Army of Davids Beats Pentagon Procurement

chris-chittleborough writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that 'a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in [Iraq] in 30 days.' Compare this to the Automated Biometric Identification System, a multi-megabuck Pentagon project now 2 years old. With bureaucracy increasingly strangling innovation, will agile smaller businesses be able to accomplish what once required a sprawling government project?"

Comments

There must be a typo.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

You used "government" and "innovation" in the same sentence.

Re:There must be a typo.

[jonnythan]

They used "strangling" in the same sentence, so it's OK.

American Spirit at it's best

[with_him]

A great story of how I won't take no for an answer solves problems. I just hope, and bet, it will save lives on the ground in Iraq.

Re:American Spirit at it's best

[Cornflake917]

[quote] After they left, communists took power -- [b]and killed far more people than the war.[/b] [/quote]

Link, please.

First of all, Americans where in Vietnam for more than two decades. They had their chance. It's not like the American forces didn't some small window of oppurtunity to end the conflict.

Second, can you give an accurate estimate of how much more NVA soldiers Americans would have needed to kill to end the war? Do you know how much more people would have been killed after the war if the outcome was in our favor? I sure as hell can't. That's why bringing numbers into to this is more bull shit than anything else.

One of the main reasons why we went there in the first place was because McCarthy scared the shit out of the American public (sound familiar?), and basically made people believe that if communism doesn't end in Vietnam, then the whole world would become a slave to communism. Of course, this never happened after the war.

[quote]Guns don't kill people, peacenik bullshit does![/quote]
People who refuse to fight to defend their family, friends, and country are pussies. I have no qualms saying that. But Vietnam wasn't a war about defending ourselves. After we "lost" Vietnam, they didn't come over and bomb the shit out of us, like we did to them. So pulling out of there wasn't as a horrible decision as you make it out be.

Re:American Spirit at it's best

[sheldon]

Pol Pot came to power because the US destabilized Cambodia while fighting in Vietnam.

It was the Vietnamese who went in to Cambodia and took out Pol Pot.

Peace comes from courage. Not shooting people without understanding what is going on.

Apples & Oranges?

[winkydink]

So does their device withstand extremes of temperature duration both
operation and storage? High humidity? Is it impervious to dust?
How does it handle shock and vibration?

20+ years ago, I worked for a company that designed & manufactured
power supplies for the military. It's one thing to design a quick
& dirty one-off, proof-of-concept. It's quite another to build a
production device that will withstand continued use in a multitude
of military environments.

Re:Apples & Oranges?

[bluekanoodle]

Take the google example to extreme, build the system of out cogs, and when a cog breaks replace it. Granted some things need to be military spec, but these devices are being used in a law enforcement style capacity, not a chugging through the brush for 20 days role. Just like the police style equipment this is modeled from, the users of the system are never more then a couple of hours aways from the base of operations that a replacement part can't be substituted. whats important is to ensure the units are interchangeable and that you keep sufficient stock on hand.

In any case, having something like this that has not had extensive field trials is better then what they had before, which was nothing. The problem with the military procurement system, is that everything has to go thrugh the same process, regardless of whether its a 200 handheld unit, or a 1 million dollar vehicle. This does not allow the agility that the private sector can afford.

Re:Apples & Oranges?

[Lemmy Caution]

No. We should listen to the people who've been there, but we will absolutely not refrain from speaking just because we haven't. Do you have opinions about Vietnam? Kosovo? Sudan? The Civil War? Stem-cell research? Environmental policy? Do you think you should be disqualified from expressing or advocating a position simply because you weren't in those places or actively engaged in those research projects?

I hear your line of commentary a lot. The experience of people who are there and who have been there is important, but everyone's individual experience is still just that - it doesn't give an overview, you may miss very important features of the situation that didn't occur where you are (and, of course, it leaves out the experiences of Iraqis). Asking your experiences to be taken seriously is important. Trying to quell discussion based on those experiences is wrong.

This is the entire problem with "cheap combat"

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Something tells me that if we drafted the appropriate industries to build a *REAL* military industrial complex, and punished profiteering adequately in the first place, our troops could have had this technology (instead of a stupid deck of playing cards) in 2002, instead of waiting until 2007 for it to be delivered. But since Bush doesn't want to impact the profitability of this war, we have to wait for a significantly patriotic David to identify who the enemy is. It's exactly this lack of vision that has turned Afghanistan back into a Taliban-controlled country and destroyed our success in Iraq.

Re:This is the entire problem with "cheap combat"

[compro01]

well, we (Canada) are working on afganistan, though no one seems to want to help us with it. not meaning the US, as they have their hands full with iraq.

though this is yet another example of how damn effective gururla warfare is. the only time you tend to see terms like "dishonourable conduct" and "unfair tactics" is from the side that is not doing well.

if you don't buy that it is effective, consider that the enemy, armed with AK-47s, RPGs, high explosives, and dedication to their cause, are holding their own against what is likely the most expensive and advanced miltary in the world.

