Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Military History not Visualized"
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@Dreachon As I said I think the term is vague, dumb and useless.
Both a M-1 Abrams on 73 tonnes and a Russian T-80 on 40 tonnes are MBTs according to most people despite they are very different tanks intended to be used in very different ways. People like to call Hetzer and the S-tank for tank destroyers, but to others they are called tanks - the S-tank was intended to be used as a tank by the Swedish army (whatever that means) and Hetzer got pressed into a tank role the last years of the war when there was not enough real tanks to fill all Germanys needs.
As I sees it did the Panther fulfill all the data requirments people have have on a MBT. And it was also used both to fight heavy tanks, medium tanks and to deal with infantry. Its wide tracks gave it the ability to use all kinds of terrain which gave it more flexiblity than other tanks including the lighter panzer IV which more easily got stuck in snow and mud. The only real disadvantage it had compared to them in terms of mobility was its weight which could prevent it from using many bridges.
Anyways, I think the concept of one tank doing all tasks on a battlefield is incorrect. If that was true then we would not see the development of AMX13, Bulldog, or Sheridan I guess. And when abrams weights over 70 tonnes I don't think one can say that heavy tanks have left the battlefield either.
It is however true that medium tanks have taken over much of the roles that other types of tanks previously hold. But I guess that some of it have to do with budget constraints, priorities and logistics. Maybe developing a new heavy tank was not as much a priority as during the war.
And the need for turretless tanks (like SU100, Jagdpanther) have totally disapeared after the war. But I guess that have to do with the preference for building tanks instead of trying to build powerful turretless tanks whos big advantage lies in mass production, short production time, low costs and powerful guns.
I do however think this type of tank could make a comeback if a major war with China or Russia was started and something like a modern ISU-152 monster would be needed to take out the heavily protected Armata tanks until the west could come up with a compareable tank of their own.
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The Russian Tsars were wasting lives equally ruthless as Stalin. Ordering "enemy at the gates" styles of attacks in world war 1. And soldiers were wasted in large amounts in the pointless Crimean war the same way as they are today.
Ever since Russia became a great power during the Great Northern War have Russia wasted lives in the most pointless and stupid of ways. Can someone explain to me how the hell its even physically possible to lose during the age of muskets and bayonets when you have a 6 to 1 advantage in manpower, and manage to get 1500 of your own men killed and only manage to kill 40 enemies? (like Russia did in the battle in Saločiai in 1703.)
The Russian military have always sucked and been incompetent and the rulers of Russia have been cruel and tyrannical.
And sure this tactic did often pay off. Russia could defeat Swedes, Persians, Prussians, Finns, Nazis, Chechens, and Georgians with endless human wave assaults and destroy the opponent by attrition and win despite having a terrible kill ratio. However Russia today with its low birthrates can no longer expect to win with such tactics. Ever since the industrial revolution has the country been lagging behind technologically after the rest of Europe. In the Crimean war for example could not all russian troops be properly armed. And many was forced to wear muskets from the mid and early 1700s when they were fighting against France and Britains modern weapons.
The Russian military was of course technologically backwards also long before then, but the technolocial gap was less serious back in the early 1700s. The Russian and the Swedish armies were the last European armies to employ pikemen, and both used heavy outdated muskets. But despite that was the Swedish army still consider the best in Europe, as it have superb tactics built around those old weapons and having a heavy musket was considered an advantage in bayonet fighting as you were less likely to have your musket stuck inside the ribs in some enemies body - which would render it unusable if that happened.
I think birthrates was an important factor behind the tactics European powers employed in the world wars. In world war 1 did Russia have the largest army in the world, and not only that, it also had a gigantic manpower reserve of 26 million men.
No other country in the world could ever hope to defeat such a big army on its own. Not even Germany which also had a large army and the 2nd largest manpower reserve in the world numbering 6 million.
