Getting A New Boss, Fed.Guv Style

[Leatherneck]

The White House nominated a new Director, OT&E Monday night and put it on the fast track for a confirmation hearing eight days later. We're running around with our hair on fire trying to brief up the new guy so he can appear knowledgeable next Tuesday. He's been in the Pentagon before (got canned by Rumsfeld for advocating a 25-carrier Navy in the 1990 QDR), so it's not all new the way it was for the last Director.

Irony: we're inventing hypothetical questions (and answers) for what the Senators might ask him. We're also responding to senate staffers asking "What should my boss ask him in the hearing?" See any conflict here?

TC

[grampster]

Yep.  If the guy's worth his salt, he oughta be able to handle any question.  Pre cleared questions are BS.

[Regolith]

got canned by Rumsfeld for advocating a 25-carrier Navy in the 1990 QDR

Better than advocating for a 2 carrier navy, anyway, though 25 is a bit much. 

How many we got right now?  11? I can't remember...more than the rest of the world combined, anyway. 

[RevDisk]

I have the suspicion that the VH-71 is gonna come up. 


To shamelessly plug, you could tell the dude that your ol' APS buddy RevDisk from the interwebz could probably have all of shiney replacement birds delivered in under 12-24 months on budget if the specs were halfway sane. 

Have them check out the contract for the S-92 VVIP's we made for the President of South Korea.   Hell, I'm sure SK would let you guys have a look see at them.

[Leatherneck]

I was inquiring about the VH-71 demise and replacement just yesterday, and ran into a wall of ignorance at the working level of OSD. The intentions for the future in replacing the VH-3s are being kept VERY close at the Secretary level.

The confirmation Kabuki dance will no doubt continue today...

TC

[Scout26]

We're also responding to senate staffers asking "What should my boss ask him in the hearing?"

Q1:  "What is your quest ?"
Q2:  "What is your favorite color?"
Q3:  "What is the airspeed velocity of coconut laden swallow?"

(With a little luck a few Senators could be thrown off the Bridge.....)

 

[Strings]

Wasn't Senator Kennedy already thrown off a bridge once? And didn't he manage to come back anyway?

Bad pennies, I tell ya...

[RocketMan]

Wasn't Senator Kennedy already thrown off a bridge once? And didn't he manage to come back anyway?

Bad pennies, I tell ya...

He must not be a witch, then.

[Regolith]

He must not be a witch, then.

Oh, I don't know.  Since he's still with us, it sounds like he floated ok, which must mean he is made out of wood.  Witches are also made out of wood.  The only thing needed to confirm is to see if he weighs as much as a duck...

[RocketMan]

Rats, I had it backwards. 

[MechAg94]

Oh, I don't know.  Since he's still with us, it sounds like he floated ok, which must mean he is made out of wood.  Witches are also made out of wood.  The only thing needed to confirm is to see if he weighs as much as a duck...

Build a bridge of him!!

[RevDisk]

I was inquiring about the VH-71 demise and replacement just yesterday, and ran into a wall of ignorance at the working level of OSD. The intentions for the future in replacing the VH-3s are being kept VERY close at the Secretary level.

The confirmation Kabuki dance will no doubt continue today...

TC

After the ballooning of the VH-71 project, I'm hardly surprised.  The current PR line is "upgrades to the existing fleet of VH-3D's and VH-60N's".   How's the kabuki dance going?

[Leatherneck]

How's the kabuki dance going?

ARGH! I created a paper comparing the duties and responsibilities of DOT&E compared to the newly-created Director of developmental T&E. This afternoon I got the advance questions from the senate staff:

Advance Questions for J. Michael Gilmore
Nominee for Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, Department of Defense


Duties

What is your understanding of the duties and functions of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation?

What background and experience do you possess that you believe qualifies you to perform these duties?

Do you believe that there are actions you need to take to enhance your ability to perform the duties of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E)?  If so, what are they?

Assuming you are confirmed, what duties and functions do you expect that the Secretary of Defense will assign to you?


Major Challenges

In your view, what are the major challenges that will confront the DOT&E?

If confirmed, what plans do you have for addressing these challenges?

What do you consider to be the most serious problems in the performance of the functions of the DOT&E?

If confirmed, what management actions and time lines would you establish to address these problems?


