don´t mess with the bureaucratic mindset, it has nothing to do with normal healthy common sense^^
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A few questions
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It means that the Czechs did not develop it by themselves. This should be pretty obvious - if I take a design and significantly improve it, then produce that design, can the person who made the original design simply claim my design as their own?
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Why did they bother copy a Czech design if it was a material inferior to what they already had ? Why not "significantly improve a british design instead ?
Good day. This is certainly a weird first post, but I don't want anyone to be misinformed just because someone else is shouting louder.
As many people pointed out above, many minors produced best in class weapon systems.
FOARP is conflating a few ideas and clearly doesn't understand the technical limitations/practicality of hi-tech mechanical design and manufacturing.
First Denkt correctly identified that 'minors' did produce 'better stuff' in some areas than some of the majors did before, during and after WWII. This is where FOARP conflates the idea of 'better stuff' into a very narrow view of a major weapons system, exclusively restricted to complete tanks, planes or ships. Furthermore when a bunch of people demonstrated various weapons systems that were best in class (ie: the best overall package for the intended role, not technically superior in every single way) he is unable or unwilling to accept (either from a lack of technical knowledge or cognitive dissidence) a best in class weapons system that is adopted by another country is still best in class despite the adopter's modifications.
This requires a little explanation for those not familiar with the technical workings of things like a gun, or an engine. Using a gas powered automatic weapon as an example there is a tonne of complexity and design ingenuity that goes into how the bolt is cycled and locked, the round extracted, the feed path of new ammunition, breech design etc. All these design decisions and technical breakthroughs have a huge impact on the weapons cyclic rate, fouling propensity, stoppage rate, stoppage handling, jamming propensity, barrel wear, field serviceability, ease of manufacture etc etc. So when someone figures out a very good way to build an automatic weapon that's what you're crediting; the system that makes the 'gun'. The next thing one has to consider is how to employ the 'gun'. In the case of a large caliber weapon this spawns a whole host of other considerations, such as mount, fire control, ammunition handling et al. So in the case of saying best in class 35-40mm auto-cannon is very different than saying best in class 35-40mm AA system. One asks about the 'gun' and the other asks about a system capable of downing an aircraft, which is the combined effects of weapon, mount, fire-control, ammunition handling, barrel life/changing and so forth.
Now we should address the next point. Why would a country adopt a best in class weapon or weapon system and then make major modifications if it was 'best in class' to begin with? To start with you have to consider how the adopting nation plans to employ the weapon. Since 99% of the time you're integrating the weapon into your existing armed forces and economy, instead of changing your economy and armed forces to suit the new weapon, you modify the weapon to suit your existing infrastructure. Lets take a small arms automatic weapon as an example. So you license this great weapon, but you use a slightly different caliber/cartridge. No problem, just a simple re-chamber and you're done right? Well your cartridge also has a slightly different base, so now you need to modify the extractor. Also your power/grain count is different. They use a higher load and/or a more expensive poweder/round that is self lubricating. You don't produce those. So now you need to modify the way the bolt cycles. Do you make it lighter, increase the gas bleed, change the piston, or a combination of all of them? How about a doctrine change? This weapon now needs to integrate into a more mobile infantry squad to be used offensively. You need to lighten the weapon. Do you shorten the barrel, cut down the stock, thin out the operating components? Let's say you shorten the barrel and thin the rest out. Now the weapon has a muzzle flash and/or handling problem because of these changes. Now you have to add a flash suppressor or muzzle break.
So despite the fact that none of these changes inherently are going to improve the weapon they still are enacted because of outside influences. This doesn't even touch on manufacturing issues/requirements. Often when a weapon design is licensed to be mass produced the first thing that is done is a check to see if you can re-use your existing tooling by modifying the design, and/or minimize the number of forged (and/or) machined parts.
Now, this being said all countries have very smart people in them. With a culture that applies them to weapons design, and the opportunity to do so, if they are going to modify something anyways they will seek to improve what they can, if they can. So when a 'major' nation licensed a design and they set to using it for their own ends they certainly would bring the best they could do to the system they were integrating that weapon into.