But fortunatly for Germany, was Russia a 3rd world country with no industrial base so it could not produce much weapons and ammunition, so Russia was unable to transform 26 million men into soldiers. The allies hoped that they could sail through the black sea and handover tonnes of French and British rifles and ammunition. But the failure to cross Turkish waters and the failed battle at Galliopoli put an end to such dreams.
I world war 2 was the lend lease help more succesful. And Russia could afford to lose over 20 million lives and still be able to defeat Germany. Much of the high losses was due to bad leadership of course. But Russia could afford to pay that price for victory, and Stalin was ruthless enough to try.
Hitler was also a bloodthirsty dictator, but he knew that he did not have as many people as Russia to waste in a power. So he could not afford to be equally reckless as the Russians if he wanted to win. But on the other hand was Germany fighting a war against the clock, and time was not on Germanys side so risk taking and acceptance of losses was therefore higher in the German army than in the western allied armies. Germany also had a large population and high birthrates in the late 1800s and early 1900s so it had more men that it could afford to waste in a war than say France.
And after catastrophically high losses France suffered in 1914, was the consensus in France that the country never again wanna go through the same thing ever again. So the Maginot line and digging in and keeping losses at a minimum by well defended fortified positions therefore made sense.
USA did have much industrial might backing its military so it could afford to beat its enemies with firepower, and in a war of attrition did America have the upper hand so it did not feel any hurry. Nor did it fight outnumbered like the Germans who had to hurry defeating one enemy, so it could quickly turn to fighting another one before it would be stuck in war at all fronts and lose the iniative to the enemy, and the enemy would choose the location for all the future battles.
America did however fight a world war, and an existential struggle during the world wars so the tolarance for human losses were much higher than it was in more limited wars that came after it such as the Korean war and Vietnam.
And since those wars were not about life and death, were the publics acceptance for human losses much lower. But on the other hand could America compensate for this to some degree with technological superiority and massive firepower.
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""State budget" Is actually something that was literally invented during the 18th Century"
Fair enough. But fact still remains that most countries/states or whatever we should call them, were mostly focused on warfare back in the days. The state was a military state. And military spending was the main purpose of having a government.
So was total war in that sense a new thing invented by the French? not really.
If one looks at for example the industrial revoultion in Germany (or Prussia to be more precise) one could see that their manufacturing sector was largely based around military industry such as textiles, ironworks and cannon foundries. And Prussia was far from alone. Sweden also prioritized the iron and copper mines for both military and economic reasons. And it had also copied the Navigation acts that Cromwell in England had introcuded (which was a law that said that goods could only be transported on ships with 25% foreigners in the crew or less), so the maritime policies were both protectionist and helping the military needs of a nation.
Since the need for transport ships increased, and as the merchant navy grew, more ships could be converted into military warships in times of war. And more experienced sailors stood at the disposal of the navy. And the civilian shipbuilding industry could be used for making warships.
So in a way, was most countries kind of military societies.
"Also conscription was something practised not super uncommonly by minor powers, Florence did it too for example, when people (and I) talk of "Modern State" and "Total War" they are talking about the Power of the State to coerce people into doing it's willing, even Frederick II's Prussia couldn't achieve the power of the French State during the revolution and the Empire. (To this, the higher calling of Nationalism was crucial.)"
France was the most populated and rich country in Europe, so duh, of course no other country could compete with it in terms of military strenght. Would Poland be able to win a war against China today? nope. And it doesn't matter how effective they would be using their resources, because they would never be able to field an army comparable to the Chinease.
But what we are talking about here is innovations. And the French conscription was in my opinion nothing revolutionary. Other countries like Prussia had it too before the French did.
"To this, the higher calling of Nationalism was crucial"
It is true that solidiers will probably remain more loyal when they are fighting for something they love, rather than being coerced into something. Just like conscripts in western armies were less likely to surrender than Russians during world war 2.
But in the end I would say that conscription is the same thing as coercion to a certain degree. And the loyality of the troops could take many other forms than simply nationalism. Fredericks solidiers might have been fighting out of love and loyalty for their monarch. Some might had religious reasons to fight for their protestant king against catholic Austrians. Some might have fought for their comrades in their comrades in the regiment.
