US Postal Service blew $3 billion on electric mail trucks – and has almost nothing to show for it.

@ArishMell Russia has some very stealthy subs that are driving NATO insane. They are also armed with some weapons that NATO can not counter or defend against. With the advent of the hypersonic missile I very much suspect that surface ships have become obsolete since they serve only as floating targets.

@hippyjoe1955 She does, yes. It could well be that their scrapping of the older submarines was not a "peace divident" effect but a matter of simple obsolescence.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the American naval architects come up with to satisfy their President, but he'll be just an ordinary US citizen long before the first are afloat.

@wildbill83 EV development has been very rapid and most of the early problems have been sorted out so there is no technical reason for the USPS not to be buying them, but in this case there may simply be large supply difficulties, such as insufficient materials, slowing the scheme. The service cannot be expected to replace all its fleet rapidly, all over the country.

Regarding the media's reporting of the warships, I formed the impression it was President Trump or one of his ministers who used the word "battleship", and that was what was quoted. I do not think anyone in the Pentagon or the DoD was seriously pulling out drawings dated 1935.

Oh, they won't have big guns, not least because those and their ammunition take a lot of room on board, and several men to operate each gun, and their range is much shorter than that of a missile. More likely one or two 4.5-inch rapid-fire weapons operated from the ship's bridge or control-room, for close-in defence.

Also of course, missiles can be steered. However sophisticated the fire-control once the shell has left the muzzle it takes a purely ballistic trajectory, not a controlled course. Which does make them effective against fixed targets like harbours, but that places the ship dangerously close to the enemy.

Using ships in flotillas ("wolfpacks") is hazardous tactically; and perhaps another reason the large-scale naval battles are a thing of the past. Despite modern ships' advanced sonar to detect enemy submarines they are not so good at fighting off submarines, and a flotilla presents plenty of targets within a compact area. The flotilla may need an underwater shield of "hunter-killer" submarines.


I think in the end, any major future war we all hope will never happen, between major powers, would be very different from even the sort of attritional fighting planned for in the Cold War, and as we see now in Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere. It may not even entail very much fire-power.


I think the term "wolfpack" was from World War Two's German Kriegsmarine, but even then was not very accurate, perhaps more propaganda than reality. This was because although large numbers of U-boats went out into the North Atlantic to attack the merchant convoys and any Allied naval ships, mainly in a region out of range of aircraft from both coasts, they normally scattered and operated independently.

@ArishMell so far there are no renderings for the trump-class battleships. at least that i can find.

typically a battleship is larger and more heavily armored than a cruiser. the world war 2 battleships where retrofitted with cruise missiles before they were decomissioned, but their main attraction was being able to stand 25 miles offshore and pound something with (relatively) cheap 14 inch artillery shells, even if it was a hit or miss proposition. as much a terror weapon as an actual threat.

@SusanInFlorida The Battle ship reached its Zenith with the British who would engage in what was known an 'gun boat diplomacy'. Some region of the world would get uppity and Britain would sail one of its gun boats aka Battle Ships int to said regions nearest harbour and scare all the natives into submission. The era of the Battle Ship ended with the sinking of IJN's Yamato. A concept long since over shadowed by the Air Craft Carrier. Sadly the Air Craft Carrier's days are numbered with the advent of the hypersonic missile. Look at what happened in the spat between the US and Yemen. Now the Air Craft Carrier is little more that a floating targets with a bunch of really expensive airplanes on it all of which can be sunk by a couple of hypersonic missiles of which China and Russia have and the US and NATO do not have. Right now there is no known defence against the hypersonics and they pack one heck of a wallop.

@hippyjoe1955 upvoted. chain guns won't stop cruise missiles skimming the surface from making a direct hit on a "capital" ship. look at the falklands war . . .

@SusanInFlorida Add the hypersonics that the Russians have and no US ship is safe. The US is trying to fight WWIII with WWII weapons without the industrial capacity to duplicate what it did between 1941 & 1945

@hippyjoe1955 @SusanInFlorida

The last battleship as such to be sunk in action was the elderly Argentinian heavy cruiser the Belgrano, during the Falklands War. By torpedoes, too, not gun-fire, nor missiles.

I don't know what the US Navy has or had but the Royal Navy's last such vessel, HMS Vanguard, was scrapped in about 1960, having been launched after WWII and never used in action. That type of ship was already obsolescent, and of course this was some decades before the invention of ship-launched missiles, let alone cruise missiles.

I rather think the term "battleship" has skewed the conversation.

I can't imagine President Trump's supposed "Trump-class battleships" would be anything like those long-obsolete vessels, but instead be some form of smaller, lighter, modern frigate or destroyer. I don't know how the word even became to be used in this context - whether it was by Trump himself or some Press agent. I am not sure it was ever even a real Naval term, but a public colloquialism for the heaviest gun-carriers.

