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

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

#21

Post by aranchelk »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #13
giantg2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s certainly truth to that, but when you add in all the requirements for those approved sensors (supply chain, certification, utilization of American workers, etc, etc) they may be that expensive to produce.

Then your government client may cancel the deal and you’re left with a warehouse full of $200 parts that should cost $5 that no one else wants.

For the big companies that get their hooks into military and civilian leadership, they’re on the gravy train. But even then, that is on average, many of those projects will likely be big losses.

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

#22

Post by mandmandam »

psunavy03 wrote: post #19
mandmandam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ge…

Sounds a lot like "Just following orders" and "You weren't there".

> And frankly I don't care

That's just it though. This isn't about you.

Sports game or not, there are losers in war; and it's been us, a lot, for decades. Whoever you try to blame, whatever you call people who point this out, that fact remains true.

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

#23

Post by arminiusreturns »

psunavy03 wrote: post #14
23B1 wrote: 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…

Spoken like an officer indeed (inferring here, could be wrong).

1. Ignores the core subject of the post and the GP's response claiming it is indicative of continued failure of leadership.

2. Generically tries to seem like there is some level of agreement without being concrete in admitting problems in any way.

3. Tries to defend Wilsonionism foreign policy (a root cause evil) by ad-homineming GP as a "disgruntled junior enlisted", and in a later post using the old-faithful "civilian leadership" excuse.

4. Defends officers generally while attacking senior enlisted (who are subject to said officers).

I think you just about made the GP's point.

We have billions for Ukraine and Israel and the military industrial complex (or the better put MICIMATT, by Ray McGovern), but when it comes to taking care of our junior enlisted leadership can't be bothered. Despite your generic denials it is indeed indicative of a repeated failure of leadership pattern. There is a reason recruiting is suffering massively right now... the internet makes it much harder to cover up these sort of things that got swept under the rug in the past, and a completely disconnected from the constitution foreign policy that is plain for all to see exacerbates the problem.

How about we remove the plank from our own eye before we move to take the splinter out of our brothers?

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

#24

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

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

That's 10-15% higher than humidity levels needed for mold growth. And it'll grow at almost any temp above freezing, it's just slower.

Also, "black mold" isn't a thing. Mold can be black and be totally benign. It's the species that counts

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

#25

Post by tialaramex »

psunavy03 wrote: post #19
mandmandam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ge…

Right. A recurring theme in successful military campaigns (though by no means enough to ensure success) is a very clear objective. Civilian politicians decide those objectives. If the objectives are vague that's their fault. If the objectives are unachievable, that's their fault. Only when there were clear, achievable objectives is there any opportunity for it to matter whether military leadership, tactics, training, equipment etc. were adequate.

After all, if we don't know what success even looks like, what chance do we have?

Compare "Corporate" (the British operation to re-take control of the Falkland Islands) with "Iraqi Freedom" (US invading Iraq for nebulous reasons)

Even if you're not sure that Corporate was a good idea, or that the UK "should" own these islands, the objective was very simple and easy to understand. If we kill a whole bunch of Argentinians but have to retreat and they keep the islands, that's a failure. If they just walk away without a (further) shot fired and we get the islands back, that's a success. Easy.

But what chance did US troops have for "Iraqi Freedom" ? Can they find the imaginary Weapons Of Mass Destruction in Iraq? No. Hopeless.

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

#26

Post by suoduandao2 »

psunavy03 wrote: post #14
23B1 wrote: 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…

I'd say Korea counts as a US win or stalemate, but Vietnam ended with the US achieving none of its objectives, having wasted tons of lives and leaving in a humiliating fashion. Is it so weird to call that a defeat? In that case it's 50 years, given that Afghanistan ended in '21 in similar fashion.

Are you just taking issue with 70 years being hyperbole? If not, I have to say this idea that the US didn't lose a lot starting with Vietnam is weird. In fact, it seems like exactly the kind of delusional self-talk among the leadership that would lead to such situations reoccurring. I mean, suppose I get in a fistfight and get knocked down then don't get up. Can I really say I chose not to get up because I didn't want to hurt the guy too badly and I therefore didn't lose? Even if it's true, it just means I lost on purpose.

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

#27

Post by Scubabear68 »

mindslight wrote: post #17
Scubabear68 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 overp…

I got the sense from the article the software was already done, the $400k seemed to be just for the devices. I could be wrong, the article was difficult to follow in places.

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

#28

Post by blq10 »

mandmandam wrote: post #22
psunavy03 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ge…

Sounds a lot like "Just following orders" and "You weren't there". > And frankly I don't care That's just it though. This isn't about you. Sports game or not, there are losers in war; and it's been us , a lot , for decades . Whoever you try to blame, whatever you call people who point this out, that fact remains true.

You are very much missing the point. If you read the one thousand page postmortem on the invasion of Iraq - lots of blame to be placed on civilian leadership and intelligence.

A few: The core reasoning (WMD) was the CIA misinterpreting Saddam grandstanding to his generals as a serious WMD program. This was due to the CIA having an insufficient grasp of the local situation, largely due to the fact that we had only infiltrated isolated parts of the regime and couldn't corroborate.

Slightly before Obama's election, the US forces were effectively ordered to stop patrolling and attempting to take and hold territory in order to reduce the American bodycount for political reasons - this allowed forces outside the green zone to maintain continuity of operations and simply wait for us to get bored and leave.

Similarly, lack of a clear set of objectives, and lack of frank expectations setting with the US population lowered the ability of the DoD to prosecute the war in a winnable fashion.

These aren't small nitpicks, these are core reasons why the GWOT didn't go so well - and almost none of them have anything to do with defense procurement or military mismanagement.

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

#29

Post by hinkley »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #13
giantg2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As opposed to the 750 they’re spending now.

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

#30

Post by alexfromapex »

hattmall wrote: 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.

There’s not really anything super innovative but if you have something that is alerting when there are conditions for mold growth it’s much more likely to get addressed in a timely manner. I have a thermometer and hygrometer in my crawl space with a digital readout on my refrigerator to prompt me when the dehu isn’t working or if there’s a water or duct leak, etc.
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