And Frederick and many other monarchs liked to crack down upon the opressive noblemen, which might have given him love from the poorer classes. So I don't think that all monarchys was the same.
If you had a country ruled by opressive noblemen, then of course the average solidier couldn't care less about fighting bravely to protect it.
The French of course had their nationalism and their "freedom, equality and brotherhood". So it might have seen like an more appealing alternative to the opressive serfdom regimes in those days.
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"Total war is not a government developing all of it's resources towards a military goal, that is rather common in history. Total war is a COUNTRY developing all of it's resources towards a military goal, every citizen, every artisan."
There is not much difference in my opinion. The military state was pretty much the norm, with most of the taxes going to the military.
And as far as I know would not a single regime in history fit into the latter definition if it would be strictly followed. Not even nazi-Germany would spend more than 80% of its GDP on winning the war, while poorer farming economies would have been much less able to reach anyware near that high number due to the low productivity in agriculture and industry.
There is always dilemmas to be done should a man go into the army, or should he make food for the army?
Should the limited supply of nitrates be used for explosives or for fertilizer to feed the army and workers?
The closest example I could think of reaching this criteria would be Paraguay which lost 90% of its male population in a war. But since its not 100% I guess that not even that extreme example would count.
"The power to coerce people, to obtain legitimacy, and rally a country around a single goal. Prussia was actually in the process of developing this kind of Power, but it REALLY only obtained it through the struggles of the Napoleonic Wars."
I don't see why Napoleon was an innovator in this field. He built large armies but so did the Austrians, Prussians, Russians and Ottomans. Even the greedy corrupt and hated Mughal government of the 1600s could mobilize armies of hundreds of thousands of men with fire arms and war elephants. And China also had a huge army.
And when it comes to legitmacy, I would say that a King only responsible to God would have much higher status than a non-noble simple italian in France who only made a succesful career thanks to the political caos. No one would rival the crown of Frederick or CharlesXII. But Napoleon had many rivals and backstabbers.
There was much civilian reforms and collection of data under Napoleon. But on the other hand were Gustavus Adolphus and Frederick the Great also way ahead of their time when it came to building modern effiecent buraucracies.
And the industrial revolution and nationalism were just in their early stages in the early 1800s, and would have to wait until the late 1800s before they could bloom. But nationalism also existed before Napoleon as well, and many letters have been preserved of Swedish solidiers in the 1600s and early 1700s talking about their worries about their fatherland - a hardly uncommon feeling among other European countries.
And a french style mass army were considered a wonderful idea by the democratic nationalist movement in Germany which wanted to transition to a huge Landwher army. But the Conservatives were skeptical, not only were they not unskeptical towards democracy and pan-Germanism, but they were also opposed to the idea of an army of badly trained idealistic German students for other reasons. And the Prussian military disliked the idea since they thought that it would be a very ineffective force on the battlefield and take high losses.
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"Modern State, Check, Nationalism, Check ... Administrative Efficiency is also another pre-requisite to conduct total war, but you absolutely need Nationalism, and France was the first country to weaponize Nationalism."
The motto "Pro gloria et Patria" were written on Prussian military flags also before the Napoleon age. Why? Because nationalism was weaponized even before the Napoleon wars.
And what defines a modern state with effiecent administration is a subjective opinion. And one could argue that Napoleon created a modern state with his law code (code Napoleon) that is still used in many countries (in an updated form). But on the other hand could one say that Frederick's government was more revolutionary and modern in many other ways - he went very far in freedom of speech and freedom of religion. He created the modern bureaucracy which were upheld as the ideal by Max Weber and it was also admired by non-Germans. And the Prussian education system would out-live Frederick the great and it would be copied by America, Sweden, Japan and other countries, and one can say that it was a pre-modern system not much different from the one Finland have - which is considered the to have best education system in the world today.
