Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Sun Tzu's Art of War #1 Estimates - Revisited" video.
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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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"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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Germany had fought against almost the entire world alone for 4 years. Its really nothing strange with them running out of manpower and exhausting every other resource.
The Austrians sucked, and the Ottomans sucked as well. So Germany had to carry the team to victory alone, and it might actully have succeded with their great army, if they had not been stupid enough to getting USA involved.. and when America sent hundreds of thousands of troops each month the war got lost.
Germany had no tanks, almost no trucks, no men, their traitorous allies was about leaving Germany... so the situation was bad despite all victories and having knocked out Serbia, Romania, Italy and Russia alone, and having signed a harsh peace treaty and getting promised food deliveries from conquered land in the east.
If America didn't had joined the war things could have ended very differently. The British army wasn't feeling to happy either after Somme and all else, but it was still a force to be reckon with. But the Belgian army was almost knocked out in 1914. While the French army had suffered terribly in 1914 as the entire German army pushed on them in early 1914... and making mass charges with bayonettes in old colourful uniforms costed enormous amounts of french lives.
The germans tried to crush France again later in the battle of Verdun which ended in a costly draw for both sides. And the battle might perhaps been the most awful battle in human history, and 80% of the french army fought there.. and collected traumas and terrible memories.
And in 1917 was the Nivelle offensive launched... and the french once again lost huge numbers of men, and the soliders started a strike and refused to obey their officers when they wanted to make stupid attacks, but they promised to fight bravely to defend their country. However, the Germans strangely enough never heard about the strike... and if they had, it might very well have ended the war, as the Germans would just had launched an attack against the french and crushed everything that was left of France's will to fight.
And in 1918, Germany might very well had crushed the French army as well.
In 1918 the odds were even between the allies and the centralpowers. But Americas entry into the war tipped the balance so hard in favour for the allies that Germany was doomed to fail.
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