Top Heavy Army

[Kirkhill]

Stop me if you have heard this one....

The Army is too top-heavy

Surplus generals, swollen staffs, and excess headquarters drain headcount and resources from warfighting units.

www.defenseone.com

Another compelling example is the Army Acquisition Corps, created in 1989 and today employing 1,600 commissioned officers plus many more senior civilians. Since its creation, the Army has failed badly with major program acquisitions, squandering billions on programs like the Crusader Field Artillery System, the Future Combat System, the Ground Combat Vehicle, the RAH-66 Comanche helicopter and the XM1299 Extended Range Cannon Artillery system, among others. No major Army program has been successfully fielded since the 1980s, a trend described by one Secretary of the Army as a “tale of failure.” In 2018, the Army doubled down by creating Futures Command, adding another large 4-star headquarters to supervise an existing, labyrinthine set of acquisition headquarters which includes the Army Futures and Concepts Center, the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command and its associated battle labs, the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command; and the Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, among others. Despite this massive infrastructure, the Army has not improved performance in this key sphere.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Stop me if you have heard this one....

The Army is too top-heavy

Surplus generals, swollen staffs, and excess headquarters drain headcount and resources from warfighting units.

www.defenseone.com

George C. Marshall's actions to reduce the staff overhead during WW2 are instructive...

The Marshall Reorganization​

Engineering the reorganization for Sears was Robert E. Wood, General Goethals' Quartermaster General in World War I.10

General Marshall's experience as Chief of Staff in 1939-41 led him to the same general conclusion on the necessity for centralized over-all control and decentralized responsibility for operations if the War Department and the Army were to function effectively. After World War I he had foreseen that members of the General Staff might become "so engrossed in their coordinating and supervisory functions" that they would neglect their primary missions of preparing war plans and tactical doctrine.11 In the two years before Pearl Harbor the War Department staff, including the General Staff, became a huge operating empire increasingly involved in the minutiae of Army administration. The pressing requirements of the moment eliminated all other considerations. 12
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Co-ordinating the technical services, for example, was difficult because of the complicated division of responsibility for their activities among the General Staff. Not only did they report to the Under Secretary on industrial mobilization and planning, but also to each of the General Staff divisions: G-1 on personnel, G-2 on technical intelligence, G-8 on training, and to G-4 only on supply requirements and distribution. The new lend-lease program of all aid short of war to the Allies created further complications, and a special Defense Aid Director was established in the department to co-ordinate this function among the numerous agencies concerned with it. Still another problem was created by the Army Air Forces' drive for autonomy including separate administrative and supply agencies.13

The pressing need, he later said, was for "more definite and positive control by the Chief of Staff." The General Staff, as he had warned, "had lost track of the purpose of its existence. It had become a huge, bureaucratic, red tape-ridden, operating agency. It slowed down everything." 20 Too many staff divisions and too many individuals within these staff divisions had to pass on every little decision that had to be made by the Chief of Staff. "It took forever to get anything done, and it didn't make any difference whether it was a major decision" or a minor detail.21 The Chief of Staff and the three deputy chiefs were "so bogged down in details that they were unable to make any decisions."

You had so many different people in there that there wasn't anybody who could get together and make a decision . . . . The Cavalry didn't agree that an Infantryman could ride on a tank; the Infantry said "Yes, we have some tanks, and we can ride tanks." General Herr said "Anybody who wants to ride in a tank is a damn fool. He ought to be riding a horse." And it was almost impossible to get a decision. There were too many people who had too much authority.22
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Chapter II: The Marshall Reorganization