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How a preventable disaster killed six marines

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Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#91

Post by icegreentea2 »

js8 wrote: post #70
ethbro wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That they have many flaws does not mean that they don't have strengths. For some use cases the strengths outweigh the flaws. Combat operations are certainly such a use case.

Not sure what you mean specifically, but this was not in a context of combat operations, where quick decisions were needed. There was plenty of time to address the complaints and fix the problems.

The question is, if you need an organization to work efficiently as an hierarchical organization at a moments notice (because that's how you have to plan), is it possible for the organization to operate the majority of the time not as an hierarchical organization.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#92

Post by lb1lf »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #87
arkades wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, incorrect. Resting o2 sat is 99% in most young healthy people - like aviators. In older people, or the unhealthy, you may see it start to drop due to diffusion or ventilation defects - but barring serious lung disease, neuromuscular defects, severe, severe obesity, etc. that still gives you a resting sat in the mid 90s. There is also oxygen dissolved directly in blood rather than saturating hemoglobin, but that c…

So, breathing hard when exercising isn't a thing? Don't need more oxygen then vs resting? How can that all work?

-Oh, breathing hard when exercising is a thing, noone claimed otherwise. Your body requires more oxygen. You breathe harder. Heart rate increases to bring that oxygen to your muscles. That still does not oversaturate your blood with oxygen, though - only maintains saturation as consumption increases.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#93

Post by rmah »

js8 wrote: post #79
dragonwriter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So while it's true that holacracies can quickly turn into hierarchies rather than democracies, it's still doesn't explain why hierarchies are preferred by humans over democracies, while the latter is obviously more acceptable on the state level. Democracy on the state level mostly refers to bureaucratic heirarchy where the leaders are (sometimes indirectly) accountable to the electorate; heirarchy and democracy coe…

> heirarchy and democracy coexist rather than being mutually exclusive Exactly, that is my point, in the army they are exclusive though. The people lower in the hierarchy have little say in whether they trust the people upper in the hierarchy. > Heirarchy dominates state-level organization with or without democracy, just like it does virtually all other human enterprises. That is true, but that's my point also. Why d…

The US experimented with democratic military structures during the early days of the Civil War (and perhaps before) at the regiment and company levels. Some volunteer regiments elected their officers. This did not turn out well and the practice was abandoned.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#94

Post by gus_massa »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #45
cafard wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pure oxygen may clear up a hangover, but as far as I know the body metabolizes alcohol at a fixed rate unaffected by oxygen, exercise, etc.

Seems reasonable that oxygen should affect metabolic rates.

No, but the answer is too technical https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484320/ . Wikipedia is not very clear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_metabolism

Short version of the paper (hopefully accurate enough):

The alcohol in the body is "burned" in a chain of multiple reactions. Using multiple steps because you can store the energy extracted in each step and store it in ATP or NADH to use it later in other reactions.

The first step is to extract two Hydrogen from the alcohol CH3-CH2-OH --> CH3-CH=O. This step needs an enzyme. There is not too much of this enzyme, so a small amount of alcohol saturates the maximum conversion capacity (that is ~7g/h). All the other steps have a better conversion rate, so this is the important step for alcohol metabolism.

Note that this step doesn't use oxygen. Oxygen is use in the step four and later. (I'm not sure if I'm counting all the steps correctly, but the use of oxygen is much later.)

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#95

Post by akiselev »

arkades wrote: post #82
csours wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's more nuanced than that, but imagine you are a Marine on the beach. Do you care about the nuance, or do you care about seeing the ships leave with your supplies. When I read history, I try to imagine it with at least 3 points of view - the individual soldier, the commander, and the whole conflict. It is possible to take someone's lived experience seriously while still realizing that they don't have all…

The marine on the beach isn’t the one designing our armed forces. So I don’t particularly see why an un-nuanced perception on the part of ground troops is particularly relevant to the question of “why are our armed services designed in this manner?”

Those Marines on the beach didn't just all die there. Many survived and worked up the Marine Corps ranks to become generals, left to join defense contractors, and became politicians, all of whom had influence over how the armed forces are structured. Assuming past experiences effect a person's point of view and future actions, and that society's institutions aren't created, nor operate, in a vacuum: how is their experience irrelevant?

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#96

Post by arkades »

lb1lf wrote: post #92
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, breathing hard when exercising isn't a thing? Don't need more oxygen then vs resting? How can that all work?

-Oh, breathing hard when exercising is a thing, noone claimed otherwise. Your body requires more oxygen. You breathe harder. Heart rate increases to bring that oxygen to your muscles. That still does not oversaturate your blood with oxygen, though - only maintains saturation as consumption increases.

Bingo.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#97

Post by aspaceman »

eaandkw wrote: post #42
aspaceman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The various forces do different things in the air. I'm not super knowledgeable about this, so someone might have more details. Air Force is general flight missions. They tend towards support and recon. Navy is focused on carrier support and sea missions. Marines are focused on CAS and both land and sea missions. Lot of helicopters as well. So each branch takes different responsibilities. I don't think this is an issu…

You should look up the MAGTF concept. Pilots are pilots and they are all very well trained. The Marines generally deploy in a fully functional unit that has a ground element, support element, and air element. There are different sizes of MAGTFs that can support various levels of operations anywhere in the world. One of the many advantages of the MAGTF is that everyone is speaking the same "language" and using the sam…

Thank you for reminding me of this weird word hah. Been a while since I’ve heard about MAGTF

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#98

Post by aspaceman »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #22
jdc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume 5 or more drinks or women consume 4 or more drinks in about 2 hours." https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/binge-drinking.htm

Or in British Army terms a normal night out :-)

Hint: that’s the problem. People take drinking = binge drinking. Especially in the military.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#99

Post by danso »

arkades wrote: post #82
csours wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's more nuanced than that, but imagine you are a Marine on the beach. Do you care about the nuance, or do you care about seeing the ships leave with your supplies. When I read history, I try to imagine it with at least 3 points of view - the individual soldier, the commander, and the whole conflict. It is possible to take someone's lived experience seriously while still realizing that they don't have all…

The marine on the beach isn’t the one designing our armed forces. So I don’t particularly see why an un-nuanced perception on the part of ground troops is particularly relevant to the question of “why are our armed services designed in this manner?”

The Marine air unit existed decades before the establishment of the Air Force, as did the Army's. There's obviously overlap, but they all have different focuses and specialties too.

Re: How a preventable disaster killed six marines

#100

Post by cstross »

frank2 wrote: post #89
potta_coffee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this was about "not relying on the Navy". The Marines have built an entire doctrine around the MEUs (Marine Expeditionary Unit) and the amphibious assault carriers are central to it. Who do you think the ships belong to?

I think you are agreeing with GP: the Marines have their own carriers, which they call amphibious assault ships, so they don’t have to rely on the Navy’s carriers the next time the Marines get pinned down like they did at Guadalcanal.

As a reminder? Those Marine "amphibious assault ships" are larger than the carriers operated by most other navies. (Russia, China, and India each have one carrier that's larger than an America-class; the UK has two. The USMC, in contrast, has nine (Wasp class and America class), to the USN's 11 regular CATOBAR-equipped carriers.

Seriously, the world's second-largest carrier fleet, after the USN, is operated by the USMC, and it's bigger than everyone else's carrier fleet combined. (Speaking as a Brit, this is just crazy stuff.)

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