Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Military History Visualized"
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Food matters. Not only did the Germans eat more food than they produced and therefore they were forced to prioritize the conquest of the Russian South that was the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. Food still matters today in modern warfare. The modern food industry was actully born out of the Vietnam war. The problem was that Solidiers didn't eat all their rations because they didn't like the taste of the food, so they got too few calories into their bodies and didn't therefore have the energy needed to do hard work such as digging, marching and fighting. So the military asked the private sector for help. And it made some research and invented new methods to make solidiers eat more so they could do more work. And the new discoveries also enabled the food industry to sell more food to consumers than they otherwise would and thereby increasing the profits. And so was the problem of overeating and obesity born in the western world.
The food scientist Howard Moskowitz (and the father of almost all the grocery store foods we eat) was asked for help by the US Military.
* “So I started asking soldiers how frequently they would like to eat this or that, trying to figure out which products they would find boring,” Moskowitz said. The answers he got were inconsistent. “They liked flavorful foods like turkey tetrazzini, but only at first; they quickly grew tired of them. On the other hand, mundane foods like white bread would never get them too excited, but they could eat lots and lots of it without feeling they’d had enough.”*
This contradiction is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more. Sensory-specific satiety also became a guiding principle for the processed-food industry. The biggest hits — be they Coca-Cola or Doritos — owe their success to complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html
But also other concepts was discovered, such as the concept of the "blisspoint" which is perhaps the most important discovery of all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWh1PSQfdK0
And it have led to the massive use of sugar, fat and salt to increase the allure of foods... since the human brain is developed by evolution to find pleasure in energy rich foods containing much sweat and fat.
And then did Moskowitz all discover the idea of making food that suits one consumer group, instead to try to make a product that suits all. The pasta sauce company was near bankruptcy as it desperatly called Moskowitz for help. And he analyzed their products and said that instead of making one pasta sauce, they should instead make many - one type that suits consumers who like their sauce spicy, another sauce for those who like it chunky, and a third sauce for those who liked it plain.
And Prego tried his idea, and turned losses into record profits in just a year.
https://youtu.be/iIiAAhUeR6Y
The food industry now also uses other new methods to increase its profits by overeating. It uses different kinds of sugars that more easily melts in the mouth and faster reaches the pleasure reflexes in the brain so we immiedtly starts eating more, and therefore pull more food down our bodies before we feel tired of eating.
So far has the easiest way for a food manufacturer to make profits not been to increase sales, but to instead cut costs - by for example replacing expensive ingridients with cheaper ones - such as salt and sugar which are both dirt cheap.
But now things are getting different, for example, have the profits from selling frozen pizza risen dramatically when producers discovered that they can increase the sales by a lot if they make their product more alluring to the consumer by adding extra cheese (because fat is an ingridient that humans are hardwired by evolution to like).
So thank or blame Capitalism for the food we have today. Its cheaper and more well tasting than ever, thanks to guys like Howard Moskowitz. But it is also food that have led to massive health problems around the world for humans as well as pets
It is however interesting that once again the military have provided much of the innovation for this. And the military is a field where food are put under a much harder test than in grocery stores. When grocery store producers cry about falling profits when food becomes uneatable after a few months, military food producers laugh because they have to make food that atleast could be stored for 3-4 years. And it should be made so well tasting that the solidiers are willing to eat their rations.
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What about the Japanese though ? Could they have achieved any semblence of parity with the allies?
Nope. The average income per head was much lower in Japan than in Britan or USA, which meant that Japan could afford fewer tools and machines and tractors, which in turn meant that the amount of stuff a normal worker could produce was much less.
So Japan needed more farmers to feed their people when they had less tractors, and they needed more men in industry just to produce the same amount of tanks as their enemies since their production was much less effiecient. And the lower effectivity in turn meant that it was harder for Japan to both increase the army and production at the same time. Meanwhile did the worlds richest country - USA - not have any problems of massproducing weapons, increasing food production an buildng an enormous military all at the same time. And all this was simply possible because of Americas effective production methods and her ability to rely more of machines and tractors and mechanized agriculture than doing all work by hand.
Also, let's presume here if the Americans do not get involved in the war, how would it have panned out then?