"On German example, by rallying to a common goal, it is not meant to mean that 80%+ of a countries economic activity is military production (Such a country would probably starve). But that all economic activity is geared toward the war, peasants eat merely what is absolutely necessary and send the rest to the army, rations are instituted, shops are closed, scientific research is all geared toward war, every aspect of civilian life is engulfed by War."
And once again we are then seeing that the governments of the pre-Napoleon times were military states.
Why did Sweden suffer from terrible famines in the late 1600s that was so severe that it would kill large parts of the Swedish population including a third of the population in Finland?
Professors in economic history like Lars Magnusson, argues that this was because the Swedish government had taxed so hard throughout the 1600s to pay for all wars that people had no money left for investments in agriculture. Every economic surplus no matter how small had been confiscated by the government. So when a bad harvest struck there was no resource reserves which could be tapped.
So if turning all the resources towards the war effort is the definition of a total war. Then Sweden of the 1600s would certainly qualify. The 1600s was a violent terrible century and I would guess that most other countries had the same problems.
"Is less persuasive than, telling the same man, that he is the inheritor of a glorious imaginary history, part of an imaginary group of people, that are intrinsically different than other groups, and that that group needs his service... But again, the French Revolution was the very first time this idea was used to conduct something like Total War."
Patriotism perhaps played a larger role in the Napoleon wars than in most earlier wars. But the differences with other ages should not be exaggerated either. Nationalism had existed before the French revolution. And nor did people stop fighting for other reasons (like God or serving the emperor of Habsburg) with the arrival of Napoleonic nationalism.
Furthermore was Nationalism was still far from a finished product during the Napoleon age. For example only a few percent of the Italians spoke pure Italian when the country was unified in 1861. And General Lee identityfied himself more with his own home province Virginia than his own country USA.
And it probably reached its peak in the first world war, and the decades before and after it. It was not until the the 1860s and 1870s Germany and Italy was created. And it was not until this time that most countries began using their current national anthems. And child labour was not abolished until the late 19th century and replaced with public education that would teach kids to be proud of the glorious past of their country and learn them all stories of benevolent kings of the past. And the race to colonizing the world took off with a speed like never before as North America, Asia and Africa fell under western rule.
And it was in time period that people had consumed so much nationalism by litterature, music, flag waving, military parades and propaganda that they got drunk and crazy and felt joy about joining the first world war - a totally unnecessary war, which could have been avoided.
But neighter Russia or Germany could accept demobilizing and seem weak in 1914, because that would hurt the national prestige too much, so a war with millions of dead instead became the result.
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"I actually have no idea why you mention Napoleon specifically. I include Imperial France because to a large extent it continued the policies implemented during the Republic. It was the Republicans that "first surrendered go madness".
I call it all the Napoleon age simply for the sake of simplicity. I know that the Napoleon wan't just there to take over same day the French revolution happened and that many other men ruled France before he grabbed power.
"I think you have the misconception that you need to be rich to institute Total War. You dont. The USSR pursued total, by abandoning the cosmopolitanism of Marxism and embracing Nationalism."
A poor country can never mobilize its economy for war to the same extent as a rich. That's a fact. If you have many tractors on the farms and machines in the factories you send more men away to the frontline. That is simple to get.
So a poor country that is waging war and trying as much it can to win the war, will still not be very effective in turning its resources towards fighting the war.
Tsarist Russian in the first world war is an example of this, just as Sweden during the 1600s. Both those regimes were trying to fight a total and it ended up with huge costs for the home front.
And since Sweden and other countries could wage a total war before the 1800s, then that concept is very old indeed. The 1600s was a brutal age with 30 years war and the deluge in Poland. the English Civil War, the Fronde, the English Civil war and so on. Sweden 66 years in war that century against Russians, Danes, Poles, Austrians, Brandenburgers, Spain, Bavaria, Norway and probably much more places. And the French list are probably not any shorter since Sweden and France were allies.
So its not strange that not only economies, but entire societies of this time was built around the needs of the military.