Re:This is the entire problem with "cheap combat"

[Skadet]

But since Bush doesn't want to impact the profitability of this war[. . .]

Wait, do we hate Bush because he's spending too much money on the war, or because he didn't finance it enough to let the troops do their job? I'm so confused!

Re:This is the entire problem with "cheap combat"

[gstoddart]

though this is yet another example of how damn effective gururla warfare is. the only time you tend to see terms like "dishonourable conduct" and "unfair tactics" is from the side that is not doing well.

Traditional armies have been saying that about insurgents since at least the US war for independance. They didn't line up into neat rows and square off against British soldiers like they were expected to.

if you don't buy that it is effective, consider that the enemy, armed with AK-47s, RPGs, high explosives, and dedication to their cause, are holding their own against what is likely the most expensive and advanced miltary in the world.

Of course it's effective. They are using the tactics that the Americans trained and equipped them to use against the Soviets. And, they were good at it -- you'll notice the Societs eventually gave up and went home.

It's a higly effective set of tactics.

Cheers

Re:This is the entire problem with "cheap combat"

[soft_guy]

If I recall correctly, it was a bunch of crybabying hippies that beat the US in Vietnam. Our killing prowess was far superior.

I suspect the same type of individuals will be responsible for our failure in the Middle East. Both the Johnson and Nixon administrations had years to fight the war pretty much however the hell they wanted and they could not get the other side to give up. You can blame "the hippies" all you want, but "the hippies" aren't in charge of the US military, nor are they the President of the United States or the Secretary of State or the Defense Secretary. To take longer than WWII and spend more money and not able to win is totally incompetent and to blame "the hippies" is idiotic.

The fact is that the US military are totally incompetent to win the kind of war we are in.

gov't never as efficient as business

[gravesb]

The government will never be as efficient as a business. This is especially true in procurement, where there are enormous safeguards to try and restrict corruption. Of course, these safeguards don't always work. But they have been added over time as people learned to cheat the system, and are there for a reason. What we lose in agility we gain, somewhat, in transperency and review. Its a trade-off, and it makes the article's contention a truism. Its also intentional.

Infantry proof

[wiredog]

That's what we called it when I was in the Army in the mid-80's. The PRC-77 was the size of a briefcase, carried on your back, and fairly pricey. Cost far more than handheld walkie talkies that operated on the same freqs. But the PRC-77 was far more robust. When it's raining artillery, robust is what you want.

Re:Infantry proof

[AKAImBatman]

The problem is that military technology is falling behind consumer technology. For example, many troops are carrying consumer GPS units because the military units (which can actually be more accurate) are too difficult to acquire and use. It's a lot easier for the troops to get large shipments of consumer GPS units w/spares that do what they need them to rather than waiting for the contracter to finish building an improved model after the war is over.

Another way of thinking of the situation is like this: Is it better to have a piece of equipment that might break rather than having no equipment at all?

If the answer is "yes", then a stopgap solution like the one in the article needs to be deployed immediately. If the answer is "no, it would be worse than having nothing" then the troops should make due without.

Re:Infantry proof

[Qzukk]

But the PRC-77 was far more robust.

And naturally, after the PRC-77 run was over, every engineer that made it robust was taken out back and shot, and the plans shredded, pulped and incinerated, and the contractor began working on the PRC-78, spending 5 years trying to figure out just how to make it robust.

In the real world, robustness is solved. Engineers don't need half a decade to build some contraption that can take a licking and keep on ticking, they just have to look at the previous designs and apply the same techniques to a modern device. But hey, when its the government's money, spending 2 months researching 400 different types of rubber grommets to determine which one works best for shock absorbing because, you know, physics might have changed in the last year or so, is a perfectly reasonable idea.

I wish we could.

[IndustrialComplex]

If my login wasn't clue enough...

I've had so many negative experiences when dealing with governmental customers. While there is a lot of blame to be laid on the large companies, I can't fathom (or rather I don't want to) how much money has been wasted by people who really don't understand what they want, or how much it will cost to actually get what they want.

I've spent months doing work only to have it erased by the customer, worked another month, only to have them revert back to the origin. Only then do they discover that you can't just 'go back' once production has started without huge costs.

Or maybe they do understand it, but just don't care.

It Is My Experience

[Greyfox]

That the quick and dirty app working now usually trumps the super-duper uber app that may get built in 3 or 4 years.

Gold Platting

[Hangtime]

There is a difference between trying to get everything perfect and good enough. This is good enough. Waiting around trying to figure out how to get all this networked isn't it going to help.