Relationships

If confirmed, how will you work with the following:

A. The Secretary of Defense

B. The Deputy Secretary of Defense

C. The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics

D. The Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness

E. The Director of Defense Research and Engineering

F. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration

G. The Inspector General of the Department of Defense

H. The General Counsel of the Department of Defense

I. The Service and Agency officials responsible for major acquisition programs

J. The Directors of the Services' Test and Evaluation organizations

K. The Joint Requirements Oversight Council

L. The Director of the Defense Test Resource Management Center

M. The Director of Developmental Test and Evaluation

N. The Director of the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Office

O. The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs


Independence and Objectivity

Congress established the position of DOT&E as an independent and objective evaluator of the performance of major systems. Report language accompanying the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1984 (P. L. 98-94), which was codified as section 139 of title 10, U. S. Code, states that “the Director [is] to be independent of other DOD officials below the Secretary of Defense” and “not circumscribed in any way by other officials in carrying out his duties.” In describing the Director’s duties, the report also noted an expectation that the Director "safeguard the integrity of operational testing and evaluation in general and with respect to specific major defense acquisition programs.”

Can you assure the Committee that, if confirmed, you will be independent and objective in your evaluations, and that you will provide your candid assessment of Major Defense Acquisition Programs to the Congress?

In your view, does the DOT&E have the necessary authorities under sections 139 and 2399 of Title 10, United States Code, and applicable Departmental regulations to carry out the duties prescribed?

Section 2399 of Title 10, U. S. Code, establishes certain requirements regarding the impartiality of contractor testing personnel and contracted for advisory and assistance services utilized with regard to the test and evaluation of a system.

What is your view of these requirements?

How will you maintain independence from the often conflicting goals of the acquisition community and the mandates for necessary operational testing?


Test and Evaluation Funding

Concern over long-term support for and viability of the Department's test ranges and facilities led to creation of the Defense Test Resource Management Center in 2002 and a requirement for direct funding of test and evaluation (T&E) facilities.

In your view, how are these changes working to address funding and sustainability concerns at the department's test ranges and bases?

Do you believe that the Department's T&E capabilities, including infrastructure and workforce, are adequately funded?

Do you believe that the Department’s T&E capabilities, including infrastructure and workforce, are adequate to perform the full range of test and evaluation responsibilities of DOD weapons systems and equipment?

What are your views about the importance of accurately projecting future test facility resource requirements and budgeting for these needs?

How will the sufficiency of investments in test resources and workforces be factored into your assessments and review of proposed test plans and schedules for acquisition programs?

How do you plan to evaluate and improve the operational testing workforce in DOD especially in light of the growing numbers of new technologies embedded in weapon systems and the desire to speed the acquisition and deployment of systems to the battlefield?


Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation

How would you assess the adequacy of resources provided to the Office of DOT&E given the missions and responsibilities of the office?

In your view, does the DOT&E have sufficient support from FFRDCs and other contractors to support designated missions?

In your view, does the DOT&E’s current workforce represent the correct mix between government and contractor personnel?

Does the DOT&E need any special personnel authorities, such as those available to DARPA, medical personnel, service academies, or defense laboratories,  to attract, recruit, and retain the workforce needed to perform designated missions?


Operational and Developmental Testing

What are your views on the appropriate point in concept development of a new acquisition program for incorporation of T&E planning and integration of testing requirements?

What steps, if any, do you believe the Department should take to ensure that testing takes place early enough in the program cycle to identify and fix problems before it becomes prohibitively time-consuming and expensive to do so?

Acquisition programs continue to complete developmental testing satisfactorily, but perform poorly on operational testing suggesting that developmental testing lacks sufficient rigor or realism to adequately characterize the technical performance of a system under test.

What are you views on the current relationship between developmental and operational testing?

Do you believe there is value in involving the operational test and evaluation community in providing input into developmental testing and, if so, at what point should that process begin?

When is it appropriate for developmental and operational testing to be combined?


Adaptation of T&E to Evolving Acquisition Strategies

If confirmed, how would you propose to achieve an appropriate balance between the desire to reduce acquisition cycle times and the need to perform adequate testing and evaluation?

It goes on for ten pages of questions. This promoses to be a great weekend.

TC

[taurusowner]

Build a bridge of him!!

Ah, but can you not also build bridges out of stone?

[RevDisk]

ARGH! I created a paper comparing the duties and responsibilities of DOT&E compared to the newly-created Director of developmental T&E. This afternoon I got the advance questions from the senate staff:

It goes on for ten pages of questions. This promises to be a great weekend.

TC

Gods, that sounds like a lot of difficult, in depth questions.   I would NOT want to be tasked with answering all of them.  Assuming the point is to answer them in a somewhat detailed, efficient and comprehensive manner instead of politician speak.

