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U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

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Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#251

Post by jimbokun »

SR2Z wrote: post #236
ndiddy wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should have plenty of precision missiles left today because they should have been used only to clear the way for runs with "dumb" bombs. That's what the US tried to do. The problem is that they were unable to degrade the Iranian missile systems enough that they could drop gravity bombs with impunity. This also means that they had to pull the aircraft that they would use to do bombing runs back to bases in Jordan…

The problem is production capacity. The US has gutted the lower-value parts of its supply chains, closed refineries and foundries left and right, and is thoroughly unequipped to even produce cheap weapons at the rate required to support a war. The number of airplanes built in the US during WWII is greater than all the airplanes NOT in that category. Obviously we can't maintain that level of industry during peacetime,…

And we still manage to spend more than the next six countries combined on our military!

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#253

Post by estearum »

irishcule wrote: post #169
simonh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The health care issue in the USA isn't due to lack of funding, the US spends more on health care per person than any other country, double that of many European countries with single payer systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for…

> the US military absolutely could control Hormuz. I'm confident it's quite capable of it. It's that the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in lives and treasure it would take to do it, and maintain that control I never understood these kinds of arguments and they always come from those defending US military might. Either they can do it or they cannot, if "the US public wouldn't support the immense cost in l…

The distinction between political resolve and military might is relevant specifically to the "what has all this money gotten us?"

All the money in the military has gotten us, almost certainly, the ability to conquer virtually any plot of land anywhere on the planet at any time.

But that does not (thankfully) intrinsically generate the political resolve required to do so.

Democracy and markets are beautiful things. It's fantastic that it can constrain even a military as mighty as the US and a commander in chief as braindead as Trump.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#254

Post by missedthecue »

tim333 wrote: post #204
chmod775 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can exhaust all their firepower in a couple weeks fighting Iran, China would have no reason to feel threatened in the first place. The reality is that fighting China would be a proper all-out war, not whatever this spitting match with Iran is.

>fighting China would be a proper all-out war I figure it would probably be like the US backing Ukraine's defense against Russia but backing Taiwan's defense against China. It would probably be quite hard for China to take Taiwan. There's a lot of sea in between and you can see how well Russia's navy has done against Ukraine's drones and missiles.

How hard would it be for China to make sure no ships or airplanes arrive to Taiwan for a few weeks? The island has only days worth of food and energy. No bloody D-Day landings needed to force a political capitulation. To continue to borrow from your example, Russia has completely shut down all commercial Ukrainian seaborne and airborne traffic.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#255

Post by bpodgursky »

dccoolgai wrote: post #38

3 generations of wealth poured into the most expensive military in recorded history - the reason that we don't have health care, clean energy, decent social safety nets and so many other things... and they can't even control a small stretch of water. What a waste.

1. It's not the reason for any of those things

2. Running out of munitions is bad but it's the least bad possible problem. We know how to solve it, just pay for higher volume munition purchases. There's no suggestion the missiles don't work well. They actually are quite effective! We just spent the minimum on expendable purchases and bought new carrier groups instead.

Restocking at much much much higher volume than we just spent will cost $50-100 billion, which is not cheap, but is not THAT expensive compared to any other government program (it's like... 2% of our COVID spending). And it's actual effective reindustrialization unlike other uses of the money.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#256

Post by fourseventy »

cyanregiment wrote: post #92

All the expensive planes are falling out of the sky too. It seems like some weird plan to unwind the US ever since Obama left office. There’s no growth or hope. It’s all bad news, war, and rumors of war - and all reads like a bad WWE script. Just seems like a coordinated effort to destroy from within since about ~2016 or at least act out this play of America in Decline Whatever, would be way better if they celebrate…

Its all drones and one F-15, its not like dozens of F-22s or F-35 are being shot out of the sky

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#257

Post by missedthecue »

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #79
PowerElectronix wrote: post #19

Now they'll exhaust interceptors and other long range missiles like tomahawks and whatnot. And then China gets frisky with Taiwan and the US will totally not abandon them and tell them to just give up pressured by the lack of firepower to defend them, the risks of China getting back into bidding oil in international markets and the mess the treasury would be in if China raises capital by selling bonds (they just told…

I imagine elements in the Taiwanese govt are pushing a massive drone network to turn the nation into a porcupine.

Unfortunately, they are instead spending lots of money on procuring surface fleet for their navy. They just recently announced 10 more frigates.

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#258

Post by estearum »

nwatson wrote: post #95
simonh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The health care issue in the USA isn't due to lack of funding, the US spends more on health care per person than any other country, double that of many European countries with single payer systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... The costs of medicare, medicaid and CHIP to tax payers are about what most Europeans pay in tax for universal health care, but then they also need to pay for…

Health insurance company margins are 3% to 5%. The book America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Back-Room Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System (2015) by journalist Steven Brill blames mostly wasteful practices in hospitals, pharma and device manufacturers, government and corporate health administration costs.

Wrong.

Health insurance company margins are meaningless. All the large insurers are actually "pay-viders", meaning they own huge (and growing) chunks of the physicians (providers) they pay out.

Go read STAT's Colossus investigative series on the myriad ways UnitedHealth Group abuses this structure. All the other pay-viders do the same.

Pay-viders can "generate x% profit" for any value of x. They control all the relevant levers, which also by coincidence eliminates any incentive in the entire system to reduce costs.

They are required by law to only make a certain value of x, and so, surprise surprise, they all make x!

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#259

Post by Austiiiiii »

xtiansimon wrote: post #32

> “U.S. has used…” Missing the ‘has’ part for “present perfect tense”, e.g. “a past action with present relevance”. In an ongoing war.

What are you talking about? The war is over. It's more over than any war in history. In fact, the POTUS has already ended the war 38 times. /s

Re: U.S. used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war

#260

Post by firesteelrain »

firesteelrain wrote: post #65
bluegatty wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to believe, it's hard to realize. The conflict with Iran is only 'minor' in certain respects, it's a major air campaign otherwise, involving strategic bombing on par with the Iraq War 2 - or at least the initial period. The US is bombing them from very far away places, the amount of logistical overhead is unthinkable. These munitions cost a fortune in part because they are purchased in lower quantities, and…

> The US doesn't even have reliable ways of getting goods and materials into the theatre and has limited quantities of everything. This is not true. US is known for the best logistics in the world.

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