Comment by mrguyorama
12 hours ago
Every combat soldier requires like 10 support soldiers doing things like logistics. Millions of people during WW2 did nothing but drive trucks.
A lot of military burst capacity is about freeing up soldiers who went through all the training and basic and specialization, but are stuck driving that truck.
The guys and gals who fire bullets are just the sharp point of the spear and all that.
It's also why Russia ballooned their "National Guard" forces even though they cannot be deployed outside Russia; They free up soldiers who can.
One of the most important things for a government in an actual "Oh shit real war" situation that requires significant mobilization is a simple census of "Who has the capability to do what menial job?"
Light infantry on domestic terrain doesn't need anything like those sorts of ratios. Chechen militia in the first Chechen war defeated the Russians well enough to win independence without any sort of logistics ratio like that on the military side, as did the YPG light infantry that defeated ISIS and held off the Syrian military well enough that they basically truced or better.
Higher ratios might be needed to project power to outside borders, but for defense within the territory they can be combat effective against many possible forces with small ratios of military side logistics.
>Higher ratios might be needed to project power to outside borders
Or operate in an domestic environment where you do not have local support.
<cough> Alberta <cough>
That's not how it works in any NATO military. Truck drivers and other logistics troops generally never went through any sort of advanced combat training. They can be retrained for another MOS with sufficient time but not quickly enough for any sort of crisis. And in volunteer forces, the troops driving trucks are generally doing that because they specifically enlisted to do that job.
The largest volunteer army in the world is the US Army. Please provide evidence that enlistees can specifically be truck drivers if they choose to be.
What a silly question. I don't need to provide you any evidence. Just walk down to your local recruiting office and ask. If you tell them that you want to enlist but will only do so if they guarantee a truck driver MOS on your contact then they'll absolutely take you unless they've already hit their limit for that fiscal year.
HN is so weird sometimes. Like half the users seem to be aggressively ignorant of stuff that's common knowledge in the real world outside the tech industry. Or they expect to be spoon fed information that they could figure out themselves with a little research.
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