Comment by kayo_20211030

Units can also collect e-points to purchase more equipment:

> The allocation changes regularly, but as of June 2025, Business Insider reported that destroying a tank was worth eight points. A multiple launch rocket system counted for 10. Killing a regular Russian soldier earned 12 points. Wounding a drone pilot was valued at 15 and eliminating him netted 25. In the final step, the payoff, units use the points they’ve earned to purchase equipment—drones, drone jamming devices, ammunition, and other goods—on Brave1 Market, an online shopping platform not unlike Amazon.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tamarjacoby/2025/09/19/kyivs-e-...

You also have to ponder how it looks when you remove the Chinese supply chain for all those commodity parts. Which will almost certainly be the case if we decide to punch that dance card.

Having a boundless cornucopia of servos and radios will affect the shape of your logistics/maintenance/fabrication complex.

That's not just a "Ukraine Problem" either.

this strategy worked to keep Ukraine alive, by enabling them to throw literally anything and everything they could obtain into the fight. And the system enabled rapid experimentation and evolution of what works. Also they didn't have enough of anything to equip all units equally or fully, so a market-like system of was also a way to triage short supply.

However the logistics costs of fragmentation are very real (relevant to the supply chain theme of this story). And now that Ukraine is producing the better part of 10 millions(!) of drones per year, they are shifting towards more standardized drone models to simplify logistics, achieve more economies of scale and also now to have the capacity to keep units equipped more evenly and reliably.

The system is useful for many reasons, not the least of which that it provides an easy way to avoid war crimes (which hurt the war effort via bad PR in partner countries). They award units 10x as many points (which can be redeemed for drones, HIMARS strikes, etc) for a capture than they do for a kill.

Because it's a defensive war for their own homeland, not just a job.

As a "sitting on my couch" war expert, I think future combat should be country level semi-organized guerrilla combat style. When every structure, forest etc. tries to kill you, it might changed the adversary's opinion on how much they want your land.

On the other hand, if they just want to kill you for the sake of killing you, that's another story and the enemy will probably resort to "carpet bombing".

It’s a mixed blessing because while the competition should lead to better designs it also leads to massive fragmentation in the drones used which has negative consequences for maintenance, training etc compared to the Russian approach of making huge numbers of a few proven designs

Procurement innovation wins the war.

I think the actual purpose of the market is to reduce corruption. When everyone has to publish prices and Pavel pays his mate 3x for the same drone it's easier to flag for auditing.

I hadn't heard this before. Do you have a good article on it? I'd be curious to learn more

Woah cool! Any write up’s on this?

I posted this in another reply, but this is relevant to your point about the market place (deeper in article) and for the hacker news audience - the current Defense Minister for Ukraine is a 35 year old from the tech industry, Mykhailo Fedorov https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/09/ukraine-russia-war-theo...

Ukraine / Russia war is not a real war yet. It's a gentleman's war. If parties want to go all in, even without nuclear weapons it would mean a lot of civilian casualties. Millions would die. It's waiting for when this is gonna happen. Only then we know what real war means.

Tooth to tail is crappy PC/corporate-approved rename. The concept used to have a bunch of arrow and spear related names and a bunch of informal phallic counterparts all of which are better suited to the fundamental workflow of mechanized offensive operations.

Or maybe "dentures"?

That should call it coccyx. That sounds like something Trump would support.

Do you have any more information about this?

The main point of this paper is that rear area bases are too vulnerable now. This paper is from West Point, and is the view from the Army side. It's a big problem for air forces, too.

The US has a tradition of large, supposedly secure bases in the rear. The USAF has relied on this since WWII. It's not working any more. Iran has been hitting US air bases. In the last day, they've hit US bases in Qatar, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain. That's just this round. There were previous hits a few months back. It's not publicized much, but it's no secret. It's hard to protect an air base against drones. Air bases are big, everyone knows where they are, airplanes are hard to hide from drones, and are vulnerable to small explosive charges. As Russia keeps finding out as Ukraine hits their air bases. There have been hits well inside Russia. Blast-resistant hangars in Crimea have been attacked. Don't leave a door open.