Japan did not have the resources to win against China either, and much less so to take on USSR and GB at the same time. And the US sanctions on Japan would have doomed the country and its war effort in China. Japan needed to attack the western powers in Asia in order to get all resources it needed - oil. rubber, rice, sugar, cotton, copper, aluminium etc.
How was british industrial capability in the homeland and the colonies compared with the axis capabilities?
Britain could easily have crushed Italy and Japan. And it was also slightly richer country than Germany in average income per head. And the empire also had great natural resources.
Germany could have outproduced UK, but Japan would never ever even be close at doing that.
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I agree Anthony. Japans problem in the pre-war period was that her industry wasn't large enough for large scale military production. So Japan had to import tools and machines from western countries in order to become a real industrial nation and a military great power.
But in order to get those machines, Japan first had to export stuff to the west (things like cheap textiles) so that she could get her hands on foreign currency that she could use to buy those American machines. But in order to get any clothes to export, then Japan first had to import cotton and such which put a strain on the currency reserves. And things didn't become easier by having to fight a war in China at the same time as the country is trying to increase the exports so it can buy more imports so the country can indsutrialize.
So Japans Soviet inspired 5 year plan to industrialize a country in just 5 years failed and got deleyd because she didn't really get the cash needed to buy all machines, and buying all coal and steel needed to build a huge modern military.
So Japans limitation was cash in period before the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. And after the attack things started to change pretty suddenly, and Japan made some blitzkriegs in the pacifc and took control over the most resource rich areas in the world in record time.
And Japan now had more warbooty than her industry could consume. Cash was no longer a problem. Japan had all the resources she needed, but her problem was more about shipping them to Japan from Indonesia, Vietnam, Korea, the Phillipines and other places.
Japans merchant navy was large, but it wasn't large enough for this huge task, and the occupied countries economies declined when they couldn't export or import as much as before, when the Japanease merchant navy was unable to fill the ship transport gap that the old colonial masters had left when they surrendered their islands.
Prices on export commodities in the occupied lands started to fall, and the lack of imports made prices to go up and cause inflation in the occupied territories.
And things gradually got worse and worse, when the Japanease military wanted ships for troop transports and supplying the troops. And when the war started to go bad, and merchant ships was getting slaugthered by US submarines things became even more desperete. And only the most valuable commodies became shipped to Japan. But in the end of the war didn't even that come to Japan in suffient amounts, and the colonies economies got starved and wrecked and inflation was high.
And even if the Japanease war economy got impressivly mobilized for a not very industrialized or rich country (80% of the GDP was spent on the war effort), the war production was still not even near close enough to beat America. America for example produced more warplanes in a single year, than all planes Japan made throughout the entire war!
And when the war ended it was clear that Japans mobilization for total war was unsubstainable. 80% of the merchant navy had been sunk in the war. 80% of the infrastructure in Japan had been destroyed. Many towns laid in ruins. Many young men had been wasted.
And yet, was Japan never even close of defeating the allies.
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Its not just the output that is interesting. Its also interesting know how high the GDP per capita (income per head is). Because that determines how much a country can mobilize its economy for war (most poor countries can't use 80% of their GDP for a war effort like Germany in World war 2).
And it also determines how much manpower the industry can spare. If two countries are equal in everything, but one country got higher productivity and every worker can produce twice as much goods per workhour as the worker in the other country, then the country with more effective productive methods can send half of its workers in industry to the frontline instead, since the country can produce the same output as the other country with less amount of workers.
This means that poor countries have it much harder to get both enough men to fight at the front, and men to produce weapons in the factories at the same time, because they need more workers to build a tank than a rich country does.
The size of the country is also important for the industry, since a large country usally have more natural resources and therefore have a much more self-suffiecent economy. Large territories also give the option of sacrifice some terrain to the enemy without heavy economic costs for the decision, and a large landmass gives the ability to manouver.
Another factor is of course how suited the industrial policies are to the needs of the military. The Russians handled world war II pretty nice. Tank engines was only built to last 8 months or so, and any effort in making the engine more durable by wasting more money, materials and workhours was forbidden because the Russian leadership correctly saw it as an unecessary useless sacrifice of Russias limited resources to build a good tank engine that could last for many years, when most t-34 tanks was destroyed by the Germans within 8 months.
