Military short takes: Russian losses, another LCS down, C130H followup
Russian Ukraine losses estimated.
America’s top general estimated on Wednesday that Russia’s military had seen more than 100,000 of its soldiers killed and wounded in Ukraine, and added Kyiv’s armed forces “probably” suffered a similar level of casualties in the war.
But Milley’s remarks offer the highest U.S. estimate of casualties to date in the nearly nine-month-old conflict, and came as Ukraine and Russia face a potential winter lull in fighting that experts say could offer an opportunity for some kind of negotiations. Reuters
On Nov. 4, Ukraine’s General Staff reported that as many as 840 Russian troops were eliminated in the past day alone. This brings their total estimated killed-in-action to 74,840 since the start of the Russian invasion.New Voice of Ukraine
I don’t consider either one of these sources to be more than 50% credible, but even if you cut the KIA numbers considerably, it looks like in one year Russia has taken a significant portion of the casualties as we took in the entire Vietnam war. I suspect that all concerned are hoping for that winter lull.
USS Wichita disabled in accident, limps to port
The USS Wichita suffered an accident in its propulsion system inOctober, listed as a Class “A” problem, meaning more than $2.5 million dollars’ damage. Notably, the issue is not attributed to its combining system, the source of earlier LCS failures.
The combining gear is basically a complex transmission that connects power from two large gas turbine engines and two main propulsion diesel engines to the ship’s propulsion shafts.
Now, I am just a shade tree mechanic, but if you tell me power from FOUR large engines is to be magically combined and then split out to multiple outputs by one gear system, I’m gonna look at it as a probably point of failure from the git-go. There is a reason for the 1st Mechanical Commandment: KISS.
Well, the Navy wants to scrap all of its littoral combat ships (note: all new this century.) The Wichita was not on the current list to be scrapped. Guess it may be now.
Homework assignment: they had to intentionally deactivate the Iowa class battleships. Compare and contrast.
C-130H problems self-inflicted
The good news, is that they think they have diagnosed why the propeller hubs on the C-130Hs were cracking. The bad news:
A longtime practice by Air Force mechanics is likely the reason propeller blades on C-130 Hercules have cracked, leading to more than 100 of the aircraft being grounded in late September.
Mechanics using electric arc pens to etch numbers into the propeller barrels during inspections caused some of the issues, an Air Force spokesperson told Military.com on Wednesday. That practice was stopped several months ago.
Again, only as an amateur: Hand modifications inducing potential weak spots like engraving things onto rapidly rotating assemblies is something to be done with great care and testing. Maybe this makes the inspection easier: “Hey, Ralph missed carving into this one, she’s good to go.”
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Air Force, Dick Stepping, Navy, Russia, Ukraine
Maybe the Air Force never heard of grease pencils.
I have 2 twelve packs of Listo grease pencils in business since 1940, and the reason for the 2 packs is I thought I lost the first and ordered a second box and it turned out that I originally took them out of the box and mixed them in with other markers. The diameter of the grease stick is too large to mark off the latitude and longitude squares on my 18 in.X 24 Inch laminated hurricane tracking map so I went and bought a box of crayola washable crayons and it works out like a sore pecker-you can’t beat it. Maybe I should mail the USAF the Listo 12 pack grease pencils in business since 1940. at least they prop erly fixed the issue. …..
The LCS was a solution in search of a problem, and Command Afloat billets for O-4s. That is all.
Seriously, they have LCDRs in command of blue/gold crews as my head shakes slowly east/west?
If I remember correctly the Capt. and XO of each LCS crew are Commanders (O-5) and the Operations officer(?) is a LCDR (O-4). Like SAC with its “spot promotions”, LCS crews seem to be top-heavy on rank.
Can’t seem to find a TO&E for the LCS. Found one couple of years ago, but didn’t save it.
The Literal Comedy Ship keeps living up to its name.
