Professional Reading Drop Box

[Brett327]

There's obviously a lot of stuff we can't talk about here, but suffice it to say that those of you who are skeptical about this aren't up to speed on some recent TTPs in use by the CSG. The current mindset toward EMCON is unlike anything I've ever experienced... and for good reason. There's a lot of nuance here too WRT C2, what can radiate and when. There are C2 workarounds using LPI signals, etc.

 

[Recovering LSO]

Crossing this over from election thread:

http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/09winter/corbett and davidson.pdf

h/t @squorch2

 

[squorch2]

Defense Science Board just released a paper on autonomous systems: http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/DSBSS15.pdf

Cliffs notes here: http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2016/08/23/the-pentagon-plans-for-autonomous-systems/

 

[Recovering LSO]

Just finished Ghost Fleet and the summary below well captures my own reaction. Add to it that the whole thing seemed like a not-so-subtle paid advertisement for BAE's railgun.

FWIW, I just finished Ghost Fleet. It was OK, but it's no Red Storm Rising. AFAIK, this is Singer and Cole's first crack at fiction, and it shows. Fairly predictable (formulaic?) story arc with characters that lacked any real complexity or interesting attributes the reader could connect with. As a point of comparison, I always felt intellectually and emotionally invested in the Jack Ryan/Jim Greer/John Clark characters, but not so much with those in Ghost Fleet. The book is just too short to really flesh out much of anything. No surprises, no plot twists, just kind of bland. The military action sequences were interesting, but you could tell it was written by guys with no first hand experience. Nothing too glaring, but a lot of the lingo and dialogue was just a bit off.

Another annoyance was that the story was full of "we told you so" moments. "Remember when we told you that our military is overly reliant on networks/technology/satellites/GPS, etc? Well, guess what, it came back to bite us in the story." "Remember when we said we shouldn't buy microchips from China and put them in our military equipment? Well, guess what..." Climate change, blurred gender roles/same sex relationships, cybercrime, etcetera, ad nauseum - you get the picture.

All in all, not a bad read, but knowing what I know now, I would have placed it pretty far down on my ever-expanding reading list. Honestly, the idea of another Red Storm Rising was what motived me to buy it. If you go into it with a similar mindset, prepare to be disappointed.

Another book that I referenced a few weeks ago in a barb aimed at @squorch2 was Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir Of A Family And Culture In Crisis.
It was a really good and quick read. Good first hand commentary on the state of poor and working class white Rust-belt/Appalachian Americans.


I'm about 100 pages into How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything - Tales From the Pentagon and am really enjoying it so far. Here's a good review.

 

[Flash]

...I'm about 100 pages into How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything - Tales From the Pentagon and am really enjoying it so far. Here's a good review.

View attachment 16143

A good buddy of mine dated her for a bit, she is an interesting character with seem interesting ideas and not all of them good. A miltary expert she is not. I might have to get him the book just to needle him, then borrow it to read.

 

[Recovering LSO]

A good buddy of mine dated her for a bit, she is an interesting character with seem interesting ideas and not all of them good. A miltary expert she is not. I might have to get him the book just to needle him, then borrow it to read.

Which is one of the reasons why I picked up the book; that whole differing voices and ideas thing

Pretty sure she's married to an Army SF officer now.

 

[squorch2]

I also recently read Hillbilly Elegy and similarly found it enlightening. Up next is "White Trash - the 400-year untold history of class in America." (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016JPTQ9U/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

 

[Recovering LSO]

This isn't reading, but damn is it good. If you skip the first 32 minutes you're left with an hour and fifteen minute story told by the two-star who conducted the fist investigation into Abu Grahaib abuse.

I guess I just wasn't paying close enough attention at the time, but this whole story is fascinating to look back on.

 

[squorch2]

I also recently read Hillbilly Elegy and similarly found it enlightening. Up next is "White Trash - the 400-year untold history of class in America." (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016JPTQ9U/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

Also added to the queue: Strangers In Their Own Land (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EEQ9BSW/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

 

[Recovering LSO]

More smart stuff from RADM Howe.

 

[nittany03]

More smart stuff from RADM Howe.

" . . . Nelson was a professional whose “greatest gift of leadership was to raise his juniors above the need of supervision.”

Profound and spot on. One of the sayings I've heard in Naval Air, which drives me absolutely bugshit insane, is "there are two kinds of people; those who can hack it and those who can't." Bullshit. There are three. Those who can hack it on their own. Cultivate them and make sure they don't become arrogant. Those who can't ever hack it but who slipped through the cracks. Shitcan them at the earliest possible time, then try to ensure that they make into a job that they CAN do. Aviation, fallen angel job, or civvie street. Everyone has a niche.

