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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

#331

Post by orthoxerox »

asdff wrote: post #157
bad_haircut72 wrote: post #6

When Russia invaded Ukraine, nobody (even the Ukranians) imagined that 5 years later they would have their own missiles hammering Russia 2500kms in the rear. Americans need to start accepting that a) the Iran war will also probably still be going on in 5 years and b) Iran will probably in a better place than they are now, strategically speaking.

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 not conscript the bulk of their manpower reserves and actually invade in earnest?

Because it's hugely politically unpopular. There's a risk that this will happen after the parliamentary election this autumn.

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

#332

Post by giantg2 »

lopsotronic wrote: post #107
silvestrov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 manufacturing capacity was a huge factor in winning WW2. I wonder who holds that advantage now...

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

#333

Post by holoduke »

ashdksnndck wrote: post #291
wnevets wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's the goal of the US/Iran war? To make certain people money by shorting the oil market. There is a reason why these "peace" deals are always announced on Fridays.

I never got the logic of this conspiracy theory. If you’re trying to make money insider trading off some events, wouldn’t you want markets to be open when the events occur? You’d like to be able to enter and exit your position immediately before and after any news breaks. Markets being closed when a deal is announced makes it less efficient to trade on that news.

[flagged]

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

#334

Post by [deleted] »

asdff wrote: post #194
dgacmu wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia's inability to have a decisive victory against Ukraine is at odds with the idea that it has sufficient stockpiles and launch capability to reduce kiev to rubble any time it wishes. If it had that capability, it would have the capability to destroy Ukraine's defense manufacturing sector - or simply its entire manufacturing sector - which it clearly does not. It's also at odds with the evidence that Russia is la…

I guess the question becomes then why did putin start the war without sufficient buildup of missile reserves to flatten Kyiv in the first few days? And why not contract with israeli defense companies for precision missile technology? It doesn't seem like their relations are really that severed even with the whole Iran issue. One would also think China might also appreciate a client willing to battle test their precis…

[deleted]

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

#335

Post by holoduke »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #244
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 Russia/Ukraine war has a goal, to make Ukraine either part of Russia or a client state. No, it has a goal to keep Putin in power. The Iran war happened to move people's interest from a certain set of files about a certain group people onto something else. It succeeded by that standard, but now has created the mess that you can't just start a war with a country to distract your voters and not suffer any conseque…

Someone making Putin the image of Russia clearly doesn't understand the country and inhaled to much propoganda. Sorry

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

#336

Post by cyberax »

klooney wrote: post #330
cyberax wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The US can produce these chips. South Korea can also do that.

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

#337

Post by ceejayoz »

1shooner wrote: post #308
ceejayoz wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People doubt the timelines, not the claims. People doubted the claims, too. Particularly landing and re-use. Concrete example: https://spaceflightnow.com/2015/04/13/ula-plans-to-introduce...

>“When you talk about conventional technologies on a booster like you see other people doing, and being able to recover and reuse that booster 15 times with relatively minimial refurbishmoent costs, that’s pretty darn challenging, and maybe not the right place, in our view, to start on that problem,” Bruno said. This doesn't really sound like doubting any claim; he's talking about how his organization was approaching…

ULA was openly skeptical about the viability of landing at all. Then reuse. Then the goalposts moved to this, repeated reuse.

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

#338

Post by ponector »

thisislife2 wrote: post #238
asdff wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is kind of interesting seeing the ukraine war tiptoe from actually striking the tail in earnest. We see some attacks on moscow refineries in recent days, yes, but why not full scale targeting of total industrial collapse of the russian state? Similarly, why doesn't Kyiv look like Gaza? I guess ukraine doesn't want to be slapped equally hard. We see this in the iran war too. Small scale, targeted attacks to some ch…

> Similarly, why doesn't Kyiv look like Gaza? The stated Russian military goals are the "liberation" of the Donbass region and to enforce Ukraine's neutrality (i.e prevent it from joining any military alliance inimical to Russia). With the second goal, there is also the hope that future Ukrainian governments may not be as hostile to Russia as the current Ukrainian leaders and future Ukraine-Russia relations may be no…

Russian goal is also a terror and genocide of the Ukrainian nation. It's not a first time, thought.

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

#339

Post by s1artibartfast »

holoduke wrote: post #321
silvestrov wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a real war but not a total war, and the degree is different per side.

I would say it's closer for Ukraine, which has implemented forced conscription, which is pretty far down the path to a total war. There are of course tactics and strategies they have not enacted, that's not obvious which of those would be beneficial to the war effort in a non obvious way. All wars but specially modern Wars have to balance the possibility of publicity blowback or the population giving up the will to fight

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

#340

Post by nradov »

holoduke wrote: post #328
nradov wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bu…

Nah, you just haven't been paying attention to recent events. Russia doesn't have any forces capable of closing the Black Sea. Belarus is sitting on the fence and while they provide Russia with some logistical support they're not interested in committing suicide by shoving their own small military into the meat grinder. Russia could probably kill a lot of civilians with chemical weapons but Putin still wants to capture Ukraine somewhat intact, and this would also likely trigger economic sanctions by neutral countries such as India. Russia has already made many attempts to assassinate Ukrainian government officials with very little success.

Russia is still dangerous but it's a pale shadow of the old USSR.

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