Military Doctrine of an Ancient Warrior

I would add:

Quality not Quantity

and from the Art of War: Always allow your enemies an escape route

Brovo!

Can someone give me some insight as to how a Mod is supposed to be inserted into the gam folders? It sounds simple I know,. yet I have still to get a download to function,. help nif you can; Thanks

"Misdirection is the key to survival. Never attack where your enemy defends, never behave as your enemy expects, and never reveal your true strength. If knowledge is power, then to be unknown is to be unconquerable."

- Romulan Star Empire (from the game Birth of the Federation, although it sounds like paraphrased Sun Tzu)

Sentient species taste better...

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is, 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia.' But only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.' Hahahahahaha!"

-Vizzini, right before he dies of iocaine poisoning.

Oh, that was classic.

How about this, "There is no instance of a nation having benefited from prolonged warfare." - Sun Tzu

Or: "To begin by bluster, and then take fright at the enemy's numbers, shows a supreme lack of intelligence." - Sun Tzu

Thats one of my favorites   

I'll post again later, when I have my copy of The Art of War nearby

"The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility."
John Arbuthnot Fisher

The AI often sins against this one, declaring war without the means to back it up, or attacking with too little force at once.

I seem to have forgotten most other quotes from that ancient war game "Scorched Earth" though, it's been over 15 years since I read them...

There is a new 3-D version of Scorched Earth that is free and has multiplayer internet capability. I cant remember the site, and dont have the info here at work, but I'm sure you can find it if you search around. It has all the original elements of the game...it's a lot of fun.

Sentient species taste better...

Oh my God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No way!!!!!!!!!!! 3-D Scorched Earth, the best game ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

we didn't win world war two with quality. we won it with quantity. although it could be agrued it was quality quantity.

Depending on the front you're basing that statement on. We won the Western front with quality. We had nukes. No one else did. We won.

Question? When put into a postion that has everyone on equal footing,. how do you position yourself? You take a position that you can change.

the only quality thing we had were b-17s and b-19s and mustangs.


the jeep was cheep, the Sherman was cheep, the light carrier(jeep carrier) was cheep, and the liberty ships were cheep.


not sure where the submarines stand.


the world war 2 battleships were quality and so were the main carriers.

but most of the things we built were cheep and easy to build

including the two nukes we used.

There is actually a significant school of historians who feel differently. Of course, one of the difficult and facinating things about studying WWII is that the technologies and economics and military cultures of all of the major participants are so different, in multifaceted ways. They just don't fit on a simple "quality-----quantity" scale.

Now, one mistake that is often made in initially looking at the grand strategic force matchups in WWII is to presume that because of the 88mm AA/AT gun, the Panther tank (a late war development, by the way), and the Me-262 jet, the German nation and forces were technologically superior. In point of fact, looking at the entire spectrum of conflict-pertinent technologies, from production to comunications to aviation to metallurgy to chemestry/ordinance, etc, it is clear that the Brits and Americans had a major (some would say "vast") technological advantage over their opponents. The Germans had a small edge on the Russians, but not as great a one as they (and war buff "conventional wisdom") presumed. The Japanese were probably about on a par with the Russians and the Italians, but with significantly different areas of specialization and expertise.

drrider

What makes you think that these characteristics do not represent superior quality, in a grand application of technological superiority sense?

The Sherman, for instance. It was specifically tweaked in design to be, yes, reasonably priced. But more importantly, to run further on a tank of fuel, to run faster on on the kinds of roads where it would spend most of its travel time, to run much longer on the same set of tracks, to be field repairable by the skill sets to be expected in U.S. draftees, to carry more ammo than opposition medium tanks, to take less time between main gun rounds than opposition tanks (these last two being the specific reasons why the U.S. did not adopt the Brit Firefly modification). All of these things were specific trade-offs in its design, not accidents. One of the most important limitations placed on the standard U.S. medium tank design was that a full battalion, with spares, had to fit into a specific amount of shipping space (I forget which ship type was used as the standard). It wasn't that we didn't know how to build a heavier, larger-gunned tank, it was that we were choosing a tank design that we could build in as many factories as possible, deliver anywhere in the world, repair anywhere in the world, and sustain anywhere in the world -- that was also 'good enough' in combat.
In action, U.S tank battalions tended to have ~80% of their tanks available. German battlions in 1944 Western European campaign tended to have about 60% of their assigned (not establishment) tanks ready for battle.