So a poor 2nd world country could outproduce the Germans with their smart industrial policy.
Russian industry was smart in other ways as well. The moving of factories from the west to Siberia, plus all transports of civilians, and all troop transports and logistics made the railroad network overloaded in 1941 and 1942. So it became an highly prioritzed issue to take the burden off the railway system so it wouldn't collapse in midst of all the critical battles for the survival of the country.
So Russia created new industrial cities, around mining areas. So iron could go directly to the steel works and then becoming a tank without having raw materials moved around back and fourth as much on the railway lines.
So with the war Russias military production became heavily concentrated around a few cities, and decline with the civilian sector during the war and the expansion of the military complex would change the face of Soviet economy forever. It was an excellent system for the war, but not for the peace.
Germanys industrial production was a bit of the opposite. Their tank designs war overly complex, and therefore expensive to build and demanding much workers and the monthly production output was low. The German Army put too high demands on minor unimportant details, that became costly and wasteful - I mean why build a component that can last for decades when German tank losses happens at the same phase as new tanks are being built??
And with all those complex designs, the German tanks often broke down because there was always some of the piece of the many components that wanted to mess things up. So impressive as the Panther tanks were, they were rarely on the battlefield but spent half of the time in repairshops. While Shermans and T-34 tanks were active for service for more than 80% of the time.
Germany also choosed to build a twin engined jet fighter instead of a single engined.. which is just another example of bad priorities - especiall for a counrt lacking rare earth metals for building durable engines.
The bad decisions are endless, and some of Speer's criticizm of Göring and SS was justified. The wasteful V-2 project should have been scrapped immiedtly for example, when Germanys needs were defensive weapons - like the surface to air missles project schmettelrng - and not militarily ineffective and uneconomic offensive weapons.
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Is it possible for the Japanese to defeat the allied Pacific?
No. The Americans were pissed off, and racist attitudes fueled the anger even further. And one just have to look at the production numbers to see how many much more carriers and other types of warships America built under the war, and then one should also remember that America also canceled many construction projects at the end of the war when victory seemed certain.. like for example the Montana Class battleship that have been mentioned.
America also built more warplanes in just one year than Japan did under the entire war.
And on top of all this was Japan involved in a meatgrinder in China, and at war with USSR, UK, Netherland, and Australia as well. The only advantages japan had was shinto and a little battle experince.
But America had the industrial and technological advantage, and soon also superior quality of the weaponsystems.
Japan managed to conquer the most resource rich area in the world with anything a large industry could ask for, but Japan didn't have any transport capacity to move all resources back to Japan. Their large merchant navy was too small for the task, and when the Army needed to get transported and supplied the strain on the transport capacity increased even further. And as ships got sunked by allied submarines and planes, the situation got unbearable. Japan could only transport the absolutly most important resources for their industry, and she was forced to abandon her imperialist-mercantilist trade policies designed to plunder her conquered provinces and outcompete their industries. Instead was Japan now forced to allow her colonies more independence, and open their own industries since the homeland could no longer supply them by sea, and they had to do their own foodproduction as well since nothing could be imported. And the inflation rose and causing harm.
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It depends on what type of Division (mountain troops, tanks, mechanized, infantry, motorized). And then it also depends on what year you talk about, since the German Army decided to make their Divisions smaller throughout the war. And also, Germany usally lost so many men between 1941 and the end of the war that most Divisions didn't have all manpower they were supposed to have.
Anyways, in 1939 did a German Division have 16.800 men. And in the later war years 12-14000 something I think.
So the size of a Division is often varied. In the late 1960s could an American Divison have more than 18.000 men while a Soviet had 13.000. Usally the number of men is between 10.000 and 20.000. And the firepower can be different between Divisions as well. An italian world war 2 divisons did not have much big guns and automatic weapons at all, while a German could be pretty powerful, and a french Division was something inbetween.
And to further confuse you more, so was not all men in a unit a man with a rifle in his hand.
