3 ms·

"Water is currently 30-40 percent of the costs required to sustain a US military force operating abroad, according to the new Army report. A huge infrastructure

"Water is currently 30-40 percent of the costs required to sustain a US military force operating abroad, according to the new Army report. A huge infrastructure is needed to transport bottled water for Army units" Is this for real? It seems like a gross exageration given how many man-hours of maintenance are needed to keep a plane in the air for 1 hour, or the cost of fuel, or the cost of ordinance, or a hundred other things.

stevenwoo 7y ago
It depends on the theater of deployment and mission but the majority of deployed troops are support and not combat. The Army would have the lowest percentage but the Navy in WW2 had something like 10 to 1 support to combat and the Air Force was higher but numbers have trended lower since then. I remember this from reading a lot of military history when I was younger for some reason. http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA472467 http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA472467
dTal 7y ago
It does seem like a lot, but not so much when you consider that every member of personnel actually doing those man-hours needs water, just as surely as they need a salary - and unlike the salary, the water has to be shipped out. In the desert a person can easily drink a gallon a day, not to mention all the other uses of water on a base. That's nearly 5 kilos of supplies per person per day. Most personnel are not firing ordnance, flying planes, or driving dozens of miles every single day - but they will all go through water like clockwork.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
kwoff 7y ago
What is "bottled water" here? (What I have in mind is an obvious waste of money...)
- drjasonharrison 7y ago
  In Iraq the US military built watering bottling plants. Water, PET pellets, and energy in. Bottled water out. https://www.army.mil/article/22354/water_bottling_plant_opens_begins_production_in_southern_iraq https://www.army.mil/article/22354/water_bottling_plant_open...

stevenwoo 7y ago

It depends on the theater of deployment and mission but the majority of deployed troops are support and not combat. The Army would have the lowest percentage but the Navy in WW2 had something like 10 to 1 support to combat and the Air Force was higher but numbers have trended lower since then. I remember this from reading a lot of military history when I was younger for some reason. http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA472467 http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA472467

dTal 7y ago

It does seem like a lot, but not so much when you consider that every member of personnel actually doing those man-hours needs water, just as surely as they need a salary - and unlike the salary, the water has to be shipped out. In the desert a person can easily drink a gallon a day, not to mention all the other uses of water on a base. That's nearly 5 kilos of supplies per person per day. Most personnel are not firing ordnance, flying planes, or driving dozens of miles every single day - but they will all go through water like clockwork.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

kwoff 7y ago

What is "bottled water" here? (What I have in mind is an obvious waste of money...)

drjasonharrison 7y ago
In Iraq the US military built watering bottling plants. Water, PET pellets, and energy in. Bottled water out. https://www.army.mil/article/22354/water_bottling_plant_opens_begins_production_in_southern_iraq https://www.army.mil/article/22354/water_bottling_plant_open...