We don’t have enough supply ships and Army watercraft but…. can’t aircraft just resupply our overseas bases during war? Probably not because: 1) usaf is short on cargo planes too… before you even account for those shot down or damaged in war 2) we are critically short on refueling tankers 3) we are deadly short on ocean tankers to refuel forward air tanker bases and we closed our aviation fuel bunker in Hawaii 4) air strips are much easier for enemies to hit than supply ships 5) the planes we do have will be needed for operational missions 6) cargo planes burn a lot more fuel when they travel at full throttle during war 7) planes are tiny compared to ships. The cargo carrying capacity of our entire usaf cargo fleet (military and civilian) is less than the capacity of ONE chines built mega-containership
We don’t have enough supply ships and Army watercraft but…. can’t aircraft just resupply our overseas bases during war? Probably not because: 1) usaf is short on cargo planes too… before you even account for those shot down or damaged in war 2) we are critically short on refueling tankers 3) we are deadly short on ocean tankers to refuel forward air tanker bases and we closed our aviation fuel bunker in Hawaii 4) air strips are much easier for enemies to hit than supply ships 5) the planes we do have will be needed for operational missions 6) cargo planes burn a lot more fuel when they travel at full throttle during war 7) planes are tiny compared to ships. The cargo carrying capacity of our entire usaf cargo fleet (military and civilian) is less than the capacity of ONE chines built mega-containership
@johnkonrad We can already see the Navy is never going to reach ita 381 number. As for black hulls, who knows? Navy leadership is lost
@johnkonrad We have a kit if wood. I saw this company, Grain de Sail, which ships wine in a modern cargo sailboat. ⛵️
@johnkonrad Aircraft require a _lot_ of maintenance - a 'wing and a prayer' in aviation is a big difference from what it is in shipping.
@johnkonrad You can mitigate the lack of HVY lift Transport by retrofitting Airliners, but its not a good solution due to how you load and package and what you can carry. Ships are the way, and the lose of flagged Merchant Marine vessels you can easily take over, is alarming,
@johnkonrad Supply ships are probably not that hard to hit with missiles - see what the Houthis are doing Also ports infrastructure seems pretty easy to hit with missiles Seems to me we need effective missile / drone defense for any of this logistics stuff to work during an active conflict
@johnkonrad How much money would have been spent if the U.S. had the military that you feel the U.S. should have built and maintained? Let say from Desert Storm to 9/11.
@johnkonrad Maybe spending trillions on fighters might not have been the best use of our tax dollars.
@johnkonrad I get the feeling people seething this exact way in January 1942
@johnkonrad Finding, training and maintaining long term service crews to operate vessels and ports is sorely lacking as well.