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Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

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Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#31

Post by jcranmer »

shakezula wrote: post #29
pessimizer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the US has made a habit of losing against countries with GDPs closer to Ukraine than to Russia.

There’s gotta be some like inverse square law for how difficult a war is to win against a smaller and smaller nation.

Smaller nations rarely win wars. Consider the success rate of the various Native American groups against the US.

The better metric is how interested you are in pursuing a war for the length of time necessary--it's a lot harder to get people to care about a war halfway across the other world than it is when it's prime farmland just next door.

(Note that the author here also has a series that touches on this topic--the Fremen Mirage.)

Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#32

Post by sershe »

herodotus wrote: post #2

Are there any computer or table top war games that deal in a somewhat realistic way with logistics?

I'm surprised nobody is mentioning Shadow Empire. In my first major war my ineptitude at laying out truck routes was a far worse enemy than the actual enemy. And then the actual enemy, intentionally or not, managed to cut my rail lines a couple times and turn my tank wedge into a wagon fort for a while, luckily I was able to reconnect before they ran out of ammo.

Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#33

Post by BlueTemplar »

herodotus wrote: post #2

Are there any computer or table top war games that deal in a somewhat realistic way with logistics?

Shadow Empire is a post-apocalyptic 4X/Wargame (with bits of leader and faction management à la Crusader Kings thrown in for good measure).

The logistic parts involve building and maintaining a strategic on-road/rail logistic network (that moves everything necessary for production too, not just food/fuel/ammo for the troops),

and a comparatively simplified, but still critical in success/failure, operational logistics range spreading outwards following terrain from the road and rail hexes. (Limited air supply is available too.)

https://www.wargamer.com/shadow-empire/review

A sillier video-review : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSHuHCrW4KE

Its predecessor, which I hear also has some of this and some kind of 4X mode :

http://armchairgeneral.com/advanced-tactics-gold-pc-game-rev...

(Also would explain why ShEmp still seems to be very WW2-like ?)

Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#34

Post by BlueTemplar »

sershe wrote: post #32
herodotus wrote: post #2

Are there any computer or table top war games that deal in a somewhat realistic way with logistics?

I'm surprised nobody is mentioning Shadow Empire. In my first major war my ineptitude at laying out truck routes was a far worse enemy than the actual enemy. And then the actual enemy, intentionally or not, managed to cut my rail lines a couple times and turn my tank wedge into a wagon fort for a while, luckily I was able to reconnect before they ran out of ammo.

Oof, did I get ninjaed here ! :p

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32247015

Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#36

Post by eastbound »

labster wrote: post #27
sbierwagen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has a "smaller" GDP than California, but check the price of electricity in western Europe today. Few industries in Germany can survive energy prices tripling. It won't be much of a war of attrition with "NATO" if a bunch of NATO members drop out and pursue a separate peace.

It’s too bad when countries like Germany haven’t learned to live within their means. Decades of mismanagement have a price.

Every country borrows billions a year nowadays. No country lives within their means, we’re all transferring future power to China and Gulf countries through the means of letting them produce for us on credit.

Which every politician profits from. “The state will pay!” as said Macron, borrowing an additional 600bn until 2048.

Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#37

Post by eastbound »

photochemsyn wrote: post #30

An interesting case of logistics deciding outcomes is the North Africa campaign in World War II. It's discussed in Daniel Yergin's "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" in some depth, and there are a few other sources. Essentially, this is where the code-breaking efforts of Bletchley Park had a major result. The reason that Rommel had such shortages of fuel, according to Yergin and other sources, was tha…

And Russia has unlimited gas. Gas decuples human work, same as IT decuples human brains.

I’m worried for Europe. Russia will lack a lot of things, but it’s a race on natural resources.

Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#38

Post by bryananderson »

shakezula wrote: post #29
pessimizer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the US has made a habit of losing against countries with GDPs closer to Ukraine than to Russia.

There’s gotta be some like inverse square law for how difficult a war is to win against a smaller and smaller nation.

I think to make it make sense you have to define what “winning” means. It’s usually not the same thing for different sides of a war.

When we say the US lost the war in Vietnam, we obviously don’t mean the Viet Cong rolled tanks down Pennsylvania Avenue. The Mujahideen didn’t hold a giant missile parade in Red Square. For those groups, winning didn’t mean taking the enemy superpower’s capital, it just meant making the war costly enough for long enough that the enemy (who had far less skin in the game, it not being their country) gave up and went home.

For an occupying force, the victory condition is much more onerous—you must occupy a country (potentially far away) and pacify the local forces who have a lot of skin in the game and can make this whole ordeal very costly for you for a very long time even if they have no hope of being a threat to your homeland. And you must do this indefinitely. At some point it’s just not worth it.

Zelensky doesn’t need to hold a victory ball in the Grand Kremlin Palace, he just needs to make the war so costly, with no breakthrough in sight, that Russia can’t or won’t sustain it.

Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#39

Post by spoonjim »

eastbound wrote: post #36
labster wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too bad when countries like Germany haven’t learned to live within their means. Decades of mismanagement have a price.

Every country borrows billions a year nowadays. No country lives within their means, we’re all transferring future power to China and Gulf countries through the means of letting them produce for us on credit. Which every politician profits from. “The state will pay!” as said Macron, borrowing an additional 600bn until 2048.

If all the countries are borrowing from China and Gulf countries, then they don't really have to repay it. The combined military of NATO is more than enough to resist China and the Gulf's ability to recoup a default. Of course it would require an alternative manufacturing center or China would just repo all that shit.

Re: Logistics, How Did They Do It, Part I: The Problem

#40

Post by mdemare »

eastbound wrote: post #36
labster wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too bad when countries like Germany haven’t learned to live within their means. Decades of mismanagement have a price.

Every country borrows billions a year nowadays. No country lives within their means, we’re all transferring future power to China and Gulf countries through the means of letting them produce for us on credit. Which every politician profits from. “The state will pay!” as said Macron, borrowing an additional 600bn until 2048.

EU countries and the US mostly borrow from their own citizens.
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