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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

#321

Post by holoduke »

silvestrov wrote: post #15
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 The outdated conc…

One of the most interesting innovations in the Ukraine war is their internal market place for drones, letting each drone group decide which drones they want to procure and use in battle. It is not a top-down decision, production and supply as other armies use for their weapons logistics.

Ukraine / Russia war is not a real war yet. It's a gentleman's war. If parties want to go all in, even without nuclear weapons it would mean a lot of civilian casualties. Millions would die. It's waiting for when this is gonna happen. Only then we know what real war means.

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

#322

Post by orthoxerox »

ponector wrote: post #314
AngryData wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But this is exactly how russians are capturing Donbass: each sity they managed to capture for the last two years are total ruins.

That's because Donbass is seen as useless. It's like bombing upstate New York or Michigan when invading the US.

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

#323

Post by [deleted] »

XorNot wrote: post #302
brabel wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the most optimistic Russian does not think Russia will ever get beyond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novorossiya which is not much more than Russia currently occupies. You really think they will eventually march over Ukraine on to Warsaw?? That’s as likely as the exiled Chinese government in Taiwan taking over China.

Ukraine is keeping Russia where it is at a tremendous expenditure of people and treasure. Their success in the conflict is not guaranteed.

[deleted]

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

#324

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

lopsotronic wrote: post #311
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US strongly avoids foreign content for this reason. This policy is often the only thing keeping domestic commodity component manufacturing afloat. This is also the main reason Micron is getting a subsidized fab.

The sheer quantity of "mislabelled"[1] PRC origin parts passing through the logistics chains as Primo-A-grade-American-Made - even in Defense - is deeply disturbing, and that's the stuff that they do catch. Transshipment is the elephant in the room here - smaller components made in PRC, then shipped to wherever as Raw Materials (tm), and then put in a "friendly nation" box and sold as safe. DoD's DMEA and DLA CD prog…

The point is that, when PRC cuts off the parts, there are backstops for alternate sourcing most of them even if it means reopening mines to get the materials and subsidizing production.

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

#325

Post by orthoxerox »

Animats wrote: post #199
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…

- Why don't they carpet bomb all of the Ukraine? Russia does not have anywhere near enough aircraft to do that. If they tried, they'd lose more of their air force.[1] Russia does not have much of an aircraft industry left. For one thing, much of the USSR's aircraft industry was in Ukraine. - Why not fire off a litany of missiles? Nuclear? Russia so far has not wanted to cross that threshold and start WWIII. Non-nucle…

> The draft in Russia now covers all males from 18 to 30. In that age range, men can no longer leave Russia.

This is incorrect.

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

#326

Post by holoduke »

zhengyi13 wrote: post #125
abejfehr wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might be referring to the e-Points system, where hitting targets awards points and you can trade the points in for drones, etc

They literally gamified it? Amazing.

People talk like Ukraine is the first one doing this. Already in WW2 pilots had similar gamification where proof had to be filmed or with minimum witnesses. It probably goed back even further.

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

#327

Post by lenerdenator »

QuercusMax wrote: post #178
lenerdenator wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Running a blockade is a risky proposition; it's not something that happens by accident. A lot of these "neutral" countries either host US military bases, US companies, or are otherwise aligned generally with the US.

Are they sailing under the flags of nations who are combatants in this war, yes or no?

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

#328

Post by holoduke »

nradov wrote: post #186
asdff wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cap…

I think you underestimate Russia. The current state of the war is still in a gentlemen state. There are so many escalation steps left. From using chemical weapons to empty Odessa to closing the black Sea to let Belarus enter the war to destroy water systems to use bioweapons in all border area to mass invasion to destruction of all Dnjepr bridges to assissination of government personel to destruction of government buildings to sinking of western oil carriers to dropping nuclear bombs on London or Berlin . Really the current war is nothing yet

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

#329

Post by klooney »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #177
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.

The US strongly avoids foreign content for this reason. This policy is often the only thing keeping domestic commodity component manufacturing afloat. This is also the main reason Micron is getting a subsidized fab.

Stuff like https://www.hadrian.co/ is pretty neat, but the whole "electric stack" is hopelessly Chinese from this perspective- batteries, motors, all kinds of small and crucial electrical things- and critical minerals, like Gallium for radar.

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

#330

Post by klooney »

cyberax wrote: post #286
bix6 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am so curious about this. There are a lot of 3D printed drone startups now. But nobody really seems to be thinking about the electronics sourcing. Great you can print a drone shell wherever but what happens if China turns off exports?

Which supplies? Batteries are produced everywhere. Power electronics are dime-a-dozen. IMUs, GPS chips, and CPUs are produced in Taiwan anyway.

If China/Taiwan kicks off, you're not getting new parts from Taiwan
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