Anglo-Portuguese Alliance

[21oliver]

I believe its;

Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War*

We have a copy, but my brother is asleep or id go find it. It was a very interesting read. I had lost my copy years ago in a flood, a few years back we grabbed another on Ebay. Its a hard to come by book.

 

[keynes2.0]

Is this the model?

Attrition = f(Terrain, Weather, Posture, Size, Force Ratio, Relative Quality)

Personnel Ca = .037*Tc*Wc*Pca*Sca*[(Fd*Tpd*Ppd)/(Fa*Wpa)]**.42
Personnel Cd= .037*Tc*Wc*Pcd*Scd*[(Fa*Wpa)/(Fd*Tpd*Ppd)]**.42
Armor Aa = 6*Ca*Sta
Armor Ad = 3*Cd*Std

 

[Porkman]

Its the result of many combined elements including training, leadership, history and culture, morale, belief in the goals, commitment, ideology, and so on....

A human being is only a human being but the effects of many elements (including but not limited to the ones above) especially not only over time but over decades or centuries has an impact. This was not meant to be a racial war but an evaluation of the facts.

I find it impossible for example to blame all the military failures of a nation on their military high command or give all the credit to another nations high command and none to their troops. The High command is an extension a part of the military. Leaders can make mistakes, but typically good armies have good troops & good leaders and bad armies had bad of both the same.

This is all along the lines with Dupuys research. He took in all the factors and weighed them and his analysis as i stated previously was something around 100 German soldiers were were 130-150 Western Allies or 3-400 Soviet Troops. Even Dunnigan, considered the father of war gaming in most of his books would rate the military effectiveness of given nations. No one ever considered that all the troops in the war were equal and just blamed the losses on the leaders...

I am a former BAsketball Coach (30 years) and i can tell you that not 100% but typically the children of athletes were more talented those whose parents were not athletic. The USA is more invested in athletics then any nation in the world and yet the best long distance runners in the world are always from Africa. Is this supposed to be just dumb luck?

By most of the accounts i have seen, heard and read, the Italians simply werent interested in being soldiers, they didnt care enough, didnt want to, didnt fight well and so on. The Germans it was just the opposite, they embraced it typically.

How do we determine the reasoning for some nations to have traditionally strong high commands (Germany, US, UK)? luck? arent they part of the military as well? Is poor training always just the teachers fault? or perhaps the student as well? Culture doesnt matter? In Japan women were getting ready to fight with brooms and yet some european nations barely had undergrounds in operation.

I think its naive and too simplistic to think that everything is equal in the world. We may want it to be.

Long distance running is a very simple task where phenotype matters a lot. Being tall with lots of lean muscle is helpful. Being a soldier is a lot less delineated by intrinsic phenotype. Maybe the children of athletes are better because their parents are more likely and able to encourage athleticism at an early age.

Germans were good soldiers, but then again, so were the Gurkhas. Or to put in another wrinkle, the Chinese during the war. By all accounts, the Chinese fought terribly. But once the bad generals, bad supply, and bad weaponry were removed like happened in Burma, they fought well. This poor fighting race thing is why Macarthur allowed the US to be surprised by the Chinese intervention in the Korean War. He believed that the Chinese "couldn't fight" and thus ignored 2 months of captured Chinese soldiers.

It's a culture thing if it's anything and it comes down

 

[21oliver]

Maybe the children of athletes are better because their parents are more likely and able to encourage athleticism at an early age.

Perhaps i didnt find this necessarily to be the case, but i certainly wouldnt discount it. However i would say that there was an advantage in the gene pool which is what some people try and ignore or discount.

There are always specialized units that are of good quality regardless of the overall ability of the army, im talking in a more general sense. Culture is a key factor of course, probably THE key factor as it is a diverse topic.

Is this the model?

I dont have the book in front of me, so im not sure, i thought the formulas had more elements involved. Anyway its impossible to with 100% accuracy to create a mathematical formula to truly represent the topic, there are too many arbitrary numbers that have to be assigned that are determined simply by the beliefs of the individual (how much and to what degree do you factor in different types of terrain for example). But i found it an interesting read, and an excellent tool for wargaming (especially if you are designing your own).

 

[keynes2.0]

I dont have the book in front of me, so im not sure, i thought the formulas had more elements involved. Anyway its impossible to with 100% accuracy to create a mathematical formula to truly represent the topic, there are too many arbitrary numbers that have to be assigned that are determined simply by the beliefs of the individual (how much and to what degree do you factor in different types of terrain for example). But i found it an interesting read, and an excellent tool for wargaming (especially if you are designing your own).