So both the Bren and Bofors gun are excellent examples of 'minors' superior weapons. The very fact that the Bofors gun was so widely licensed is a direct testament to it being best in class. The other countries looked at it and said we're not going to improve upon this gun in any meaningful way so rather than inventing our own, we'll just build this one. The best in class part though is just the gun - not an AA system. The novel and desirable thing about the Bofors was the firing rate born of the ingenious feed/ejector mechanism, hence best in class. A side note about the gun: Krupp had a significant commercial stake in Bofors so it's not like the Germans didn't have access to the design and technological know how. So to suggest that since the German's didn't use it despite having access must mean it's not that good is just plane dumb. They ingested the technical know how into their economy and produced a similar weapon based on their needs. Furthermore, while the British did make many changes, the conical flash hider was always available; they modified the design of it for the Mark 1/2 (I'm assuming because they had a better design already and it's a screw on part). What the Brits really did was make it mass producible, a typical thing transferring craftsmanship-centric designs out of mainland Europe to countries already changed over to mass production mentality. This doesn't change the 'design' as much as it's typically a trade between accuracy or reliability for an ability to be mass produced by much less skilled labour. Finally to address the mounts and sights. The mount design for the land application was mostly untouched until an airborne version was required. However it was the Dutch naval mount (Hazemeyer) that was employed by both the British and Americans after the Dutch were overrun. Before this the British used inferior air-cooled mounts initially. The naval guns typically used a radar fire control system so aren't part of the discussion the land sighting. The land sights were drastically improved by the British with the addition of the Kerrison Director for laying during aiming. Unfortunately for FOARP's position the Kerrison system was a huge PITA so the crews often fell back on the "pancake" sight in combat actually rendering the British version less effective than the original reflector sight set up. This was later rectified with the Stiffkey sight in the war. Just goes to show not all changes are better for the system.
So as demonstrated above there are examples of best in class weapons/systems from 'minor' countries, but it is important to understand what that means and why some things are changed. The Czech's actually are an excellent example. Many of their armaments, weapons, or weapon sub systems were best in class. However, just to be clear all the Czech guns that I know of share a common 'flaw'; they are all 'craftsmanship' products unsuitable for mass production by semi-skilled labour. Beautiful mechanical design, superior performance and hugely labour intensive. This makes sense since they were in house designs for themselves (small batch customer), like the Swiss, and so never had the design requirement to be mass produced.
This does leave one issue: the production of a new weapon or weapon system by a minor power during WWII. This is a weird assertion to hang on to. While I'll concede that no minor that I know of came up with a new weapon or weapon system of note during WWII as a distinct nation, this is a meaningless argument. The minor powers were all integrated into the industrial complex of their major ally. To sustain the war effort you cannot afford to have multiple different weapons/weapon systems in an integrated front. Minors were given production orders and expected to fill them or just given a general production licence. Also their technological achievements were rolled into the major's efforts. For example you can look at how British-Canadian research was indistinguishable as separate enterprises (http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/historical-sheets/science). Porsche was a Czech but was adopted into the German industrial complex. You can also check out Mario Zippermayr, Max Valier (mentor to A. Rudolph), and Anselm Franz; all Austrians who directly contributed to the German war effort.
So you can either look at it as the country of Czechoslovakia and Austria didn't produce anything of note in WWII as nations ignoring the way R&D was carried out among allies, or realize that combined they were responsible in part to the majority for Heavy Tanks and Heavy Tank-Destroyers, V-2 rockets and jet engines (Me 262).
Putting all this in the context of HOI though, it washes out at the level of detail the game operates at. Do you give the Czech's a tiny positive modifier to their various bits and bobs but a penalty to production speed? Do the British suffer an air attack penalty on their first upgrade to their AA sights and carriages then a massive boost on their second upgrade? Do the Allies have crap naval AA guns until the Dutch surrender? All in all I think at the strategic level most of this washes out and isn't worth modeling in the game. Also the real issue is the poor interchangeability between allies for basic combat gear and integrated research projects. Depending on National Focus and the integration of the ally a % of the minor's 'research' points should be ceded to the major and the ally's production would choose from a limited list of the major's gear. Ie 'Top Secret' stuff isn't accessible but mainline gear is.