As for industrial capacity, US shipbuilders might be able to copy or adapt those 1930s basic ship designs in some way, but not build such massive guns. I would be very surprised if they still have the both the machinery and skills necessary to make rifled-barrel artillery of anything like the calibre and length. Even if they did the ships would still be out-"gunned" by enemy missiles from safely beyond the guns' range. Or sunk by torpedoes from a submarine.

@ArishMell I agree. The term battle ship and what it means remains indeterminate. I have heard conversations about 'rail guns' as opposed to the type of gun used in previous wars but even then they are a viable option. Speaking personally I wonder if Trump was not sending a coded message to someone. Kind of like Biden's hats were signals as to which way the unseen battle is taking place. Yes there is an unseen battle of which many of us are completely unaware. That isn't a conspiracy theory it is real. Look at the foolish wars the US and NATO have been engaged in and ask yourself the question why. Why Ukraine? Why Iran? Why Venezuela? The list keeps growing longer. To what end? Given Europe's failing status and the US's precarious position one has to ask the question. Why would the US capture a Chinese oil tanker? China controls the production of all the electronics in the US including the stuff use in weapons. Talk about cutting one's nose off to spite one's face. They simply can't be that stupid.

@hippyjoe1955 Oh, there are honourable exceptions but politicians of all flavours and nationalities can be stupid, or more likely unable to think about consequences; but in democracaies they are also heavily influenced by having to court voters every few years.

In that respect China has a major strategic advantage: rigid, one-party rule by a committee of technical people and economics experts all obeying a rigid dogma. Even its President is really only a caretaker, even though possibly for his life. So she can plan an highly-advanced, industrial economy and heavy military backing, for years or even decades ahead.

Why Ukrain? Ask Putin. Why Iran? Ask its mullahs? Why Venuzuela? Ask the USA.

Coded messages? I am not sure Donald Trump could be that subtle, but it's an interesting question.


WW2 rail guns? Co-incidentally I watched a video about those not long ago! They were first built, by both sides, in WW1, by mounting naval guns on massive, special railway-wagons. Each needed a large crew, and could only be used on a suitable stretch of track pointing the right way; which helped the defenders to determine their locations. Not very useful as weapons, their effect was more psychological than real.

Apart from Assad's alleged "super gun", the last version of very long-range guns was Hitler's "V3". Not a primitive drone like the V1 "doodlebug", aimed merely by direction and fuel capacity. Not the more sophisticated V2 ballistic missile. It was a battery of six, 6-inch guns on fixed foundations in sloping shafts in the ground near the French port of Calais, and intended to pepper London.

Fins gave the shells flight stability but windage and slight propellant variations would increase the scattering. Each gun was over ninety feet long with side-chambers for accelerator propellants, to boost the muzzle velocity for the ninety-mile range. Timing the accelerators must have needed very delicate caclulations but trial versions tested over the Baltic proved the feasibility.

RAF reconnaisance showed something being built, assumed to be for rockets. Heavy ground-penetrating bombs disrupted the work, and after the Normany Landings the site was captured by Canadian troops.

@ArishMell Ukraine was not started by Russia. It is a continuation of the Great Game that Britain and Russia have been engaged in since the times of Florence Nightingale. This round was started by the CIA, MI6 and Mossad. Russia was simply doing what it had to do to keep the threats at bay.
The rail guns they are talking about are electo magnetic 'fired' but problem being when you are fighting a hypersonic missile with a range in the thousands of kms a rail gun isn't going to do you much good. Both China and Russia and for that matter Iran have such weapons. They can be guided by the Chinese equivalent of GPS except the Chinese system is much better. Such things make ships obsolete and threatening weapons. In the words of the loser of the children's game 'you sunk my battleship'. The point with all guns and battleships is they only serve as terrorist weapons and not effective weapons of war. In war you may well need to take out your enemies electrical grid or their oil refineries or their means of production of weapons. You may well want to take out their airbases or their ships or their muster points for the infantry but you really don't need to waste your weapons killing civilians. The firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo and the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki come to mind. As the Amerian General who ordered the firebombing of Tokyo said "We had better win this war or we will all be tried as war criminals."

@hippyjoe1955 Ah, that sort of "rail gun". Sorry, I misunderstood you with all the talk of older weapons.

Oh,. so Britain started Putin's invasion of Ukraine, did we? Aye, and I'm the Shah of Persia. Though Putin apparently sees anyone west of the Finnish border as his enemy.

"... don't need waste your weapons killing civilians..." Never mind the utter lack of humanity in doing that; just consider the military strategy.

There is a story that after WW2 a captured Japanese general told his American guards, "You may have won the war but we [Japan] will win in the end." To a large extent, he was right.

