The use of military resources to train soldiers: A waste or an advantage?

[Ferbian]

We all know that the military needs to train their soldiers somehow, and as far as I know (seeing as I'm not in the army, never have been, probably never will) soldiers are trained in military warfare by use of weapons, survival abilities and some people also taught the usage of military vehicles like tanks etc.

By my assumption it would therefore mean that due to the large armies across the world in the respected countries who all depending on population, the army of the country grows (China having a huge army for example, Denmark not so big) and that would automatically mean that there's going a lot of money, ammunition and things alike into training these soldiers, and as I said, the money would therefore all depending on the size of the army and the advance of the technology present in said countries position would run into massive sums that could very well bring any country to bankruptcy if brought to higher masses or continued long enough in waste where the income doesn't make up for the amount used to supply the soldiers.

Add to the fact that running a war against another country, another force etc. is a thing that requires it's own fond, therefore causing the country even more loss of money for the sake of proving dominance or defending themselves against the country of which the war is waged against.

My questions are as following:

Is it an advantage, or a waste to throw that large piles of money after a project of training soldiers for a war that may very well never happen, won't happen for years, or is already going on?

Do you think there's another way to do this rather than spending money on the resources to train a soldier, resources that is needed in the battlefield when the war starts?

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

They seem to have that answer in Afghanistan already. Don't bother training an army, simply strap a bomb to yourself and run at the nearest white guy. Job done and the local funeral directors will make a mint!

Seriously though, i don't think any of us can really answer this without having had some kind of experience in the army. Without knowing how much of what they're taught is actually put into practice, we couldn't really give an accurate opinion.

But hey, back in the old days, didn't they just thrust a sword and a shield in a guy's hand and say 'See you on the battlefield!' and only those who could afford them, rode horses? How much training did you honestly need to fire a bow and arrow, especially when you're not aiming for a particular target, you're simply aiming in the air above them.

But now we're using missiles, grenades, mines, heat seekers, motion detectors, camouflage, sniper rifles, semi and fully automatic rifles etc etc etc, so it's a whole different landscape to several centuries ago.

What would my solution be? Erm, we all grow up and stop trying to eradicate each other over ownership of oil and coal etc? We try to exist together as 'humans' instead segregating ourselves into 'Americans/Britons/Europeans/Asians etc etc etc.

But apparently, according to everyone i have this conversation with, war is inevitable and neccessary. That's right, neccessary. According to some people i've spoken with, it's neccessary for countless towns and cities to be destroyed, and untold millions of people getting killed when they don't even know why they're in a war.

Sorry, that's a rant for another time....

There probably is a cheaper, more effective way, but i wouldn't feel confident discussing it without learning more from someone currently in the military, who can tell us roughly how much ammo they go through in training exercises, or how many gallons of fuel they go through just to teach an individual how to drive a tank, or how many of these survival techniques are used on a regular basis in the field.

 

[antfarm612]

I don't mean to come off as an asshole, but obviously soldiers need to be trained, otherwise they wouldn't be soldiers, they'd just be dumb-asses running around with guns they don't know how to use...

This doesn't apply now, because we are at war, but let's pretend we're not. We may not be at war, but if we don't have a legitimate army, what's to stop anyone from invading?

 

[Ferbian]

I don't mean to come off as an asshole, but obviously soldiers need to be trained, otherwise they wouldn't be soldiers, they'd just be dumb-asses running around with guns they don't know how to use...

This doesn't apply now, because we are at war, but let's pretend we're not. We may not be at war, but if we don't have a legitimate army, what's to stop anyone from invading?

Sure the army needs to be trained, but do we really need to throw that many money into it?

As I said in the original post, I don't know exactly how the war training functions, but from movies and games (Call of duty etc.) I would assume there's at least some accuracy to it, that would therefore mean that you're trained in throwing a hand grenade etc. which in the end is fine, because you learn things, you learn how to not screw up and shoot your own soldiers cause you couldn't aim.

But that doesn't mean there can't possibly be another way, a more profitable way, the army of countries has a huge bag of money thrown at them for technology to be taught to the soldiers, to keep the soldiers paid etc. money that could very well be considered wasted in a period of time where there's no sign for an actual war.

