Most Guard Units Not Ready for War
Associated Press | August 01, 2006

WASHINGTON - More than two-thirds of the Army National Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready due largely to vast equipment shortfalls that will take as much as $21 billion to correct, the top National Guard general said Tuesday.

The comments by Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum came in the wake of disclosures by Army officials, analysts and members of Congress that two-thirds of the active Army's brigades are not rated ready for war.

The problem, they say, is driven by budget constraints that will not allow the military to complete the personnel training and equipment repairs and replacement that must be done when units return home after deploying to Iraq or Afghanistan.

One Army official acknowledged Tuesday that while all of the active Army units serving in the war zone are "100 percent" ready, the situation is not the same for those at home.

"In the continental United States, there are plenty of units that are rated at significantly less than a C-1 rating," said Lt. Col. Carl S. Ey. "Backlogs at the depots, budget issues and the timeliness of receiving funds to conduct training are all critical to the Army's ability keep their force trained, ready and at the highest readiness level possible."

Once a taboo subject for the military, often buried deep in classified documents, readiness levels - generally ranked from C-1 (the best) to C-4 (the worst) are now being used as weapons themselves to force money out of Congress and the administration.

And while Army officials still won't specify how many units are at which levels, they are being more open about the overall declining state of readiness of their armed forces.

Driving the current problem is the fact that Army units returning from the war have either left tanks, trucks or other equipment behind or are bringing them home damaged or broken. And once they arrive, many of their comrades either leave the Army or move to other posts, forcing leaders to train other soldiers to replace them. As a result, the unit's ratings drop, said Ey, an Army spokesman.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/...108102,00.html

This is hardly a shock. Any country that has a reserve, or in your case a National Guard, will find that they are under prepared and under funded. It's just the way it goes. What is required is a staged process of building units up to a warfighting capability... and not just dropping them in it. This can take some time though.

That's right AussieNick. The reserves or National Guard usually (we have both), especially in times of war, get in essence what's left over from supplying the active troops with what they need to wage war.
It makes complete sense that when new equipment comes on line, that the serviceable equipment being replaced be reassigned to those units in reserve. It doesn't make economic sense to try to supply everyone with brand new equipment. It'd be nice but...

That's right AussieNick. The reserves or National Guard usually (we have both), especially in times of war, get in essence what's left over from supplying the active troops with what they need to wage war.
It makes complete sense that when new equipment comes on line, that the serviceable equipment being replaced be reassigned to those units in reserve. It doesn't make economic sense to try to supply everyone with brand new equipment. It'd be nice but...

New equipment. I wish!

So what's new. In my 18 years in the Reserves, in more than 7 different units, none of them were anywhere near combat ready. During that period, 1971 to 1987, both personnel and equipment were problems and as a result training suffered. For the reasons stated by DTop and AussieNick above, surprisingly it is not a problem solely relegated to US forces.

Hell yes. Just like the USA, our reserve is short on gear and people. Naturally, the priority is full time units, then your reserve.

There is a little big of crying going on because the states don't want to pay fore replacement geer that was chewed up during the war. So with this crying they are trying to get federal $$. It's not as bad as the media is making it look.