Just think — they threw together cargo ships 80 years ago in under a week for a world war that held up better than these pieces of shit.
My ship used a 600 PSI steam line to run the engine room steam turbine/reduction gears with no problem. the shipyard that get the contract are the lowest bidders.
Vlad might shoulda studied some of Clancy’s work before he decided to throw away a lot of lives…and equipment.
Sooo, you’re telling me that the tranny didn’t get blown on USS Wichita? Find that hard to believe now-a-days. The Iowa Class…now THAT was a wagon that could do some battle.
What idiot DIDN’T think that carving into a composite material would cause problems? Or was it a deliberate plan to be able to sell replacement props?
“Iowa Class”
Especially the New Jersey. They keep decommisioning her but
something always comes up.
She’s a museum ship in Camden now. She ain’t coming back.
We don’t know for sure. They brought the Missouri out of the museum to fight space aliens and had her up and running in a couple of hours. Next time they might try to take New York and she will have to come out and stop them.
🤣🤣
C-130 props… Just sayin’.
They should have been laser engraved…
For the Russians it is the equipment losses that are even more catastrophic. Human beings are cheap, tanks are expensive. They have lost 80% of their MBT’s mostly to a dozen Precision MLRS and Javelins. While mostly T-72s, There were numerous battalions of T-80s and T-90s as well.
This website only counts losses for which there is photographic evidence AND posts the picture of the loss.
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html
Click on the number of the vehicle you would like to see. A few looks will tell you this is no photoshop. They also have unique photos of Russia’s other recent invasions to compare them to and ensure old pictures aren’t being used. It isn’t just bad, it’s a military catastrophe up there with other invasions of Asia. Try to imagine if we lost all of the equipment of the entire Army National Guard and every unit, soldier and piece of equipment stationed at Ft Hood, Ft Riley and Ft. Campbell in a year.
Given the low population *and* replacement rate issues of Russia, I would argue that human beings in this case are not cheap.
As far as being human beings, no they are not. But as far as the Russian government still having that communist mentality, lives are only valuable to the state as long as they can carry out those missions the state assigns them. Then they are not valuable at all. And that is still a communist style army. Work dumber, and harder, not smarter and better.
That’s some serious damage to the Russkie Army, but I trust Mexican Tap Water more than I do Milley.
Liberal “great ideas” often don’t help the military… see this from ‘Nam:
I don’t know, Forrest Gump turned out ok.
We are doing this right now. There is a big push to get new trainees extra academic instruction so they can retest, score higher, and move out of cat III or cat IV so they can sign up more low quality recruits without exceeding the number allowed.
Cat III’s (31-49 ASVAB) are always eligible to enlist, they fall under “bravos” and have average to slightly below average intelligence. CAT IV’s are 10-30 ASVAB unless something has changed.
The real floor was around 21. Below that most people are considered illiterate. However just because they made the 21 doesn’t mean they can get in. They still have to have qualifying line scores for an MOS. Line scores aren’t waiverable for CATIV’s. Also a CAT IV won’t normally be eligible for a moral waiver among other things. It’s bad enough to be dumb but the military already has enough dumb criminals without having to openly recruit more.
Most recruiters keep a list of their CAT IV’s and when the slots open, they call them and fill them as fast as they can. This normally happens at odd times such as the Christmas Holidays when recruiting is slow or near the end of the fiscal year.
This has been happening for decades.
Check out McNamara’s Project 100,000. These were mentally retarded folks that he felt would be of no value so would not be missed if they died over there. I don’t think they ever even got positive value scores on the ASVAB.
Pure exaggeration.
Sounds like what have learned over the years. Thought a positive check-mark wasn’t enough so I made a comment.
Couldn’t watch more than 30 seconds–too many errors. Not what I would call a reliable source.
Speaking as a middle-class high school dropout who enlisted in 1966 before this program started. Believe me, there were plenty of dumbasses already in the Army–including officers; the eligibility standards for OCS were not very high then.