Just try cutting off the gravy train...

[greg_barton]

The moment you try to limit funding to a wasteful Pentagon program you're accused of hating the troops.

And so it goes.

The standard rip against wasteful education spending is, "You can't just throw money at a problem and expect it to be fixed!"

Yet that's done 10x with the military and no one bats an eye.

Nope

[kurthr]

"will agile smaller businesses be able to accomplish what once required a sprawling government project?"

No, because they don't have the political power to actually get large contracts. Their larger competitors will use their influence on legislators to get "written in" to large budget bills. Can you say, "No bid contract"? Their less scrupulous competitors will bribe legislators or military procurement. We've already seen this in Iraq with everything from oil and water, to flack jackets.

The most insidious tool that's used are the absurd design requirements documents. They set out an often completely unnecessary set of requirements that often only one company, or perhaps two very large companies can provide. This keeps any bidding process "under control". What will be delivered may not even meet those requirements, but only after years of delays, "best effort", and disappointment. The only good thing that seems to come out of the larger projects are the much derided "slush funds" that let individuals actually innovate without being put under this absurd process.

Why is it set up this way? Is there a better way with the Bureaucracy we have? Is tearing it down the way to go? Good questions. DARPA and some small programs try to fix this around the edges, but something with this much money in it will always draw the crooks.

NASA is subject to the same pitfalls. It just costs less money, and fewer people die.

Two problems: org size and gov't creativity

[jofny]

Yeah, smaller companies distribute and process information more effectively, so they are almost always better suited to developing new things than the government or the large contractors. However, producing old things repeatably to the same spec and with organizational resiliancy is something smaller companies have a harder time doing, so from a long term perspective it's not a clear win for smaller companies.

The only time the government really beats out private industry (and to a greater extent, larger orgs beat out smaller ones) on new technology innovation is when it's a money issue (the materials really do cost billions of dollars). As technology has gotten cheaper and become more accessible, that advantage has slowly disappeared.

A larger issue than size, though, is that governments (most of them, this one in particular) tend to recruit homogenous workforces and encourage groupthink. Workers are encouraged (directly or through lack of promotions, harassment, etc.) to "fit in" at an institutional level. So, it's not surprising that the government is not as innovative as other places.

People lately are often heard saying that the US government doesn't "pay enough" to get good people. I dont know about you all, but I'd give up a little pay to work on interesting projects and with good people. The government's problem is that it doesn't -like- people who are creative, innovative, and different and actively selects them out - not the pay.

Think of the children

[fermion]

We know that we can build equal equipment cheaper and faster, but just think of the children of the KBR executives that will not receive a tropical island for christmas because some do goodder was more interested in protecting troops than Haliburton profits. I mean, my god, if our desire was to simply stop terrorism we would have another president right now, and probably would have put bin laden on trail rather than hussain.

There's a difference

[CaffeineAddict2001]

The government doesn't spend $10 on a screw. They spend $10 on an M2.5 truss head stainless steel threaded fastening device.

Re:A little hyperbole

[illegalcortex]

dems dont want to let them have the funding they need

So, tell me again how the dems managed to cause this problem when they were utterly out of power for the last for the last decade. Oh, and for the last six years the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress with enough votes to pass anything other than mandatory baby sacrifices and had a president that would sign any bill sent to him?

Those lousy Democrats sure are crafty...

It is not a "major war"

[paiute]

Trying to fight a "major war"? We are not at war and have not been since 1945.

article is an oversimplification

[finlandia1869]

IAANAT (I Am A Navy Acquisition Type). Don't give me the "ditching the peacetime acquisition system would fix this" argument - innumerable, half-assed products are developed and dumped on the troops during wartime in the name of getting things to the field quickly. They get fixed only after it catches fire and kills the crew. Or they don't work after falling in salt water. Or something like that. Wartime is no better. Troops in the field always want the latest and greatest Right Now; they don't care that 79 other guys are asking for the same thing, but a little different, resulting in 80 incompatible systems that each carry their own, unique logistics tail.

I also can say that the big contractors are indispensable for some things. Lockheed Martin maintains and updates the monster that is Aegis, for example. David has no ability to do this. Maybe an army of Davids overseen by LockMart acting as lead integrator, but otherwise no.

The acquisition process has serious problems, don't get me wrong. But anecdotes don't make a good argument.

It's not just government

[spun]

Large corporations also suffer from beaurocracy and inflexibility. I can't believe I'm saying this being as lefty-liberal as I am, but the difference is that companies follow a natural life cycle. They start out small and agile, get bigger through success against their less nimble rivals, become less nimble themselves, and get beaten in their turn. Government has no natural rivals and thus never dies. It just shambles on, zombie-like.

