Billy in the mid 80's I was a tank commander in Germany. Some guy in HQDA came up with an Army wide combat load plan and it came down as a have to do thing. Myself and two other NCO's saw that the plan was flawed. In the first place it had the ramming staff for cleaning the main gun in one storage box and the bell rammer and bore brush in another. We knew that we were coming up with and alert/ammo upload exercise. That meant that we would roll to an assembly area and they would bring small arms and demo/mine to us. We also had a pretty good BN CMD. So we decided that we would load one tank as per load plan and knew the BC would come around. Well we got called out very early one morning and it happened. When the BC came around to our company in the assembly area that morning we showed him the results of this DA plan. Didn't even come close to working. We couldn't even close the storage box lids which would have prevented us from moving the turret. The guy who came up with the plan did so at his desk. He read that box A had so many CF of storage and box B....ECT. The M1 tanks made it worse. The storage boxes were a double taper.
OK I've read the specs on the now famous Army Claw hammer. That 419 dollar one. There were 28 pages of specs. The company was supposed to measure each handle before it was attached to the head but only after each head was measured and weighed. The standards were so ridged that it would indeed bring the cost of the hammer up that high if each hammer were tested as specified. The army completely ignored progress made in the manufacturing process.
The combat boots issued to guys with little feet (size 13 and smaller) were the new ones in 74. I had man sized feet and got the old style. I really felt sorry for the guys with the new boots. In basic they had blisters that had to be seen to believe. I never got a blister. My boots would take a shine fast. They worked for hours and did push ups the next morning because my boots looked so much better. Drill SGT would put them in the "front leaning rest" and make me stand with the toes of my boots in front of their eyes and make them do push ups over the toes of my boots. Did not win me any friends in basic. Was just the difference in the quality of the leather. A year later I was still wearing my issue boots. The guys I went through basic with were on their 2nd boots and most had gone to the optional ones. I was young and married. When I did need new boots I bought the new issue boots because of the price. I wore them for a couple of years, did PT in them. I'm paying for that even today. The issue boots today are of much higher quality. It took a lot of Army and VA doctors to make the Army realize that the boots were that important. By the early 80's we did PT in (our own money spent) running shoe. For me it was a day late. Then they let us start wearing sweats and short and tees. At first units would say this is this or that color. Then some guy/guys/gal/gals complained to his/her representative because at each new unit you were buying different color stuff that it wasn't right and the Army cam up with a PT uniform. Army wide.
No the Army was far from perfect. Even today the guys actually fighting don't care much for the M16/M4 platform weapon. But 70% of the troops love it because they are support and it's lite and easy to carry. So when it's in the news that the combat soldier doesn't like the M16/M4 variants the generals (who ain't in the dangerous spots) point out that 70% of the troops like it. No the Army would get a D- on taking care of it's own.
But back to topic. Lets say I want to build a 30x45 shop with a 20 Ft overhead door, 14 Ft sidewalls, insulated and heated. Would I be better off letting bids or would I be better off hiring an known contractor and saying this is what I want, this is what I can spend, can you do it?
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