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German Tank Problem

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Re: German Tank Problem

#31

Post by hugh3 »

eru wrote: post #27
hugh3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it hadn't been for Enigma, and even if it hadn't been for the weather in Russia, I still don't think it's possible to construct a sensible scenario where the eventual outcome of the war is delayed by more than a few months. If VE day didn't come in May thanks to Turing, it would have come in August thanks to Oppenheimer.

Depends on which kind of facts you are prepared to alter. E.g. you could construct scenarios where Germany and the Soviet Union would not attack each other. Or where the U.S. would not enter the war.

That's right -- you'd have to change something big -- ie the identities of the belligerents -- or to give the nuclear bomb to Germany. But you can't reverse the outcome by changing something small (like Enigma or the weather in Russia).

No offence to Turing et al, of course -- they still saved gazillions of lives.

Re: German Tank Problem

#32

Post by eru »

gametheory wrote: post #29
hugh3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it hadn't been for Enigma, and even if it hadn't been for the weather in Russia, I still don't think it's possible to construct a sensible scenario where the eventual outcome of the war is delayed by more than a few months. If VE day didn't come in May thanks to Turing, it would have come in August thanks to Oppenheimer.

Scenario 1: The Germans decide to not kill the jews, and even let the top Jewish physicists stay. With their help, the Germans create a nuclear weapon in 1943-44 instead of canceling the whole project in 1942. Scenario 2: The guy in charge of the Luftwaffe isn't a complete retard. The germans finish off the french instead of letting them run off to britain, they then invade Britain, not giving the Americans a base of…

It's more interesting to look at alternative histories for World War I, in my opinion. Because the parties involved weren't as clearly `good' or `evil'.

Re: German Tank Problem

#33

Post by gametheory »

eru wrote: post #32
gametheory wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scenario 1: The Germans decide to not kill the jews, and even let the top Jewish physicists stay. With their help, the Germans create a nuclear weapon in 1943-44 instead of canceling the whole project in 1942. Scenario 2: The guy in charge of the Luftwaffe isn't a complete retard. The germans finish off the french instead of letting them run off to britain, they then invade Britain, not giving the Americans a base of…

It's more interesting to look at alternative histories for World War I, in my opinion. Because the parties involved weren't as clearly `good' or `evil'.

the thing is though, WWI was mostly static trench warfare. There wasn't much that could "go" differently.

I guess the US could have never joined

Re: German Tank Problem

#34

Post by hugh3 »

gametheory wrote: post #29
hugh3 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it hadn't been for Enigma, and even if it hadn't been for the weather in Russia, I still don't think it's possible to construct a sensible scenario where the eventual outcome of the war is delayed by more than a few months. If VE day didn't come in May thanks to Turing, it would have come in August thanks to Oppenheimer.

Scenario 1: The Germans decide to not kill the jews, and even let the top Jewish physicists stay. With their help, the Germans create a nuclear weapon in 1943-44 instead of canceling the whole project in 1942. Scenario 2: The guy in charge of the Luftwaffe isn't a complete retard. The germans finish off the french instead of letting them run off to britain, they then invade Britain, not giving the Americans a base of…

The Jew-loving Nazis of Scenario 1 seem like a pretty big departure from the Nazis we know and love, but yes, if the Germans had got the bomb things would have worked out differently.

I don't buy Scenario 2. The loss of Britain would have made bombing Germany difficult, not impossible. Worst-case scenario is that they have to develop a long-range bomber. More likely they'd have invaded some part of Europe or North Africa (most likely Britain itself) as a first order of business upon entering the war -- I doubt they would have made it to 1945 without a well-defended slice of Europe. Of course this scenario probably also has a non-negligible Luftwaffe defending German cities in 1945 but, heck, the nukes have gotta get through eventually.

Re: German Tank Problem

#35

Post by cema »

run4yourlives wrote: post #13
lmkg wrote: post #3

Key quote: > The statisticians believed that the Germans, being Germans, had logically numbered their tanks in the order in which they were produced. The moral of the story is, never do anything that could give your opponent information, unless you're controlling what information they receive. It would be better to produce tanks with pseudo-random serial numbers, up to a maximum of whatever you want your enemy to thi…

Sometimes though, information denial is more of a pain in the ass than a gain. For all the intelligence directed at Nazi Germany during WWII, the outcome of the war was decided by a few Russian snowflakes, really.