I'll put that down to people's fear of not being able to support themselves, and thus being unable to let go of a job even if that job is no longer relevant. Perhaps if rights to food, clothing and shelter were garaunteed, government departments that had outlived their usefulness would be less resistant to being dissolved.

Whew! Almost let a pro-capitalist thought slip through unchallenged. ;-)

Re:It's not just government

[timeOday]

They start out small and agile, get bigger through success against their less nimble rivals, become less nimble themselves, and get beaten in their turn. Government has no natural rivals and thus never dies.

It's not just that. Bigger companies (and governments) solve bigger problems. The reason the Army is careful is because going off half-cocked gets people killed just as much as doing nothing, and, yes, is more scandalous. It sounds great to give everybody autonomy so they can react quickly and decisively, but along with that comes Abu Ghraib, friendly fire, and missing palettes of cash. You can say what you want about our nimble opponents in the face of an ossified DOD, but the fact is the US has a very high kill ratio due to things like standardized training, fighter aircraft, and M1 tanks, which result ONLY from big, coordinated activities that no single small company - or even a collection of exclusively small companies - can do. (Nor am I saying a high kill ratio in itself will win Iraq, but that's more a problem with the mission itself than the force structure). Even projecting an invasion force from the US to Iraq in the first place is by definition a large scale activity that could never be approached as a large, highly coordinated effort (again, aside from whether going there was a bright idea in the first place).

Re:It's not just government

[spun]

Indeed, that is the danger. It should be noted too that there are reasons why the Nordic countries have been so succsessful with socialism. One, they are quite culturally homogenous, so one never feels that outsiders are leaching off of them. Two, they have a culture of cooperation brought about by extremes of climate. That's my theory, anyway.

Re:It's not just government

[ben there...]

It's not just that. Bigger companies (and governments) solve bigger problems. The reason the Army is careful is because going off half-cocked gets people killed just as much as doing nothing, and, yes, is more scandalous. It sounds great to give everybody autonomy so they can react quickly and decisively, but along with that comes Abu Ghraib, friendly fire, and missing palettes of cash.

The missing palettes of cash were known about through independent news and radio long before the news hit mainstream media, including an interview with a woman soldier who had refused to take the money who said that she was told to keep quiet about it, not send any home, and not to make it obvious when she returned home. But it's only a small part of a bigger picture. The DoD has over $2.3 trillion unaccounted for[CBS], 25% of its budget of taxpayers' money. The palettes of cash are business as usual. The worrisome part is not the American and Iraqi soldiers receiving what one might call "bonuses", but where the rest of that $2.3 trillion+ went. If the Executive and military authority are that brazen about giving out unaccounted for money and then telling them to keep quiet about it, imagine what other undocumented transactions of our tax money they might be willing to do. It's obvious at this point that the people of this country (and their representatives) will not hold them accountable, and I'm sure they realize that.

It's also hard to believe that Abu Graib was the result of giving too much "autonomy" while Alberto Gonzales is arguing for the use of torture. Do you think you'll ever really know how high up the chain of command the knowledge of what was going on in Abu Graib reached? Or whether the same thing didn't happen at other locations? Do you think you'll ever know all the horrors and atrocities that have resulted from an urban war that has gone on far too long, with many of its battered participants now having served several tours of duty?

No, it is my belief that only the uninformed will believe that these cases are isolated incidents resulting from giving the perpetrators too much autonomy. They are the exact opposite: the inevitable corruption resulting from giving a military bureaucracy too much power with far too little oversight.

Re:device not about saving lives

[Radon360]

From Merriam-Webster:

insurgent(noun)
1: a person who revolts against civil authority or an established government; especially : a rebel not recognized as a belligerent
2: one who acts contrary to the policies and decisions of one's own political party

Setting aside the legality of the occupation for a moment, the typical insurgent isn't defending his homeland, but more so fighting for his particular faction to gain control or power, doing whatever harm against others in relatiation for "being wronged" whether by United States or another competing faction.

The troops at this point aren't so much fighting a convential war, but rather working as an "industrial strength" version of a police force to stop one group from attacking the other and vice-versa, getting caught in the middle from "meddling" with each groups objectives. As a police force, they need the tools of a police force in order to locate and identify troublemakers and perform their investigations more efficiently. This is one example (of many) tools to function in this manner. Remember that the military is better equipped for fighting wars and not function as a domestic police force. Equipment like this would allow them to function better with their current mission as such.

Think of it this way for a moment: Would a city's police force be very effective if you took away all of their offender databases, mobile data terminals and other tech tools? Yes, you could equip them all with body armor and machine guns, but their effectiveness is then limited to "shoot first and ask questions later". If the police were only allowed to operate in this mode, it's no wonder that all sorts of uprisings and attacks would result.