"France emerged after the Congress of Vienna as powerful as before the Revolution... It was Nationalism as an idea that become enemy"
France wasn't slaughtered because revanchism and destroying the balance of power in Europe would probably just have created more problems than it would solve for the victors. Metternich was a true consvervative and in his dreams France would become and old feudal monarchy again.
The old nobility and kings and such didn't like the new popular nationalist ideas that much, because they created problems. Slavic nationalism created problems in Prussia and Austria. And peoples demands for a unififed Germany would mean that the German states would have to unify under one monarch. But neighter the mighty Prussia or the mighty Austria would accept to revoke their claims to the leadership of this new empire. Another problem with the nationalist movement was that it was democratic, while the Conservative junkers wanted to keep the old order. The nationalists were also disturbing the public order and beahaving badly and intolerant towards minorities - which they thought should be forced to assimilate. While the Conservatives were more tolerant.
And much of this inner struggles were kept alive after world war 1. The German officer corps were mcuh Conservative and prefered the old monarchy over the democratic Weimar Republic. While nationalists were whiny about the bruden of the Versaille treaty. And then came Hitler and merged the worst the worst parts of those movements - the contempt for democracy he got from the junkers, and the intolerance towards minorities he got from the nationalists....
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@j k
"Doctrine? UKs was a full mechanised force with infantry support. German tanks were mostly breakthrough but USSR didn't have infantry support and were doctrinaly not efficient during the reearmiment."
No. Most German tanks were NOT breaktrough tanks. Germany only had very few Panzer IV tanks in 1940, and even fewer in 1939 while most of the tanks in the panzer divisions were crappy light PanzerII tanks.
And even after the fall of France and all the leftover tanks the French had that the Germans could use, the Germans still choosed to use mostly old panzerII tanks when they invaded Russia in 1941.
And in late 1942 did the Tiger enter service, but only 1300 were built compared to 6000 Panther medium tanks.
Otherwise I think you are somewhat correct in the other things that you said. Germany had much to learn from the Russians about tank design for winning wars. It is pointless to make high quality components that will have a much longer lifespan than the average lifespan of a tank... I mean why use expensive building material and waste hours on building a super engine that will last for 30 years, if the tank is 90% likely to being destroyed within the coming two years?
The Germans were over-ambitious, and the result was that tanks took a long time to build and they were expensive and difficult to manufacture and needed skilled workers. And therefore very few tanks were built.
And since Germany built so few tanks of their own, they had to steal tanks from other nations. Like the Marder tanks that used Czech or French tank chassis and stolen Russian 76mm anti-tank guns.
And when Germany used so many different tanks at the same time, then of course logistics became a nightmare for those who had the job to fix spareparts and repair damaged vehicles. And of course didn't things get any better when Germany was fighting over long distances in Russia, where the roads were bad and machines breaked down constantly.
I mean, the other logistical problems were already as bad as they could get. How would standardization of spareparts be possible if Germany uses stolen military trucks from France, England, Netherlands and Belgium along with all their own trucks of different types: Opel, Ford, MAN, Hanomag, Magirus, Büssig-Nag, Hansa-Llyoyd Goliath, Borgward, Phänomen, Henchel, Krupp etc.
And think of all the logistical hell it would be to transport all the right type of ammunition for all rifles, pistols, anti aircraft-guns, mortars and howitzers that the Germans, Hungarians, Romanians, Spaniards, and Slovakian armies needed.
I think that the Axis made things unnecessarily hard for themselves by not trying to standardize parts, and reducing the complexity of their tank designs, and by not using more low quality components when there was no need for something top notch stuff.
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@Paciat Panzer IV was getting inferior to the allied tanks in the end of the war, and the panther had a more powerful gun that allowed it to deal with monsters like IS2 from a safe distance, while panzerIV could not - with its weaker gun and armour. The other allied tanks was overall better, had sloped armour, thicker armour and were more modern while pz4 was a tank made in the mid 1930s. And 17 tanks used by the 2nd world country Syria does not change that fact.
Put yourself in the Germans shoes. The panzer IV still had a chance against m4 and t34, but what about the next generation of allied tanks coming down the pipeline?