But yes I know there'd be nothing stopping the countries from invading if the armies weren't trained properly, there needs to be maintained some kind of combat ability for a soldier, but should we draw a line in how much the government throws after these trainings? cause I can imagine producing the thousands, perhaps millions of weapons, tanks etc. and THEN teaching the soldiers to use it by spending the projectiles, hand grenades and other ammunition, on a cardboard target, isn't that really a waste? or should we consider it an advantage?

 

[Davi323]

It depends on what country you are. If you are Denmark, a small nation that is probably never going to have a big presence in any future war, you don't devote a lot of money to train your army. You become UN Peacekeepers instead. If you are a LARGE country, like the United States, China or Russia, the odds of your armed forces being needed in a war somewhere are much greater, so you have to train harder, and thus use more resources. The world is not a completely peaceful place, Conflicts happen.

Basically, better have the training and never need it than to need the training and not have it.

 

[Ferbian]

It depends on what country you are. If you are Denmark, a small nation that is probably never going to have a big presence in any future war, you don't devote a lot of money to train your army. You become UN Peacekeepers instead. If you are a LARGE country, like the United States, China or Russia, the odds of your armed forces being needed in a war somewhere are much greater, so you have to train harder, and thus use more resources. The world is not a completely peaceful place, Conflicts happen.

Basically, better have the training and never need it than to need the training and not have it.

Yeah I know that, but even looking at the armies USA, China and Russia has, the reserves they have far exceeds what you would imagine ever becoming needed again, the only time their reserves would be truly needed with be if another world war broke out, and the likes of that happening are very small, due to the UN.

It's funny you should mention Denmark although, cause we were like the first to jump to arms when Bush announced the war on terror, still having soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan (not many, but they're down there) and every country (with some exceptions, Island probably doesn't) have some kind of national guard, which needs to be trained as well, but for the most of it, the UN holds together a large margin of countries, so the real need for large armies would most likely never come to play because of the united forces that all the UN countries represent.

Yet we continue to keep them all trained, even at a time where now we're at war with terror, but no country has anywhere near the potential full force of their armies down there, not a chance.

 

[TheAnimal]

Safety aspects need to be taught, not just how to kill this guy, but how to not get killed, even things like negotiation skills and more diplomatic solutions are necessary. So i think they do need to be taught, i know the examples mentioned about sword/shield, but haven't we evolved since then? If people do go to war then they need to be well trained and equipped. In an ideal world it wouldnt be needed at all, but unfortunately we have to be realistic.

I think that the one question we should be asking is why is ANYONE developing nuclear weapons? They would be capable of wiping us out and after hiroshima and chernobyl (sp?) they can have inhumane consequences for the following generations.

 

[Davi323]

ummm...Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant, poorly made by the Russians...it was not a nuclear weapon of any sort. It was shoddy engineering.

 

[TheAnimal]

I know, sorry i must not have made my point clearl enough, i was trying to state the effects of nuclear material and why we should not use it as a weapon, i should of stated that about Chernobyl.

 

[antfarm612]

Safety aspects need to be taught, not just how to kill this guy, but how to not get killed, even things like negotiation skills and more diplomatic solutions are necessary. So i think they do need to be taught, i know the examples mentioned about sword/shield, but haven't we evolved since then? If people do go to war then they need to be well trained and equipped. In an ideal world it wouldnt be needed at all, but unfortunately we have to be realistic.

I think that the one question we should be asking is why is ANYONE developing nuclear weapons? They would be capable of wiping us out and after hiroshima and chernobyl (sp?) they can have inhumane consequences for the following generations.

This is a good point. I'm sure soldiers don't want to risk being sent to battle without being as prepared as absolutely possible.

 

[falconsault]

One thing your missing here, is all that money that goes towards buying planes, guns, ammunition for training is all coming from the government and going right into businesses. The Army doesn't make their own grenades it comes from some manufacturer that is contracted by the government.

Not to mention we, I am a Staff Sergeant in the US Air Force with 8 years of service, pay taxes just like everyone else. The only stuff we don't pay taxes on is the pay we get while deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Even while in basic and being trained, sure we're spending money on bullets and outfitting kits but we're also paying the government from our own checks, who in turn pay an outside source to make bullets and what not.

Plus, if you do something stupid and are going to be kicked out, the military will get their money's worth out of your ass. You'll be doing special detail jobs that no one wants to do while having your pay cut to barely liveable conditions. For the Air Force, at basic there is a flight for people who are getting kicked out, usually for medical reasons, but those people do details all over base and are generally in that flight for a lot longer than it takes to make it through basic. They will get out of you what they paid into.