I could easily imagine another ten or twenty coefficients to include in but they wouldn't change the essential picture. The model insofar as it pertains to this discussion could be reduced even farther. The only thing important here is that exponent, that is telling us that the declining rate of return of force size is at a power function of .42. That is to say it declines a bit faster then at a square root rate. This is just a single period version of the Lanchester attrition model.

Dupuy is talking about a tactical situation where forces aren't too removed from any target. In a Napoleonic line battle that might be quite large numbers of troops but in a WWII infantry or tank situation that translates to company sized forces before this model is going to break down. And that quality factor isn't referring to troops of an entire nation, it's referring to the troops of a handful of specific platoons.

That's a radically different proposition then supposing some sort of cultural superiority. I don't think anybody would be surprised by the theory that we could look at a specific military company and roughly assess it's abilities. If it's combat hardened, we could look at how companies with similar levels of experience perform. If it's green we can compare to the thousands of other companies that would have similar levels of training. We aren't saying "russian therefore bad". We are saying "russian conscripts with no training therefore firing at such and such an effective rate compared to a green regular company that has been trained".

 

[SirDraco]

Overall, I’m leaning towards the cultural thing here.

This is my take on the situation. Please bear with me.

Take Britain, for instance. In the three or four hundred years (or is it seven hundred years?) prior to WW II there wasn’t a year (possibly even a day) went by that we weren’t fighting or actually at war with someone. There's a great military tradition. It’s part of our culture.

The Japanese had been fighting amongst themselves, more or less continually, for a similar period. There’s another great military tradition that was even more part of their culture to the point of it being a huge part of their way of life.

France, Germany, Italy, Spain (& a few others) had fought with each other (with Britain on one side or the other) intermittently too. So, whilst there is military tradition (culture) there, none so great as Britain’s who has the unique distinction of having fought against every country or ethnic group in the world at one time or another. (Not proud of that, it's just a fact of history)

Now all this affects how your military behaves but the answer to the specific question of why the German, British, Polish, Russian (or even French) soldier was so much better than the Italian soldier is, I think, to be found elsewhere.

And it’s in one word – Motivation.

Now, I’m not suggesting that the Italians were cowards. No. Not at all. I’m suggesting that they simply didn’t want to fight, which isn’t the same thing at all. This wasn’t their war. Not in the way that it was Germany’s revolt against the humiliation of Versailles. It wasn’t their war in the way they were defending their homes against invasion. Nor was it their war in that it was their duty to fight for their Divine Emperor. (Il Duce? :rofl

No, fatso woke-up one morning & realised he would need to have spilt some blood in order to sit at the table with Hitler & not feel embarrassed. This is why Italy was at war.

So if you take away the equipment and leadership, you’re going to have an army that performs poorly. Take away the will to fight and you don’t have an army at all. Considering all three applied to Italy, the results should hardly be surprising. The vast majority of the Italian troops in North Africa weren’t captured as such. They surrendered en masse. Hell, most of them packed suitcases! They had prepared to surrender!

No motivation.

This is pretty much the way I see it. Out of all the majors in the war, Italy were probably one of the least experienced in war, before their unification, they were pretty much all a bunch of independent states, whereas the German states had been linked closely in one way or another since the Holy Roman Empire. Also motivation was a key factor, Italy didn't really have anything to prove in the war, unlike the other nations. Germany wanted revenge for the First World War and what happened after, France were fighting for their freedom, the UK had their pride at stake and were the last beacon of resistance against the Nazis in western europe, Russia was also fighting for their lives. Italy were just there to back up the Germans. It's no wonder that the Italians didn't fight with the same spirit as the other nations.

 

[Kagernaut]

Its the result of many combined elements including training, leadership, history and culture, morale, belief in the goals, commitment, ideology, and so on....

A human being is only a human being but the effects of many elements (including but not limited to the ones above) especially not only over time but over decades or centuries has an impact. This was not meant to be a racial war but an evaluation of the facts.

I find it impossible for example to blame all the military failures of a nation on their military high command or give all the credit to another nations high command and none to their troops. The High command is an extension a part of the military. Leaders can make mistakes, but typically good armies have good troops & good leaders and bad armies had bad of both the same.

