Anyone else seen this sign?

[james]

"As far as modern military light infantry vehicles go, the H1 actually gets rather good gas milage!"

Which is a problem with modern military thinking Which indeed reflects a problem in societal thinking: the idea that resources are cheap, and provided through a process akin to magic. But wars are won & lost on logistics, and a logistics train grows geometrically. If you need to provide the fuel, say, of a force of size X, you also need to provide a supply line to deliver that fuel. And now you need another force to protect that supply line, and you need to supply THAT force...

[bpapa9013]

I think if the military can manage to keep their M1 tanks supplied with gas, then they can manage to keep the Hummers supplied as well.

Or am I missing your point?

[james]

It's not whether they can keep things supplied, it's the cost of doing the supplying. The resources needed to do so could be used more effectively elsewhere. As I said, the Hummer's hardly a unique result of this attitude, it's just the most obvious one to have made the crossover from military to civilian life.

[bpapa9013]

Forgive me, I don't mean to be rude or provoke you, but I still don't see your point. Unless you are just arguing that the Hummer is completely useless as a military vehicle? (I'm pretty sure that's not what you are saying)

You have no argument from me about the H1 being an almost completely frivilous thing for a private citizen to own. Or that it is practically an icon of inefficieny as a private vehicle.

But pretty much any military combat vehicle would be completely frivilous for a private citizen to own! Thats just the nature of war, you HAVE to over-engineer everything because you never know what will happen!

I'm all for a more efficient military, I have heard about research into multi-wheel APCs that would be able to nearly double the gas milage of standard steel track APCs without lessening mobility or safety. Go for it! But that new APC would STILL be getting worse mpg than an H1.

[Insightful Trekker]

What I am missing here is any "connection" to Insight or Insight related topics.

Maybe a good time to take any of the rest of the "arguement" to PM or email

[IamIan]

The Insight related idea that got a little lost is that people buy SUVs and Hummers and Such and use lots of justifications to cover up as best they can the fact that they DO NOT NEED THEM and the ARE Excessive and it is far more than they need or will ever need or use.

There are about 1% of SUV and Hummer owners that have a good reason to have those vehicles... and all SUV and Hummer Drivers want to squeeze into that 1% themselves... They lie about thier uses to others and themselves... and even if they do have a SUV or Hummer need why then don't they have the Hybrid SUVs or the Hydrogen Powered Hummers like some people have done... if it is a $ question then what was that dollar amount ?? or did they even bother to check??? If that is $5,000 then $5,000 is more important to them then the environment.... but often times the Hybird SUV is cheeper than the Hummer Cheeper than allot of other SUVs... Cheeper than sport cars... Cheeper than luxery cars.... so it isn't about $ at all becuase they pay more to get lower MPG... which means that MPG and the environmental health mean very very little to them.... and was not likely a deciding factor in thier purchace of a Hummer or SUV.... Maybe they didn't even look at the MPG Numbers.... It looksed cool and manly so they bought it.... Even Park Rangers spend over 90% of thier time on roads even if dirt ones that my Insight has no problems going on... Most mowed grass and simular areas the Insight also has no problems with... so how many times is the SUV / Hummer NEEDED... and it is less than 1% by less than 1% of the polulation but that isn't the purchase numbers.... so people just dont' care that much about the environment... just that simple.... sad but that simple.

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The Military Question I think I get and will try to explain to others.

I think the idea is that the Fuel and infrastructure costs to run Hummers and Tanks and other Gas Guzzlers is a very real Tactical concern...

A Hummer Gets what about 1/5th the Fuel Economy of the Insight... Which mean it will cost 5x as much to use Require 5x as much supply lines to the front in a war which means 5x as much strain on the supply lines back home.... and more military protection of those supply lines as they are more vulnerable means you have less military to go fight the war itself...

The Further you are away from the home supply the worse this gets...

Now this is NOT to say the Insight should ever be used as a Military Vehicle... Not built for it and has virtually no off road abilities, armor , etc...

It is to say that the idea that in times of peace we can easily ship the tanker trucks of fuel to the front lines will mean nothing in a REAL WAR... No suppplies to the front line... how long can they continue???

This is a common issue to protect the supply lines in all of military history... One of the reasons our Nuclear Subs are concidered better than a liquid fuel version despite the massively larger expence is the supply issue... They have to come back for food before they have to come back for Fuel and they can stay under water for as long as they have fuel instead of limited time periods of a few hours at a time.

Air Craft Carriers have all switched to Nuclear power becuase of the costs and tactical issues that come from powering them with fossel fuels... which they were in the begining...

Of course not all vehicles can yet be switched off of fossel fuels and a Military Vehicle is not likely to get Cavillian MPG EVER ... but it does mean that those MPG Numbers of the Tanks and Jet Fighters are tactical concerns... and as technology gets better I expect that they will put more nuclear type power supplies into more Military Vehicles.... At Least Until Batteries can store more power than Liquid fuel can per volume and per pound... at that point they may switch over to electric and use a centrally located Power Generator to recharge them.

[james]

"What I am missing here is any "connection" to Insight or Insight related topics."

I think it is connected, by the often unconscious attitudes that go into people's vehicle building & buying decisions. Attitudes like "fuel is cheap & readily available", "size means status & power", etc. If we want to understand why so many people dislike the Insight and other similar-sized cars, we need to understand those attitudes.

So the military equipment purchaser sees that for instance a mil-spec Hummer is big, looks tough, and can traverse all sorts of rough terrain, and overlooks the support issues, or the need to traverse narrow village streets. The civilian buys a Hummer because it projects power & promises security. Or he buys a Ford F-350 to occasionally haul a couple of 2x4s from Home Depot, because the front end looks like a big penis (I think it's the Ford, anyway: I don't pay that much attention, but I have to laugh sometimes, especially at the ones with the plastic testicles hanging from the rear bumper.)

Some people might say that it's not our concern, but don't we wind up paying for the cost? If a war costs more, in money and lives, because these attitidues led to a less-than-optimal choice of vehicle, who pays? If parking spaces have to be made 20% wider to accomodate oversized vehicles, aren't we affected?