Cheers and happy war gaming
Daniel
As many people pointed out above, many minors produced best in class weapon systems.
FOARP is conflating a few ideas and clearly doesn't understand the technical limitations/practicality of hi-tech mechanical design and manufacturing.
First Denkt correctly identified that 'minors' did produce 'better stuff' in some areas than some of the majors did before, during and after WWII. This is where FOARP conflates the idea of 'better stuff' into a very narrow view of a major weapons system, exclusively restricted to complete tanks, planes or ships. Furthermore when a bunch of people demonstrated various weapons systems that were best in class (ie: the best overall package for the intended role, not technically superior in every single way) he is unable or unwilling to accept (either from a lack of technical knowledge or cognitive dissidence) a best in class weapons system that is adopted by another country is still best in class despite the adopter's modifications.
This requires a little explanation for those not familiar with the technical workings of things like a gun, or an engine. Using a gas powered automatic weapon as an example there is a tonne of complexity and design ingenuity that goes into how the bolt is cycled and locked, the round extracted, the feed path of new ammunition, breech design etc. All these design decisions and technical breakthroughs have a huge impact on the weapons cyclic rate, fouling propensity, stoppage rate, stoppage handling, jamming propensity, barrel wear, field serviceability, ease of manufacture etc etc. So when someone figures out a very good way to build an automatic weapon that's what you're crediting; the system that makes the 'gun'. The next thing one has to consider is how to employ the 'gun'. In the case of a large caliber weapon this spawns a whole host of other considerations, such as mount, fire control, ammunition handling et al. So in the case of saying best in class 35-40mm auto-cannon is very different than saying best in class 35-40mm AA system. One asks about the 'gun' and the other asks about a system capable of downing an aircraft, which is the combined effects of weapon, mount, fire-control, ammunition handling, barrel life/changing and so forth.
Now we should address the next point. Why would a country adopt a best in class weapon or weapon system and then make major modifications if it was 'best in class' to begin with? To start with you have to consider how the adopting nation plans to employ the weapon. Since 99% of the time you're integrating the weapon into your existing armed forces and economy, instead of changing your economy and armed forces to suit the new weapon, you modify the weapon to suit your existing infrastructure. Lets take a small arms automatic weapon as an example. So you license this great weapon, but you use a slightly different caliber/cartridge. No problem, just a simple re-chamber and you're done right? Well your cartridge also has a slightly different base, so now you need to modify the extractor. Also your power/grain count is different. They use a higher load and/or a more expensive poweder/round that is self lubricating. You don't produce those. So now you need to modify the way the bolt cycles. Do you make it lighter, increase the gas bleed, change the piston, or a combination of all of them? How about a doctrine change? This weapon now needs to integrate into a more mobile infantry squad to be used offensively. You need to lighten the weapon. Do you shorten the barrel, cut down the stock, thin out the operating components? Let's say you shorten the barrel and thin the rest out. Now the weapon has a muzzle flash and/or handling problem because of these changes. Now you have to add a flash suppressor or muzzle break.
So despite the fact that none of these changes inherently are going to improve the weapon they still are enacted because of outside influences. This doesn't even touch on manufacturing issues/requirements. Often when a weapon design is licensed to be mass produced the first thing that is done is a check to see if you can re-use your existing tooling by modifying the design, and/or minimize the number of forged (and/or) machined parts.
Now, this being said all countries have very smart people in them. With a culture that applies them to weapons design, and the opportunity to do so, if they are going to modify something anyways they will seek to improve what they can, if they can. So when a 'major' nation licensed a design and they set to using it for their own ends they certainly would bring the best they could do to the system they were integrating that weapon into.
