Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "Why the German Army couldn't overcome their bad logistics" video.

  1. Re Germans ordering a whole truck just to get new tires. Every country at war had this problem. My father served in WW2 at one stage as a tank unit commander. One of the tanks had a carburettor float fail, rendering the tank useless. He tried requisitioning a new float - an answer came back "not available." He tried requisitioning a whole carburettor - that was accepted but delivery was scheduled for 3 months time (as it had to come from Australia to North Africa.) He tried requisitioning the complete engine with generator, carby, gearbox, everything. It came from local stores the next day. So the mechanics took the float out (worth about 20 cents) and used it to replace the crook one, and threw a whole brand new engine out. Why? Because some planner decided that major engine failures were to be expected, but carby floats should never fail. That planner probably did the best he could in the time available.
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  2. TIK talks a lot of absolute nonsense. As an engineer I just love economists, because economists always overlook the obvious. Using natural free prices as a basis for decisions can only work if the market is mature and stable. In wartime it never is. Especially in WW2, when the technologies in use at the end were completely different to what was in use at the start eg jets at the end, biplanes still in use at the start. When transistors were first put into production, far sighted companies made them at a loss - they figured with experience over many years they could get prices down and would eventually come out ahead. They took a gamble and it paid off. Same with mobile phones. Phone companies for a while heavily subsidised the cost of phones, figuring that unless they did, mobile phones would never catch on. Some things tend to be government owned, unless in VERY large countries eg USA, and some things never are government owned. The reason is seen in a simplification of unit prices as price = A + Bx where x is the number of units sold. Things like railways and power companies (and hospitals) have been government owned is because the A factor (fixed cost) is very large, and the B-factor (incremental cost) is very low. You build a rail line - it costs the same huge amount regardless of whether it stands unused or whether you shift 1000's of tonnes freight per hour. The cost of fuel and the engine driver wage is quite small. Selling newspapers at a news-stand is the opposite - the A factor is minute and the B factor is large - you need to employ one person for about each 30 newspaper sales per hour. Things that have a high A and a low B (eg power industry) tend naturally to be monopolies and/or government - only these can get money at low interest rates to be viable. Things with a low A and a High B tend naturally to be a large number of competing small businesses, as they can compete on efficient manpower utilisation. Like the newsagent near me - when the lady needs a break, she gets her retired mother to come in and mind the store. Developing military hardware involves immense A and may or may not involve a large B. If airforces were run on a free and natural price basis, megabuck things like the B52 bomber would never have been contemplated. TIK said Australia Post is not as good as couriers. That's true and the reason is simple - AP are a heck of a lot cheaper. You get what you pay for.
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