This is all along the lines with Dupuys research. He took in all the factors and weighed them and his analysis as i stated previously was something around 100 German soldiers were were 130-150 Western Allies or 3-400 Soviet Troops. Even Dunnigan, considered the father of war gaming in most of his books would rate the military effectiveness of given nations. No one ever considered that all the troops in the war were equal and just blamed the losses on the leaders...

I am a former BAsketball Coach (30 years) and i can tell you that not 100% but typically the children of athletes were more talented those whose parents were not athletic. The USA is more invested in athletics then any nation in the world and yet the best long distance runners in the world are always from Africa. Is this supposed to be just dumb luck?

By most of the accounts i have seen, heard and read, the Italians simply werent interested in being soldiers, they didnt care enough, didnt want to, didnt fight well and so on. The Germans it was just the opposite, they embraced it typically.

How do we determine the reasoning for some nations to have traditionally strong high commands (Germany, US, UK)? luck? arent they part of the military as well? Is poor training always just the teachers fault? or perhaps the student as well? Culture doesnt matter? In Japan women were getting ready to fight with brooms and yet some european nations barely had undergrounds in operation.

I think its naive and too simplistic to think that everything is equal in the world. We may want it to be.

Not everything is equal.

Our genes are largely equal however, last time I checked everyone on this forum who isn't a secret alien from another galaxy was a homo sapien.

Experience, training, equipment. These three factors contribute more than anything else to the ability of a military force to function. To think otherwise is to be naive.

And as for long distance runners, coincidence is perhaps the most misleading thing in life. Keep in mind, when we select people for the olympics, the idea is to put forth our best and most qualified participants. Perhaps the long distance runners form africa are more qualified because they were chosen better.
Or, perhaps your hypothesis is racially oriented and doesn't have any scientific or factual base to it. Link me an article with some statistics and maybe we can continue to argue something which can only come to a pointless, racially disparaging end.

Ones culture can prepare one for combat, yes. Spartans are a great example. But any man in europe or the rest of the world, on average (not speaking of individuals), can become a good soldier, or a terrible one. Do you think that if Americans were forced to fight Greek spartans with equal equipment and training that we would be less inclined to victory? I don't agree, assuming all other conditions are the same, and we declare war on greece and the american commanders demanded victory and their army was well trained and disciplined, I believe we would either equal or defeat the Spartans. Assuming of course, that our leaders aren't idiots.

As for your Duquy or Dunnigan, they sound like simplistic idiots. Seriously, you can't mathematicaly quantify people and their fighting ability into a number that rates their overall effectiveness.

For example, those Germans in ancient Germania didn't do so well against the Romans (Italians) did they? Quantify that, and then think about how silly such a hypothesis is. I personally give the Romans 500000000000 and the Germans a 11111111111111. The Germans get less because their soldiers wore different colored armor which gave them a higher Visibility rating than the Romans by .05674^10th power. #sarcasm

Now, if the question is simply, why didn't the Italians fight better in WW2? And, was that motivated by something other than equipment, training, or experience?

Sure, thats a valid question, but not on the hypothesis that their culture, religion, blood, or mathematical values on your calculator screen it is not.
More simply, one could simply point out that public opinion wasn't behind Mussolini with the war. Most people weren't sure what they were fighting for. That can be true of many wars, even Vietnam for example (although there, since you love math, our KD was pretty damn good despite public opinion---we didn't continue the war because of that opinion however).

 

[Kagernaut]

No Kagernaut, I am not a nazi, but thanks for asking.
Sorry if I offended you or other readers. That was not my intention.
It was more like Beaga said. In my words, that people can fight harder when pushed to the limit, pressed against a wall or defending who they love.
Territorial pride 10% says it all.

I didn' ask you if you were a Nazi.

As for the last part, that isn't the same thing that you were saying before.

If thats your view, sure, but blood? No.

 

[murlocmancer]

Portugal was the most fascinatating neutral power in all of WWII (read Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939-1945). JPortugal carefully navigated itself by helping both sides in a way that did not deeply anger both sides. Portugal honestly would not dare enter the war as it would not be beneficial. Salazar disliked Hitler aswell so that did not help him joining the Axis. Portugal knew if it joined the allies, there would be a real chance of Spain going for the kill and also their Asian possessions (Japan still took Bali however). And if they joined the Axis the Country could not hold onto its African or other various sea possessions.

 

[keynes2.0]

As for your Duquy or Dunnigan, they sound like simplistic idiots. Seriously, you can't mathematicaly quantify people and their fighting ability into a number that rates their overall effectiveness.

