The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics • Hacker News Board

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#161

Post by jammygit » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

bernawil wrote: post #152

gwd wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, the key word in the quote above is medieval . He specifically says large battles were far more common in the ancient world: > Pitched battles were far more common in the ancient world (think Persia, Macedon, Rome, etc) – this is a product of the larger size and greater organizational capabilities of those armies.

Isn't it kind of a useless distinction? I mean it's not like there are so many periods of pre-gunpowder history. We have ancient, medieval and that's it -you could add bronze age but we have so much less records-. The whole "battles were rare, sieges where common" is a trope I believe some YouTubers started, but I don't think there's any solid pattern. Ancient armies pillaged the countryside to provoke encounters. St…

Think for example about the difference between pre-Hastings England and 100 years later. The castle sprawl was really dramatic after William took over, it really changed the dynamic

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#162

Post by Razengan » Sun, Dec 01, 2019, 8:48 AM UTC

Kinrany wrote: post #93

xg15 wrote: post #73

Slightly OT: I'm surprised that more sophisticated management of supply lines never seems to have caught on much in RTS games. The basic practice still seems to be that logistics are handwaved away and your units just spawn wherever you want (or where your factory is) provided you have enough money in the bank. I could imagine a game quite fun where you actively have to transport troops and resources to the front and…

Sid Meier's Colonization has this, to a degree. 1. Gold can only be used to buy from European powers. You can't buy goods or units in America, you have to physically move them there with ships or wagon trains. 2. Civilians and combat units are the same. Any civilian can pick up a musket and become a soldier. 3. Defeated units don't die. They rout and are "demoted": a dragoon loses their horse and becomes a soldier, a…

That sounds amazing. I never really got to play Colonization but I pored over it a lot in magazines.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#163

Post by cafard » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

exar0815 wrote: post #118

dragontamer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mass killings of troops certainly happened: Hannibal's famous "Battle of Cannae" actually destroyed an entire Roman Legion (70,000 killed, 10,000 captured out of ~80,000 troops). They were just very rare. Another point: After losing so many troops in a singular battle, the Romans changed their tactics. Instead of grouping their entire army as a massive 80,000-man strong Phalanx, they split up their armies into smalle…

Well, there was the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, where temporarily united germanic tribes managed to massacre around 20 000 roman legionnaires under the lead of a roman-trained traitor.

Turncoat perhaps, but traitor?

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#164

Post by cafard » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 2:35 PM UTC

gherkinnn wrote: post #155

barry-cotter wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

S.L.A. Marshall was a fraud, and “On Killing” should be read with the knowledge it was written by a fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.L.A._Marshall Some veterans and historians have cast doubt on Marshall's research methods.[15] Professor Roger J. Spiller (Deputy Director of the Combat Studies Institute, US Army Command and General Staff College) argues in his 1988 article, "S. L. A. Marshall and the Ratio of Fi…

Even if, and there is good evidence to believe so, Slam was a fraud, I don’t see the core tenants of On Killing to be falsified: - Most humans naturally don’t want to kill - Getting soldiers to do so causes them serious trauma The psychological model put forth in On Killing matches the Milgram Experiments. The specific elements being proximity and relation to both the authority and the target. Modern armies have adap…

Does the band of cloth shoot back?

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#165

Post by baud147258 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:40 PM UTC

Fnoord wrote: post #103

Waterluvian wrote: post #26

"Let’s be clear on this point: ancient and medieval warfare was mostly about sieges." I also learned years ago that when medieval battles actually happened, the goal was to rout the enemy, not actually fight them and kill each other. I find these points illuminating because it reminds me that people back in the day were not primitive idiots. There was a very sensible logic to how they waged war. Ultimately, everyone…

> "Let’s be clear on this point: ancient and medieval warfare was mostly about sieges." I also learned years ago that when medieval battles actually happened, the goal was to rout the enemy, not actually fight them and kill each other. "Total War: Warhammer II" underlines both these statements.

