Illustrating Basic Concepts Day, Part Deux: Tooth to Tail

When we discuss the size of militaries and the costs of modern warfare, a key concept is tooth to tail--how much of one's allocation of personnel/money is to the actual fighting versus the support necessary to keep the personnel and weapons systems in the fight.

Today, the Canadian Forces tweeted a picture that unintentionally demonstrated this to a T:

Canada has sent six CF-18s (Canadian versions of F-18s).  There are way more than six pilots in this picture, eh?  So, this picture is a mighty good demonstration of modern-day tooth to tail--where most of the resources support the folks in combat rather than actually go into combat. 

I do not post this as a critque of the RCAF but to merely illustrate a basic reality for most (all?) modern militaries.