Army: Now that you ask, we really don't know where all of our weapons are

[Doc7505]

Army: ​

Now that you ask, we really don't know where all of our weapons are​

Army: Now that you ask, we really don't know where all of our weapons are

hotair.com

12 Oct 2023 ~~ By Jazz Shaw

It’s well known that the United States Army and Marines maintain a significant stockpile of used, damaged, or older models of weapons. Some are damaged and waiting to be safely salvaged, but many of them are still functional, requiring a bit of cleaning or maintenance. Some may be perfectly fine, but they’ve been replaced by newer models. Now that our allies in Israel are rushing to outfit an expanded military force to take on Hamas and their civilians are looking for hardware also, someone finally thought to ask the army about those stockpiles and how we could ship out the usable equipment to help our friends. But they answer they received from Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo on Tuesday basically amounted to, ‘Weapons? Did you say weapons? Let’s see… where did we put those…’ (Government Executive)

The U.S. Army has warehouses packed with weapons its soldiers no longer need. But the service doesn’t know where they all are, nor what condition they’re in.​

Now, amid increased demand from U.S. allies and partners, Army leaders are pushing for an updated database of those stored weapons.​

“Sometimes we don’t really know where all of our excess equipment is,” Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo said Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army annual conference in Washington. “We have a lot of it, and it’s accumulated over time.”​

We’re not talking about the big-ticket military equipment here. When it comes to our most advanced fighter jets, submarines, long-range precision missiles and ICBMS, we’re pretty good about keeping track of those. But the stockpiles in question involve more conventional rifles, sidearms, ammunition, and maybe some shoulder-fired rockets. They get shuffled around a lot in various warehouses across the country and around the world. And we obviously don’t know precisely where some of them are in case they need to be shipped out or, in some cases, if we even still have them. And that’s a problem.
~Snip~
Should we be surprised? Keep in mind we’re not talking about rank-and-file war fighters and officers here. They are the best we have to offer, though you will occasionally run into a bad apple or two. But in the upper ranks of the Pentagon, there seem to be too many people who take that massive budget for granted and don’t spend much time worrying about accountability because they know the checks will keep on flowing.
Remember that this is the same Pentagon that accidentally “found” six billion dollars in Military gear for Ukraine so Congress wouldn’t have to appropriate more money at that time. Granted, that turned out to be more an instance of creative bookkeeping than literally discovering an Indiana Jones-style warehouse full of bombs and rockets and Howitzer shells. But you get the drift. And let’s not forget that the Pentagon has never successfully completed an audit even though it’s required under federal law. We don’t know how much gear we have, to say nothing of exactly where it all is.
The Pentagon has long believed that they don’t need to be accountable and we’ve given them every reason to feel that way. I’m not saying we need to slash their budget. We need a strong military now more than ever. But we should also be investing in some external observers and auditors who can monitor the supply chain systems and be able to locate what we need when we need it. They should also be getting rid of the old, useless stuff more efficiently. It could save us some money by unloading some of it and free up storage space. We could do a lot better and from the sounds of this week’s reports we really need to.

Commentary:
Obviously they're acting dumb, like they don’t know where they are. They know. First off ask Milley and Austin. Surely there's all that military equipment and ordinance they left in Afghanistan for starters.
According to military regulations, for each of those weapons is a Staff NCO who knows by serial number exactly where it is.
For every round of ammunition there is a Staff NCO who knows by lot number and count where every round is.
The “Magnificent Millie” trained officer corps may well be as incompetent and ignorant as the article and the Undersecretary claim, but there is a professional soldier that knows.
However, it is within the realm of possibility that some of the weapons and ammunition are not exactly in the Army’s inventory system. IYKWIMAITYD.

 

[jackflash]

Army: ​

Now that you ask, we really don't know where all of our weapons are​

Army: Now that you ask, we really don't know where all of our weapons are

hotair.com

12 Oct 2023 ~~ By Jazz Shaw

It’s well known that the United States Army and Marines maintain a significant stockpile of used, damaged, or older models of weapons. Some are damaged and waiting to be safely salvaged, but many of them are still functional, requiring a bit of cleaning or maintenance. Some may be perfectly fine, but they’ve been replaced by newer models. Now that our allies in Israel are rushing to outfit an expanded military force to take on Hamas and their civilians are looking for hardware also, someone finally thought to ask the army about those stockpiles and how we could ship out the usable equipment to help our friends. But they answer they received from Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo on Tuesday basically amounted to, ‘Weapons? Did you say weapons? Let’s see… where did we put those…’ (Government Executive)

The U.S. Army has warehouses packed with weapons its soldiers no longer need. But the service doesn’t know where they all are, nor what condition they’re in.​

Now, amid increased demand from U.S. allies and partners, Army leaders are pushing for an updated database of those stored weapons.​

“Sometimes we don’t really know where all of our excess equipment is,” Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo said Tuesday at the Association of the U.S. Army annual conference in Washington. “We have a lot of it, and it’s accumulated over time.”​