So both the Bren and Bofors gun are excellent examples of 'minors' superior weapons. The very fact that the Bofors gun was so widely licensed is a direct testament to it being best in class. The other countries looked at it and said we're not going to improve upon this gun in any meaningful way so rather than inventing our own, we'll just build this one. The best in class part though is just the gun - not an AA system. The novel and desirable thing about the Bofors was the firing rate born of the ingenious feed/ejector mechanism, hence best in class. A side note about the gun: Krupp had a significant commercial stake in Bofors so it's not like the Germans didn't have access to the design and technological know how. So to suggest that since the German's didn't use it despite having access must mean it's not that good is just plane dumb. They ingested the technical know how into their economy and produced a similar weapon based on their needs. Furthermore, while the British did make many changes, the conical flash hider was always available; they modified the design of it for the Mark 1/2 (I'm assuming because they had a better design already and it's a screw on part). What the Brits really did was make it mass producible, a typical thing transferring craftsmanship-centric designs out of mainland Europe to countries already changed over to mass production mentality. This doesn't change the 'design' as much as it's typically a trade between accuracy or reliability for an ability to be mass produced by much less skilled labour. Finally to address the mounts and sights. The mount design for the land application was mostly untouched until an airborne version was required. However it was the Dutch naval mount (Hazemeyer) that was employed by both the British and Americans after the Dutch were overrun. Before this the British used inferior air-cooled mounts initially. The naval guns typically used a radar fire control system so aren't part of the discussion the land sighting. The land sights were drastically improved by the British with the addition of the Kerrison Director for laying during aiming. Unfortunately for FOARP's position the Kerrison system was a huge PITA so the crews often fell back on the "pancake" sight in combat actually rendering the British version less effective than the original reflector sight set up. This was later rectified with the Stiffkey sight in the war. Just goes to show not all changes are better for the system.
So as demonstrated above there are examples of best in class weapons/systems from 'minor' countries, but it is important to understand what that means and why some things are changed. The Czech's actually are an excellent example. Many of their armaments, weapons, or weapon sub systems were best in class. However, just to be clear all the Czech guns that I know of share a common 'flaw'; they are all 'craftsmanship' products unsuitable for mass production by semi-skilled labour. Beautiful mechanical design, superior performance and hugely labour intensive. This makes sense since they were in house designs for themselves (small batch customer), like the Swiss, and so never had the design requirement to be mass produced.
This does leave one issue: the production of a new weapon or weapon system by a minor power during WWII. This is a weird assertion to hang on to. While I'll concede that no minor that I know of came up with a new weapon or weapon system of note during WWII as a distinct nation, this is a meaningless argument. The minor powers were all integrated into the industrial complex of their major ally. To sustain the war effort you cannot afford to have multiple different weapons/weapon systems in an integrated front. Minors were given production orders and expected to fill them or just given a general production licence. Also their technological achievements were rolled into the major's efforts. For example you can look at how British-Canadian research was indistinguishable as separate enterprises (http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/history/historical-sheets/science). Porsche was a Czech but was adopted into the German industrial complex. You can also check out Mario Zippermayr, Max Valier (mentor to A. Rudolph), and Anselm Franz; all Austrians who directly contributed to the German war effort.
So you can either look at it as the country of Czechoslovakia and Austria didn't produce anything of note in WWII as nations ignoring the way R&D was carried out among allies, or realize that combined they were responsible in part to the majority for Heavy Tanks and Heavy Tank-Destroyers, V-2 rockets and jet engines (Me 262).
Putting all this in the context of HOI though, it washes out at the level of detail the game operates at. Do you give the Czech's a tiny positive modifier to their various bits and bobs but a penalty to production speed? Do the British suffer an air attack penalty on their first upgrade to their AA sights and carriages then a massive boost on their second upgrade? Do the Allies have crap naval AA guns until the Dutch surrender? All in all I think at the strategic level most of this washes out and isn't worth modeling in the game. Also the real issue is the poor interchangeability between allies for basic combat gear and integrated research projects. Depending on National Focus and the integration of the ally a % of the minor's 'research' points should be ceded to the major and the ally's production would choose from a limited list of the major's gear. Ie 'Top Secret' stuff isn't accessible but mainline gear is.
Cheers and happy war gaming
Daniel
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He is not even consistent in his arguements.
When we talk about the Bren he says that it doesn't count because it was the brits who upgraded it and the origin country doesn't count.
When we talk about the Nimrod AA he says that it doesn't count because it was the other way around.
So no matter if you developed the predecessor or the improved version it doesn't count, because... reasons?