No the model checks out, the problem someone assuming the model says something that it doesn't. What the model basically boils down to is that rule the effectiveness of firepower that a force brings to bear is related to the size of the force in a tactical level situation in a function that has a diminishing rate of return. That's hardly a radical statement. Furthermore we can expect that the effect of things like terrain, troop quality, weather, tactical stance, etc. to consistently affect the amount of firepower that a force can bring to bear in a predictable direction. And we could look at a specific organization of troops and infer from their composition whether they will be more or less effective with their firepower.

If I told you the number of times a force shot it's weapons and it's hit percentage it would be trivially easy for you to infer the casualties it dealt but it would no more tell you about the nature of war then me telling you what a players free throw percentage was would tell you who won a game. It's an accurate model but only when you understand it's built around very specific conditions and understand the statistics that are input into it.

Nothing about this model tells us what nationalities possess martial qualities. All it tells us that if we know a lot about how effective a small group of soldiers is, we can predict how effective that small group of soldiers is.

 

[21oliver]

Perhaps the long distance runners form africa are more qualified because they were chosen better.

This couldnt be more misguided. This just happens to be an area ive devoted my life to and perhaps you havent. To keep it simple in regards to the long distance runners, there is no rationale for them to be better. They simply are. They dont have better training, nor better coaching, nor better equipment. They dont train harder nor longer nor for more years. they simply are better. And not occasionally, but year after year after year. It is obviously something in their gene pool. I have spent over 30 years as an athletic coach, trainer and recruiting consultant and have coached all americans and contribute to hundreds of athletes getting NCAA scholarships, this is one area i do have personal advanced knowledge of. I wish i had a simple answer, i just dont.

As for your Duquy or Dunnigan, they sound like simplistic idiots. Seriously, you can't mathematicaly quantify people and their fighting ability into a number that rates their overall effectiveness.

Dunnigan is considered the father of all war games (going back to the old board game days. He has designed games for the US Govt, including the first gulf war which almost predicted casualties spot on. I was fortunate enough many years ago to exchange several emails with him when i was in game design. If you knock him you obviously are young or havent done your research. Dupuy on the other hand is widely controversial. People love his ideas or completely disagree with him.

Nothing about this model tells us what nationalities possess martial qualities. All it tells us that if we know a lot about how effective a small group of soldiers is, we can predict how effective that small group of soldiers is.

No it doesnt. I pointed out that at somepoint someone has to assign the values to go into the table. My point was someone like Dupuy who is well respected (by some at least) has assigned values that equated to the comparisons i named. Without a better source ill defer to the fact that he probably has an idea of what he is talking about. Dunnigan did the same type of assigning values in many of his books, including up to the modern ones. He would for example rate an Israeli infantry division a 100 and a Syrian one a 50, so we as laymen would simply take from it an Israeli infantry division was twice as good as a Syrian one.

We aren't saying "russian therefore bad". We are saying "russian conscripts with no training therefore firing at such and such an effective rate compared to a green regular company that has been trained".

I personally think its splittiing hairs but if its the terminology and the word "bad" that is offending people, fine point taken.

I tend to use terms loosely. I know what point im trying to get across, and tend to type down quickly for some it appears i have to choose my words more clearly...

Im not a racist, in fact if anyone knew me you would see if anything im the exact opposite. I feel comfortable with using the arguments i do without feeling im being offensive, even if they apply against me. I am a firm believer that everyone is not always the same and equal and that there is a predisposition for some things to come more naturally for some as opposed to others. History, Culture, Gene pools and more i am convinced are all contributing factors.

For example if the Germans had cold weather gear, i still believe they would have suffered in the Soviet Union more then the Russians. Why? because the Soviets lived through those conditions, born and raised, operating daily generation after generation. I do believe that contributes. Then factor in things like defending your homeland, ideology and so on and so on. The point on the African long distance runners? Your talking about nations where people walk 10 miles both ways sometimes to get a drink of water. their lives are totally different and this has gone on for thousands of years. their bodies have developed differently as does the inner make ups of the individual, and some of this is passed on down generation after generation. Some kid in Idaho cant simply take up running one day and be as good. And while there always will be the minority who may achieve, im talking the overall large numbers. The Japanese were willing to die to a person defending their homeland, the French werent. Why? The Soviet Union could have been overthrown but they all feared Stalin, meanwhile the moment Paul joined Yugoslavia in the Axis he was deposed. The Czechs refused to fight, the Poles didnt. why?

My terminology may have been off, for that i apologize. But i sincerely dont believe anything is equal anywhere at anytime. Its all varying degrees.