All in all, we need the training and equipment to train with, so the government is going to take those tax dollars and shovel them into the defense budget. But even that money is going right back to the civilian community. In a perfect world, that money would go to create more jobs to increase workflow and ensure that the military was never out of what they needed, of course we don't live in said perfect world and we just have to deal with not being able to get the things we need.

I don't know what if any of this helps, but I hope it does.

 

[Ferbian]

All in all, we need the training and equipment to train with, so the government is going to take those tax dollars and shovel them into the defense budget. But even that money is going right back to the civilian community. In a perfect world, that money would go to create more jobs to increase workflow and ensure that the military was never out of what they needed, of course we don't live in said perfect world and we just have to deal with not being able to get the things we need.

The bolded part is one of the exact thing's I'm talking about, I'm saying do we really need the government throwing a lot of money into the defense budget for the sake of training soldiers?

I'm not asking whether the soldiers should be donating taxes to the state for it, or where the money are coming from, I don't care about that cause in the end it's obvious the money comes from the taxes, and the material for the defense is coming from taxes and the government.

But it's still money thrown after something in the manner of training soldiers even if we're not expecting a war.

As I mentioned earlier, we have tons of reserves around the world, reserves that will also need to be trained, reserves who's numbers reaches heights that shouldn't even be considered needed due to the sheer size of NATO for example, all of the countries smashed together is more than enough to strike down on the few countries that would be dumb enough to go against NATO.

 

[falconsault]

That's just the thing, pushing the money into the defense budget so that it is spent on ammo helps to circulate the economy, it makes business flow and it keeps jobs on the market. It's all apart of the cycle, like I said in a perfect world, the money would actually create more jobs. But to someone not fully effected by the advantage of it, it does seem like a huge waste.

My best example is the tobacco industry. People who buy cigarettes are giving their money to Big Tobacco who is in turn giving a portion of those profits to the farmers who are growing tobacco, those farmers are then able to provide food and shelter for their families even if they are only making 10 cents a pound and breaking their backs.

Onto your statement about reserves and guardsmen, we are all trained in more than just killing but in saving lives as well, when a natural disaster occurs active, reserves, and guardsmen are all deployed to assist.

But as far as NATO goes, NATO and the UN are far from perfect, while you may believe that due to the UN and NATO that countries shouldn't need their own armies, that just isn't true. NATO and the UN cannot police everything, much like the US can't, even though it truly seems that we believe we can. NATO and the UN actually rely on the forces of the individual countries that are involved to be the mass of their forces.

That's not to say that someday, NATO may fail completely and all out war will take place, I personally would hate to be in a country that has seen their defense budget as a waste and left it to the wayside. While it may never happen, one must always prepare for the worst and hope for the best my friend.

 

[Ferbian]

That's just the thing, pushing the money into the defense budget so that it is spent on ammo helps to circulate the economy, it makes business flow and it keeps jobs on the market. It's all apart of the cycle, like I said in a perfect world, the money would actually create more jobs. But to someone not fully effected by the advantage of it, it does seem like a huge waste.

That's very true, but that doesn't change the fact that they're throwing money after training soldiers in a way of spending money on ammo that can't possibly be cheap, missiles, fuel etc. which won't be refunded in any way because of the soldiers keeping their job, because they need money to pay those taxes as well, that's extra money to throw into the army.

If they find some other way to train soldiers without blowing loads of money on ammunition, wouldn't that benefit the economy even more?

Onto your statement about reserves and guardsmen, we are all trained in more than just killing but in saving lives as well, when a natural disaster occurs active, reserves, and guardsmen are all deployed to assist.

Sure, that's a good reason to keep the reserves I'll give you that, but that doesn't explain the need to train them in warfare because that's not what they're doing during natural disasters or when they're saving lives.

But as far as NATO goes, NATO and the UN are far from perfect, while you may believe that due to the UN and NATO that countries shouldn't need their own armies, that just isn't true. NATO and the UN cannot police everything, much like the US can't, even though it truly seems that we believe we can. NATO and the UN actually rely on the forces of the individual countries that are involved to be the mass of their forces.

Of course NATO isn't perfect, and of course the countries should have their own armies, but the size of the armies, the Chinese army which is millions of soldiers, it's not needed cause they're seemingly not threatened in any way that could break into a full-blown war, from my knowledge.

