Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Sun Tzu's Art of War - Revisited - Chapter 2: Waging War" video.

The Russians wasn't so interested in building tanks that could take out other tanks from long ranges, so they rather massproduced tanks with less quality and less precision of the guns and having gun sights that leaked in dust. 85mm and 122mm guns became standard, because the russians had made tests firing all their guns on a captured Tiger tank and concluded that only the 85mm Anti-aircraft gun and the 122mm field gun could penetrate it. And russians designers also liked the idea of making tanks compact and small so armour thickness in millimeters increased without adding extra weight, and the tanks would also be harder to detect and a smaller target to hit, but the disadvantage with low cost compact tanks is that when it gets a penetrating hit, it will become very hard for the crew to abandon the crampy tank. -- Germans was a people of perfection, so they were building tanks complex high quality tanks that could take out the enemy from long ranges so they didn't have to risk their few expensive machines. The Germans had problems dealing with KV1 and t-34 on the Russian front, so they decided to put a longer gun barrel on the PanzerIV tank. So the replaced the old 75mm L24 gun with the longer 75mm L48 gun, with gave the tank better ability to deal with tanks, because a long gun barrel gives more muzzle velocity - and when the bullet flies faster it can go through more millimeters of armour. And another advantage with long gun barrels is that they have better precision. So when the Panther tank came, it had a very long 75mm L70 gun with amazing capabities and it could penetrate any allied tank on the battlefield. The gun was extremely accurate and the gun sights was also best of any tank in the war. But the disadvantage of having a long thin gun instead of a short fat, is that the shot you fire doesn't contain much explosives, so they aren't as effective when firing on soft targets such as footsolidiers, trucks and buildings. And the 88mm guns had been in use the entire war, since the 88mm anti-aircraft guns had proven themselves as excellent as dealing with enemy aricrafts, but also good at taking about enemy tanks from long ranges, and sometimes the guns was also used as artillery support. And in 1941 the Germans meet superior russian tanks that was hard to knock out for all German weapons - but the 88mm anti-aircraft gun. So it was decided that new German tanks would be constructed with this gun. And 2 variants of this gun was under development, and one was longer than the other. The Tiger tank got the shorter 88mmL56 gun, which was an excellent gun, since anti-aircraft guns are designed to reload fast and the velocity of the shots is very high because you need lots of speed to throw up a bullet thousands of meters up into heaven - but that good velocity also means that anti-aircraft guns are excellent in penetration armour. The Nashorn got the other gun (88mmL71) which was even longer and more powerful. The Nashorn could snipe and kill tanks at distances almost comparable to modern tanks. The gun was rapid firing, accurate, had extremly good penetration, and eventhough the caliber was smaller than some Russian guns, so was it still a monster in 1942-43 when the best allied tanks only had a 75mm caliber. And later on would the Jagdpanther and the King Tiger also be given the same gun, while the JagdpanzerIV was given the same gun as Tiger I (88mL56), or the same gun as the panther (75mmL70).
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*Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Greaber The parts of the audiobook can often be found on youtube.. but it is a long book, so I don't think you will be able to hear everything of it unless you buy it.
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The war in Vietnam lasted more than 3 decades. The war on Ireland lasted for decades. The war in Angola too. And the kurds, chechens, afghans and palestinias are fighting on. And relations aren't that good in Korea or between India and Pakistan. Colombia is another long war...... well I guess there are even more examples than I know of.
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David Graeber debt the last 6000years
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Germanys blitkriegs, the six day war, Russias rolling into Georgia, Operation Iraqi freedom, and the falklands war didn't last long.
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"You get your professional troops, and they are the shock troops, the basic of your army. If you lose them, you lose the war, because all the other troops are green." Leibstandarde was wiped out three times over before the war was lost. The Russians lost 150 Divisions in 1941 and had their entire air force destroyed the 2 first weeks of the war and made a comeback. The Romans lost 3 huge armies against Hannibal but later on won the war against Hannibal. And I don't see why things should have changed now in modern days. Furthermore, I don't see why must have elite troops in one unit, and unexperienced concripts in another unit. I would simply mix them, so my experienced men can teach the newbies some tricks and help them planning attacks and organizing good defensive positions, where terrain and prepared can compensate for other shortcomming. Much like how green german troops led by experienced front veterans managed to lock in a 8-fold stronger enemy in Normandy for 2 months despite crushing superiority for the allies in airpower, tanks and supplies. The Germans could probably have held out entire 1944 if Hitler hadn't launched his stupid offensive. So green troops can achieve wonders if they are well led.
