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

Post by Robotbeat » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 2:24 PM UTC

bumby wrote: post #660

Robotbeat wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engineers became really jaded by Shuttle and the failure o X-33. Many of them, inappropriately, started claiming it was impossible. You still hear people claiming things are impossible today that are “merely” very hard, like full reuse, getting launch costs same order of magnitude as transpacific air freight, orbital datacenters, terraforming Mars, space settlement in general, travel to other star systems, etc.

>”claiming it was impossible” Again, what do you mean by “it”? Economic viability? I already stated I agree with that. Technologically viable? I disagree, since the proof of concept was shown decades earlier. We don’t need to to keep going around and around this point.

Post by troupo » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

esseph wrote: post #672

troupo wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unloading them from giant military cargo planes so they can make the trip by land to Kyiv, Something tells me that "trip by land to Kiev" is not "airlifted 24/7 into Ukraine" but exactly what I said several times already

I'm going to quote you here and the article: > No one denies that there were Western Weapons in Ukraine. What is bullshit is that they were somehow airlifted 24/7 during initial phases of the war. They decidedly weren't. Neither before the invasion, nor during the first days. Nor, indeed during any phase of the war. --- Article: > In less than a week, the United States and NATO have pushed more than 17,000 antitank w…

Post by shimman » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

strangegecko wrote: post #519

shimman wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflating China with Russia is absolutely bonkers. No need to comment when you're already engorged on propaganda. Also don't understand what point you're trying to make outside of the US being explicitly poor actors that ignore treaties, allies, and are willing to start wars to run cover for unpopular domestic leadership while causing the unnecessary deaths of millions of people across the world. Also WTF does backs…

I'm guessing with backstabbing he means China's practice of stealing technology and closing off the market for foreign companies. Lots of smaller and mid sized companies that tried to invest in the Chinese market lost everything because the government protected and supported local copycats, with no intention of giving the foreign company fair access to the market.

Post by eszed » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 7:40 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #408

eszed wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add to all of that: this started as a war of conquest . Putin seems to have believed that Russian forces would quickly take Kiev, depose the government, and install a client regime in its place. You don't want to destroy property you think you'll shortly own, so there would have been no point stocking up enough munitions to do so. The airport raid by SF on the first day of the war arguably came close to success.

This whole thing was a war of ‘yes men’ telling the big bad what he wanted to hear, even though it was insane. Also Iran.

Post by dctoedt » Sat, Jul 11, 2026, 9:25 PM UTC

kergonath wrote: post #524

dctoedt wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Countries and people WANTED the war, war was still thought about as a general benefit to the country That was true among some of the players in various governments — Kaiser Wilhelm being a prime example. Can you cite any (reputable) historians who think that was a general attitude?

It is well documented in France as well. It was seen as a revenge for 1870. There was quite a bit of enthusiasm. At least initially, before the killing started in earnest and people got stuck in the trenches.