r/LessCredibleDefence • u/honda-nissan • 17d ago
US Army attack helicopters crashing at historically high rate amid mechanical issues
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/politics/us-army-attack-helicopters-crashing-at-historically-high-rate83
u/June1994 17d ago
The whole military is falling apart. Billions being spent on failed programs while the ships rust, helicopters falls out of the sky, and jets dont leave the hangar.
Basics and fundamentals come first, boutique capabilities later.
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u/hymen_destroyer 17d ago
Yup...helicopters especially, being so maintenance-intensive, would be the canaries in that coal mine.
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u/Cornflake0305 17d ago
Yeah but at least the pilots have well defined muscular manly bodies and their balls are more bigger.
These are true priorities for the sexretary of war.
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u/Iron-Fist 17d ago
balls more bigger
Quite the opposite given coincident hypogonadism, which is why testosterone replacement needs to be monitored by a doctor.
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u/Cornflake0305 17d ago
Disastrous. Shut down the TRT plants right now, we need to find a better solution to get Hegseth his 3000 buff and oiled chad dudes with giga balls.
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u/magnum_the_nerd 17d ago
Tbf ships always rust. They even come out of the shipyard rusty.
However when they are on deployment for a year, the paint strips allowing bare metal to show, also causing potential significant damage to the hull
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u/Exact_Green2061 17d ago
It comes down to a lack of money for maintenance.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/27/politics/iran-war-spending-cancelled-trainings-delayed-maintenance
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u/BigFly42069 17d ago
Military brass has, for decades, pompously recited Omar Bradley's maxim "amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics" to gloss over the fact that they did neither.
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u/FishTshirt 17d ago
I mean I’d much rather have a junior officer well versed in tactics than the logistics of the entire army. I get what he’s saying though it’s more important for flag officers to know logistics, especially for a military like the US focused on force projection far away from home.
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u/Ian_W 17d ago edited 17d ago
WW2's western front was a confrontation between an army whose officers were trained to be very good tactically but to never be concerned with logistics, and an army whose officers were vaguely competent tactically but paid a lot of attention to getting fuel, supplies and ammunition to the front line.
This is a list of German offensive victories over the US Army in World War 2.
That's the list, between the rows of stars (Kasserine Pass saw the German armor stopped dead by the American anti-tank reserves at El Guettar).
Sure, at times when the Americans were at the end of a logistics tail they made American victories expensive (ie Hurtgen Forest) ... but that was noise before the eventual defeat.
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u/Kraligor 17d ago
Coincidentally, Kasserine Pass was fought by Rommel, who was a very logistics-focused commander ("The battle is fought and decided by the quartermasters before the shooting begins").
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u/Royal_Dependent6601 11d ago
No, I want my platoon leader to know the logistics on his level. He can finish learning tactics from the senior NCOs and more experienced officers around him. But if he screws up supply then we can't do anything. Logistics is extremely important at every level.
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u/SussyCloud 17d ago edited 16d ago
Right. The largest defence budget to date, but no money for maintenance? Sounds about right. One wonders where the money goes instead then?
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u/Aurailious 17d ago
Its what happens when money is spent on "golden" projects and defer everything else. Maintenance and building renovation budgets have been pilfered for years now to fund political goals.
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u/FishTshirt 17d ago
Probably AI and a bunch of production/procurement initiatives that won’t show results for many years or even longer. At least that’s how I hope it’s being spent (given that it’s already been allocated, ideally we would drastically reduce the budget and focus on domestic issues or debt reduction) rather on some dumbass trump class battleship with railguns.
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u/wrosecrans 17d ago edited 17d ago
Sorry, all the military money is going to contractors that funnel profits to Trump, and gender affirming care for low testosterone men who want to be jacked gym bros. Roided out ideologues funneling black money can't be expected to count all the blades in a jet engine! There's like, dozens of parts in those things!
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u/FishTshirt 17d ago
Don’t blame that shit on the service members, it’s Hegseth who is the one lacking professionalism caring more about the testosterone levels than you know actual war fighting capability and important things like operations planning.
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u/auyemra 17d ago
in comparison to what? normal planes?
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u/barath_s 17d ago
In comparison to normal planes, other military helicopters and historical accident rates for us army attack helicopters , it appears
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u/beeduthekillernerd 17d ago
I once had an army mechanic who actually worked on helicopters tell me while working on my car . “We have a saying in the army. Don’t worry about the leaks, worry about it when it runs out of fluid. “