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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

#531

Post by sethammons »

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.

https://www.axios.com/2026/03/25/trump-iran-oil-insider-trad...

Lmgtfy: there are many articles and plenty of analysis available. Trades are happening on prediction markets minutes before Trump announces market altering information, trades that only make sense when you know that Trump is about to make an announcement.

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

#532

Post by weard_beard »

pheaded_while9 wrote: post #514
wahern wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing new about earning "points" for kills. Warriors have always tallied their kills and displayed their numbers, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_marking or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalping , though the rewards were typically accolades, and only indirectly access to more materiel.

There is nothing new under the sun. You fail to address my clear moral objection with these irrelevant historical instances. It has no rhetorical value in this context.

War is inherently amoral and in an argument about its efficacy I don’t understand what your argument is?

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

#533

Post by ericmay »

troupo wrote: post #499
ericmay wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit certainly that Russian logistics failed, but was it Ukrainian logistics that beat them back or was it Ukrainian logistics and heroism alongside American and British support, intelligence, and 24/7 airlifts of critical weapons and equipment that beat them back?

> and 24/7 airlifts of critical weapons and equipment that beat them back? There were no 24/7 airlifts of criticql weapons and equipment at any point in this war. Ukraine was expected to fall quickly, and any help it needed started arriving very reluctantly, very slowly, in small batches stretched over months and years of deliveries much much later.

That’s wrong. The US and UK airlifted anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles among other things to Ukraine while telling the world Russia was about to invade (which Europeans refused to believe).

You may be confusing European support and their lack of it (remember the famous time Germany just sent 45,000 old helmets?) with how the United States and United Kingdom helped.

For example this was published in April 2022. Some of this equipment had already been delivered to Ukraine via airlift before the war even started: https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/2992414/fa...

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

#534

Post by n4r9 »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #497
budsniffer952 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hilarious. You realize the US could nuke and flatten Iran tomorrow, right? Do you imagine that Trump was trying to conquer Iran and just couldn't do it with all the American military power? There is no scenario that Iran wins a war with the USA. They were trying to overthrow the regime, for the second time in a year, and failed.

> There is no scenario that Iran wins a war with the USA. It actually depends on what the you the outcome of the war to be: total conquest or regime change. The US can probably achieve total conquest, but not regime change. They spent 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and left there without winning anything, especially in Afghanistan. If they wanted to erase Iraq and Afghanistan, that would have a been a totally diffe…

As with many modern wars, it's hard to say whether the Iraq war was won or lost, because the goals are difficult to discern.

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

#535

Post by n4r9 »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #503
troupo wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. As soon as Russia nukes someone, the war instantly ends. Because no one will ever think to retaliate.

I get the sarcasm, but besides the US that for whatever reason might retaliate with nukes, who else? And would they risk it just because?

UK and France are possibly more likely to retaliate, given the proximity.

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

#536

Post by ericmay »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #530
ericmay wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iran routinely denied inspectors access to facilities. American intelligence isn’t 100% accurate. And why should we have to effectively pay off Iran or have some special deal where they hold the world hostage less they build a nuclear bomb? Why do we only have to do that with Iran but not other countries? I’m all for diplomatic solutions to problems, but Iran was building nuclear weapons under our nose anyway and loa…

> why should we have to effectively pay off Iran or have some special deal where they hold the world hostage less they build a nuclear bomb? This is a narrative you constructed. The reality is simpler: - All countries have equal rights. - The usa and israel want iran to give up their rights to a nuclear program, which is equal to the usa's and israel's right to a nuclear program. - If you want someone to give you som…

> - All countries have equal rights.

It’s even more simple. All countries don’t have equal rights. The strong make the rules and the weak suffer what they must. That’s how the world actually functions.

But if you want to argue that countries have equal rights, well, in order to have equal rights one must have some rule, or law, or some other mechanism in which to receive and agree upon such rights or a forum to argue that such rights have been violated requiring some sort of justice. Otherwise these aren’t really rights, just claims.

The closest thing we have to an entity that defines and adjudicates relations with respect to countries and rights is the United Nations.

What does the United Nations say about nuclear weapon proliferation?

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

#537

Post by RealityVoid »

bluGill wrote: post #510
RealityVoid wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can do this relatively simply with infrared led lights. Imagine "Please don't kill me" remote controls. You are a bit more visible when broadcasting, but presumably you can be selective when turning it on.

You need some thing that the enemy cannot spoof. That means two way communication and a shared secret (public private key may count). Then we need to ask what happens if communication itself fails? An enemy that knows you are doing this has incentive to jam Communications. Either you do nothing in that case because there might be something you can't communicate with, or you kill your own people

I think one way communication should be sufficient together with a shared secret. It's probably less reliable compared to two way communication, but it should satisfy the criteria. IR visual pattern propagation will respect this. You don't have radio spectrum that is too prone to jamming, and if the drones are visual navigation/targeting based, if they can see you to acquire the you as a target, they can identify you as a friend as long as you can ensure emitters are not occluded from your side.

It's not perfect, but it's cheap and it should work.

Give me a couple hundred k and I can probably build the prototype, haha.

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

#538

Post by ericmay »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #450
ericmay wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ukraine is proving that the "big bombs" are useless Depends on the application. The drones have to be manufactured somewhere. You need electricity. Running water. Industrial facilities. The big bomb still matters there. > The age of WW2-era mechanised warfare is gone. It's as obsolete as the cavalry that came before it. Well the primary issue is that drones can’t hold or take land, only deny. I think mechanized inf…

> Well the primary issue is that drones can’t hold or take land, only deny. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-russia-position-take... That's changing

I agree and upvoted you for a good comment with a good source.

In my mind I was thinking about how humans have to actually go back to the land. In Ukraine we’ve seen what amount to drone enforced no-man’s lands where no human can really seize or make use of the land. There of course can be the case where the drones clear the land of enemy troops and drones and then your own people or soldiers move and then occupy the land.

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

#539

Post by jefe_ »

pj_mukh wrote: post #471
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.

Woah cool! Any write up’s on this?

Interesting & detailed interview with founder of a Ukranian drone manufacturer. Talks about procurement around 10 mins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlSMz_vtSwg

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

#540

Post by [deleted] »

ericmay wrote: post #533
troupo wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and 24/7 airlifts of critical weapons and equipment that beat them back? There were no 24/7 airlifts of criticql weapons and equipment at any point in this war. Ukraine was expected to fall quickly, and any help it needed started arriving very reluctantly, very slowly, in small batches stretched over months and years of deliveries much much later.

That’s wrong. The US and UK airlifted anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles among other things to Ukraine while telling the world Russia was about to invade (which Europeans refused to believe). You may be confusing European support and their lack of it (remember the famous time Germany just sent 45,000 old helmets?) with how the United States and United Kingdom helped. For example this was published in April 2022. So…

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