For example, only 3000 out of the more than 10.000 men serving in the 173rd American Brigade in Vietnam was ready for combat, while the rest of the division was working in steakhouses and pizza huts, clubs headquarters, The Generals mess, artillery, engineers,
And when you also exclude people not directly assigned to combat roles such as guys who toted with radios, men who stayed back and typed, those who worked with the supplies of a company, or daily helicopter supply lifts... then you could only field about 800 men if you put all your five Battalions out to fight. So only about 6% of the men in Vietnam were combat personnel.
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Not at all. The corruption in Vietnam was immense, and Vietcong had no problems of buying all kinds of American weapons from the corrupt South Vietnamease ruling class, including M16 rifles, grenades, food rations, clothes, trucks, jeeps and even tanks and helicopters.
But even if huge amounts of M16 rifles was stockpiled, the Vietnamease prefered to not use them. Partially because they wanted as few ammo types as possible to carry along the Ho-Chi Minh trail for logistical reasons, and partially also because the M16 sucked compared to the AK47.
When your M16 starts to jam in the middle of a fire fight you don't wanna to have to take it apart and clean it, simply because you often don't have the time to. Shell casing overexpanded when fired and did not eject to clear the chamber for the next round. Marine Tim Holmes said: "One of our dudes got hurt. His rifle fired a round and then it didn't eject it. The shell expanded and then it pushed another one right in there and it blew up. He was all bloody; that was our first casualty. You see, M16's jam a lot. You're firing maybe two magazines real fast so it's hot as hell."
Some soliders wrote their congressmen and senators " ´We left with 250 men in our company and came back with 107. Practically every one of our dead was found with a rifle torn down next to him."
A marine wrote to Senator Gaylord Nelson " The weapon has failed us at crucial moments when we needed fire power most. In each case, it left Marines naked against their enemy. Often, and this is no exaggeration, we take counts after each fight, as many as 50% of the rifles fail to work. I know atleast two Marines who died within 10 feet of the enemy with jammed rifles."
Conclution: M16 was a weapon for the benifit of the weapons manufacturer Colt, and the Army officers who lobbied to approve it. They didn't have to deal with this malfunctioning weapon in combat unlike, hundreds or even thousands of American and South Vietnamease troops who lost their lives because of it. It was a weapon for the economic interests not the soliders.
Congressman Richard Ichord's committee discovered that the army knowingly let Colt Firearms test the weapons and pass army design criteria using ammo specified by designer George Stoner rather than ammo the army procured in Vietnam.
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how effective are military helicopters in general
Everything is relative I guess. In a military budget I would give them a pretty low priority on my wish list compared to other weapon systems, I don't think they are the most bang for the buch even if I think ambulance helicopters could be valuble.
The problems with helicopters in Vietnam were many. They couldn't carry a heavy load, and because of that their armour protection was crap and a single rifle bullet in the hydralics system could make this expensive machine go down along with men inside, they wasn't too suited to Vietnams weather and terrain, and when they landed their winds blow up wood and rocks and that shortened the lifespan if the propeller significantly.
And even if the idea of putting a force behind the enemy and smash him in an encirclement sounds great in theory, it seems like not much was done in Vietnam. And helicopters aren't much flexible as one might think either, they can't just put down men and supplies everyware but they need landing zones. And then you often want it to be close enough to your own artillery.
And when you found a spot, it could be dangerous to get there. Because the enemy aren't idiots, they know that there is only a very limited number of places where you are likely to land your helicopters. And as I said, it doesn't take much to shot down a helicopter. So therefore the Americans started using attack helicopters and prop planes to protect the landing and helicopters. But the Vietcong also learn the standardized procedures used by America in the video above.
And when you finally put down some troops, its likely that it is a limited operation since the carrying capacity of the helicopters are limited.
So what do I think about helicopters nowadys? I guess daisycutters have helped creating landing zones easier, I guess new technologies doesn't limit operations to daylight and good weather as much as before, and that helicopters are a bit stronger now so they could carry more. And instead of huey gunships, there are real attack helicopters nowadays. So helicopters have certainly improved.
But on the other hand, fact remains that they are expensive and weak and could be easily shot down by cheap weapons. And the ability to carry heavy equipment is severly limited. So I don't think they are a war winning weapon.