And of course they can't police everything, but that doesn't mean that there's any country stupid enough to go against NATO or UN.

That's not to say that someday, NATO may fail completely and all out war will take place, I personally would hate to be in a country that has seen their defense budget as a waste and left it to the wayside. While it may never happen, one must always prepare for the worst and hope for the best my friend.

Sure they may fail miserably, but that doesn't mean that it'll happen anytime soon, and even with that, the soldiers made to serve under NATO would be able to return to their country of origin and serve the point of defense if the break of NATO is the cause of world war.

 

[falconsault]

I think we may be at an impasse here, you and I. The defense budget is to fund hundreds of things, only a fraction of it is actually spent on ammo and the like. While I do understand that you believe we should fund a cheaper resource, it's just not pratical.

It's not pratical because of course you can buy a simulator and drive that around all day or shoot in it all day and it'll only cost 75 cents for every hour of electricty that you use, but what you don't get is the experience.

The vibrate function of a 360 controller doesn't feel the same as when you actually shoot a M16A2. So it's an advantage, for the simple fact that it's the experience of it that is needed and not just the simple matter of training.

Blank rounds might be a more cost effective way to train with weapons, and I'm not completely certain but I do believe that spent bullet casings are recycled so that more bullets can be made, which would actually reduce the cost of bullets.

As far as bombs go, we don't generally drop live warheads for training, a lot of that is dummy rounds so that it won't create a crater in the Earth. But of course they use live warheads when testing bombs, yet that is different than what we're discussing.

 

[Ferbian]

I think we may be at an impasse here, you and I. The defense budget is to fund hundreds of things, only a fraction of it is actually spent on ammo and the like. While I do understand that you believe we should fund a cheaper resource, it's just not pratical.

Sure it might not be practical but in a world where we're struggling economically all around the world unless you're Steve Jobs or god knows who has a great 2009-2010, there's always need to do something about saving money, and if it's saving money, I don't exactly recall any larger company screaming "OH BUT IT'S NOT PRACTICAL" or "IT'S INHUMANE TO FIRE THOUSANDS" for example.

It's not pratical because of course you can buy a simulator and drive that around all day or shoot in it all day and it'll only cost 75 cents for every hour of electricty that you use, but what you don't get is the experience.

Sure experience may very well come down to something here, but that's why I ask the question if there's a better way, a better way would automatically involve the needs to improve costs while still maintaining the quality, at least I would say so.

The vibrate function of a 360 controller doesn't feel the same as when you actually shoot a M16A2. So it's an advantage, for the simple fact that it's the experience of it that is needed and not just the simple matter of training.

Sure it'd be ridiculous to think that a gaming controller could simulate the experience of using a fully loaded weapon with recoil.

But as I said, that doesn't necessarily mean there's no other way to solve the problem, right?

Blank rounds might be a more cost effective way to train with weapons, and I'm not completely certain but I do believe that spent bullet casings are recycled so that more bullets can be made, which would actually reduce the cost of bullets.

Well if blank rounds is saving money, then why not use that? I have to admit I don't know what ammo they use, but I'd assume it's fully loaded ammunition to properly display where you hit, it'd be no use to use a blank round for the sake of practicing head shot sniping.

And yes I am fully aware that I'm neutralizing my comment about using blank rounds, but the usage of it could be balanced and still therefore improve the effectiveness of cost + resources = quality of experience.

As far as bombs go, we don't generally drop live warheads for training, a lot of that is dummy rounds so that it won't create a crater in the Earth. But of course they use live warheads when testing bombs, yet that is different than what we're discussing.

That is not what we're discussing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we can't discuss it, the army is testing nuclear bombs for example even when they never consider using them, I mean the H bomb was tested, but we damn well never used it in warfare from my knowledge, that's another massive waste for something we most likely never use for anything but power plants.

 

[falconsault]

I see where this is headed, sure there are more cost savings ways to do training. For an example, when I trained to deploy we used blank rounds and a sort of laser tag equipment. The blank rounds proved the recoil we needed for proper training, and the MILES gear as it was called enabled us to physically shoot at one another without killing each other.

Now I know that some bases have taken to using paint rounds, which effectively would cost less, because with the MILES gear you don't really know where or if you were hit, but with paint rounds, that's not the problem. So yes, there are more cost effective ways of doing it, the only thing is that is must be tested and then implemented service wide.