China is going in for airbase hardening in a big way.[1] This is sometimes called a "concrete sky" program. The USAF is way behind in the Pacific. Too many planes parked out in the open, or in weak hangars.

Active defenses against drones and missiles do work, but they just thin them out. Some get through. If the attacker has enough manufacturing capacity, the defenses can be overwhelmed. Ukraine is currently building about 7 million drones a year.

[1] https://www.hudson.org/arms-control-nonproliferation/concret...

Knowing logistics is important =/= able to adapt logistics to modern environment. Last 40-50 years US adversaries couldn't really contest/degrade US logistics at scale. Article is suggesting with new tech, they probably could, and hence may have to redo the entire system for distributed survivability / operate under chaos. Aka 60/70% of the force (the tail) is going to have to change the way they do things. It's hard to make 60/70% of org change, especially the boring bureaucratic/logistics part built around predictability, who are going to want to stay predictable and insist everything is fine with these minor changes, until its not.

They argue for both no? Increased armour for logistics, but also the notion that yes, if one good hit destroys your whole stockpile then you would need a 100% success rate defense mechanism which is impossible when you can be overwhelmed by the number of drones/missiles seen in modern warfare.

Ukraine is deploying AI enabled drones that require no fiber optic wires and no electronic tethering. They patrol autonomously and identify targets; a human authorizes the strike and they take out targets by themselves. This is the holy grail of modern warfare; destroy the enemy’s rear staging and logistics. If they don’t have fuel or ammo, they are a defenseless sitting target.

The drinking caused by the reading tends to interfere with the understanding.

>who is this written for, and what do they want to see happen

It's at wespoint.edu. The US military has a long and proud history of really good thinkers writing insightful and important pieces the government then ignores. My outsider impression has always been there was a freedom of ideas there. Don't get used to it though as Pete Hesgeth is fixing it fast as he can.

Foreign military budget numbers are largely fake and can't be attempted to be believed. China's government spending isn't publicly released and can't be independently verified. A lot of what the US considers to be military spending falls into separate categories in China. At least on a purchasing power parity basis their actual spending is probably close to ours now, maybe even higher.

It was written by a major trying to convince both those in charge of military doctrine (army leadership) and military budget (civilian leadership). Both of which can be obstinate and counterproductive. Army brass sometimes prioritize their careers over everything else. Civilian leadership sometimes prioritize their careers over everything else.

> Why don’t we have reasonable logistics and supply lines and infrastructure with $1T?

Deeply entrenched corruption, obviously.

It’s written by folks who want to convince the military to do better.

The fact that the US wastes a lot of money on what’s likely a very ineffective military is not a surprise, surely. Yes, they should have a better logistics system for all that money.

I think you're over-estimating the capability of both sides of the fight (absent nuclear weapons on the part of Russia). Both sides appear to be using drones and missiles as fast as they can manufacture them. One could argue Russia could be more selectively targeting industrial infrastructure - I don't know if their attacks on residential areas are an inability to target well or some kind of hope that demoralization will be effective - but Ukraine is, I believe, doing as much as they can to Russia's oil & defense sectors as they are able.

example: "CAR’s analysis, based on physical examinations of marks on the remnants, shows that the missile that struck Okhmatdyt hospital was produced at most three months before the attack. Or perhaps even eight days before. " [1]

Sanctions and limited parts availability are limiting Russia's ability to manufacture weapons [2]

[1] https://global.espreso.tv/russia-ukraine-war-car-researchers...

[2] https://www.kcl.ac.uk/warstudies/assets/kcl-fasi-paper31-win...

Moscow could only accomplish this with nukes, and only early in the war. By this point Ukraine has dug underground for most of its crucial war-sustaining industry.

Ukraine, well they don't have nukes but as I understand it, much of the USSR's nuclear arsenal was built in Ukraine. I suspect Ukraine could respond tit for tat.