Finally, the middle. Those who will hack it to some acceptable degree, some only with the work of a good teacher, and others who will only excel with that. Bust your ass for them, because we will lose or win the next war based on how many of them their mentors can bring along, and to what degree.

We as a Navy do a less-than-optimal job of picking instructors. That's not a shot at anyone here, or an insinuation that your humble correspondent somehow should or should not have fallen out differently in his personal career. It's an observation based on the other people I've interacted with. We assume professional excellence is the sine qua non, as if every star NFL running back could also be a coach. We don't realize that a not-insignificant portion of extraordinarily gifted aviators are singularly unsuited to teach. Because they don't understand Joe Blow Aviator. They assume that because it was easy for them, it was easy for everyone. So if you fail, it's a character fault; obviously you just didn't want it enough. The person with the patience to not only bring out the best in his or her students, and then make a reasoned judgement about whether or not they should continue, does exist. But not to the extent that they should.

 

[Pags]

" . . . Nelson was a professional whose “greatest gift of leadership was to raise his juniors above the need of supervision.”

Profound and spot on. One of the sayings I've heard in Naval Air, which drives me absolutely bugshit insane, is "there are two kinds of people; those who can hack it and those who can't." Bullshit. There are three. Those who can hack it on their own. Cultivate them and make sure they don't become arrogant. Those who can't ever hack it but who slipped through the cracks. Shitcan them at the earliest possible time, then try to ensure that they make into a job that they CAN do. Aviation, fallen angel job, or civvie street. Everyone has a niche.

Finally, the middle. Those who will hack it to some acceptable degree, but only with the work of a good teacher. Bust your ass for them, because we will lose or win the next war based on how many of them their mentors can bring along.

We as a Navy do a less-than-optimal job of picking instructors. That's not a shot at anyone here, or an insinuation that your humble correspondent somehow should or should not have fallen out differently in his personal career. It's an observation based on the other people I've interacted with. We assume professional excellence is the sine qua non, as if every star NFL running back could also be a coach. We don't realize that a not-insignificant portion of extraordinarily gifted aviators are singularly unsuited to teach. Because they don't understand Joe Blow Aviator. They assume that because it was easy for them, it was easy for everyone. The person with the patience to not only bring out the best in his or her students, and then make a reasoned judgement about whether or not they should continue, does exist. But not to the extent that they should.

Zen thought for the day: Or does an IP billet do more than just teach the student? Does it also perhaps serve the need to teach instructional techniques to IPs so that this skill can be used later in their career to teach and instruct effectively at a fleet squadron as a DH or CO?

 

[Recovering LSO]

We as a Navy do a less-than-optimal job of picking instructors. That's not a shot at anyone here, or an insinuation that your humble correspondent somehow should or should not have fallen out differently in his personal career. It's an observation based on the other people I've interacted with. We assume professional excellence is the sine qua non, as if every star NFL running back could also be a coach. We don't realize that a not-insignificant portion of extraordinarily gifted aviators are singularly unsuited to teach. Because they don't understand Joe Blow Aviator. They assume that because it was easy for them, it was easy for everyone. So if you fail, it's a character fault; obviously you just didn't want it enough. The person with the patience to not only bring out the best in his or her students, and then make a reasoned judgement about whether or not they should continue, does exist. But not to the extent that they should.

Solutions and problems man. Give me a solution to getting better instructors, and enough quantity to keep butts in fleet seats.

 

[Recovering LSO]

Sorry Folks, Veterans Are Not Necessarily Experts on Foreign Policy; Just because you’ve worn a uniform doesn’t make you uniquely qualified to offer political judgment on matters of state.

A good message for AD, vets, and the media.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Solutions and problems man. Give me a solution to getting better instructors, and enough quantity to keep butts in fleet seats.

I tend to agree with @nittany03, but RLSO's point is also valid. The hell of it is, IMO Navy Air does a much better job than the rest of the Navy at choosing and using instructors. I've even heard a Shoe 2-star say the same. The admiral in question praised aviation for "picking their best to send back to the schoolhouse". I think the disconnect is in the follow-up question - who are your best? The good stick behind the Boat who'll make a great skipper someday isn't necessarily the best guy to fly two FAMs a day with ENS Knucklehead in P'cola. Conversely, your Fleet Average guy who just kind of muddled through his ground job and has one eye towards FedEx might be a fantastic instructor.

A partial solution, I think, might be structuring the FITUs more like LSO School or the Weapons Schools - stand-alone units with permanent instructor cadres and the authority to weed out dudes who don't have the patience or skill set to be effective IPs. I also think IPs burn out after about 12-18 mos...you can only see the same mistakes made so many times before you start having seizures. Monitor their grading trends just as you monitor students' and watch for signs of burnout.

The program is a production line, but that doesn't mean you should leave good students by the side of the road just because their on-wing loses his shit when the stud's too slow with the trim.