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Or just maybe I'm saying that the joint product of two country's efforts should not be ascribed to a single one of those countries? If the British field a version of a Czech machine gun that they had significantly modified and improved, this is obviously not an example of a minor country developing and fielding a weapons system by itself.
Errm, yeah. This was actually the assertion made by Denkt, and the entire point of the discussion that went on here.
This is actually what I'd prefer - minors producing the majority of weapons under license or buying them from majors.
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Except it was not a joint project in case of the Nimrod. Hungary bought a L-62 TD and using that as a base they developed their own weapons platform: the 40M Nimrod SPAAG.
It's the same like when the Soviets used the Vickers 6ton as a base to develop the T26, or when the Germans developed the 8.8 Flak using Swedish Bofors designs.
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Actually you made a wrong statement:
We are debating that, by quite many examples so far. (All of which you dismissed so far for one reason or an other.)
I appreciate the out of context quote. Try the whole sentence.
Next stop trying to change what Denkt said. If you insist on be pedantic and try to justify it by referencing your career in IP law at least get his quote right.
Denkt said: "Technology system will allow minors to keep up with the majors in some but not all areas (in reality minors did produce better stuff then the majors did in many areas during ww2)."
See "produce" does not equate invent during. So if you're going to change your argument in mid stride to try to back out of your untenable position, do try not to fall off a cliff in the process.
Since you're now insisting on "Produce" I'll just point you to the Dutch Hazemeyer mount that was whole sale copped by the British (and her Commonwealth) and the Americans because it was better, and in production by the Dutch until after the start of WWII. QED
So...
1. Based on this thread you're bad at it.
2. Appeal to authority is a terrible argument strategy in general. Esspecially In this case as you're telling everyone you don't know what you're talking about when discussing the technical details of the subject matter, only that you're well qualified to endlessly bicker semantics with non-leagal minded people. A useful appeal to authourity would be saying something like: I'm an automotive engineer and we define best in class as "_____" Based on this definition you're incorrect because....
3. The trick to patenting is not "finding a difference... and arguing that they are all-important..." This is constantly demonstrated as more and more patents are struck down for taking a known idea and saying "do it on a computer!" This clearly fails both the novelty test and non-obvious test for patentability despite being the exact definition of "finding a small difference and arguing it is all-important." Just because both the patent office and courts are slow to react/adapt doesn't make you some sort of legal messiah for doing what everyone else is doing. Instead it just makes you an also ran patent troll. If you're really smart you'd find a way to go "submarining" again. Now that was a brilliant abuse of the patent system.
Point of fact the important thing when patenting, once you've passed the test of patentability, is to optimize your patent to be as broad as possilbe to encompass as many potential work arounds as possible without being overly broad and as such likley to be struck down.
4. Can you do me a favour and let me know what firm you work at to make sure I never do business with them? It would save me a lot going forward.
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I belive the big problem with this entire arguement is that... How do you see if something is better or not?
People have been arguing since the systems were built if theirs were better or not, i really doubt we are gonna come to a conclusion here and thus this just became a pissing contest.
People have been arguing since the systems were built if theirs were better or not, i really doubt we are gonna come to a conclusion here and thus this just became a pissing contest.
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You are right, we can't know that. I'm not arguing that it was better or not. I'm arguing that some weapons developed by minors were just as good (in other words first class) as their counterparts made by majors.
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Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.
FYI - An argument from authority would have been "I'm X so you should believe me", which wasn't an argument that I made.
Reasons that I've already spelt out above, but which people had a hard time overcoming because in each case there were reasons why the examples didn't reach the criteria. Now, that doesn't mean that there aren't some great Czech/Swedish weapons systems, but its hard to build a case for minors providing world-beating weapons during WW2 based on them.
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I think this part of your post was quite uncalled for.
You can't get personal when you don't agree with someone about some internet arguement.
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My personal belief is that a minor country CAN produce first class equipment in few areas but that would force them to lack behind in other areas.
That is why i have my friend as USA when the game comes supply me in the areas that i will lack.
Minors still lack the capacity to produce big quanitity and be best in all areas, but a few areas are certainly doable.
That is why i have my friend as USA when the game comes supply me in the areas that i will lack.
