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Sturgeon's House

United States Military Vehicle General: Guns, G*vins, and Gas Turbines


Tied

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I swear, there's something wrong with me today on the cognitive plane...I got the tank names wrong. TWICE. Gimme the dunce cap, I deserve it. I'll stop posting until I can properly read and identify tank names...or else I'll end up posting highly improbable pictures of the Bob Semple tank standing next to the Kugelpanzer.

 

EDIT - Ramlaen, you once asked for a pic of the "Gavin" (*washes mouth with bleach and aqua regia*) and a Bradley for size comparison...and there's this CG here that shows the difference in size between the AMPV (close enough, right?) and a M113:

 

jfO8iPw.png

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3 minutes ago, AssaultPlazma said:

I still feel they should keep the M113 around (obviously after some modernization of course) 

 

In what role exactly? Because other than the Robotic Wingman project, I can only see them used as utility vehicles. But the AMPV is already fulfilling this job ans should enter service in the thousands.

And when funding becomes available, it will expand to be an incremental upgrade to the Bradley.

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59 minutes ago, skylancer-3441 said:

just a picture from Army magazine, 1973-05
XtCYhOM.jpg

 

That's probably where Ukraine got that retarded idea of putting two guns separately in the same turret, mounted coaxially on the horizontal axis, but separated on the vertical axis. Only useful if you're fighting against Giraffes and need to hit the torso and score a headshot at the same time.

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Solomon posted a response he got about the AAV-SU stop work order.

 

Quote

Pretty clear you only got one side of the story on this whole SAIC AAV-SU program. You either talked to a disgruntled former employee or one of the three morons celebrating getting laid off this week.

So here’s the truth about the Stop Work: It’s a 90 day stop work for CONVENIENCE, not cause. That means it is not related to any lack of ability to deliver tracks on time. It looks like the Corps is waiting to see how the ACV Sea State 3 swim tests go next month and will possibly be transferring the funding from AAV-SU over to ACV. The ACVs swam better than they were ever supposed to and seem to be more capable of replacing the aging AAV fleet sooner than expected.

Now for the other fallacies your source has led you to believe. SAIC didn’t run off its SMEs and replace them with Joe Schmoes off the street.

1) Six Marines left the project. So when your source says “all” realize they’re talking about six people out of a project that employs 300+. There were still Marines and trackers who were tech writers, analysts, integrators, engineers, quality assurance, logistics, FSRs, and test directors.

2) The guys that left were never Subject Matter Experts to anyone except themselves. The handful who left all had an enlistment or two of Amtracking experience. There is still over 300 years of Amtracking experience on the project’s payroll. Two retired trackers added after EMD had more combined experience then the combined lot of the six guys who left.

3) The guys who left were going to take paycuts because all they did during ACV was bitch and moan. For the entire year that ACV went on they never once bothered to learn how the vehicle was assembled or properly operated. They let other assembly technicians come in and replace them on the production line so they could become “test drivers”, a position and task not required under the PCM AAV-SU contract. The guys who built AAVs during EMD and ACVs got promotions and pay-raises when PCM started up because they were experienced, had the tribal knowledge, and hadn't spent the last year complaining and refusing to work.

4) ZERO Subcontractors were cell leads. In fact, every one of the cell leads on the production floor were there for the EMD build.

5) 80% of the work force brought in was either former military or guys with overseas contracting experience. It was an exceptionally low-blow to read that you only believe former Amtrackers care about the lives of Marines. Those of us who work in Defense Contracting, especially us veterans, take great pride in knowing our time away from our families is for the noble cause of helping our brothers and sisters on the front lines return safely to their loved ones.

The entire reason SAIC was instructed to build four PCM vehicles was because the “SME’s” as your source has labeled them couldn’t build two vehicles that were the same during the EMD phase. The only reason SAIC got the win was because of a very strong team of experienced FSRs who received vehicles with hundreds of quality hits against them and worked out all the kinks so they could perform well during the Operational Assessment phase of government testing. The “SME’s” used mis-matched hardware and put “dick slots” in bolt holes to make the parts fit. Then they never bothered to document the changes or correct the work instructions so SAIC could build more vehicles when they won the next lot. These guys built million dollar combat vehicles with zero professionalism or understanding of production. That’s why the Program Office put the PCM asterisk on the awarded LRIP contract, and demanded new management be put in place. They wanted to see SAIC improve HOW it built the vehicles because the “SME’s” EMD build was FUBAR.
Did the new management always make sound decisions? Absolutely not. However, the program isn’t behind schedule because of the management or the laborers. There were several issues including procurement, staffing, tooling, design changes, bad parts, etc. . The government dictated certain design changes be made and the project never stopped changing the design even after parts were procured. So parts were ordered based on drawings that were 3 or 4 revisions old by the time the parts arrived. The government also had part sourcing and delivering problems for the legacy components. Certain systems were terribly engineered, other parts just didn’t fit. Workers had to be brought in by the dozens to meet the schedule demanded by the customer. Luckily experienced integrators were laid off from BAE and Boeing in the area and were able to come over to SAIC. It all compounded into a nightmare of a project in which most of us realized the company was just sprinting to failure.

Hopefully now that you’ve received the facts you can come out with a nice post about how disgruntled former employees are a terrible source of information. The "Old Team" is still on the team, minus six guys. Those six guys were a huge part of the reason SAIC almost didn't win the project and was given four more vehicles to prove their processes on. When you look at the facts, it looks like the Corps is just reassessing the need for a band-aid on a 50 year old platform when its replacement is ahead of schedule.

No attach on you, your posts can only be as good as the information you received. Unfortunately, your source sucks.

 

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