Matters of Scale - Military Expenses: A Case Study
Number of transport containers of military equipment the U.S. military shipped to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War | 41000 |
Number of those containers that had to be opened at pierside to find out what was in them, due to lack of proper labeling | 28000 |
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"Then, many [of the labeled containers] were hauled 2,000 miles out into the desert just to find that most of their contents really belonged to units near the ports." -Scott W. Conrad, Moving the Force: Desert Storm and Beyond, National Defense University, 1994 | |
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Number of tank cannon rounds moved to the Gulf | 220000 |
Number actually fired | 3600 |
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"The Threat allocation process - determining how much ammunition is really needed to achieve objectives - has run amok. For example, there were 78 ammunition-laden ships still awaiting off-load the day the Gulf War ended, and of 3.2 million rounds of 155m howitzer shells moved to Saudi Arabia, 2.9 million had to be returned." -Scott W. Conrad | |
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Weight of the newest U.S. aircraft carrier | 100,000 tons |
Quantity of unused ammunition that was left in the sand after the Gulf War | 250,000 tons |
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"A Defense Lobbyist's Dream: Look for the Iraq Crisis to reopen the entire battle over Pentagon Cuts" -Headline in Newsweek, September 20, 1990 | |
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If all the U.S. military vehicles sent to the Gulf for the ground war (mechanized divisions) traveled in a convoy one vehicle's length apart, the length of the convoy would have been | 1,000 miles |
If all the mail sent to U.S. troops during the Gulf War were loaded into pickup trucks 3 feet deep, and the trucks traveled in a convoy one truck's length apart, the length of the convoy would have been | 120 miles |
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"Saddam To the Rescue" -Headline in The Economist, August 18, 1990 | |
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Sources: Scott W. Conrad, Moving the Force: Desert Storm and Beyond, McNair Paper 32 (Washington, D.C.: Institute For National Strategic Studies, December 1994).