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The Tiger I gun had a muzzle velocity of 810 meters per second. According to a Swedish magazine of military history. http://www.pennanochsvardet.se/militarhistoria/militara-artiklar/pansar/tiger-i And this is said about Panzer IV: "The real boost came with Ausf F2 which was equipped with a newly developed 75-mms gun with a long barrel, KwK40 L/43, which gave it a much better impact than its predecessor. It fired a 6.8 kg projectile that could penetrate 99mm angled armor from 1000 meters." http://www.pennanochsvardet.se/militarhistoria/militara-artiklar/pansar/panzer-iv And regarding the King Tiger: "The new cannon could with a standard armor grenade hit through 132 mm 30-degree angled armor plate at 2000 meters!" http://www.pennanochsvardet.se/militarhistoria/militara-artiklar/pansar/tiger-ii--kungstigern
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I guess there are many differences now. Especially logisticswise with all combustion engines, railways, massproduced arms, and food that can last for years on a shelf. But media and demographics is also different. And the cost of war have increased according to some: "Lowell Limpus says that it cost Caesar about 75 cents to kill an enemy in his day. Napoleon almost bankrupted France because it cost a fraction under $3,000 to kill an enemy in his day. The World War ran the cost up to $1,000 per dead solider, and it is estimated that before the present conflicts ends it will have risen to $50,000." And also ammunition consumption has risen dramatically. On average it took 400 rounds to hit an enemy under Napoleons days, and "In Would War II, the United States and its allies expended 25,000 rounds of ammunition to kill a single enemy soldier. In the Korean War, the ammunition expenditure had increased four-fold to 100,000 rounds per soldier; in the Vietnam War, that figure had doubled to 200,000 rounds of ammunition for the death of a single enemy soldier."
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Germany and Sweden also needed quick wars. Germany could win a two front war so it needed to win fast at one front and then move all forces over to the other fron in order to win. Unlike Russia who got lots of land, or Switzerland with good defensive terrain with mountains or the dutch with their rivers... Germany never had natural obstacles, and they were always surrounded by powerful enemies, Like mongols, or Frenchmen, Swedes or Russians...and the powerful coalitions that Prussia fought against proved the need of mobile warfare. Sweden also needed a fast war. It was not a Great power of Europe, but rather a regional Great power of Northern Europe. And it wasn't a country with much money or manpower, so a long war against a real Great Power like the Holy Roman Empire or Russia would be hard to win. So the solution became to finance the upkeep of the relativly large army with the plundering of enemy lands. And output of food per square mile of farmland was low in Northern Europe, so Armies had to move fast from one area to another in order to not run out of food. So depending on the quality of the soil, the tempo of changed. So when the Swedish Army fought in rich Germany in the 1600s the speed of movement wasn't as fast as when the Swedish Army fought in poor Poland during the Great Northern war.
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Sweden continued to roll around in Germany and into Bohemia under skilled commanders such as Lennart Torstensson and Johan Banér. And after Adolphus death Sweden would win large amounts of territory at the treaty of Brömsebro 1645 and the treaty of Roskilde 1658. And Sweden continued to have one of the best (if not the best) and most modern armies in Europe until the end of the Great Northern war. Sweden alone stood against Denmark, Saxony, Poland and Russia.. and managed to defeat the three first of them, and gave the Russians a pretty hard nosebleed at Narva in year 1700, but of course, invading Russia during the winter never ends well... Just ask Napoleon and Hitler, they know. But after 1720 there was no weapons glory. So our army got much to be proud of, and togheter with England do it have some of the oldest regiments in the world. Unfortunatly did our navy totally suck and with the exception of the battle of Svensksund 1790, it never seemed able to win a battle during all hundreds of years.
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