lines of the Red Air contract. That idea has merit. I’m sure there’s dudes who would fly 208s delivering spare parts to the spoke outbases. If they aren’t all flying for the airlines already. Chuck

Because they don’t. Frankly stated, this is what’s happened when fighter pilots of above average intelligence got free reign on ACC staff to explore new ideas about force presentation - they quickly got in over their heads and scoffed what the actual experts told them, coming up with “forward thinking” ideas that already exist, aren’t tactically or fiscally feasible, or have already been disproven. In this case - all three. Chuck

That a C-5 person of any rank is tied to JFE definitely belongs in this thread. All MAF is not equal, nor representative... just like the CAF. Chuck

Great example of how draft NDAA language (pre-markup, void of concurrence of the services) can get leaked and grow a narrative of its own. It means they’re drafting the next budget and someone slipped this in. That’s it. While not discounting the need, this isn’t a done deal. In fact, the official AF position as sent back to Congress surprisingly differs in many ways from the fanboy cherry-picking of information in the article. This one has to bake some more... Chuck