On that same note, I suppose it could be fesible to use the paint rounds when sighting your weapon or firing for requalifying, just to save money on that.

As far as testing bombs that we never intend to use, I don't believe that. I believe that we fully intended to use the H Bomb when we developed it, it wasn't until after testing it that we realized the destruction that it would cause and shelfed the project completely. You can have theroies about bombs when building them, but it's not until you actually test them that you see the true result. Sure it was a waste of money, but I don't believe that the government knew that at the time. Hindsight is always 20/20.

From what I can tell, we actually agree on this subject, and as you continue to reply I actually continue to remember how I was trained, giving more insight to what could be used to create a more cost effective method of training.

Now as for military members ranging in the millions or thousands, well for certain countries if you're not military you're not providing food for your family. In North Korea, they have the largest Reserve Army in the world, the reason being is that if they do not serve they do not eat.

That is of course not the case here in America, but the fact is still there that where else can you have a job that isn't going away, with free health benefits and extra pay for various things, not to mention the fact that whether you take a vacation or get hurt you are always getting paid, it's a constant pay check.

South Korea's military isn't so lucky since they are not a volunteer force and every male must serve the country as some point, some countries do have requirements like that as well.

This might be the last reply I post since, I do believe that I explained how an advantage it is to use the resources but still provide an actual cost effective method of doing so. If it is, I do thank you for the discussion, most people don't like talking about the military because the information is just not readily there for everyone. Great job on the topic by the way.

 

[Ferbian]

I see where this is headed, sure there are more cost savings ways to do training. For an example, when I trained to deploy we used blank rounds and a sort of laser tag equipment. The blank rounds proved the recoil we needed for proper training, and the MILES gear as it was called enabled us to physically shoot at one another without killing each other.

That's a firm way of doing it I would say, due to the fact that while there's thrown money into the system, there's still a cost saving in the whole laser tag thing.

Now I know that some bases have taken to using paint rounds, which effectively would cost less, because with the MILES gear you don't really know where or if you were hit, but with paint rounds, that's not the problem. So yes, there are more cost effective ways of doing it, the only thing is that is must be tested and then implemented service wide.

Problem with paint rounds might be the fact that we all know of the damage a paint ball can cause, while I do believe the soldiers would be in fully protective armor when training against each other as you mentioned, it could still leave some potentially bad marks.

But it's definitely another solution.

As far as testing bombs that we never intend to use, I don't believe that. I believe that we fully intended to use the H Bomb when we developed it, it wasn't until after testing it that we realized the destruction that it would cause and shelfed the project completely. You can have theroies about bombs when building them, but it's not until you actually test them that you see the true result. Sure it was a waste of money, but I don't believe that the government knew that at the time. Hindsight is always 20/20.

I'm not sure whether they knew of the destruction or not, but I would say that knowing the destruction the first nuclear bombs caused, the actual fact that they further developed the bombs, obviously aiming for a more destructive manner, because who in the world creates a nuclear bomb for the sake of wanting it to be less damaging?

But no matter what you're right nothing is known until fully tested, but that doesn't leave out the fact that they developed the bomb, why develop something for it to never be used, no matter how destructive it was or wasn't, because we had the A bomb (I believe that's what they called it?) back then, still in a fully functional state, again, why develop something dealing a smaller destruction?

From what I can tell, we actually agree on this subject, and as you continue to reply I actually continue to remember how I was trained, giving more insight to what could be used to create a more cost effective method of training.

I shall gladly continue to reply, I enjoy a well based discussion with people who truly have knowledge in the subject.

Now as for military members ranging in the millions or thousands, well for certain countries if you're not military you're not providing food for your family. In North Korea, they have the largest Reserve Army in the world, the reason being is that if they do not serve they do not eat.

Sure there's money in being a reserve, but does the government really have to care about that?

In the end it's obvious while the state wants people to be employed, that the government also focuses on saving money, saving money means firing people where needed, and it's therefore cost effective to cut the size of the lesser needed reserve.

This might be the last reply I post since, I do believe that I explained how an advantage it is to use the resources but still provide an actual cost effective method of doing so. If it is, I do thank you for the discussion, most people don't like talking about the military because the information is just not readily there for everyone. Great job on the topic by the way.

I fully respect if you choose not to reply, I tend to leave the discussion going until I am completely lost for words, but nonetheless I thank you for the discussion as well, and thank you for the compliment on my topic.