 

[keynes2.0]

He would for example rate an Israeli infantry division a 100 and a Syrian one a 50, so we as laymen would simply take from it an Israeli infantry division was twice as good as a Syrian one.

And that is a radically different statement then saying that Israelis fight twice as well as Syrians or Syrians make poor soldiers. It's talking about a set of values of a particular population at a particular point in time.

 

[21oliver]

To me its all just semantics and terminology but your point is taken.

 

[Kagernaut]

This couldnt be more misguided. This just happens to be an area ive devoted my life to and perhaps you havent. To keep it simple in regards to the long distance runners, there is no rationale for them to be better. They simply are. They dont have better training, nor better coaching, nor better equipment. They dont train harder nor longer nor for more years. they simply are better. And not occasionally, but year after year after year. It is obviously something in their gene pool. I have spent over 30 years as an athletic coach, trainer and recruiting consultant and have coached all americans and contribute to hundreds of athletes getting NCAA scholarships, this is one area i do have personal advanced knowledge of. I wish i had a simple answer, i just dont.



Dunnigan is considered the father of all war games (going back to the old board game days. He has designed games for the US Govt, including the first gulf war which almost predicted casualties spot on. I was fortunate enough many years ago to exchange several emails with him when i was in game design. If you knock him you obviously are young or havent done your research. Dupuy on the other hand is widely controversial. People love his ideas or completely disagree with him.



No it doesnt. I pointed out that at somepoint someone has to assign the values to go into the table. My point was someone like Dupuy who is well respected (by some at least) has assigned values that equated to the comparisons i named. Without a better source ill defer to the fact that he probably has an idea of what he is talking about. Dunnigan did the same type of assigning values in many of his books, including up to the modern ones. He would for example rate an Israeli infantry division a 100 and a Syrian one a 50, so we as laymen would simply take from it an Israeli infantry division was twice as good as a Syrian one.



I personally think its splittiing hairs but if its the terminology and the word "bad" that is offending people, fine point taken.

I tend to use terms loosely. I know what point im trying to get across, and tend to type down quickly for some it appears i have to choose my words more clearly...

Im not a racist, in fact if anyone knew me you would see if anything im the exact opposite. I feel comfortable with using the arguments i do without feeling im being offensive, even if they apply against me. I am a firm believer that everyone is not always the same and equal and that there is a predisposition for some things to come more naturally for some as opposed to others. History, Culture, Gene pools and more i am convinced are all contributing factors.

For example if the Germans had cold weather gear, i still believe they would have suffered in the Soviet Union more then the Russians. Why? because the Soviets lived through those conditions, born and raised, operating daily generation after generation. I do believe that contributes. Then factor in things like defending your homeland, ideology and so on and so on. The point on the African long distance runners? Your talking about nations where people walk 10 miles both ways sometimes to get a drink of water. their lives are totally different and this has gone on for thousands of years. their bodies have developed differently as does the inner make ups of the individual, and some of this is passed on down generation after generation. Some kid in Idaho cant simply take up running one day and be as good. And while there always will be the minority who may achieve, im talking the overall large numbers. The Japanese were willing to die to a person defending their homeland, the French werent. Why? The Soviet Union could have been overthrown but they all feared Stalin, meanwhile the moment Paul joined Yugoslavia in the Axis he was deposed. The Czechs refused to fight, the Poles didnt. why?

My terminology may have been off, for that i apologize. But i sincerely dont believe anything is equal anywhere at anytime. Its all varying degrees.

You, sir, are not a geneticist, nor a medical doctor of any kind. Your experience doesn't give any credibility to your claims about the Gene pool of Africans, or non-africans.
Also, were you an olympic trainer? Did you participate in the olympics? Did you go to Africa and see how they train their runners? Is the answer to each of those questions 'no'? Because if it is, you're still not qualified to judge.

As for Dunnigan or Duquy, I will defer to keynes explanation of their statistics, and my original argument that you can't roll up a group of people into a single digit number and say "better" or "worse" based on other group's numbers. Its silly. Now, what keynes is saying, is that the evaluations are based on individual units, specific battles, averaged out. Thats hardly a fair barometer to say that Israelis are better at warfare than their neighbors.

