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To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

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11–20 of 51 posts

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#11
post #3

This is just a basic hygrometer. It's not a mold detector at all. Is this really the level of innovation the army considers impressive? They are taking at least $400k to build 5500 hygrometers. This is something that already exists off the shelf for even less than that.

[deleted]

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#12
post #2

If you want to understand why we've been losing wars for 70+ years, look no farther than this perfect microcosm of the U.S. military's approach to leadership. Field grades denying it's a problem, gaslighting those who say it's a problem, doing everything they can to suppress discussion about the problem – and then a bunch of lower enlisted dudes having to FFIO on their own.

[deleted]

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#13
post #9
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the army buys 5500 hygrometers from aliexpress to install in a military base, they won't just be reading moisture

Surely there are defense contractors already building hygrometers for other defense purposes that could extend their contracts/runs.

Sure but then it would be several hundred per device. The military industrial complex is going to do what it’s going to do.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#14
post #2

If you want to understand why we've been losing wars for 70+ years, look no farther than this perfect microcosm of the U.S. military's approach to leadership. Field grades denying it's a problem, gaslighting those who say it's a problem, doing everything they can to suppress discussion about the problem – and then a bunch of lower enlisted dudes having to FFIO on their own.

The military as an institution has its flaws, sometimes serious ones. And one could make a serious argument that an up-or-out stack-ranked promotion system is toxic, inefficient, and ineffective at promoting true talent.

But the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years," and the overall tone of this post screams "disgruntled junior enlisted who thinks they have all the answers." It's something I'd frankly expect to see on Reddit.

And with 20 years of active and reserve service, if I had to put one group of military leadership under the microscope as most in need of an institutional course correction, it wouldn't be the O-4s and O-5s. It'd be the E-7+.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#15

> The problem of mold in barracks flared into the news again last week with a Government Accountability Office report that found barracks at 10 installations posed “serious health and safety risks,” with black mold infestations, broken doors and locks and non-military people sleeping in the barracks. In some cases, troops were even left to clean up “biological waste” left by their peers who committed suicide. Maybe t…

There's a whole list of news articles on this[0] site related to the U.S. military's efforts to prevent suicide. Not saying it's "enough" or anything. Just saying there's clearly an investment being made.

0: https://www.defense.gov/Spotlights/Suicide-Prevention/

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#16
post #3

This is just a basic hygrometer. It's not a mold detector at all. Is this really the level of innovation the army considers impressive? They are taking at least $400k to build 5500 hygrometers. This is something that already exists off the shelf for even less than that.

True. And Google says basic digital ones are cheap, I just bought a six pack from Amazon for $9.99. That said it does have an alerting capability…but even then Amazon shows products for $15 that have wireless alerting. So yeah, $72 per unit indeed looks to be a waste of money.

Even if they weren’t creating their own devices, they also need to pay the developer(s) that are going to write the backend and fleet management software.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#17
post #3

This is just a basic hygrometer. It's not a mold detector at all. Is this really the level of innovation the army considers impressive? They are taking at least $400k to build 5500 hygrometers. This is something that already exists off the shelf for even less than that.

True. And Google says basic digital ones are cheap, I just bought a six pack from Amazon for $9.99. That said it does have an alerting capability…but even then Amazon shows products for $15 that have wireless alerting. So yeah, $72 per unit indeed looks to be a waste of money.

$400k in the context of custom development, testing, and administration? That's cheap. And frankly this approach is much more appropriate than the alternatives of defense contractor pork, defective-by-design consumer "cloud", or having people manually do rounds and record numbers.

Also if you want to claim some high ground about not "wasting money", I don't know why you'd use an example of buying Chineseum from overpriced Amazon rather than getting it drop shipped.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#18
post #2

If you want to understand why we've been losing wars for 70+ years, look no farther than this perfect microcosm of the U.S. military's approach to leadership. Field grades denying it's a problem, gaslighting those who say it's a problem, doing everything they can to suppress discussion about the problem – and then a bunch of lower enlisted dudes having to FFIO on their own.

The military as an institution has its flaws, sometimes serious ones. And one could make a serious argument that an up-or-out stack-ranked promotion system is toxic, inefficient, and ineffective at promoting true talent. But the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years," and the overall tone of this post screams "disgruntled junior enlisted who thinks they have all the answers." It's something I'd fra…

> the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years,"

Maybe you don't consider Korea a loss (many do, and not just on Reddit), but Vietnam is a lot less debatable.

And then in recent years you have the 8 trillion dollars (so far) spent in the ME. It's a staggering, unfathomable loss.

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The military as an institution has its flaws, sometimes serious ones. And one could make a serious argument that an up-or-out stack-ranked promotion system is toxic, inefficient, and ineffective at promoting true talent. But the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years," and the overall tone of this post screams "disgruntled junior enlisted who thinks they have all the answers." It's something I'd fra…

> the US military has also not been "losing wars for 70+ years," Maybe you don't consider Korea a loss (many do, and not just on Reddit), but Vietnam is a lot less debatable. And then in recent years you have the 8 trillion dollars (so far) spent in the ME. It's a staggering, unfathomable loss.

The military ultimately executes the policies of the Presidential administration which commands it and the Congress that funds it, under the laws the latter put in place. Especially in the Middle East and Vietnam, while there is blame to be put on theater commanders, the US military was also hamstrung by incoherent policy decisions of the civilian leadership.

And frankly I don't care whether or not "many" armchair generals and admirals do or don't consider Korea a "loss." War is not a sports game. The details of the geopolitical and economic fallout of a stalemate like that matter a whole hell of a lot more than who "won."

Re: To battle moldy barracks, Fort Stewart soldiers built their own mold detectors

#20
> If the relative humidity is above 65% and the temperature is above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, that sets the conditions for mold growth

May be this is a typo and they meant below 85? I know black mold grows at around 60F and likely lower temperatures too.

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