Totally normal the dept of war
14 hours ago by VetOfTheSeas to c/antitrumpalliance
Prior to this clown show, the Navy was. Logistics has been THE biggest thing about the US military that has set it apart from the rest of the world, for the last 80+ years.
That's gone down the shitter with these buffoons in charge. That's what happens when you put an alcoholic TV host in charge of the military.
What’s the quote? Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics?
There's that one and "Tactics win battles, logistics wins wars".
The US military as a whole was basically a logistics company that shot people. That was the main thing that kept the United States such a high rate military power.
Then they replaced a General who understood that with a Former Major who thinks the Army runs on testosterone and crusader rhetoric and now everyone's surprised everything has gone to shit?
Yeah, the logistics behind the military were honestly staggering. There was an old joke about how the US military could get a fully operational (built, supplied, and staffed with trained crew) McDonalds anywhere in the planet within 48 hours. Except that it wasn’t really a joke. If the military wanted to, they probably could.
The sheer scale behind the military’s logistics was so vast that people have trouble comprehending it. The same way people have trouble wrapping their mind around how big a billion of something is. Conceptually they may know how big it is, but actually putting it into practice is too large for any one person to truly comprehend. It’s the old “a million seconds is 11 days, a billion seconds is almost 32 years” problem, where the human brain simply isn’t designed to comprehend the sheer scale of something that large in a realistic way. Every comparison we make ends up with people devolving back into concepts in order to keep track of it in their mind.
And we’ve seen all of it begin to unravel in only a few years, because the POTUS has surrounded himself by Yes Men instead of competent leaders. It’s the same way so many despots and dictators have historically been brought low… They surround themselves in Yes Men, and nobody wants to be the one to break the bad news. So the leader is kept blissfully ignorant, while everything crumbles around them. And then they’re shocked when they have angry mobs and/or a coup d’état.
It wasn't a joke. During the initial invasion of Afghanistan, one of the first pieces of infrastructure was a self-contained Burger King truck. Airdropped in on a C-130.
Even way back, one of the biggest things during the Pacific Theater in WWII was the fact that the US had three ships dedicated just to transporting frozen and refrigerated foods, so that the troops had fresh food. The ships colloquially became known as ice cream barges because they had the capability to make a ton of ice cream. The Americans in the Pacific were eating fresh meat and ice cream, while the Japanese soldiers were eating shitty rations. It was a major morale killer for the Imperial Japanese.
Dammit, you dropped the two pieces of trivia I wanted to! hehe
The only other one I can think of is also from WWII, where the Germans became aware that Americans were sending things like birthday cakes to their soldiers - that would arrive before spoiling, indicating how good the supply chain was, and no only for weapons, but enough room for personal items like that.
I'm not trying to be overly pedantic but we deploy Burger Kings from. AC-130s. Not Mc trash
(We actually do use C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes to deliver containerized burger kings though)
Panama? Granada?!?
Sorry, just.... no.
Arguably won the first Iraq war, the one where there were clear goals that were achieved, and did not turn into a prolonged quagmire.
I suppose you could argue that it was just a setup for the second Iraq war, but that setup was also a bunch of lies.
The US military base in Bahrain was there for much longer than the administration. While it may have been sufficient for operations in Iraq, it makes absolutely no sense to supply an aircraft carrier operating outside the Persian Gulf from within the Persian Gulf... I don't understand how any planners thought this made sense. They knew Iran could shut off or severely endanger passage of the Hormuz straight.
How could the base resupply the Lincoln even if it wasn't destroyed? Did the US really have no logistical capabilities in the Arabian Sea? They have facilities in Djibouti and Oman.
I think we are letting Hegseth's stupidity take the fall for a clear diplomatic or military planning failure.
You're right, it's not Hegseths fault. It's his fault + all the Republicans enabling the destruction of america + all of the dumbest people in charge, who's only qualifying feature is making Trump richer.
That’s the thing. We have a base in Djibouti.
It’s a little farther and would have taken some of the focus off of AFRICOM, but would have been a regional base outside of Iran’s capability.
US military logistics cannot be dismantled in 10 months by political appointees. It's literally designed with a chain of command to prevent that, and it's certainly not because of budget either. The reality is that the US military has been a paper tiger only capable of fighting shepherds, poor people, school children, hospitals, and babies. The minute they try to fight anyone with a decent capability, they fall apart. And Iran is probably the most capable adversary the US has fought since the Third Reich.
Yes it absolutely can be.