If you're not a racist, and not prejudiced, then don't say things that are. Seriously, racists use the I'm not a racist defense constantly, sadly some even believe it---but they're racists, proof is in the pudding. The only thing that can be gleamed from your comment on African long distance runners is that you think they have a racial advantage. You probably also think that White people are smarter and Asians have spectacular vision and great math skills due to their genes. Since you haven't stated these things, I can't prove them, though they are typical views of racist individuals.
However, as a caucasian male, I am offended by your suggestion that because of my genetics, I am an inferior runner to a black man. You have no proof, and your comments on the matter are very offensive. How do you know that kid in Idaho can't win the olympics? Maybe he could run faster than them, than you---you have no idea. You're just assuming, and you know what they say about assumptions.

As for Germans and winter and all that hogwash, you do realize there is winter and snowy weather on half the planet year round right? I live in Wisconsin. We have regular temp drops in the winter as low as -25 degrees F in the middle of the DAY. What does that mean? Nothing except that its really friggin cold here. But we have dense populations of people from all races and ethnicities, especially the hmung who come from a MUCH warmer climate. They adapted just fine, its not that hard, and it doesn't take that long, and people who life here still hate it when its cold.

Now the Russians had some advantages in terrain and weather because they knew their country and its environment. But, none of this is genetic, or cultural, nor were the Germans ill equipped because of any other reason than that they were literally not equipped with winter gear.

Saying the Japanese were willing to die and the French weren't is another statement that, honestly, I can't believe I'm reading. The IJA kept a strict leash on its soldiers, because they couldn't control them and they didn't want them deserting. But some did, as with all armies, and many were caught and shot as deserters. When the Japanese charged into battle, like when the soviets did, refusal to participate in a suicidal charge was met with purposeful friendly fire. I think they were assuming that their chances of getting shot were less if they attacked---or, perhaps they were thinking "dammit, more fighting? I hope I make it.....too bad they'll shoot me if I turn around. OR, they were thinking none of these things and just wanted to serve their country. ORRRR, they were Korean and Chinese conscripts with little to no choice in the matter.
You simply can't identify the mindset of every soldier in an entire army with one generic statement like "oh yeah, those guys were willing to fight it out to the bitter end".

As for the French, they fought well as they could, but poor leadership and planning hindered their efforts immensely. That doesn't mean they were geneticaly pre-disposed to run, or that their culture said that running and failure are ok---thats just how it went down based on multiple factors. It wasn't simply because they were French (which is a ludicrous argument when you consider how far France got under Napoleon).

The problem with your racism argument is that you think you're being fair when you say people are all different. In reality, its not WHETHER people are actually different, but rather that they are TREATED equally. Further, you lack and realy evidence to back up your claims, and then have the nerve to claim that you know what you're talking about through experience and distorting the work of a well known statisician (sp?).

You're making broad assumptions where none are either necessary nor welcome, nor productive for that matter; if we begin to see the French in WW2 as terrible because hey, thats how Frenchies are, then we start to ignore the fact that there are real reasons for their defeat and that we should study those reasons in order to prevent the same mistakes form happening again. Same applies to the reasons Germany went to war; there are more reasons than just Hitler hated Jews and Tommies. He never would have gotten to power if there wasn't other sentiment in the nation that led to his ascension to government; the economy was bad, the western allies had ridiculed the Germans and forced them into a very unfair situation, some of them actually did distrust the jews, etc etc etc...simplifying these scenarios leads to gross ignorance. Racism is just that, gross ignorance, and such ignorance tends to lead to racial hate.

 

[21oliver]

Ok

 

[Liquid Sky]

And yet you have to apply a number when you are making a game. And those numbers always seem to be higher for some nations then others. The best French counter is usually no better then the average German one.

Are you suggesting that all the values should be the same for everyone and that it is only the person pushing the counters that is different? Or am I being racist to counter pushers?

 

[keynes2.0]

And yet you have to apply a number when you are making a game. And those numbers always seem to be higher for some nations then others. The best French counter is usually no better then the average German one.

Are you suggesting that all the values should be the same for everyone and that it is only the person pushing the counters that is different? Or am I being racist to counter pushers?

The counters should be different but they should be different for better reasons then "because germans are good at war". Italians shouldn't be required to make bad troops in '41 just because they are Italians. If they are bad it should be because the Italians focused on other things (like their fleet).

 

[21oliver]

If they are bad it should be because the Italians focused on other things

Like making pasta...

 

[Secret Master]

I'm not sure where this discussion is going, but we're really far afield of Portugal and the United Kingdom at this point. We're at a point where people are debating racial characteristics and genetics for some really strange reason.

I think that I'm going to just close this thread; you can discuss these things somewhere else.