"You dont need mountains of spare parts unless your tanks are in many different units"
I exaggerated a bit just to drive home the point of what I meant ;-)
But fact remains that you don't want to have big stocks of supplies, when you are going to switch production models often. And Germany did just that, as many of their tanks quickly became obsolete. They started the war with pz1 as their main tank, and it quickly got replaced by pzII. The Germans had intended to one day replace their pzII with pz3, but panzer3 could not be upgunned so they had to let pz4 become the main workhorse of the German army instead. And later in the war was pz4 becoming a bit obsolete and the panther was brought forward to replace it.
And I think the situation was unsubstainable. Quickly phasing out old tanks and focus all production and all spare part production on the modern tanks only had been the sensible thing to do. But Germany could not go down that route since they did not have enough Panther tanks yet to get rid of all Pz4 and pz3.
And even the old shitty pz38 and and pz2 had to be kept (atleast in their modified TD or SPG form) because Germany was so desperatly short of tanks. And old German tanks were dumped on other axis countries.
So of course would the logistics continue to be a mess no matter what the Germans had done.
They could of course have gone with making more spare parts instead as you suggest, but that on the other hand would also have meant fewer modern tanks.
I think the Germans had painted themselves into a corner by 1942, and from there onwards were they stuck in a messy situation they could not get out of. Speer tried to simplify weapon designs to allow mass production and easier logistics - but in 1944 that was too little too late.
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@Paciat Panther was a step-ahead of the enemy in tank development. So when the enemy comes out with the T-44 tank you got something to meet it on an equal footing. The panzer IV unit would however be crushed.
"As for the stock of supply, you do want to have a large one since that equipment goes to secondary duties"
Everything is about priorities, since you cannot both have the cake and eat it too.
The best thing would have been if the Germans had done as the Americans and built their own M4 Sherman and used the chassi for tanks, tds, spgs, flame throwers, mine-clearing, bridge laying, recovery, command, etc.
Then the Germans could have used the same spare parts for all of their tanks, and the logistical footprint would have been minimal.
But the Germans never did that. They had their pz1,pz2, pz35, pz38, pz3, pz4,pz5, Tiger, King Tiger, Elephant, plus all their exotic variants of those tanks. And on top of that did they also press in captured foreign tanks "beutepanzers" into service and used French and Czech tanks with Russian guns for Marder tds.
So the German logistical system was a mess, and spareparts were needed for all kinds of different tanks instead of using the same types of spare parts for all tanks - like the M4.
What they needed was fewer tank models. But on the other hand did they also want to keep up with the technological race with their enemies, because no one else in the Axis would be able to help them out if their best tank became obsolete.
Fighting the war with Panzer I, Panzerjäger I, and Sturmpanzer I Bison simply wouldn't work in the long run.
There is a reason why the old Mk.IV tank from the first world war isn't still in active service. Sometimes you have to let go of old shit.
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This Russian documentary says that the Swedish army was the Greatest in Europe
https://youtu.be/NGYLOYd9Pt8?t=19m52s
And Voltaire are describing Charles as a bright, brave, idealist and a great military leader and said that he had no flaws either than being too brave for his own good and too generous which led him to waste money on giving away expensive gifts to others and make the state coffers empty. He was described as the almost the perfect ideal monarch.
https://archive.org/details/voltaireshistory00voltuoft
And I think both those foreign views are wrong, while Swedish historian rarely exaggerate abot King Charles nowadays. In the past it was common with rightwing nationalists describing him as a young hero King who gave his life for his nation. And pathetic leftwingers (like Ernst Brunner) tries to make the case that he was as bad as Hitler.
However, most modern Swedish historians are somewhat fair regarding Charles. He is seen as a simple human. A young boy who became king over a mighty empire - which is a job which would be a heavy burden on most peoples shoulders in times of war against a mighty alliance that threatens the existance of this Kingdom. This young teenager did as best as he could to do the job, and he stood with a sword in his hand and fought along side his own men and led them in battle and shared their risk of dying.
