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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

#261

Post by mrguyorama »

asdff wrote: post #188
KittenInABox wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

To be frank, you seem to have a cartoon's idea of war.

US is the only country that maybe has a capability to carpet bomb someone to rubble. Russia has always preferred to do it with Artillery anyway, which they have done to many many Ukrainian cities.

A prolonged strategic bombing campaign that can "Wipe a city off a map" takes weeks, hundreds of bombers, and tens of thousands of tons of explosive, and either air supremacy to protect your bombers (not sufficient against a target with SAMs) or the ability to build hundreds of those bombers fresh.

Literally nobody can do that anymore. America can maybe do that once or twice. Only 60ish B52s even remain.

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

#262

Post by actionfromafar »

37374848 wrote: post #202
pphysch wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the us in its current form will not tolerate an existential threat to israel It seems to be tolerating Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir just fine! Imagine the different place Israel would be if it pursued Oct 7 as a criminal act instead of a pretext to commit genocide. Enormous strategic blunder by the Netanyahu regime. Israel would not be a global pariah state and it's entirely possible that regime change in Iran would have…

the prevalence of secular jews in the state department makes them completely unable to read islamic countries. it's the third time this happens in a decade by punching islamic regimes you create a feedback loop of islamic eschatology the only way out now is forward ie boots on the ground. this is gonna happen whether dems or reps are in power

The feedback loop of islamic eschatology is matched by the same in the Christian Right, so I think it's on purpose.

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

#263

Post by lo_zamoyski »

Animats wrote: post #146
lopsotronic wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to ponder how it looks when you remove the Chinese supply chain for all those commodity parts. Which will almost certainly be the case if we decide to punch that dance card. Having a boundless cornucopia of servos and radios will affect the shape of your logistics/maintenance/fabrication complex. That's not just a "Ukraine Problem" either.

Ukraine and Taiwan quietly cooperate in weapons development and production, especially drones.[1] They both have big, aggressive neighbors. Ukraine knows how to fight them, and Taiwan can make electronics in quantity. Ukraine is starting to get cooperation from Japan, too, but that's in an earlier stage.[2] With Taiwan, it's serious. The paper doesn't mention Ukraine at all, yet it's all about the kind of war that Uk…

And if we're talking Ukraine, we have to talk Poland as it has been facilitating 90% of all Western military equipment, humanitarian aid, and crucial trade deliveries into the country.

Poland is, of course, geopolitically positioned in a way that requires at least regional power status to survive if not thrive. A power vacuum in Poland is bad news for the security of Europe and Poland's immediate neighbors and regional partners as well.

As a result, an important component of long term Polish grand strategy has been the quiet building up of its logistical prowess and might and its supply chains for years. Current big names: the CPK/Port Polska megaproject which is designed with civilian/military dual use in mind; Euroterminal Sławków; expansion of the Port of Gdańsk and other ports. Regional projects include the Via Carpathia and the Via Baltica.

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

#265

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

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…

Have you considered the cost difference of drone re-entry vs commercial container logistics?

There are many options to deliver drones to a location and i dont think from orbit is the most viable one, let alone moving any production there.

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

#266

Post by AngryData »

asdff wrote: post #169
siriusastrebe wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moscow could only accomplish this with nukes, and only early in the war. By this point Ukraine has dug underground for most of its crucial war-sustaining industry. Ukraine, well they don't have nukes but as I understand it, much of the USSR's nuclear arsenal was built in Ukraine. I suspect Ukraine could respond tit for tat.

Why can they not use firebombing and other conventional munitions? If they can deliver a nuke surely they can deliver a conventional warhead. That is enough to level an urban area as we see in Gaza.

If you level a city you just removed 95% of the reason for trying to capture that city.

Spending untold billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives for a pile of ash would never pay itself off.

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

#267

Post by lostlogin »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #174
LinuxAmbulance wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I found it interesting that not even this article thinks about it that the US mainland ever can be attacked It can be, but it would be very, very difficult for anything short of lobbing ICBMs around. You'd have to have a fleet of ships that would be detected as soon as they set sail, and then protect that fleet for the entire voyage, which would also be extremely difficult for any adversary. Getting boots on US soi…

According to Zelensky, there will be drones capable of traversing tens of thousands of kilometers within a couple of years. The US mainland is definitely at risk of drone attack in the near-medium term, IMO. > One, two, three years — drones will strike ten, twenty thousand kilometers. With reactive engines, they will be very cheap -- Zelensky https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/2042105223989035429

The idea that attacks on the US come from afar is an assumption too.

It doesn’t seem impossible that some radical group of attacks the US from within.

And that’s quite apart from the US threats to attack its neighbours.

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

#268

Post by petesergeant »

kayo_20211030 wrote: post #2

A very insightful, and correct, piece. I'll quote in full the following, which I think gets to the heart of the matter. If you have no push, you can't apply pressure to the point. > The notion that amateurs talk tactics and professionals talk logistics is frequently discussed in military academies and war colleges, yet it is rarely reflected in the Army’s budget requests or modernization priorities. The outdated conc…

> which implies the logistical tail is a bureaucratic waste that must be minimized to support the combat teeth, must be fundamentally reexamined

Current SecDef thinks looking like a war movie hero is more important, however, so action on this front may be delayed.

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

#269

Post by mothballed »

AngryData wrote: post #266
asdff wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can they not use firebombing and other conventional munitions? If they can deliver a nuke surely they can deliver a conventional warhead. That is enough to level an urban area as we see in Gaza.

If you level a city you just removed 95% of the reason for trying to capture that city. Spending untold billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives for a pile of ash would never pay itself off.

The reason for Putin at this point is more reputational than inherent value of whatever lies in Ukrainian city. I fully expect Putin would nuke the ever living shit out of Ukraine into a glass worthless pile of rubble if he thought he could get away with it.

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

#270

Post by mrguyorama »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #174
LinuxAmbulance wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I found it interesting that not even this article thinks about it that the US mainland ever can be attacked It can be, but it would be very, very difficult for anything short of lobbing ICBMs around. You'd have to have a fleet of ships that would be detected as soon as they set sail, and then protect that fleet for the entire voyage, which would also be extremely difficult for any adversary. Getting boots on US soi…

According to Zelensky, there will be drones capable of traversing tens of thousands of kilometers within a couple of years. The US mainland is definitely at risk of drone attack in the near-medium term, IMO. > One, two, three years — drones will strike ten, twenty thousand kilometers. With reactive engines, they will be very cheap -- Zelensky https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/2042105223989035429

A drone capable of traveling tens of thousands of kilometers to its target is called a cruise missile.

They are not cheap.

What "reactive engine" is Zelensky talking about?

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