Good questions though.  I will diplomatically not ask you who wrote them.   Sounds like the job is to research acquisition and weed out the political crap from essential material requirements.   Not that I expect you to answer (please do not, you sound good at your work), but is a gentleman who apparently honestly believed in a 25 carrier requirement cut out for the job?   Unless it was an honest mistake and/or something I am unaware of (which is very likely), the job requires an independent voice to advise the SecDef and Congress of requirements, concerns and testing of defense acquisition.

I do wish the guy luck, regardless.  It is a very demanding and important job.  Hopefully he excels at the task.

[Leatherneck]

The real problem is that as we ply through the developing answers, the philosophy that comes through is ours, as opposed to his. Sure, he'll ensure his personal hot buttons get pushed, but overall it's too many questions on diverse topics to develop his own personal answers. Plowing onward...

TC

[roo_ster]

"Listen up, zipperheads!  I'll muddle through and do a better job than the majority of political flunkies who get appointed.  You want more detail than that, you can talk to my *expletive deleted*ss staff."

[roo_ster]

Ah, but can you not also build bridges out of stone?

Obviously, we have a man of science on this board!

[MicroBalrog]

Better than advocating for a 2 carrier navy, anyway, though 25 is a bit much. 

How many we got right now?  11? I can't remember...more than the rest of the world combined, anyway. 

There are 13. I think.

[Cromlech]

Well I'm only using Wikipedia (lol) as the source, but it claims 11 in service for the U.S

Versus 11 others worldwide. Heh.
Brazil (1)
France (1)
India (1)
Italy (2)
Russia (1)
Spain (2)
Thailand (1)
United Kingdom (2)

Your Carriers are also bloody massive at around the 100,000 ton mark. Russia has a 67,500 ton one. UK has 20,000 ton or so ships. Even bloody France has a 42,000 one. 

Royal Navy - Need moar boaties!

[MicroBalrog]

WEll, 25 carriers might make sense still. If the other 14 are smaller, lighter carriers to extend the reach other Navy...

Bah, whom am I kidding?

[MicroBalrog]

I did the numbers, using this site for reference.

The combined tonnage of the American Navy's carriers is 1,113,500 tonnes. They carry a low-end number of 920 aircraft between them (that's assuming 70 aircraft on the Enterprise and 85 each on the Nimitzes, which is what is listed as the commonly-carried number).

The rest of the world's carriers mass 261,700 tons between them. They carry 277 aircraft (using high-end numbers for aircraft rather than low-end as above).

For additional fun, any given US carrier outmasses and outguns the entire carrier complement of any other given nation.

[RevDisk]

For additional fun, any given US carrier out masses and outguns the entire carrier complement of any other given nation.

They're very expensive too.  At least they're nuke powered.  Most foreign carriers are not, for some rather insane reason.   I think the current number is more than acceptable, but that's just me.   Carriers are our best current way of 'showing the flag'. 

Sooner or later, they'll be rendered more or less obsolete by advances in missile technology.   It would be a bad idea to put a $10b-25b boat in range of a swarm of $10-50k missiles/UAV's.   Launch a thousand cheap scramjet missiles, and you'll be able to sink any boat regardless of how many defenses that boat can realistically carry.

[S. Williamson]

But is there any alternative course of action for providing air support basically everywhere in the world at once (not to mention the thousand other things a floating city can do)?

[taurusowner]

They're very expensive too.  At least they're nuke powered.  Most foreign carriers are not, for some rather insane reason.   I think the current number is more than acceptable, but that's just me.   Carriers are our best current way of 'showing the flag'. 

Sooner or later, they'll be rendered more or less obsolete by advances in missile technology.   It would be a bad idea to put a $10b-25b boat in range of a swarm of $10-50k missiles/UAV's.   Launch a thousand cheap scramjet missiles, and you'll be able to sink any boat regardless of how many defenses that boat can realistically carry.

I dunno... defense technology will advance too.  think of the Active Denial System which is being used as a less than lethal means of making a fairly large area very painful to be inside.  It uses a field of electromagnetic radiation to heat up the surface of the skin making one feel like they are burning, but leaving no lasting effects.  I can see in a decade or so a system such as this on a massive scale, but which does have more serious effects, such as the ability to heat up any warhead to the point of combustion.  Have much larger versions of this all around the carrier and you basically get a shield which detonates incoming missiles before they hit the ship.  No bullets or countermeasure missiles to direct towards the incoming, just a massive field around the ship.  Just one idea that I am sure is among many.  Don't count carriers out too soon.