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Japan had 0% chance of win a war against USA. And Germany had their odds stacked against them. Maybe theres a slim chance that they could have won if they had taken Caucausus so Russia would have lost both 90% of their oil production as well as their black sea fleet and industrial capacity, while the Germans would have gained oil, self-suffiency in food production, plus secure a safe traderoute for their Turkish chrome, and gained other resources as well such as coal and timber and political prestige.
Not only would such a blow be devestating to the Russian economy at the moment in its most critical moment. It would also open up strategic possibilites. Germany could then attack Persia, or launch stratigic bombing against Russian industry in the Ural mountains, or use the Russian weakness to push deeper into Russia, or use the time to push back the western allies so they later could get free hands to deal with the Russians.
The problem with all "what if's" is that you get no line to draw when the scenario becomes too unrealistic. I don't fully believe the situation of a German Stalingrad victory would be fully as optimistic as I written above, but all things said is still possible, and the situation after a German victory would nonetheless be very problematic for the allies.
Furthermore, all "what ifs" are endless and when you add them up you can always get the conclution you want; what if the Germans not only invented SAM-systems, what if Germany had access to more resources so their steel quality didn't turn into shit? what if Germany didn't had wasted men in the battle of Moscow, Rhzev, and evacuated the Afrika Korps, and never launched the Arracourt offensive or the armour offensives at Budapest and the Ardennes, and made an organized retreat in Belorussia instead of having army group Mittle destroyed? Would the Germans been better off if they had taken Malta? What if Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain and Finland had contributed more into the war effort?
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"why logistics would be different of industry?"
Well for me logistics is different for the military and the private sector since they got many different goals and act differently to certain situations. Soliders isn't robots, but human beings that can't be massproduced in a month, and stored on shelf for months without maintance.
And while a car manufacturer wanna have as small inventory as possible to avoid unnessary production costs and avoid waste, a General rather wants as big inventory for a campaign.. just in case things doesn't go as planned. Running out of ammo at the start of a battle would just be the worst imaginable nightmare possible.
And having a slimmed organization might be the optimal for a car factory, in order to produce a car with the fewest number of workers possible.
But having a slimmed organization with the bare minimum of men for supplying and army would be a very bad idea, since even the tinyest problem could throw all timetables overboard for the entire organization since there are no extra manpower to fullfill the tasks that needs to be done in time.
And meanwhile you are losing time, the enemy gets more time to make counter-moves. Dig himself down and laying mines if he is defending... or perhaps he gets some extra time to escape being catched in a pocket, or perhaps he gets a chance to encircle your entire army thanks to all logistical caos.
Lean production/New public Management is a shitty way of organizing things in areas demanding well supplied inventories, a plenty of personel, and a good access to your supplies.
Effectivisations such as "minimal waste" and getting rid of "unecessary workers", would just be counterproductive for the effectiveness of an Army.
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The Germans fought hard in 1945 despite everything was lost. In world war 2 documentaries there are many allied solidiers saying fightning got much harder when the allies started to penetrate German land, and the German solidiers fought much harder when there was no more step back to take, because now the fighting was about protecting the holy German soil - and many solidiers even made suicidal attacks if that could benifit the German cause.
And according to my limited knowledge so was it the same case for Japan. Okinawa was considered holy Japanease land by the defending troops, and the battle became one of the bloodiest for the Americans during the entire war.
The military leadership would probably be ruthless in mobilizing everything for the war. But they would have many disadvantages on their side, since the Americans controlled the sky and sea, and Japan had lost all her imports from once mighty empire, most of her fleet laid at the bottom of the see, and skilled pilots had been lost.
80% of the infrastructure and 80% of the transport ships had been lost. Cities laid in rubble after bombraids even before the atomic bombs, and the firebombing raids killed even more people than the nukes.
China, USSR, Britain and USA stood against a broken Japan. And this was a war that never could have been won anyways, even if Japan had sunk every US ship at the battle of Midway without any own losses.
I usally think people exaggerate the importance of industrial might and numbers in wars - but this war is one exception because the American advantage was so crushingly strong from the start.
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Germany needed food, oil, steel and aluminium for a pro-longed war, and just sitting and doing nothing would give allies the upper hand as they outproduce Germany.
And falling back and making the front shorter would have saved up German troops for other uses, but on the other hand would the enemy be able to do the same, so no real advantages would have been gained by falling back.
