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A bit on the tangent, but seeing how the US often struggles to fight clearly inferior forces, I have to question how effective the US military really is. The U

A bit on the tangent, but seeing how the US often struggles to fight clearly inferior forces, I have to question how effective the US military really is. The US has the most advance tech and the largest budget, nobody can deny that. But how useful are these when something like the B2 cost billions and there is only one tank factory in the entire country? Also, many critical parts for these expensive war machines are difficult to source and easily disrupted by an adversary. One example is the artillery ammunition being supplied to Ukraine. The US can barely break 50K/month. Meanwhile, Russia is producing them by the hundreds of thousands. China is even higher. The US has the fanciest toys but those can barely be made and are only good for strategic, precision attacks; and their supply chain cannot sustain a prolonged conflict. In a peer conflict, these are fatal. If China started a war, their manufacturing base can potentially pump out more weapons than the US can destroy. And in the long term, the US may not be able to keep up in both weapons and personnel. Just like how Japan got the largest and most advance battleships with the more experienced crews at the beginning of WW2 but still lost to the US. Japan could not match the production and rapid replacement rate the US had. Now, the US is in Japan position compared to China.

pixelesque 2y ago
The US is still very effective and well-trained compared to its peers, however the issue is armed forces all over the world (including the US, and other NATO countries, especially the UK and Germany) are in parts struggling with retention and providing training to their soliders/sailors/aircrew (flight-time to pilots in the case of Air force), so collectively standards are going down. The Royal Air Force has less active fast jets (fighters and bombers) now than it had just bomber aircraft (Tornados) 20 years ago, and the Royal Navy is struggling to find sailors to man ships (not surprising given the pay, and the fact the UK doesn't do what the US armed forces do and pay for education, i.e. college). If you look at accident reports over the past year from the US Air Force, the amount of flying time pilots are getting for practice every three months is around a third of what is was 10 years ago.
- tomohelix 2y ago
  I think training and experienced crews are in the same boat as equipment. It takes too much time and effort to train someone to do things like flying the F35 or crew an aircraft carrier. By the time a new pilot is certified, in a real conflict, probably 10 already died. It is simply unsustainable if the enemy can fighting back on equal ground. The history example with Japan also demonstrated this point. Japan had highly trained and effective sailors and pilots. But they all died and by the end of the war, Japan had to scrape the barrel and forced untrained young boys into the fights, who did not received any advice or training from the experienced veterans because those had all died. And so they lost. The US may walk the exact same path on both equipment and personnel.
lossolo 2y ago
The US has lost all wars in the last five decades: Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. War is merely a tool to achieve political goals, and none of these goals were achieved. This means all the effort and resources spent on these wars were wasted, and the wars were effectively lost. The US has never faced an opponent like China. Nazi Germany is a joke compared to China when you consider their access to resources, production capacity and technology. There is a lot of mythology surrounding the idea that the US won WWII alone, but without the Soviet Union's effort, they would likely have lost that war as well. Now, you have Russia and China in the same corner. People should read the Pentagon report[1][2] from a few days ago, which states that China is already almost on par with the US military in most categories. 1. https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615520/-1/-1/0/MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA-2024.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615520/-1/-1/0/MIL... 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/12/18/china-military-power-report-pentagon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/12/18/...
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  Is it fair to say the US easily won the "hot" stages of each of these wars, but struggled and failed with the counter-insurgency bits? And possibly the same is happening in Yemen. These are totally different tasks, and I'm not sure you can deduce much about one from the performance in the other.
  - tomohelix 2y ago
    The US's main strategy is to dominate the battlefield and achieve the objective as fast as possible using technology and overwhelming firepower. So yes, they could and did win the "hot" stages where they were able to deploy all they have. But when the fight dragged out, as it has always done and absolutely will be in a peer or near peer conflict, the effectiveness of the US military drops like a rock. It is here that I question what is the point of all the expensive toys and the trillion dollars budget.
    - rich_sasha 2y ago
77169280 2y ago