So he was brave. But he was hardly any perfect monarch like Voltaire claims. And while I think that the Swedish army was the best in Europe in terms of quality, training and tactics, I still wouldn't call it the greatest in Europe like the self-glorifying Russian documentaries do.
Austria, France, Russia, the Ottoman empire and maybe even England could field armies with 100-200.000 men.
But Sweden didn't have the manpower for that. The main army that invaded Russia consisted of only 40.000 men, and even if it was among the best troops in Europe, it is still not a force near as strong as an army of 100.000 men.
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I hate the "climate argument" since it stinks enviromental determinism. And David S Landes is just as guilty as Jared Diamond in this when he tries to explain away all other factors with this...
He says Europe had the best climate, and USA the second best. Europe never had any hurricanes. It wasn't so hot that it was exhausting to go outside like in tropical countries in India, Arabia or Africa where it was increadibly exhausting to work an hour outside in the sun. And the cold winters effectivly killed off many diseases, that otherwise flourish so much in tropical climates like malaria in Africa.
Europe also have a relativly steady flow of rainfall, while in the Agra region of India, for example, the rainfall exceeds the current
needs of agriculture for only two months in the year, and the excess held in the soil in those wet months dries up in only three weeks.
And about rivers in Africa Landes writes this: "The Volta drains over 100,000 square kilometers in West Africa—half
the area of Great Britain—but when low, averages at its mouth a meager
flow of only 28 cubic meters per second, as against 3,500-9,800 at the peak. Drought in the Volta basin comes at the hottest and windiest time of year, and loss of water to evaporation is discouragingly high."
And about rainfall did Landes write this:
"Water is another problem. Tropical areas generally average enough rainfall, but the timing is often irregular and unpredictable, the downpours anything but gentle. The drops are large; the rate of fall torrential. The averages mean nothing when one goes from one extreme to the other, from one year or season or one day to the next. In northern Nigeria, 90 percent of all rain falls in storms of over 25 mm. per hour; that makes half the average monthly rainfall at Kew Gardens, outside London. Java has heavier pours: a quarter of the annual rainfall comes down at 60 mm. per hour.
In such climes, cultivation does not compete easily with jungle and rain forest"
And Landes argue that unfree labour and slavery was more common in hot climates because it is hard to get any free person that is willing to do the work. So who do you pick for picking cotton or harvesting sugar when it is 40°C?
-You of course let a lave do the job, because that is a person who cannot say no.
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@ВячеславСкопюк I see China, North America and India as roughly equal to Europe when it comes to natural resources. Unless you see the world as I and Jared Diamond do and see domesticated animals and plants as a “resource”.
And how do even value a resource? Industrial and technological progress always changes and one precious resource can be totally worthless the next day.
Salt was precious resource in the past needed for preserving food and essential for fielding large armies. But today this resource abundant and cheap - so cheap that it is even used on icy highways.
Incense was the most valuable commodity in antiquity in terms of value of the trade in a particular commodity. But today there is no longer much need for it.
During the bronze age was copper and tin extremely important strategic resources which Ancient Egypt and Sumeria saw as vital national interests, the same way as USA today think their oil supply needs to be secure at all costs. The bronze age ended however, and the iron age and iron age superseded it.
And in 1677 it was perhaps seen as the Netherlands made a good deal with England when they exchanged a valuable island in the pacific in exchange for New York. But today the Banda islands and the global nutmeg trade is no longer much valuable to the global economy. New York is a precious hub in the global economy, while the island Run is a place most people never heard of.
Well what I guess what I am trying to say here is that innovation can overcome much of the resource scarcity. So I am more interested in institutions and good governance and innovation than what I am in resources.
Only backwards shithole countries rely on exports of natural resources, while modern economies relies on making high-tech products that no one else have the knowledge how to manufacture. And thus you can charge other countries high prices for your products and make high profits. Natural resources on the other hand only gives you a shitty terms of trade.
