A Russian Aerospace Defense Force jet bombs Islamic State facilities in Syria. © Ministry of defence of the Russian Federation / RIA Novosti
Robert Beckhusen, War Is Boring: Russia’s Military Is Burning Through Its High Explosives
The war in Syria has depleted military stockpiles.
An air campaign requires a sprawling, complicated supply chain. Fire enough missiles and drop enough bombs, which require a heavy investment in materials and chemicals, and there will come a point when the logistics trail starts to strain.
Nearly 20 months into Russia’s intervention in Syria’s civil war, the strain is starting to show.
Russia has heavily relied on air power to support Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad. At times, the Russian air force has dropped bombs at a faster pace than the United States in Syria, benefiting from significantly shorter flight times, and being hampered by the need to rely on a greater number of unguided bombs.
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WNU Editor: The Russian military's supply chain is a left-over of the Soviet era. Fixed production quotas and dates .... with no room to quickly change production in the event that circumstances (like the war in Syria) results in a shortfall. And everyone in Russia saw this coming years ago .... when large number of these military factories and production facilities were being closed down and demolished .... but no one cared at the time. Flash forward to today .... the U.S. has the same problem, but they are solving their bomb supply/production production by attracting more workers with better salaries/benefits .... The U.S. Military Is Running Out Of Bomb Kits (March 31, 2017) .... but on the Russian side the pay is still lousy, and no one is really interested in taking this type of work. My prediction .... this is a problem that the Russian Defense Ministry is not going to have an easy time solving .... which for us who live in the West should take some comfort from.
That's the consequences of the end of cold war: Industry destroyed in Russia and huge cut of Defense budget in USA. This, exactly if the world, well known for its permanent human needs of war, was suddenly become heaven. Since the beginning of humanity we never learn our lesson.
ReplyDeleteUS Military spending actually peaked in 2010, exceeding $740 billion dollars, roughly $100 billion dollars more than the Cold War peak.
DeleteIt would still be climbing today, but due to "unfunding", the dollars spent have fallen and stabilized. Because "unfinding" consists of basically racking up all the credit cards, with out ever paying ff the balance or even the monthly interest charges, what the US is currently actually spending is unknown.
The Global War of Terror has quickly rocketed past WWI, the Korean War, the Gulf War and the Vietnam War, and is rapidly closing in on WWII as the most expensive war in US history.
Canadia,fake country😎
Delete$13 billion dollar aircraft carriers. $6 billion navy cruisers. $200 million helicopters. $1 million per shell for the Zumwalt destroyer.
ReplyDeleteTalk about losing one's way.
But I have been thinking of a solution.
One of the best things that General MacArthur did when he administered Japan after the war was to target and neutralise the militarists by imprisoning them while disbanding and breaking up their industries. He viewed them as the main reason on why Japan went to war with its neighbours .... and wiping them out was a priority for him.
I see the same dynamics at play right now. U.S. politicians, military contractors, defence suppliers .... everyone vested in never-ending war. This cannot go on indefinitely.
http://www.historynet.com/american-proconsul-how-douglas-macarthur-shaped-postwar-japan.htm
ReplyDeletehttp://apjjf.org/-Tsuneishi-Kei-ichi/2209/article.pdf
Myths arn't history,
and it wasn't the US MIC that wanted to invade Saddam's Iraq, and so flooded the American public with bullshit.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/05/nothing-to-see-here-3
Jay. I disagree. Much of history is built upon myths. Is that unfortunate .... yes. And as an amateur historian .... I am filled with disappointment. But welcome to history.
ReplyDeleteNational myth's arn't history.
DeleteYuri Pashook for example has a semi-regular feature called "Lying by statistics", where he compares Nazi documents, and historians claims based on Nazi documents, with Soviet records.
At Barshuk, the Nazi's claimed 68 tanks of the 33rd Guards Regiment destroyed by 8 Tigers and 14 88mm guns, on May 9, 1943.
Soviet records show the 33rd Guards were 150 km away, and there was no combat in that sector on May 9, 1943.
Just look at how the narrative has changed, and is changing on Residential Schools, in the past few years, but the history, the actual root document's havn't changed one little bit. Lot's and lot's of dead and abused First Nations.
What has changed is that more and more of us, don't think that was either okay, or nessicary.
Under McArthur, in both Korea and Japan, he did minor window dressing and left the Japs in charge. No different than Germany.
Jay
ReplyDeleteMy friends in both Japan and South Korea say that the biggest impact that MacArthur and the occupation had on them was their diet. He helped in shifting them away from fish and rice to a mix-beef based diet. They wanted to eat what MacArthur was eating. And i can say from first hand .... that is not a myth.
Darn .... I miss real authentic Kobe beef.
MacArthur's biggest impact was ignoring orders, and repatriating the US Occupation Troops much faster than ordered.
DeleteAs the Japanese were paying for their own Occupation, this allied with keeping the Industrialists and the War Party effectively in power, allowed the Japanese economy to recover at a greatly accelerated rate.
Sort of like germany being blamed for the massacre of Canadian pows in the polish woods, but even after it was proved that it was the russians no felt the need to correct history.
ReplyDeleteIf you are talking about the Katyn Woods Massacre,
DeleteThe woods were in the Soviet Union, not Soviet Occupied Poland, the victims were Officers and NCO's of the Polish Army, the killers were the NKVD, and while the Soviets tried to blame the Germans, everybody knew the Soviet's did it, before the Nazi Invasion of the Soviet Union.
There was no alt-history in the Western Allies where the Nazi's were blamed, only in Soviet alt history.
Due to the War, the Western Allies just didn't condemn their Soviet Ally much about it.
It you meant the Chateau d'Audrieu and the Abbaye d'Ardenne massacres, it was German SS that murdered the 156 Canadian Prisoners of War, in the grounds of the Chateau and in the garden of the Abbaye. No woods were involved.
Thanks forcsetting me straight, obviously the 2.00am netflix documentary mentioned both of the above.
DeleteInteresting that the poles werent actually murdered in the Katyn woods but dumped there after being murdered at NKVD headquarters and the local abotoirre.
What do they mean that strictly speaking the poles were not p.o.ws?
Thanks forcsetting me straight, obviously the 2.00am netflix documentary mentioned both of the above.
DeleteInteresting that the poles werent actually murdered in the Katyn woods but dumped there after being murdered at NKVD headquarters and the local abotoirre.
What do they mean that strictly speaking the poles were not p.o.ws?
The NKVD had "perfected" a minimalist effort method for quick, quiet "effective" executions.
Delete"Black Maria's" would gather the prisoners at night, in a basement room, abandoned factory, under the pretense of an interrogation or investigation, one or two NKVD officers would pin the arms, while a second or third put one shot into the base of the brain with a 7.62mm pistol round from behind.
Later, the "Black Maria's" would do the "body dumps".
Technically, there was no Soviet/Polish War, no Soviet Invasion of Poland, it was an Occupation of Polish Territory after the collapse and surrender of the Polish Government to Germany.
As a result, the Polish Officers and NCO's were technically "internee's", like later Allied Pilots who crashed in Switzerland, not Prisoners of War. Many had also retreated during the war across the borders to Romania and Bulgaria, where they were disarmed, "interned" then later handed over to the Soviets.