During the first months alone of Operation Barbarossa did the German army crush over 150 Russian Divisions, and yet had intellligence observed that the Russians did possess atleast 150 more Divisions. So the decision to take Southern Russia instead of Moscow did make sense, since crushing the industrial war potential of an enemy could have brought the Russians to their knees just as in World War 1.
It would also provide Germany with raw materials, industrial capacity, food, territory to launch bombers on the Ural mountains, crushing the Black Sea Fleet and thereby securing the Black Sea chrome trade with Turkey... as well as bringing in Political Presitige and threatening the middle east with German troops, air attacks and support for rebel groups.
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German automotive sector was too small in world war I... I have a vague memory that they only built 40k trucks under that war, while the allies made half a million, but I can be wrong. When Germany industrialized under the Kaiserreich, they did so by having cartels and a heavily involved state, and this continued in the Weimar period where some ineffiecent companies were kept alive, and the regime didn't make full use of the structural rationalization in 1920s like in other countries.
And the problem persisted as well with the first years with the nazis in power, because the aim of the nazi regime was job creation and not introduction of laboursaving effiecent production technics... mainly because Germany had 6 million openly unemployed when Hitler took power, and the regime had to get rid of massunemplyement quick if the nazi regime would have any chance to survive even in the short run.
So Germany lagged behind America in productioneffiecency. And the victories in the west in 1940 gave Germany so many dutch and french trucks plus the entire british expeditionary forces park of vehicles that Germany felt no pressing need to fix their low production output.
So besides all foreign trucks the German Army used that they would get problems with finding spare parts to, they would also have the problems with standardization of parts that the trucks german military truck manufacturers used (such as Opel, MAN, Hansa-Llyod Goliath, Phänomen, Henchel, Borgward, Büssing Nag, Ford, Krupp, Daimler).
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Things that annoys me:
-Ridiculus political assumptions in a game... like in Hearts of Iron when you control the entire UK plus a million provinces and the country still refuses to surrender because you havn't taken some bullshit province in far east Asia where the new capital is located.
And the Soviet Union sooner or later always attacks Germany... which I think is stupid. Since I think a Russian attack was unlikely in real life.
-Too many sci-fic units. When a game like panzer corps adds in some exprimental units to spice up the game it can be fun, but at some time its stop being a real world war 2 game, when most units are Maus, tortoise and IS3 tanks, and amerika bombers are dominating the skies.
- The stupid AIs in hearts of Iron that puts 100 divisions into Washington DC, and then you can wipe them all out with an atom bomb.
- The total lack of logistics which takes away any realism in any game. You cannot form a kettle to starve out an army, or having it suffer attrition by a long march through lands without resources.
- The inability of a game like Hearts of Iron to just make you able to temporarily demobilize your panzer divisions so they don't suck up supplies. It feels pretty dumb and unfair to having to delete your divisions completly and then rebuild them again and train the manpower.
In a realistic world I would just send the men home for a while until they are needed and the unit would be activated again. OR I would just transfer my veteran troops to the infantry so it could keep full combat strenght.
- Another system is production of units, which in itself needs technology, money, production capacity, manhours of work, inputs of resources... and an endless number of other factors.
But I can be satisfied with a simple system of purchasing price only, but when the price system is unbalanced the game play can get messed up. For example, in Panzer General II a german tank on average costed about 400 prestige... while a russian t-34 tank literarly costed 0 credits to buy. So even if you inflicted 10 times higher losses on the enemy, he could still throw endless numbers of tanks against you.
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73tons is food for lots of people when each person only eat 100g per day.
Paulus surrendered his army on the promise that his men would be feed if they surrendered - and the Russians agreed to those terms, but never cared to fullfill their promise so most of the 6th Army died.
So had the German planes delievered food instead of letters, then the German soliders probably would have been better off. Atleast they would enjoy a last meal before their end in Russian hands.
My priority would have been food first, ammo second and letters 3rd, winter cloth 4th, medical supplies and spareparts 5th, fuel 6th, and useless junk (old newspapers, barbed wire, pepper, pocketbooks, false collars, shoe laces) on 7th place on my priority list.
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