General military questions thread

[Scottty]

@Husky_Khan @Ricardolindo Just how much do you think that extreme German male longevity (ages 107+) is going to be affected in Germany by the fact that Germans lost an extremely massive amount of their 1910s-born and 1920s-born men in World War II?

Take a look at just how much of a demographic hole WWII caused for Germany:

Here's a German population pyramid for 1939:

And for 1950:

Adjust the ages by 11 years from pyramid 1 to pyramid 2 to get a proper comparison, since 11 years have passed between 1939 and 1950.

The 1939 one doesn't show any dip in male population from WWI - what it does seem to show is that from 1914 to 1919, the Germans were having far fewer children.

Not really seeing any big loss in the 1950 one from WWII - despite the Germans having lost 11 million men in the war.

 

[Scottty]

Um ...

The Swiss Army is basically "every able-bodied man of millitary age" even though only a tiny percentage of them are regulars on active duty.

The Germans also would have gotten the "special door prize" of Alpine Combat against people who call the Alps "home".

If the Germans had attempted to go through Switzerland instead of going through Belgium in 1914 we'd be arguing about where the decision to do it ranks on the list of "The Worst Military Blunders of All-Time".

Also, quite apart from the resistance the Swiss would have put up, what would have been the point?
The goal of the Schlieffen Plan wasn't just to bypass the Maginot Line, it was to quickly defeat France by taking Paris.
Invading from the north was rather important for that.

 

[Buba]

There was no Maginot Line in the early XXth century. However, there was a line of forts and fortesses along the Moose and Mooselle rivers.
And I imagine that one of the elements behind the Schliefen/Moltke plan was Belgium having a very weak army. Bring forward Belgium's army expansion plan by a decade and you'll have the German planners having second thoughts. Twelve armed to teeth InfDiv were fully withing Belgium's demographic and financial capability.

 

[Scottty]

There was no Maginot Line in the early XXth century. However, there was a line of forts and fortesses along the Moose and Mooselle rivers.
And I imagine that one of the elements behind the Schliefen/Moltke plan was Belgium having a very weak army. Bring forward Belgium's army expansion plan by a decade and you'll have the German planners having second thoughts. Twelve armed to teeth InfDiv were fully withing Belgium's demographic and financial capability.

The point is, they were going for Paris. Attacking from the south via Switzerland would not make sense at all.
It's pretty much in the category if "if they could have successfully done that, they would not have needed to."

 

[Buba]

The point is, they were going for Paris.

No.
The objective was the destruction of the French army.
But I fully agree that an encirceling left hook through Switzerland is much iffier to execute than a right hook through Belgium.

 

[bintananth]

No.
The objective was the destruction of the French army.
But I fully agree that an encirceling left hook through Switzerland is much iffier to execute than a right hook through Belgium.

Both the left hook and right hook had an "I wouldn't do that if I was you" attached to them.

With a left hook of through Switzerland you just irritated the Pope and every Catholic country is now upset with you. The right hook through Belgium irritates the British and drags them into your stupid fight with France.

WWI could have been completely avoided if the Germans hadn't told the Austro-Hungarians that Serbia's willingness to accept all but one of their demands after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand wasn't good enough.

 

[Buba]

Oh, yes, upon violation of Swiss neutrality the Pope will unleash the Spanish Inquisition upon the Germans and the Heresiarch Wilhelm the Second!

Germany had decided a few years previously, and correctly, that Britain would join a Franco-German war on the French side at the flimsiest of pretext. Going through Belgium or not, the UK will DOW Germany ASAP.

The list of "how could WWI be avoided" is as long as my arm. Serbia not sending terrorists, Russia not backing Serbia, France not blank checking Russia, and so on and so forth ...

 

[paulobrito]

Face it - the tapestry of alliances of the time basically that sooner or later WWI happens.

 

[bintananth]

Oh, yes, upon violation of Swiss neutrality the Pope will unleash the Spanish Inquisition upon the Germans and the Heresiarch Wilhelm the Second!

Germany had decided a few years previously, and correctly, that Britain would join a Franco-German war on the French side at the flimsiest of pretext. Going through Belgium or not, the UK will DOW Germany ASAP.

The list of "how could WWI be avoided" is as long as my arm. Serbia not sending terrorists, Russia not backing Serbia, France not blank checking Russia, and so on and so forth ...

Germany wanted to pick a another fight with France and practically everyone in the Balkans has issues - to put it mildly - with their neigbours. The planners didn't take into account that the British Empire would say "knock it off" almost instantly with a very annoyed and reluctant United States saying "I've got your back".

 

[WolfBear]

The 1939 one doesn't show any dip in male population from WWI - what it does seem to show is that from 1914 to 1919, the Germans were having far fewer children.

Not really seeing any big loss in the 1950 one from WWII - despite the Germans having lost 11 million men in the war.

Look again: Specifically, take a look at the surplus of females relative to males for various years in this graph. For 1939, there was a huge surplus of females relative to males for the very late 1800s-born German cohorts. For 1950, this also applied to the early 1900s-born German cohorts. Where exactly do you think all of these males went? Why, they were killed in the World Wars, of course! The male-female sex ratio at birth is actually slightly geared in favor of males, after all.

 

[WolfBear]

Which cases were there where a country hoped for a quick war or military campaign and then ended up being disappointed? I can think of:

-Germany 1914 re: France, when it failed to win at the Marne and to conquer Paris.
-Germany 1941 re: the USSR, when it failed to conquer Moscow.
-Russia 2022 re: Ukraine, when it failed to conquer Kiev.