A, he has fired over 100 senior officers in the chain of command with little to no notice or turnover and promoted up sycophants with no experience and the only requirement is pledging fealty to the king. My father-in-law was a logistics officer in the Marines. When he retired a decade ago, it was required that he have a full two-year turnover with the incoming officer to cover all of the logistical details for the MEF. They flat out wouldn't approve his retirement with less notice than that. When the Log-O in my unit got their promotion notice, it was over a year before they pinned and moved to their next command because of the amount of turnover needed. And this was just battalion level. Under this idiot, turnover is a few weeks. If that.
B, we are 19 months into this shit show. Not 10. And that ignores the 4 years of damage he did his first term that can't be undone. You can't fire officers and senior enlisted with 20+ years of experience and replace them with new ones in 4 years. The linear passage of time just doesn't work like that.
Efficient logistics is the first thing to go with incompetent leadership. It's the single most important and fragile piece of the military. And it's seen not just in the military, but in the commercial side as well. Bad top-down leadership is the quickest way to destroy an organization.
Thanks for the detailed explanation.
I feel like this applies to a lot of places, and I can draw parallels to prior workplaces where things were going downhill. If you don't give your people what they need to do the job.... It does not get done.
Good write up. I assume corruption and theft are also taking a toll on the supply chain.
I really think the jagoffs in charge thought this would be just like the Venezuela situation where they could instantly topple the government and then run Iran like a client state.
men he can get his hand on thier testosterone results.
It's a good thing that the rape and murder filled terrorists are incompetent.
He has redundancy of course, plan B (Bacardi), plan C (Captain Morgan)...
D: Daiquiri
E: Ever-clear
F: Fireball
G: Goldschläger
H: High Noon
I wonder if the teams behind games like Civilization are taking notes on all this. I like to imagine some of these headlines were tossed around in board meetings a decade+ ago, and turned down cause they were "too outlandish, no one would actually do" them
This already happens in civ. Its the I forgot to upgrade this unit problem.
(Might be something everyone knows) The Nuclear Ghandi thing was a unsigned integer issue. His "war mongering" value reached zero, and lowering once more made it wrap around to max value and turn him into a lunatic.
This is so stupid. This fucking guy never should have been anywhere near in charge. Cant someone convince him to get in a shoddy submarine near the titantic?
if you seen his military career, he was f-up. apparently as a infantry officer he was suppose to go to ranger school in order to train for command positions if they wanted to advanced thier careers, his own command doesnt trust him and deemed him a threat.
Holy shit. This somehow explains so much.
Backup excuses:
"This is the War Department not the Supplies Department."
"We had to avert a potentially disastrous Liberal Media panic."
"Hey, look over there - illegal Mexicans!"
Iran didn't have to pull any secret intelligence here. The bases where always sitting ducks. Hegseth's biggest mistake was falling for the propaganda. The modern US military is a decorative facade set up to enrich contractors and keep otherwise troublesome youth's off the streets, under no circumstances should it ever be used to fight wars.
And I don't doubt that the USA could spin themselves up as the most powerful military force again, really quickly... But they haven't. They are engaging in an arms length war with the attitude of "everything is fine, nothing has changed"
In order to do that you have to have the ability to manufacture your weapons entirely at home, at scale. We dont just not do that, we actively made it bureacratically impossible to do in order to allow a small group of very wealthy businesses have exclusive manufacuring rights to thse very advanced weapon systems. Hell some of our best most powerful weapons are a subscription service.
russia and china both provided intelligence to iran, also allowed them access to spy satellite data.
So he listed the base locations in group chat that included Iran?
Probably.
It's quite something seeing one of the most powerful logistic operations in human history get run into the ground by idiots who think logistics is woke dei
he has a glamour room in the pentagon all to himself, and strapping men where he tests thier testosterone levels.
Critical support.
This... CAN'T be true can it? If so it's inexcusable.
They should give him a medal for winning the war for Iran.
Go Iran!
they arnt reporitng all those bases that are destroyed, its a bad look on republican supporters, and would be "future cannon fodder".
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About
An alliance among all who oppose Donald Trump's actions, positions, cabinet, supporters, policies, or motives. This alliance includes anyone from the left or the right; anyone from any religion or lack thereof; anyone from any country or state; any man, woman or child.
Rules
-No pro-Trump posts or comments
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-No trolling
-Follow Lemmy terms of service
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!desantisthreatensusa@lemmy.world
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Even worse, apparently only a single base had all the supplies for it. That was a single point of failure that, when struck, caused the failure of the entire supply mission.
You'd think the Navy would be a little better prepared. Here I thought redundancy was an important part of military conduct and operations.
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