There is more competition, and why should I as a foreigner wanna pay any extra to get coal from your Germany when I might as well import coal cheaper from USA, Russia, Australia, UK or China?
Another problem with relying on only selling natural resources instead of manufacturing products is that you can run out of your resources. What should Saudiarabia do when there is no oil left in the ground? And what should countries do when they have cut down all trees and brought all fish up from their waters? Then they have nothing more to sell, and they will have to starve to death.
Another danger is that innovation makes natural resources worthless. What would happen with Saudiarabia if a new better energy source gets invented?
Western countries have now invented food substitutes for sugar and vanilla, and those products have replaced some of our use for those products so the demand for sugar and vanilla has fallen along with the market price - which have harmed many poor countries in Africa that have nothing else to sell.
And likewise have the invention of fiber cables decreased the need for copper worldwide, and big countries dig up old telephones wires and dump that copper on the world market which depresses the price of copper and harm copper exporting countries.
So new technologies have the potential of destroying the entire economy of a country - like what happened to the countries in Central America that relied on selling paint made from insects (cochineal). In the past this was a precious resource. But when a British chemist named Perkins got the job of experimenting and finding out any use for coal tar (which was a waste product that England produced too much of and wanted to get rid of) he found out that this material could be used for making synthetic dye.
And this is quite typical of the chemical industry - what is a waste product one day, often becomes a resource another. Perkins became a millionaire and England’s chemical industry had now been born. But for many American countries was this invention a disaster to their economy.
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But have this calculation taken into consideration if improved production methods have changed the price of the car? What about the prices of raw materials, maybe the prices was different in war time Germany than in peace time in the 1960s?
Prices change for other reasons than inflation you know. And maybe thats why it is so damn hard to calculate what things costed in the past.
The price of bread, gold, iron, silver, copper, fish, corn, horses have always gone up and down in price throughout history. And inflation is about the general average price level.
And prices could change for all kinds of reasons, wartime shortages, more effiecent production methods, increased demand, lack of competition, technological progress that makes some products outdated (ie typewriters and analog cameras) that falls in price while modern products is more valuable.
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I think countries did not have much of choice. You cannot just change your doctrine in the middle of a war or just a few years before it. Because then you need to produce millions of new rifles. Your men needs to be trained to handle a new weapon and new tactics.
Germany could not provide all their men with a sturmgewehr even if it had wanted to. And also MP-40 was a weapon that was in short supply and same goes for MG-34. But Germany did have a plenty of Mauser 98k and MG-42 which were not bad weapons, but they were things that had many flaws and it could be argued that the M1 Garand that the Americans had were better a rifle than 98k. But it was also a new design unlike the German mauser 98k, which had been in use already from the mid 1800's as a hunting rifle.
So I think one can say that the US infantry had better equipment than the Germans. Better uniforms, better rations plus more luxuries such as cookies, chewing gum, coca-cola, Nestle chocolate bars, better healthcare (penicillin), and better rifles, more ammo and more vehicles, radios and artillery and air power support.
Germany did on the other hand have more combat experience (atleast during the first half of the war). And Germany had tried out and perfected their military doctrines in two world wars, and in the long tradition of the Prussian army.
So German tactics and training were top notch.
Germany could often defeat stronger opponents thanks to their skill fulled leadership and excellent doctrines. Things like Auftragstaktik, kampfgruppen, and stosstruppen tactics gave Germany the upper hand with speedy decision-making and more flexibility of the battlefield. Thanks to this was the German army was the fastest on the battlefield, despite it was less motorized than the British and American armies.
On a tactical level could the German army show brilliance until the end of the war. But it made many strategic blunders and lost many armies. And the enemies were more plentiful and often better equipped so German losses did of course pile up throughout the war. And Germany lost many of their highly skilled NCOs - which were the backbone in the German army. And without their experience and good leadership, it became more difficult to upheld the same level of talented fighting skill on the battlefield.
And the Americans and Russians had learned to improve their armies the hard way in the middle of the war. And less noob mistakes were done by them during the last years of the war.
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