 

[bintananth]

Which cases were there where a country hoped for a quick war or military campaign and then ended up being disappointed? I can think of:

-Germany 1914 re: France, when it failed to win at the Marne and to conquer Paris.
-Germany 1941 re: the USSR, when it failed to conquer Moscow.
-Russia 2022 re: Ukraine, when it failed to conquer Kiev.

The American Civil War, for both sides.

When all was said and done roughly 10% of all southern white males of all ages alive in 1860 had been killed by disease or gunfire.

Then there's the Paraguayan War (1864-1870). That one devastated the Paraguayan male population. When it was over the Catholic Church sorta said "polygamy is allowed, just this once and only for a little while" because there weren't a whole lot of Paraguayan men left.

 

[Morphic Tide]

-Germany 1914 re: France, when it failed to win at the Marne and to conquer Paris.

Weirdly enough, this came up on QQ's rant thread for AlternateHistory.com as a point of divergence. Not somehow winning the offensive, as it was drastically understaffed and significantly delayed from the relevant plan of Schlieffen, but rather the Schleiffen Plan specific to a two-front France+Russia v. Germany war. Which was "funnel French advance between forts right to the doorstep of rail hubs, disembark troops on three sides, defeat advance in detail, send troops by rail they were fighting next to to opposite side of Germany to fight Russia, remaining troops on Western Front counter-attack now-depleted French defenses".

As one may expect, this has an incredibly fucked up logistical time-table. But it keeps the UK out of the war and avoids Austria-Hungary getting mangled in the first few months, so it's overall a big win for Imperial Germany... Provided Russia doesn't take too much of the Eastern Front before reinforcements arrive from wiping out a huge chunk of the French military.

 

[Aldarion]

Which cases were there where a country hoped for a quick war or military campaign and then ended up being disappointed? I can think of:

-Germany 1914 re: France, when it failed to win at the Marne and to conquer Paris.
-Germany 1941 re: the USSR, when it failed to conquer Moscow.
-Russia 2022 re: Ukraine, when it failed to conquer Kiev.

Serbia in 1991. Idea was to quickly defeat and partition Croatia with the help of Serb rebels in Croatia. But the offensive stalled at Vukovar and Dubrovnik/Herzegovina, and so we got the protracted war we did get. Almost exact scenario as war in Ukraine, in fact.

 

[Arch Dornan]

The Return of Industrial Warfare

Can the West still provide the arsenal of democracy?

www.rusi.org

Thoughts?

 

[bintananth]

The Return of Industrial Warfare

Can the West still provide the arsenal of democracy?

www.rusi.org

Thoughts?

Industrial warfare has always been a thing.

When the Romans were saying "fuck you" to Carthage they could afford to lose about 65-70 thousand troops in a single battle (Cannae) and not really give a shit.

 

[LordsFire]

Industrial warfare has always been a thing.

When the Romans were saying "fuck you" to Carthage they could afford to lose about 65-70 thousand troops in a single battle (Cannae) and not really give a shit.

No.

You are using the term wrong.

'Industrial' and 'industrialized' warfare are functionally exclusively used to refer to post-industrial revolution warfare and especially ways that changed it.

The concept of beating the enemy by bleeding their treasury out certainly existed before the 1800's, but that is not the same thing.

 

[Marduk]

The Return of Industrial Warfare

Can the West still provide the arsenal of democracy?

www.rusi.org

Thoughts?

Mostly correct but exaggerated. The general munitions production in the West could use better capacity and reserves, but the laser focus on unguided artillery shells and rather niche missile systems like Javelin is mistaken, because unlike Russian one, and Ukrainian one that's still being reformed away from that, NATO armies are absolutely not artillery armies, which has major effects on their needs profile. Then there is also the question of defensive warfare vs expeditionary warfare and COIN operations. You prepare for the wars you are most likely to fight, not for pure hypotheticals.
If NATO was in a war, a lot of the things done by artillery, cruise missiles, and man portable weapons in Ukraine, would be done by airpower, navy, and ground vehicles, with missiles and bombs that have their own production lines and stockpiles, that mostly can't be sent to Ukraine for compatibility reasons (see: recent big deal news of MacGyver'd HARMs being fired from Ukrainian Soviet made fighters).

 

[Buba]

news of MacGyver'd HARMs being fired from Ukrainian Soviet made fighters

Paperclips and duct tape?

 

[Arch Dornan]

Mostly correct but exaggerated. The general munitions production in the West could use better capacity and reserves, but the laser focus on unguided artillery shells and rather niche missile systems like Javelin is mistaken, because unlike Russian one, and Ukrainian one that's still being reformed away from that, NATO armies are absolutely not artillery armies, which has major effects on their needs profile. Then there is also the question of defensive warfare vs expeditionary warfare and COIN operations. You prepare for the wars you are most likely to fight, not for pure hypotheticals.
If NATO was in a war, a lot of the things done by artillery, cruise missiles, and man portable weapons in Ukraine, would be done by airpower, navy, and ground vehicles, with missiles and bombs that have their own production lines and stockpiles, that mostly can't be sent to Ukraine for compatibility reasons (see: recent big deal news of MacGyver'd HARMs being fired from Ukrainian Soviet made fighters).

It does require someone up top to listen but I don't see that changing anytime soon unless something changes to give a reason for such a change.