I think there is reason to worry about the effectiveness of the US military. > The US has the most advance tech In the Ukraine conflict, drones have played an important role. And China (in DJI) is the undisputed leader in drones. Not only is the US sorely behind in this area, it's unclear if we can even produce drones without buying critical components from China. > and the largest budget Similar to many other things, the US pays a lot, but that doesn't guarantee a better result. When the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, articles came out about how Russian troops were wearing fake body armor due to corruption. While the US isn't (AFAIK) quite that bad yet, _everything_ we're seeing with enshittification affects the military as well. When a normal company sacrifices on quality control, or does stock buybacks instead of R&D--that plain sucks. With a defense contractor this impacts the military's effectiveness. If Boeing can't make a civilian plane where the doors don't fall off, should we expect their military products to be any better? And that's to say nothing of the suppliers that _significantly_ overcharge the government for replacement parts. It costs more and takes longer today to build new planes than it did in the 1940s--and we have computers now. Sure planes are more complicated, but $2 trillion to design a plane--that's absurd! None of this is new, the military industrial complex has been ramping up for over half a century, but the problems are accelerating. For now, we've avoided this attrition by just throwing more money at the military, but it's not enough. We are buying fewer munitions, fewer planes, because they're just too damn expensive--not because they need to be, but because of grift. China is currently building ships 200x faster than the US. We rely on them for much of our advanced manufacturing. If we really want to beat China--militarily or economically--our industries will need to focus on producing better products, rather than just increasing shareholder value. But also, take this with a grain of salt. I'm not an expert--I just dabble :) ETA: Also, at risk of making this political, China has a much larger population than the US. The US could try to offset their weakness by taking advantage of relationships with other countries--but Trump is currently angling to start trade wars with Canada, Mexico, and the EU. Which is not how you build a coalition against China.
- analognoise 2y ago
  > our industries will need to focus on producing better products, rather than just increasing shareholder value That will be our downfall though. It became less about providing value to customers and more about providing value to shareholders (even foreign ones). It’s OK to screw everyone (including and especially your countrymen) if you make enough doing it. Not paying taxes is seen as a pro move, not as parasitic. This is the ultimate synthesis of the current American model; it will make us weaker and weaker as a people until we are defeated from within, with our enemies never firing a shot.
rasz 2y ago
Current US military TRADOC still doesnt acknowledge drones. Recently Ukrainian Ambrams crew posted their experience after losing tank in Kursk https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukrainian-m1-abrams-commander-talks-tanks-major-vulnerabilities-advantages-in-combat https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukrainian-m1-abrams-comman... ----------- The commander said while they were able to fire off a lot of rounds, the U.S. troops conducting that training did not have a full understanding of the challenges Ukraine would face fighting Russia. “Well, we got a luxurious shooting practice (around 100 rounds fired by each gunner) and some good overall knowledge about the tank,” he explained. “But the American instructors AND military were completely unaware of the modern battlefield threats. And still are unaware (I communicate with some of the American tankers and try to share information with them).” For example, the commander said his trainers “are shocked that Russians can see us at night with thermal-vision recon drones (we were taught that we would be haunting the Russians who are blind at night), they do not understand at all the threat posed by the FPVs, etc.” “The American tankers should act promptly,” he urged. “Their tanks are too thin and vulnerable given the current threats on the battlefield. Protect your tanks urgently to avoid losses in potential near-future conflicts, taking into account our experience.” --------------- Found another comment about "Bradley commander who said he was taught in Germany to ride with the hatches open and they did that for about 2 days" Procurement is still leaning hard on expensive high end drones expecting them to survive while even Houthis easily and regularly shoot down Reapers. Spotting drone life is counted in days in Ukraine, more than one day of survivability is really good. Everything needs to be expendable, US will not get far with $100K FPV kamikaze drones https://www.twz.com/air/rogue-1-is-one-of-the-marine-corps-newest-kamikaze-drone https://www.twz.com/air/rogue-1-is-one-of-the-marine-corps-n... when adversary is sending $1-2K fiber optic (unjammable) ones at you at 100 to 1 ratio.
- unsnap_biceps 2y ago
  How does a fiber optic drone work? Is it tethered?
  - rasz 2y ago
    Yes, a ~$500-1000 ~1KG couple kilometer long fiberoptic drum sourced from aliexpress.
tehjoker 2y ago
The US is driven by capitalist logic. The arms dealers make a bundle. The military is imperialist and has ever lower public support for wars that are oriented around getting cheap labor, raw materials, and markets for US companies, or simply smashing and bleeding rivals. The US is not tooled for "winning" wars, it's tooled for making money and causing chaos. It's like a private equity firm and everyone at the top will continue to make out like bandits until the scam falls apart. In this case, the US pilots were likely fighting against the Yemenese, who are supporting the Palestinian people against the Israeli genocide. When the genocide stops, the red sea will reopen. This is clear.

