Practical Applications
The problem can have a practical application in wartime situations, especially with respect to fuel efficiency. In the context of the bombing of Japan in World War II by B-29s, Robert McNamara says in the film The Fog of War that understanding the fuel efficiency issue caused by having to transport the fuel to forward bases was the main reason why the strategy of launching bombing raids from mainland China was abandoned in favor of the island hopping strategy:
"We had to fly those planes from the bases in Kansas to India. Then we had to fly fuel over the hump into China. We were supposed to take these B-29s—there were no tanker aircraft there. We were to fill them with fuel, fly from India to Chengtu; offload the fuel; fly back to India; make enough missions to build up fuel in Chengtu; fly to Yawata, Japan; bomb the steel mills; and go back to India. We had so little training on this problem of maximizing efficiency, we actually found to get some of the B-29s back instead of offloading fuel, they had to take it on. To make a long story short, it wasn't worth a damn. And it was LeMay who really came to that conclusion, and led the Chiefs to move the whole thing to the Marianas, which devastated Japan."(The atomic bombing missions at the end of World War II were flown using B-29 Superfortresses from the Pacific island of Tinian in the Northern Marianas Islands.)
Read more about this topic: Jeep Problem
Famous quotes containing the word practical:
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)