What’s your point?
That governments should give value for money?
Think what would happen to the economy if all those little public service piglets were suddenly shaken off the gorged public tit.
It’d be a nightmare, all those useless, unemployable people wandering the streets, causing trouble.
I mean, what would happen if soldiers, real working soldiers, were given control of equipment standards?
They wouldn’t get the great service they do now from the competent and dedicated public servants and public servant type military officials, as revealed by these testimonials.
There’s a degree of journalistic sensationalism in these articles, but the grunts’ complaints they record have been a theme for many years.
(Check the bold red in the first item. Code for: Or they don’t get back into Oz.)
Faulty gear puts troops at riskCameron Stewart and Michael McKinnon
The Australian February 11, 2006
THE safety of Australian troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the elite SAS force, has been compromised by defective body armour, combat jackets and helmets, according to damning Defence Department documents.
The faults include combat jackets that glow in the dark, giving enemies an easy target, and body armour that cracks easily.
The helmets issued to soldiers have harnesses that are “worn, rusted and damaged” and are shaped in a way that makes it “impossible to sight a live claymore (landmine) in the prone position” while wearing them.
The documents reveal that the safety of SAS members – on deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan – has been compromised by body armour that does not match the grey colour of their wetsuits for underwater operations.
In one case, a protective vest called Ultima issued to soldiers was so faulty its use was “suspended immediately” for troops at home. But those in the field were forced to wear the vest until a replacement became available.
“The operational use of the armour is to be suspended as soon as practicable,” the reports say.
The Defence documents were obtained by The Weekend Australian under Freedom of Information laws following a successful challenge in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
They contain a comprehensive log of defects, reported by troops at home and overseas, in combat armour, combat jackets, helmets, combat packs and boots.
The reports reveal that faulty equipment is a more serious and widespread problem than has been admitted by the Government, at times jeopardising the operations and safety of troops.
A Defence spokesman yesterday defended the performance of the Defence Materiel Organisation, the agency that buys combat gear, saying it had followed “strict government procurement guidelines”.
“Army is committed to continual development and improvement of combat clothing and personal equipment,” he said.
The documents warn that the new combat jackets issued to troops not only failed to offer camouflage protection but were “highly visible”. “It appears as a bright glowing beacon when observed through night-fighting equipment,” the reports say.
They reveal that no combat jackets fit women. “Females are forced to wear a jacket several sizes too big to accommodate hips. This leads to sleeves completely covering hands.”
The jackets were highly flammable and collected such an amount of “dirt, sticks and prickles” in the field that they would be “unsuitable for operations overseas, due to the likelihood of AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service) requiring complete removal of all plant matter”.
The documents say the combat body armour used by troops in Iraq was faulty, with the plastic clips used to fasten the vest to the torso “continually fracturing and breaking”. And the ballistic body plates designed to stop small arms fire were subject to cracking at the front and the back.
The reports warn that the helmets used by the SAS were poorly designed because, during night assaults with aerial fire, soldiers were forced to use tape to attach strobe lights to the helmets to aid target identification.
“This affects operational performance and safety,” they say.
Soldiers on home duties complained that the older army helmets were “severely dented” and trapped the heat, potentially causing overheating.
There were serious problems with field combat packs, blamed for “causing multiple back injuries” and for being too small for operations in East Timor.
Soldiers reported that poorly designed combat boots led to large blisters, with one soldier saying: “It takes a good deal ofmy blood to soak into the leather to make them more comfortable.”
Opposition defence spokesman Robert McClelland said last night the Government must explain why troops were so ill-equipped.
“The Howard Government’s defence spending priorities have become outrageously skewed when they are willing to have a billion-dollar open chequebook for Iraq while our dedicated serving men and women are equipped with badly designed clothing and faulty gear.”
Enemy is in Canberra, say Diggers
Michael McKinnon and Cameron Stewart
The Australian February 13, 2006
BLOOD-filled boots and sodden jackets infested with maggots force thousands of Australian soldiers a year to buy their own military equipment.
Some soldiers with combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq say an enemy exists in the Defence Department’s Russell Office in Canberra – the bureaucrats who buy the flawed and faulty equipment.
Military equipment supplier Crossfire, based at Braidwood, near Canberra, meets some of the demand from soldiers who say they are “disgusted and demoralised” by poor equipment issued by the Defence Department.
Speaking from a military show in Las Vegas, Crossfire manager Peter Marshall said his company was a big contractor to the Defence Department, with “substantial sales directly to units and to individual soldiers”.
“I have spoken to thousands of soldiers who all say they cannot operate at full efficiency because of poor equipment. This failure places their lives at risk,” he said.
"There are major problems with retention, and I know soldiers who have reluctantly left the army because they are fed up with a system that doesn’t value them as soldiers.
“A soldier’s kit – the backpack, boots, helmets and other equipment – is their workplace.”
Mr Marshall said the problem was not with the whole department but with its combat clothing office, which had failed to seek private-sector advice, produced flawed designs and run inappropriate tendering processes.
A senior army officer, with experience in the area, called yesterday for the combat clothing office to be scrapped.
The officer, who wished to remain anonymous, said some soldiers believed bureaucrats were as much an enemy as insurgents in Iraq.
“The Defence Department’s combat clothing area designs equipment in-house. We don’t do that with fighter planes – instead we check and compare the best private industry has to offer,” the officer said.
"Soldiers get the equipment, put it in the cupboard and buy their own.
“We cannot believe the generals and the Defence Minister would allow this to continue if they really knew the truth.”