Not all war-making technology is gun calibers and armor thickness.

drrider

we built in the area of 100,000 shermans and the same numbers of jeeps.

the jeep was a box on wheels.

the light carrier was really a liberty ship with a flight deck on it. we built about 100 of these

the liberty ship was as likely to sink as it was to float. i don't remember the number of these that we built.

again these were built cheeply but were somewhat good for what they were.

to put it in another way we built enough stuff in two years to fight not one war but two wars. not only that but we also were suppling the allies with some of it.


of course as i have said. an army isn't very good in the ocean, and a navy isn't very good on land. but we still had to supply both at the same time.

You don't mean light carrier (Princeton class), you mean escort carrier (among others, Casblanca class).

Also, although a couple of dozen jeep carriers were built on Liberty ship hulls, during the ramp up from experiment/conversion to purposeful porduction, the majority (69 out of 103 - which included the early Brit conversions) were purpose designed and built carriers.

The jeep and the Sherman were designs that ran and ran and ran. And that feature was part of the design intent. I've been a soldier. I'd far rather have a vehicle that is still running 3 weeks or 3 months into the campaign than one that is 'just perfect' for the job, but broke down after 2 weeks. THAT is technological superiority.



They were nearly perfect for what they were (designed to be) - they were designed to be inexpensive, fast-to-build, doesn't-have-to-last-more-than-10-years mass transport, that could be operated by a minimal crew in convoys.
THAT ability to design a major system to purpose in the middle of a global struggle is also technological superiority.

drrider

The nukes themselves were not that expensive but the whole program to develop them was costly both in terms of funding and time.
Just look at how many countries nowadays could manufacture any atomic weapon (whether it's Uranium, Plutonium or Hydrogen) and we're talking about more than 60 years later...

Well that is why Italian/German scientists (some of whom were clever enough to leave before Hitler/Mussolini) were hired for the Manhattan program, the space program, and so on.
Look at the list of nobel prizes from 1900-1945 (physics, chemistry, and medicine only - literature and peace won't win any wars for you):
Germany 36 Nobel prizes
USA 12 Nobel prizes (2 of which to people with very German sounding names)

In 1945 the USA plundered the German patent office before anything else. That's why Aspirin is cheaper in the States today than it is here (they revoked all patents without Germany).





600 shields, if I remember civ2 correctly - not cheap!



I think is was the lack of supplies that broke the German's neck. My grandfather fought the Americans in Italy with the Wehrmacht (helping the Italian Fascists there). He said Germany lost the war because the Americans had the material to shell a front region for days before going in whereas the Germans just didn't have the artillary ammo. Rather demotivating. They all deserted before long because everyone knew that rations in US/British POW camps were better than in the Wehrmacht (plus you only risked getting shot if you were caught - otherwise you kept risking your life every day).
I think t was not a question of tech in Europe but the faltering German economy/industry. There is a limit how far forced labour can take you in the real world.

Anyway: I am so glad we lost!

"How Wars are Won" Leadership,stratgem,guile,blood & guts!


How do you get people to belive in you?




You win!

you know what the greatest propaganda program we had in world war 2.


we were shipping cake to europe.


the germans didn't have enough fuel to drive across the street and we were flying cake in from the usa.

the only problem is that the cake didn't come from the usa just the boxes.

Military Doctrine- Special on # 2.
Superior Tech goes along way towards defeating an inferior foe. I would like to add; toward any foe.A few examples,. Fee free to add some of your own.
In WWII we saved alot of lives with superior air power. We bombed all the litle islands along the way with our better air power. Another direct example would be what we did to what we did to the Taliban goverment of Afghanistan in 2001.
We once again used superior Tech to knock a goverment out of office in weeks! Again air power.
My country backs up what I say. The Skunk Works,we are the only country that has (let's face it) any real Aircraft Carriers and yes we not Janan weild the World's economic weapon., I have said enough, please forgive me. G.G. out!

I would add: if you develop a weapon, be ready/willing to use it.

In the real world this relates to the whole cold war arms race, with both the US and USSR piling up nuclear weapons they will never put to use.
In GalCiv II this would mean for example: if you build a powerful fleet, it should be either to use it right away, or to use it as a deterrent against the AI. Otherwise it's just eating your tax money.

I must agree with you 100%. If you have put the time and effort into a weapon or weapon's system you should dam well be useing it. Weather to counter a threat or to go on the offencive youeself.