We’re not talking about the big-ticket military equipment here. When it comes to our most advanced fighter jets, submarines, long-range precision missiles and ICBMS, we’re pretty good about keeping track of those. But the stockpiles in question involve more conventional rifles, sidearms, ammunition, and maybe some shoulder-fired rockets. They get shuffled around a lot in various warehouses across the country and around the world. And we obviously don’t know precisely where some of them are in case they need to be shipped out or, in some cases, if we even still have them. And that’s a problem.
~Snip~
Should we be surprised? Keep in mind we’re not talking about rank-and-file war fighters and officers here. They are the best we have to offer, though you will occasionally run into a bad apple or two. But in the upper ranks of the Pentagon, there seem to be too many people who take that massive budget for granted and don’t spend much time worrying about accountability because they know the checks will keep on flowing.
Remember that this is the same Pentagon that accidentally “found” six billion dollars in Military gear for Ukraine so Congress wouldn’t have to appropriate more money at that time. Granted, that turned out to be more an instance of creative bookkeeping than literally discovering an Indiana Jones-style warehouse full of bombs and rockets and Howitzer shells. But you get the drift. And let’s not forget that the Pentagon has never successfully completed an audit even though it’s required under federal law. We don’t know how much gear we have, to say nothing of exactly where it all is.
The Pentagon has long believed that they don’t need to be accountable and we’ve given them every reason to feel that way. I’m not saying we need to slash their budget. We need a strong military now more than ever. But we should also be investing in some external observers and auditors who can monitor the supply chain systems and be able to locate what we need when we need it. They should also be getting rid of the old, useless stuff more efficiently. It could save us some money by unloading some of it and free up storage space. We could do a lot better and from the sounds of this week’s reports we really need to.

Commentary:
Obviously they're acting dumb, like they don’t know where they are. They know. First off ask Milley and Austin. Surely there's all that military equipment and ordinance they left in Afghanistan for starters.
According to military regulations, for each of those weapons is a Staff NCO who knows by serial number exactly where it is.
For every round of ammunition there is a Staff NCO who knows by lot number and count where every round is.
The “Magnificent Millie” trained officer corps may well be as incompetent and ignorant as the article and the Undersecretary claim, but there is a professional soldier that knows.
However, it is within the realm of possibility that some of the weapons and ammunition are not exactly in the Army’s inventory system. IYKWIMAITYD.

My cousin told me that when he checked his M14 in & was then issued an M16 that the armouers(?not sure here no military background) check/repair as needed the weapons for "service ready condition". I would imagine all military hardware would be brought up to specs before storage?

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Yes, doc's OP is full of hotair.

 

[luiza]

Yes, doc's OP is full of hotair.

But he writes as an educated man .
And what I like about the OP is that he presents well and gives us sound info and facts .

So far you have just given us a baby type of comment .
And do not say , Neigh , Horsey .

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Fake News

 

[Mushroom]

Remember that this is the same Pentagon that accidentally “found” six billion dollars in Military gear for Ukraine so Congress wouldn’t have to appropriate more money at that time.

Of course, much of this entire article is highly slanted, as could be seen in that very line. It is obviously trying to imply that the military "lost" some weapons, then later on found them again. To the tune of billions of dollars in lost weapons.

However, that is actually not what happened at all, if somebody bothered to actually read the article that came from.

The Pentagon said Tuesday that it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years — about double early estimates — resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said a detailed review of the accounting error found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine.

Pentagon accounting error provides extra $6.2 billion for Ukraine military aid

The Pentagon says it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years, resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.

apnews.com

So in other words, no weapons were either lost or found, it was all a bookkeeping issue.

And when something so very basic is essentially "lied" about in the main point of the article, it brings the entire article into question. Because they are quite obviously slanting the entire narrative into a direction they want others to read and not in reality.

 

[whitehall]

Jazz Shaw? Who the hell is that?

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Jazz Shaw is a writer and journalist who has written for various publications, including HotAir1. He has written on topics ranging from politics to UFO sightings12. He has also written about the recent protests in New York City and the security precautions taken after former Hamas leader Khaled Mashal ordered a “global day of Jihad” 1.

 

[Ringo]

 

[Libby von H]

Of course, much of this entire article is highly slanted, as could be seen in that very line. It is obviously trying to imply that the military "lost" some weapons, then later on found them again. To the tune of billions of dollars in lost weapons.

However, that is actually not what happened at all, if somebody bothered to actually read the article that came from.

Pentagon accounting error provides extra $6.2 billion for Ukraine military aid

The Pentagon says it overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years, resulting in a surplus that will be used for future security packages.

apnews.com

So in other words, no weapons were either lost or found, it was all a bookkeeping issue.

And when something so very basic is essentially "lied" about in the main point of the article, it brings the entire article into question. Because they are quite obviously slanting the entire narrative into a direction they want others to read and not in reality.

What a laugh you are...Anybody that could make that galactically huge an error is not to be trusted on any other issue.

"Oh, I accidentally left our 4 underage kids at the wrong nursery. But you know I will go get them after I have lunch'

 

[Mushroom]

Anybody that could make that galactically huge an error is not to be trusted on any other issue.

It happens all the damned time in the government. Hell, I have seen it myself first hand.

In my first unit, we were guarding a Naval Ammo Depot, and had one bunker out of around a hundred for our own ordinance. And during one of their periodic site wide inventories, the Navy realized that we actually owned a second bunker. They told our detachment commander, and that bunker had not been accessed in almost a decade. In the years between then and now somehow everybody had simply lost track of who owned it.

And when we opened it, it was full of Vietnam era ordinance (this was 1986). And quite a lot of it we actually had to send off to be destroyed because it was so old the Marines did not even have the equipment to fire it anymore (like ammunition for the M-14, or the rifle grenades for the same rifle). Or ammo we simply no longer used like the mortar rounds, my unit had turned over the last of their mortars well over a decade before I even got there.

And it is not unlike how any other operation handles things. For the equipment, there is a new cost, the replacement cost, and the actual value. A truck might have cost $100k when new, and have a replacement cost of $110k due to inflation. But the actual value as it is a decade old is likely more like $65k. In this case, they were simply putting on the books the replacement cost of the equipment instead of the actual value.

Tell me, have you ever been responsible for multi-million dollars of inventory? Because our military literally has warehouses full of stuff like that. We are actually still selling our Vietnam era equipment because it is inexpensive and a lot of nations still use it. And on the inventory sheets it is going to list the values as if it was new, not the adjusted values that recognize it is used and/or decades old.