@ArishMell I was talking to a young lady that my son was dating. She was from Eastern Ukraine. It was Christmas Day. 2015 and as I passed her the turkey she calmly mentioned that her mother's house had been shelled. Her Mum was not home at the time but the house was destroyed. I was shocked. Who would have done such a thing Russia? She explained that no it was Ukraine doing the shelling. Ukraine was doing its best to exterminate or drive out the Russian speaking Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine. However not everyone was as lucky as Irena's mother and 30,000 dead Ukrainians later the region had a referendum and voted to join Russia. Russia went through all the formal and legal requirements of accepting that region as part of Russia so the 'invasion' of Eastern Ukraine is actually a defensive action to get the occupying Ukrainians out of the region. As for the orange revolution that took place in 2014? Yeah most experts in the field will tell you that it was a CIA, MI6, Mossad operation designed to lead to the invasion of Russia. Britain has been playing that game for centuries now and they are not about to quit. The US has been doing similar but not quite as long. remember Britain and the US invading Russia in 1918? Yeah the Yanks and the Limys lost that fight and withdrew in 1925.

@hippyjoe1955 Briain has never wanted to invade Russia, and what happened in the 19C was between very different forms of all these countries now. Apart from anything else we need only look at what happened to the French and German armies when they tried. The country is far too large to try to take over.

Besides, why the hell would the CIA and Mossad want to be involved in that? It would be of no benefit to the USA and Israel.

Ukraine may have had serious internal problems but that does not justify ex-KGB Liaison Officer Vladmir Putin's attempt to take the place. And after Ukraine, if he "wins" as you seem to want, who next?

@ArishMell You really need to get out more. Your BBC talking points are wearing a little thin. I gave up on the MSM years ago and prefer long form interviews with people who are informed on the subject not the pap outfits like BBC or CBC or ABC or CNN spew which is carefully disguised government propaganda proclaimed to be "news".

@hippyjoe1955 Merely insulting news services that don't conform to your opinions - or who report from both sides as the BBC does - is as pointless as merely insulting people for not sharing your opinions.

@ArishMell I'm not insulting anyone or anything. I am simply stating facts. Said agencies are part of the problem. I hearken back to Nazi Germany and it propaganda arm. Goebbels had nothing on our MSM. I believe it to be the duty of an informed citizen to check out other sources. Professor John Mearsheimer, Ray McGovern both experts. McGovern being fluent in Russian and who was a US adviser to US presidents on the Russia file. Both of whom are immensely more informed than the average talking head on any network anywhere in the world. Guys like Larry Johnson who was the head of the CIA operation in Latin America have a very different view on Trump's escapade in Venezuela. They are all on YouTube. I highly recommend you give them a listen. You will learn things that may come as a shock but when you look at the facts you will begin to realise that the MSM is being very sparing with the truth. Just one little factoid. Did you know that Russia and Ukraine had signed a peace treaty before the war even started? Then Bad hair Boris Johnson rushed in and told Ukraine to tear it up. Britain is in this war up to their eyebrows and not on the side of good.

@hippyjoe1955 Well, you are. They do not push the view you want so you demean them. Though too be fair I do not know if the American networks have any reporters in Russia itself, as the BBC does, able to tell us what the Kremlin says.

I do know of the Russia/ Ukraine treaty, which was ratified by the UK and USA too. Putin simply ignored it.

Britain is not "in" the war, but like most other European countries does support Ukraine and has provided a lot of material and training. Don't forget we are physically rather closer to Russia than most of America, and can't stand aloof, saying "I'm all right Jack" and thinking Russia is no threat to us. She is.


As for Venezula, only Donald Trump can really understand his own actions there, and I am not convinced he understands other countries generally.


BTW the OP was about the cost and delivery of electric vans the United States Postal Service is buying from a manufacturer based in its own country.

Perhaps they are awaiting more components by slow boat from China...

@ArishMell I don't have an agenda. I honestly couldn't care less as to who wins the war in Ukraine. I have gained a lot of Ukrainian friends because 37 million Ukrainians have fled the country. I hope they are able to stay here in Canada. They are wonderful people. However I also know a lot of people who came from Russia before the war started. Kind of funny I was on a job site when one other Ukrainians struck up a conversation with someone else he thought came from Ukraine. It turned out that the lady he thought was Ukrainian was actually Russian. They had a good chat and moved on. They are just people. Sadly the warmongers in the US and Britain wanted a war and so they started one. The people there didn't want a war. They wanted to just live their lives. Grygorii and Oksana and Dasha and Zlata and Valaria and Yanna and Julliya don't deserve to have their lives torn apart like that.

@hippyjoe1955 The losers in any war are always the civilians, sadly. I agree those people don't deserve it.

I can't speak for the USA under its present leadership but Britain never wanted a war, and is not as military-minded as the USA anyway. I don't know how you think it did.

Putin wanted Ukraine and thought he could take it by little more than an armed coup.

A lot of Ukrainians came here, too.

@ArishMell You are not aware of the role of Britain? Seriously. Britain has been at the forefront of keeping the war going. After Ukraine and Russia initialed a peace treaty Boris Johnson rushed to Kiev to stop Zelensky from accepting the terms. I don't doubt the average Brit wants a war but the power brokers who actually run Britain certainly do want the war to continue. Funny bit of information Grygorii's mother in law who lives in the same apartment as Grygorii is Russian. She is now a widow. Her late husband was a sailor and caught some disease and died. In the Ukrainian tradition the widow lives with the oldest daughter's family.