DesertFox
05-05-2001, 04:31 PM
Mark Helprin, 24 Apr 01.
God save the American soldier from those who believe that his life can be protected and his mission accomplished on the cheap. For what they perceive as extravagance is always less costly in lives and treasure than the long drawn-out wars it deters altogether or shortens with quick victories.
Though initially more expensive, producing half a dozen different combat aircraft and seeing which are best is better than decreeing that one will do the job and praying that it may. Among other things, strike aircraft have many different roles, and relying upon just one would be the same sort of economy as having Clark Gable play both Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara.
Having relinquished or abandoned many foreign bases, the United States requires its warships to go quickly from place to place so as to compensate for their inadequate number, and has built them light using a lot of aluminum, which, because it can burn in air at 3,000 degrees Celsius, is used in incendiary bombs and blast furnaces. (Join the navy and see the world. You won’t need to bring a toaster.)
And aluminum or not, there are too few ships. During the EP-3 incident various pinheads furthered the impression of an American naval cordon off the Chinese coast. Though in 1944 the navy kept 17 major carriers in the central Pacific alone, not long ago its assets were so attenuated by the destruction of a few Yugos disguised as tanks that for three months there was not in the vast western Pacific even a single American aircraft carrier.
What remains of the order of battle is crippled by a lack of the unglamorous, costly supports that are the first to go when there isn’t enough money. Consider the floating dry dock. By putting ships back into action with minimal transit time, floating dry docks are force preservers and multipliers. In 1972, the United States had 94. Now it has 14.
Had the allies of World War II been prepared with a sufficient number of so pedestrian a thing as landing craft, the war might have been cheated of a year and a half and many millions of lives. In 1940, the French army disposed of 530 artillery pieces, 830 antitank guns, and 235 (almost half) of its best tanks, because in 1940 the French did not think much of the Wehrmacht--until May.
Entire article at http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/mhelprin/
God save the American soldier from those who believe that his life can be protected and his mission accomplished on the cheap. For what they perceive as extravagance is always less costly in lives and treasure than the long drawn-out wars it deters altogether or shortens with quick victories.
Though initially more expensive, producing half a dozen different combat aircraft and seeing which are best is better than decreeing that one will do the job and praying that it may. Among other things, strike aircraft have many different roles, and relying upon just one would be the same sort of economy as having Clark Gable play both Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara.
Having relinquished or abandoned many foreign bases, the United States requires its warships to go quickly from place to place so as to compensate for their inadequate number, and has built them light using a lot of aluminum, which, because it can burn in air at 3,000 degrees Celsius, is used in incendiary bombs and blast furnaces. (Join the navy and see the world. You won’t need to bring a toaster.)
And aluminum or not, there are too few ships. During the EP-3 incident various pinheads furthered the impression of an American naval cordon off the Chinese coast. Though in 1944 the navy kept 17 major carriers in the central Pacific alone, not long ago its assets were so attenuated by the destruction of a few Yugos disguised as tanks that for three months there was not in the vast western Pacific even a single American aircraft carrier.
What remains of the order of battle is crippled by a lack of the unglamorous, costly supports that are the first to go when there isn’t enough money. Consider the floating dry dock. By putting ships back into action with minimal transit time, floating dry docks are force preservers and multipliers. In 1972, the United States had 94. Now it has 14.
Had the allies of World War II been prepared with a sufficient number of so pedestrian a thing as landing craft, the war might have been cheated of a year and a half and many millions of lives. In 1940, the French army disposed of 530 artillery pieces, 830 antitank guns, and 235 (almost half) of its best tanks, because in 1940 the French did not think much of the Wehrmacht--until May.
Entire article at http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/mhelprin/