Minors still lack the capacity to produce big quanitity and be best in all areas, but a few areas are certainly doable.
I think nobody is talking about world beating weapons. That was not the point of the debate.
We were talking about minors developing stuff that were just as effective, or more effective as stuff developed by majors. (like the Bofors gun, the Bren gun, the NIMROD, etc)
What I expect from HOI4 tech system is that majors will not be able to develop everything and that minors will be much more able to keep up in tech in a limited numbers of fields (however minor countries lack the industry to produce everything anyway).
The "minors" most likely to produce competitive equipment were mostly annexed within a few days/weeks, or even before the war began, however they had produced and manufactured designs that were as good as, or at least competitive with those of the majors in the late 30's. On that basis I feel it's unreasonable to discount the idea that they could support a small but competent domestic arms industry in a sandbox WW2 game. If for example the Poles or Czechs survive into 1941/42 by drastically aligning themselves towards the Soviets to protect against Germany I see no reason why their effective late 30s designs would not be improved on to produce effective mid war tanks/planes/artillery pieces.
This. Noone is claiming the minors should be up to date in every area and on par with majors industrially. However by allowing lend lease to cover their airforce requirements and forgoing anything more than a token navy, they may well have the industrial capacity and knowledge to sustain ground production sufficient to their needs, bearing in mind that the majors will be doing most of the fighting so their needs would be measured in brigades and divisions, rather than corps and armies. At the very least certain equipment types, such as artillery or tanks could be home grown, even if they're dependent on majors to provide rifles/ammunition in their thousands
This. Noone is claiming the minors should be up to date in every area and on par with majors industrially. However by allowing lend lease to cover their airforce requirements and forgoing anything more than a token navy, they may well have the industrial capacity and knowledge to sustain ground production sufficient to their needs, bearing in mind that the majors will be doing most of the fighting so their needs would be measured in brigades and divisions, rather than corps and armies. At the very least certain equipment types, such as artillery or tanks could be home grown, even if they're dependent on majors to provide rifles/ammunition in their thousands
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Thank you for the detailed analysis. I see you are a new poster. Just a suggestion, perhaps providing the shorter version of your explanation, you will get more responses.
Its a game, cannot be overly realistic down to the firing pin.
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Fair enough, but just to clarify I'm not interested in convincing FOARP of anything. He made a bunch of false statements on a technical level based on an unsupported opinion. Refuting that was easy, though fairly long. In the interim he made an appeal to authority based on his job/position to justify why he was right when arguing a detail/point one way, while others were wrong arguing a similar type of detail/point in a similar manner. Despite what he would want others to belive this is an appeal to authority. When presented with an appeal to authourity in an argument you can make a counter appeal to authourity and hope others listen to your appeal insteady of theirs, or you can demonstrate there is no authourity. A counter appeal to authourity has all the problems of the initial appeal to authourity, especially on the internet; thus one is best served by attacking the appeal to authourity.
Unfortunately this necessitates an ad hominem structure to the argument. This is not done because I'm looking to be hurtful, but by definition I need to discredit the appeal to authourity, which in this case is the poster themselves as they claim to be the authourity. Certainly point 4 appears to be unduly cheeky, but I was actually quite serious. Before I started my initial post I skimmed through his linked profile and blog to get a better sense of him and try not unfairly characterize him one way or another. This also yielded his location. Given what I currently do, I actually need IP legal representation in the EU as it is the 2nd major jurisdiction for patent filing after the states. Based on the model he espouses for IP law there is a very significant risk of any patents written in this manner to be overturned in court, especially under the current legal climate, and as such poses a significant risk to me if I should happen to retain said counsel.
Anyways, a long way of saying I agree with you that ad hominem argument structures are undesirable, but in this case unavoidable.
Based on the additional examples that others posted I'm pleased to see that there's an overwhelming amount of material showing that not only is innovation and success is much more wide spread that many would be led to believe based on video games, but that most people reading the thread should finish with a better understanding of how an iconic product or system arises from an initial great/new idea that is subsequently iterated on and contributed to by many parties to achieve it's final form.
So again, cheers and please excuse me. I'm off to do other things.
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