By a few snowflakes? And by tons of blood.

Re: German Tank Problem

#36

Post by eru »

gametheory wrote: post #33
eru wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more interesting to look at alternative histories for World War I, in my opinion. Because the parties involved weren't as clearly `good' or `evil'.

the thing is though, WWI was mostly static trench warfare. There wasn't much that could "go" differently. I guess the US could have never joined

Do you mistake the western front for the whole war?

Interesting would have been: Germany, instead of planning of going after France first, Russia later--goes for Russia only and just defends against France. After defeating Russia (let's assume), they try to make peace in the west.

Re: German Tank Problem

#37

Post by cema »

hngryhppos wrote: post #18

I want to comment on how pretentious that website title is ("three standard deviations to the left"). I took that to imply the author (or his intended audience) is three standard deviations above average (intelligence?). Anyway, he says he am IB teacher... not surprised, this attitude of intellectual superiority is an IB hallmark.

Could be the political left, you know.

Re: German Tank Problem

#38

Post by davidcuddeback »

hugh3 wrote: post #31
eru wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on which kind of facts you are prepared to alter. E.g. you could construct scenarios where Germany and the Soviet Union would not attack each other. Or where the U.S. would not enter the war.

That's right -- you'd have to change something big -- ie the identities of the belligerents -- or to give the nuclear bomb to Germany. But you can't reverse the outcome by changing something small (like Enigma or the weather in Russia). No offence to Turing et al, of course -- they still saved gazillions of lives.

The weather in Russia is by no means something that I would call "small." It helped the Russians defeat Napoleon in 1812.

When the Germans invaded, they were ill-prepared as well. They're vehicles couldn't cope with the cold, so in the winter months, they were bombarded by Soviet bombers but couldn't get any of their own planes in the air. They couldn't move vehicles because the ground turns to mud (they ended up using dead bodies to gain traction). At one point, the Germans were very close to Moscow (within visual distance IIRC) when winter hit. That winter, fresh troops from Siberia who were specially trained for winter warfare arrived in Moscow to push the Germans back. I think it's safe to say that the Russian winter prevented the Germans from capturing Moscow that winter.

My favorite podcast (Dan Carlin's Hardcore History) covered the eastern front of WWII in a four-part series, titled "Ghosts of the Ostfront": http://bit.ly/W4ig (episodes 27-30). I highly recommend it to anyone that's interested in history.

(That's not an affiliate link, btw.)

Re: German Tank Problem

#39

Post by nooneelse »

cema wrote: post #35
run4yourlives wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes though, information denial is more of a pain in the ass than a gain. For all the intelligence directed at Nazi Germany during WWII, the outcome of the war was decided by a few Russian snowflakes, really.

By a few snowflakes? And by tons of blood.

To any Russians reading this, as an American, I say, pay no attention to that little joke, please. I'm very grateful for the service of your forefathers. Our countries and our peoples have had our differences of opinions in the years since, but not so many differences and not so many years have passed that we have forgotten the price you paid. If ever another evil empire arises (that isn't one of the two of ours, I suppose) I hope you'll have our backs again. Especially in winter, as I'm not one for the cold, and you seem fantastic at it.

Re: German Tank Problem

#40

Post by mixmax »

tokenadult wrote: post #21
run4yourlives wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes though, information denial is more of a pain in the ass than a gain. For all the intelligence directed at Nazi Germany during WWII, the outcome of the war was decided by a few Russian snowflakes, really.

the outcome of the war was decided by a few Russian snowflakes Not by cracking Enigma? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptanalysis_of_the_Enigma And remember, "the war" was also being fought in the Pacific, also with a spectacular imbalance in cryptology strength between the Allies and the Axis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_naval_codes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_%28cryptography%29 In general, code-bre…

The allied shooting down of Japan's commander in chief, Isoroku Yamamoto, was based on breaking the Japanese naval codes and attests to your point of view.

From his wikipedia article: He died during an inspection tour of forward positions in the Solomon Islands when his aircraft (a Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bomber) was shot down during an ambush by American P-38 Lightning fighter planes. His death was a major blow to Japanese military morale during World War II.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoroku_Yamamoto

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