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German Tank Problem

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Re: German Tank Problem

#41

Post by euccastro »

nooneelse wrote: post #39
cema wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

IANAR, but if I was I'd be offended by the comment on the snowflakes and vindicated by the recognition that many people gave their lives to defeat Germany.

Re: German Tank Problem

#42

Post by cema »

euccastro wrote: post #41
nooneelse wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

IANAR, but if I was I'd be offended by the comment on the snowflakes and vindicated by the recognition that many people gave their lives to defeat Germany.

I am a Russian, but I was not at all offended. I just feel that the topic is a bit too serious for an offhand joke.

Re: German Tank Problem

#43

Post by ckuehne »

xel02 wrote: post #5
brg wrote: post #2

Is there a simple derivation or justification for this estimator?

There is, had to learn it in a probability class. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem

According to Wikipedia the estimator is (n+1)/ns-1 not (n+1)/n(s+1) as the author stated.

Re: German Tank Problem

#44

Post by InclinedPlane »

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.

BS. Sure, the Russian winters harmed the German war machine greatly, but it's not as though that alone was the sole determiner of the outcome of the war. Even had the winters been milder the Russian forces would still have taken a heavy toll on the Germans and were nearly guaranteed to win that conflict by benefit of logistics alone.

Moreover, even had Russia fallen to Germany the American/UK military might by 1945 was far too great even for a Germany backed by the natural resources of Russia to withstand. By mid-1945 the allies had put together a machine in the Pacific theater in the form of bombers, submarines, and combined forces capable of razing cities, ravaging shipping, and conquering territory at an incredible rate. It would have been perfectly possible to direct some or all of that apparatus at an unbowed Nazi regime in mid to late 1945 through 1946 and visit utter devastation on Germany until it was incapable of fighting any war. And this is sans nuclear weaponry, factoring those into the equation merely accelerates the end of this hypothetical war. Such a war would have been even more brutal than WWII was, but the outcome would not change.

Re: German Tank Problem

#45

Post by DCoder »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #44
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.

BS. Sure, the Russian winters harmed the German war machine greatly, but it's not as though that alone was the sole determiner of the outcome of the war. Even had the winters been milder the Russian forces would still have taken a heavy toll on the Germans and were nearly guaranteed to win that conflict by benefit of logistics alone. Moreover, even had Russia fallen to Germany the American/UK military might by 1945 w…

> had Russia fallen to Germany

How do you define "fallen"? I'm pretty sure Germany didn't have enough forces to destroy all the Russian production centers in, and to the east of, Ural.

Re: German Tank Problem

#46

Post by reitzensteinm »

davidcuddeback wrote: post #38
hugh3 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 usi…

That four part series is stunningly good. Even if you aren't interested in history very much, give it a go.

Re: German Tank Problem

#47

Post by InclinedPlane »

DCoder wrote: post #45
InclinedPlane wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BS. Sure, the Russian winters harmed the German war machine greatly, but it's not as though that alone was the sole determiner of the outcome of the war. Even had the winters been milder the Russian forces would still have taken a heavy toll on the Germans and were nearly guaranteed to win that conflict by benefit of logistics alone. Moreover, even had Russia fallen to Germany the American/UK military might by 1945 w…

> had Russia fallen to Germany How do you define "fallen"? I'm pretty sure Germany didn't have enough forces to destroy all the Russian production centers in, and to the east of, Ural.

Well, sure, this is why this is a hypothetical point. The likelihood of Germany having survived the battles on the Eastern front was low, the likelihood of them actually conquering Russia even lower.

Re: German Tank Problem

#48

Post by ErrantX »

hugh3 wrote: post #26
eru wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The convoy system in the North Atlantic also made a huge difference. Imagine Britain and the US shut off.

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.

Hitler made a tactical error delaying an invasion of the uk. That was a pretty important factor.

I think there is absolutely no way you can attribute the winning of the war to any one thing; Turing, the RAF, Russian winter, the sea routes/convoys and more all contributed.

Re: German Tank Problem

#49

Post by ErrantX »

hugh3 wrote: post #34
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…

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 Af…

I'm not sure your second scenario is as quickly solvable as you think. The loss of the uk would have been the loss of an important strategic platform - essentially allowing a second front to squeeze Germany from when it came to attack. Also it would have given Germany pretty consolidated control of our side of the North Atlantic, supply routes would have been severely disrupted.

I think ultimatelythe war would have been won but redeploying to, say, North Afric would have taken a while.

Re: German Tank Problem

#50

Post by hartror »

ErrantX wrote: post #48
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.

Hitler made a tactical error delaying an invasion of the uk. That was a pretty important factor. I think there is absolutely no way you can attribute the winning of the war to any one thing; Turing, the RAF, Russian winter, the sea routes/convoys and more all contributed.

Why did I have to read down THIS far to find someone speaking this sense!
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