Comments by "Britta Kriep" (@brittakriep2938) on "The First SMLE Trials Rifles: Lessons From the Boer War" video.

  1.  @Wakey585  : With airguns, this existed also in Germany.
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  2. You have forgotten, that the British troops had been professional soldiers for years in constant training, while the German troops had been conscript/ reserve soldiers, where the last longer training was perhaps some years ago. The british system was only possible, because Great Brittain is an island country. If Brittain would be a continental country, where an enemy, perhaps with allies, could invade with full speed and from many directions, the situation would have been different, because in such a case, a huge number of quickly mobilizeable soldiers is necessary, to train all in a high standard , would habe been impossible.
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  3.  @AdmV0rl0n  : Before 1914 there had been three types of armies. 1) Professional armies: As far as i know, this had been volunteers, who served 20-30 years. This had been the best trained armies, but in comparison to population, rather small. In USA there had been State Militias ( today National Guard), but i don't know about their equipment and training. In Great Brittain, as far as i know, also some semi- official militias existed. 2) Countries , in which every young man had the duty to serve in the army for some time, perhaps two years, and then they became part of the reserve, from time to time, they had to do some training again. In german language Wehrpflicht, isn' t this called conscript army? The german version of this seemed to be the best one, but only the professional officers had those wellknown quality of training, the reserve officers not so much. Also the reserve soldiers had not the knowledge of a professional soldier. And the units called Landwehr , this soldiers had been older than Reserve, had not so modern equipment. The units of Landsturm, the oldest soldiers, had in 1914 rather old equipment and also their training was not so modern. In other continental armies it was similar. 3) Militia armies. In few countries, for example Sweden or Switzerland, the young men also had the duty, to serve , but only few months. So it is doubtable, if this only rather short trained soldiers could sucessfully fight against better trained troops. ( In 1912 Wilhelm ll visited Switzerland, watched a great Manöver / training of Swiss troops , and said: The Swiss officers and soldiers seem to know their job.). So, every system had strong and weak points.
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  4.  @TheArgieH  : This is true. In german history the situation was different. Up to about 1500 the mechants union ,Hanse' could field ( :-) ) a lot of armed ships in case of need, but after 1650 they only had few frigattes for representation and armed boats for harbour defence. Also larger german coastal states had only few improvised coast ships. In 1848 there was a small prussian fleet, a larger austrian fleet in meditersnean sea, the austrian danube flottilla and few hanseatic ships. For some years, there was an attempt to create a ,German Federation Fleet', not sucessfull, so german language countries have/ had no long navy tradition. But did a job as good as possible in both world war. Fun fact: In 1866 the Austrians won the seabattle of Lissa against Italian navy.
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