You could have chosen one of the Total War games that didn't involved magic powers, OP hero units and mythical creatures, which makes a lesser example for the current discussion.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#166

Post by baud147258 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 3:45 PM UTC

xg15 wrote: post #73

Slightly OT: I'm surprised that more sophisticated management of supply lines never seems to have caught on much in RTS games. The basic practice still seems to be that logistics are handwaved away and your units just spawn wherever you want (or where your factory is) provided you have enough money in the bank. I could imagine a game quite fun where you actively have to transport troops and resources to the front and…

I felt that Supreme Commander 1 had some of this, since maps were big enough that you'd have supplies lines, just moving units towards the front lines instead of ressources. If I'm remembering right, you could even set transport craft on a repeat route to ferry your units across the battlefield. Of course, once you had built new factories closer to the front line, the logistic issues tend to disappear a little.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#167

Post by baud147258 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 4:35 PM UTC

zipwitch wrote: post #141

wavefunction wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orcs were corrupted/mutated elves and uruk-hai were corrupted/mutated humans iirc but could be mistaken It wouldn't necessarily be cannibilism then.

That's a popular and oft-repeated conception, but not precisely canon. Tolkien was never able to definitively pin down the origin and nature of his orcs to his own satisfaction, and never reached any final decision, afaik.

> Tolkien was never able to definitively pin down the origin and nature of his orcs to his own satisfaction

I think I heard it was because of the Christian roots of his LotR writings: are orcs fully evil and impossible to redeem (which would go against Christian belief on salvation and some of the themes of the LotR) or could they be redeemed, which would be against how they are portrayed in the books.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#168

Post by baud147258 » Mon, Dec 02, 2019, 10:47 PM UTC

baud147258 wrote: post #165

Fnoord wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Let’s be clear on this point: ancient and medieval warfare was mostly about sieges." I also learned years ago that when medieval battles actually happened, the goal was to rout the enemy, not actually fight them and kill each other. "Total War: Warhammer II" underlines both these statements.

You could have chosen one of the Total War games that didn't involved magic powers, OP hero units and mythical creatures, which makes a lesser example for the current discussion.

But I agree that the Total War games are a good example visual of where most of the casualties happens in pitched battles.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#169

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 10:52 AM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #162

Kinrany wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sid Meier's Colonization has this, to a degree. 1. Gold can only be used to buy from European powers. You can't buy goods or units in America, you have to physically move them there with ships or wagon trains. 2. Civilians and combat units are the same. Any civilian can pick up a musket and become a soldier. 3. Defeated units don't die. They rout and are "demoted": a dragoon loses their horse and becomes a soldier, a…

That sounds amazing. I never really got to play Colonization but I pored over it a lot in magazines.

These days it's pretty much abandonware, or $2 on Steam at the moment.

Re: The Siege of Gondor, Part I: Professionals Talk Logistics

#170

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Dec 03, 2019, 11:07 AM UTC

Kinrany wrote: post #93

xg15 wrote: post #73

Slightly OT: I'm surprised that more sophisticated management of supply lines never seems to have caught on much in RTS games. The basic practice still seems to be that logistics are handwaved away and your units just spawn wherever you want (or where your factory is) provided you have enough money in the bank. I could imagine a game quite fun where you actively have to transport troops and resources to the front and…

Sid Meier's Colonization has this, to a degree. 1. Gold can only be used to buy from European powers. You can't buy goods or units in America, you have to physically move them there with ships or wagon trains. 2. Civilians and combat units are the same. Any civilian can pick up a musket and become a soldier. 3. Defeated units don't die. They rout and are "demoted": a dragoon loses their horse and becomes a soldier, a…

One of my favourite games this. Dragoon skirmishing worked well because horses reproduce themselves but guns are expensive. It was also a game in which terrain was very important as it provided huge bonuses. Or, during the War of Independence, disadvantages for the government troops.