Dude, read some proper war news ffs. During a recent single night, those russian assholes send on Kyiv around 500 shaheds, 50 kalibr missiles, 50 of something else I dont recall etc totalling around 600 long range missiles/warheads/medium sized long range drones, each capable of significant damage due to big heavy explosive load. If they could they would send more, luckily russians and competence dont meet at the same room often.

If Ukraine's defense didnt shoot down >90% of them depending on the type it would be a total carnage, day after day.

Of couse its largely useless wave of terror, very similar to V1/V2 terror attacks nazi germany did on London, with similar results - increasing resolve. But infrastructure is hammered, during winter it can be brutal, and country cannot go on like that forever.

> Similarly, why doesn't Kyiv look like Gaza?

The stated Russian military goals are the "liberation" of the Donbass region and to enforce Ukraine's neutrality (i.e prevent it from joining any military alliance inimical to Russia). With the second goal, there is also the hope that future Ukrainian governments may not be as hostile to Russia as the current Ukrainian leaders and future Ukraine-Russia relations may be normalised as it was in the pre-Zelensky era. Deliberately targeting civilians, with a genocide in mind, makes that highly unlikely.

Note that for the Israeli-right, genocide is the goal because their zionist ideology is based on the settler-coloniser philosophy, and the population of the Palestinian muslims currently outnumber the Israeli Jews (when you include Palestinians that are refugees too, who have a "right to return"). The Palestinians also have a higher birth rate than the Israelis. This is a huge obstacle to the one-state solution - even the Israeli moderates on either political spectrum fear to make Palestinians Israeli citizens (which is one way of ending the conflict) as they fear Israeli Jews would then become a minority. The Israeli-right's solution to this is to make the Palestinian muslims a minority in their own land. (Akin to what the settler-coloniser Europeans did in Canada, USA, Australia etc. with the native population - this is corroborated by a UN probe that says Palestinian children and Babies were ‘special targets’ of Israeli killings - https://www.rt.com/india/642399-israel-gaza-babies-targets/ ). Moreover, as the Israeli-right are mostly religious fundamentalists and have already amended the law declaring Israel to be a Jewish state, they are also resolutely opposed to making Israel a secular state. Thus, in their political vision of Israel, only Jews can ever be a first-class citizen, while non-Jews are always meant to have lesser political rights.

> I think there are complex factors at play that prevent an actual total annihilation attack on the tail, even though it seems like it should be well within capabilities.

It's not about military capabilities but the political repercussions. NATO cannot supply enough weapons to Ukraine till they shift to a war-time mode. Moreover, they cannot allow Ukraine to use their territory to attack Russia, which is needed for successfully executing such an operation. (They have been "experimenting" in this area by ignoring Ukraine's drone intrusions into their airspace, as the drones move towards Russian assets). And you also have to ensure that you don't push the Russians into a corner as they are a nuclear weapon state.

With Iran, it is true that the Americans do have the capabilities to launch such an attack successfully. However, American allies - Iran's neighbours - fear that they will be caught in between the attack and bear the brunt of Iran's retaliatory attacks, specifically on their industry (oil and gas).

Thus, in both cases, it is mostly politics that holds them back.

For me, the most interesting bit of the article is this tid-bit:

> To survive in contested environments, the Army must transition from a centralized hub-and-spoke sustainment model to a decentralized network of smaller, dispersed, mobile, and signature-managed nodes. Sustainment elements must be capable of relocating with the same frequency as maneuver battalion tactical operations centers, while distributed caching of fuel, water, and ammunition across concealed locations should replace the current reliance on large, centralized supply dumps. This transformation must be paired with deliberate investment in camouflage, concealment, and deception tailored to sustainment operations.

That sounds very much like how the current Iranian military and para-military organisations are with their underground bunkers, warehouses and tunnels, with the ability to make independent command decisions in the absence of orders from central command. Even Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, is somewhat modelled similarly and that is why Israel's attack on Hezbollah's leadership (the pager bombing) hasn't had the impact that the Israelis hoped for - they are still bogged down fighting them in Lebanon.