pixelesque 2y ago

The US is still very effective and well-trained compared to its peers, however the issue is armed forces all over the world (including the US, and other NATO countries, especially the UK and Germany) are in parts struggling with retention and providing training to their soliders/sailors/aircrew (flight-time to pilots in the case of Air force), so collectively standards are going down. The Royal Air Force has less active fast jets (fighters and bombers) now than it had just bomber aircraft (Tornados) 20 years ago, and the Royal Navy is struggling to find sailors to man ships (not surprising given the pay, and the fact the UK doesn't do what the US armed forces do and pay for education, i.e. college). If you look at accident reports over the past year from the US Air Force, the amount of flying time pilots are getting for practice every three months is around a third of what is was 10 years ago.

tomohelix 2y ago
I think training and experienced crews are in the same boat as equipment. It takes too much time and effort to train someone to do things like flying the F35 or crew an aircraft carrier. By the time a new pilot is certified, in a real conflict, probably 10 already died. It is simply unsustainable if the enemy can fighting back on equal ground. The history example with Japan also demonstrated this point. Japan had highly trained and effective sailors and pilots. But they all died and by the end of the war, Japan had to scrape the barrel and forced untrained young boys into the fights, who did not received any advice or training from the experienced veterans because those had all died. And so they lost. The US may walk the exact same path on both equipment and personnel.

lossolo 2y ago

The US has lost all wars in the last five decades: Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. War is merely a tool to achieve political goals, and none of these goals were achieved. This means all the effort and resources spent on these wars were wasted, and the wars were effectively lost. The US has never faced an opponent like China. Nazi Germany is a joke compared to China when you consider their access to resources, production capacity and technology. There is a lot of mythology surrounding the idea that the US won WWII alone, but without the Soviet Union's effort, they would likely have lost that war as well. Now, you have Russia and China in the same corner. People should read the Pentagon report[1][2] from a few days ago, which states that China is already almost on par with the US military in most categories. 1. https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615520/-1/-1/0/MILITARY-AND-SECURITY-DEVELOPMENTS-INVOLVING-THE-PEOPLES-REPUBLIC-OF-CHINA-2024.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/2003615520/-1/-1/0/MIL... 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/12/18/china-military-power-report-pentagon/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/12/18/...

rich_sasha 2y ago
Is it fair to say the US easily won the "hot" stages of each of these wars, but struggled and failed with the counter-insurgency bits? And possibly the same is happening in Yemen. These are totally different tasks, and I'm not sure you can deduce much about one from the performance in the other.
- tomohelix 2y ago
  The US's main strategy is to dominate the battlefield and achieve the objective as fast as possible using technology and overwhelming firepower. So yes, they could and did win the "hot" stages where they were able to deploy all they have. But when the fight dragged out, as it has always done and absolutely will be in a peer or near peer conflict, the effectiveness of the US military drops like a rock. It is here that I question what is the point of all the expensive toys and the trillion dollars budget.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago

77169280 2y ago

I think there is reason to worry about the effectiveness of the US military. > The US has the most advance tech In the Ukraine conflict, drones have played an important role. And China (in DJI) is the undisputed leader in drones. Not only is the US sorely behind in this area, it's unclear if we can even produce drones without buying critical components from China. > and the largest budget Similar to many other things, the US pays a lot, but that doesn't guarantee a better result. When the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, articles came out about how Russian troops were wearing fake body armor due to corruption. While the US isn't (AFAIK) quite that bad yet, _everything_ we're seeing with enshittification affects the military as well. When a normal company sacrifices on quality control, or does stock buybacks instead of R&D--that plain sucks. With a defense contractor this impacts the military's effectiveness. If Boeing can't make a civilian plane where the doors don't fall off, should we expect their military products to be any better? And that's to say nothing of the suppliers that _significantly_ overcharge the government for replacement parts. It costs more and takes longer today to build new planes than it did in the 1940s--and we have computers now. Sure planes are more complicated, but $2 trillion to design a plane--that's absurd! None of this is new, the military industrial complex has been ramping up for over half a century, but the problems are accelerating. For now, we've avoided this attrition by just throwing more money at the military, but it's not enough. We are buying fewer munitions, fewer planes, because they're just too damn expensive--not because they need to be, but because of grift. China is currently building ships 200x faster than the US. We rely on them for much of our advanced manufacturing. If we really want to beat China--militarily or economically--our industries will need to focus on producing better products, rather than just increasing shareholder value. But also, take this with a grain of salt. I'm not an expert--I just dabble :) ETA: Also, at risk of making this political, China has a much larger population than the US. The US could try to offset their weakness by taking advantage of relationships with other countries--but Trump is currently angling to start trade wars with Canada, Mexico, and the EU. Which is not how you build a coalition against China.

analognoise 2y ago
> our industries will need to focus on producing better products, rather than just increasing shareholder value That will be our downfall though. It became less about providing value to customers and more about providing value to shareholders (even foreign ones). It’s OK to screw everyone (including and especially your countrymen) if you make enough doing it. Not paying taxes is seen as a pro move, not as parasitic. This is the ultimate synthesis of the current American model; it will make us weaker and weaker as a people until we are defeated from within, with our enemies never firing a shot.

rasz 2y ago

Current US military TRADOC still doesnt acknowledge drones. Recently Ukrainian Ambrams crew posted their experience after losing tank in Kursk https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukrainian-m1-abrams-commander-talks-tanks-major-vulnerabilities-advantages-in-combat https://www.twz.com/news-features/ukrainian-m1-abrams-comman... ----------- The commander said while they were able to fire off a lot of rounds, the U.S. troops conducting that training did not have a full understanding of the challenges Ukraine would face fighting Russia. “Well, we got a luxurious shooting practice (around 100 rounds fired by each gunner) and some good overall knowledge about the tank,” he explained. “But the American instructors AND military were completely unaware of the modern battlefield threats. And still are unaware (I communicate with some of the American tankers and try to share information with them).” For example, the commander said his trainers “are shocked that Russians can see us at night with thermal-vision recon drones (we were taught that we would be haunting the Russians who are blind at night), they do not understand at all the threat posed by the FPVs, etc.” “The American tankers should act promptly,” he urged. “Their tanks are too thin and vulnerable given the current threats on the battlefield. Protect your tanks urgently to avoid losses in potential near-future conflicts, taking into account our experience.” --------------- Found another comment about "Bradley commander who said he was taught in Germany to ride with the hatches open and they did that for about 2 days" Procurement is still leaning hard on expensive high end drones expecting them to survive while even Houthis easily and regularly shoot down Reapers. Spotting drone life is counted in days in Ukraine, more than one day of survivability is really good. Everything needs to be expendable, US will not get far with $100K FPV kamikaze drones https://www.twz.com/air/rogue-1-is-one-of-the-marine-corps-newest-kamikaze-drone https://www.twz.com/air/rogue-1-is-one-of-the-marine-corps-n... when adversary is sending $1-2K fiber optic (unjammable) ones at you at 100 to 1 ratio.

unsnap_biceps 2y ago
How does a fiber optic drone work? Is it tethered?
- rasz 2y ago
  Yes, a ~$500-1000 ~1KG couple kilometer long fiberoptic drum sourced from aliexpress.

tehjoker 2y ago

The US is driven by capitalist logic. The arms dealers make a bundle. The military is imperialist and has ever lower public support for wars that are oriented around getting cheap labor, raw materials, and markets for US companies, or simply smashing and bleeding rivals. The US is not tooled for "winning" wars, it's tooled for making money and causing chaos. It's like a private equity firm and everyone at the top will continue to make out like bandits until the scam falls apart. In this case, the US pilots were likely fighting against the Yemenese, who are supporting the Palestinian people against the Israeli genocide. When the genocide stops, the red sea will reopen. This is clear.