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The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

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Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#181

Post by topgrain2 »

lenerdenator wrote: post #110
QuercusMax wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the goal then the US and Israel are doing their best to stop it from happening. Iran is responding to provocations. Stop provoking them, no more blown up ships.

Iran has shown a willingness to do these things through proxies regardless of anyone else before. Furthermore, if they want to deal with the US or Israel, then they should target American or Israeli assets. Not third party ships manned by citizens of neutral nations who just want to get to port and remit cash to their families back home.

Should they avoid doing that because it’s working really well at putting their opponents in a bad spot, while costing them almost nothing?

Those ships are bearing goods from (or taking goods to) countries that are hosting US forces attacking them. They’re valid targets, and blockading their shipping… I mean, the US does that to countries that haven’t even helped attack us, seems insane to suggest it’s somehow a foul to do that to countries that are helping attack you.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#182

Post by a34729t »

China has missed their window of opportunity, sadly.

For the next big war, the US will simply not even need to air or sea to deliver weapons or supplies (see SpaceX's StarFall, of which 60x4 should fit into Starship). Per my calculations, the JDAM version of this will be cheaper than flying planes (and pilots) to drop bombs or cruise missiles.

For small(er) wars, cheap drones break everything as they can destroy your backfield. Unless of course you happen to move your backfield into orbit and beyond.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#183

Post by pphysch »

a34729t wrote: post #182

China has missed their window of opportunity, sadly. For the next big war, the US will simply not even need to air or sea to deliver weapons or supplies (see SpaceX's StarFall, of which 60x4 should fit into Starship). Per my calculations, the JDAM version of this will be cheaper than flying planes (and pilots) to drop bombs or cruise missiles. For small(er) wars, cheap drones break everything as they can destroy your…

Opportunity for what?

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#184

Post by greekrich92 »

a34729t wrote: post #182

China has missed their window of opportunity, sadly. For the next big war, the US will simply not even need to air or sea to deliver weapons or supplies (see SpaceX's StarFall, of which 60x4 should fit into Starship). Per my calculations, the JDAM version of this will be cheaper than flying planes (and pilots) to drop bombs or cruise missiles. For small(er) wars, cheap drones break everything as they can destroy your…

Not sure if you've noticed, but none of that SpaceX stuff is going to happen

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#185

Post by siriusastrebe »

moi2388 wrote: post #96

“ In a future peer conflict, the US Army will not be granted a six-month, uncontested build-up phase, nor will it operate under friendly skies.” Depends how the war starts. Russia? USA somehow attacks? Easily 6 months of buildup in Europe. China? Again USA somehow attacks? Again buildup in Australia, Japan, Korea. Also US air power is absolutely supreme. I don’t see how they will be fighting in actually contested ski…

Air power relies on fuel and maintenance and runways. It's not necessary to contest the skies if the adversary can destroy the "tail" that supplies the aircraft.

Stationary bases can easily be targeted globally. The United States has 11 nuclear powered aircraft carriers. We can assume any peer adversary will have knowledge of their approximate whereabouts at all times. It's unclear how they would fare in next generation conflict but we can assume USA's enemies are designing their weapons around taking those carriers down.

The Air Force is currently upgrading many of its aircraft for longer range operations to increase standoff range

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#186

Post by nradov »

asdff wrote: post #172
dgacmu wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're over-estimating the capability of both sides of the fight (absent nuclear weapons on the part of Russia). Both sides appear to be using drones and missiles as fast as they can manufacture them. One could argue Russia could be more selectively targeting industrial infrastructure - I don't know if their attacks on residential areas are an inability to target well or some kind of hope that demoralization…

Russia has been able to target Kyiv and destroy arbitrary apartment buildings the entire war. I've just spent a few mins searching through news articles over the years, there's a story of a destroyed Kyiv apartment in 2022 and one from 3 days ago now in 2026 of course. So why the stayed hand? Clearly Russia then and now is capable of reaching out and destroying Kyiv arbitrarily. I still believe they could have turned…

You're missing the point. Russia simply lacks the conventional missile production capacity necessary to flatten Kyiv. They used up most of their missile reserves early in the war and are now firing them off about as fast as they can build new ones. And it's not clear that they're able to accurately target individual buildings; some of those strikes appear to be random collateral damage. Russia is simply no longer capable of large-scale precision manufacturing; it's a relatively poor country with a broken tertiary education system and most of the foreign experts left years ago.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#187

Post by AlexCoventry »

causality0 wrote: post #5

Change is not going to happen until it's forced. The US military was born as a force required to rebuff existential threats. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the gravitational center of the US military has been the profit margins of defense contractors. What creates the greatest profit? Centralization. Why have a dozen logistics centers when you can have one big one? A trillion dollar fighter program more efficien…

> Change is not going to happen until it's forced.

Yes, Pearl Harbor was a known vulnerability, prior to the Japanese attack. The US just wasn't ready to take airpower seriously, at that point.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/k5okm8/why_d...

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#188

Post by asdff »

KittenInABox wrote: post #175
asdff wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People assumed Russia would press with their full might and that has just yet to ever happen. Why don't they carpet bomb all of the ukraine? Why not fire off a littany of missiles? Why not conscript the bulk of their manpower reserves and actually invade in earnest? Everyone assumed the war would be over in two weeks, because it really could have ended in two weeks if russia went full throttle early on. But there mus…

My understanding is that Russia's "full throttle" isn't actually as strong as they had posed...

It has to be stronger than Israel just from scale, and that seems plenty strong enough to level a modern city in a few days or weeks.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#189

Post by pphysch »

MyHonestOpinon wrote: post #160
malfist wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Iran war will also probably still be going on in 5 years The Russia/Ukraine war has a goal, to make Ukraine either part of Russia or a client state. What's the goal of the US/Iran war? So far it seems like the goal is to mostly return to the status quo prior to the war. I can't imagine that could continue 5 years because there's just not an objective. Of course, I could easily be mistaken.

The US had the power to start the war. The US doesn't have the power to stop the war.

It absolutely does, it can simply choose to not bomb Iran after Iran enforces regulations on its (shared with Oman) waterway.

Bombing Iran for a month because Iran fired on 4 ships that were violating its SoH rules is wildly disproportionate and optional.

Re: The glass backbone: Why the Army's logistics will break in the next war

#190

Post by [deleted] »

wartywhoa23 wrote: post #30
strictnein wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you under the impression that humanity could reach a state where there is never another major war? I don't know how one would reach that conclusion, least of all a Major at the nation's leading military educational institute. Nothing "hell-bent" about it.

Yes, I am. That requires a total reassesment of who the real enemy is, though (hint: psychopaths at power).

[deleted]
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