4 ms·

> finally, crossbows really are the better weapon - once you start factory-making them, your army can be raised and trained faster But the army you raise is le

> finally, crossbows really are the better weapon - once you start factory-making them, your army can be raised and trained faster But the army you raise is less effective; quantity vs quality. A country which did not want or could not afford to train longbow men may have had a deeper flaw: its model. Perhaps the real reason England could beat France had been a long time in the making: a strong economy, and politically society that afforded it a more equipped better trained army. I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield.

kltpzyxm 11y ago
That last sentence is the conclusion of 'The Logic of Political Survival', by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, et al. Unfortunately, I haven't gone through it in ten years, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it might have some faulty methodology.
marktangotango 11y ago
The quote from Stalin comes to mind, quantity has a quality of it's own.
- noir-york 11y ago
  Yep I also thought of that as I wrote that line. I wonder how that sounded to his cannon fodde^H^H^H soldiers...
  - the_af 11y ago
    It probably didn't sound like anything because it's most likely a misattribution (see the more detailed answers here: https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-its-own https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-it...). Not saying that Quora or Wikipedia are authoritative sources, but many of this sort of alleged quotes by Stalin are usually either what someone thought Stalin might have said, or coined by Western authors writing about Stalin and later misattributed to him. Most references I've found point to an American saying this quote (or similar) in the 70s.
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
At Agincourt, England beat France on pure fluke. We were effectively running away to Calais when the French trapped the English and attacked. The battle was lost more than won - the French just bunched up and got stuck in mud, and got slaughtered It was not a reflection on any economic models. Ps on the crossbow front - the cost of arrows relative to the firing mechanism is key
afarrell 11y ago
> I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield. Yes. There was an article that reached the top page here about the cultural/organizational problems of information-age Arab armies from the perspective of a US Army soldier who had worked with several. Let me see if I can dig it up.
- wollstonecraft 11y ago
  http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars
vinceguidry 11y ago
> I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield. There are many, many, many examples throughout history of this happening. In WWII, the British kept the European theatre alive until the Americans finally showed up. I learned in a Quora thread that opposing soldiers thought the British incredibly disciplined and reliable, while the Americans were absolutely nuts, making up in sheer bravado what they lacked in training. People will fight very, very hard to save their political system when they are personally invested in it. In the French Revolutionary wars, the generals led from the front of the army. Absolutely fearless, total badasses, fighting for the glory of the French Republic. Things changed of course after Napoleon grabbed the brass ring, but Napoleon did not make the army himself, it was the efforts of his revolutionary predecessors that forged the army that Napoleon commanded. Strongly democratic nations enjoy virtual invulnerability in battle, particularly when defending. The political stability is important when creating a national army that could conceivably be usurped by internal threats. The economy is essential for that oft-overlooked aspect of conducting a war, managing the supply train. Unless you're the Mongols, everything you use to wage war has to be maintained, and fed. Democratic countries simply do this better than autocratic ones.
- eru 11y ago
  > Strongly democratic nations enjoy virtual invulnerability in battle, particularly when defending. Tell that to all the smaller countries overrun by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. (Or the native north-American tribes.) (Lots of them did put up a great defence, though.)

kltpzyxm 11y ago

That last sentence is the conclusion of 'The Logic of Political Survival', by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith, et al. Unfortunately, I haven't gone through it in ten years, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it might have some faulty methodology.

marktangotango 11y ago

The quote from Stalin comes to mind, quantity has a quality of it's own.

noir-york 11y ago
Yep I also thought of that as I wrote that line. I wonder how that sounded to his cannon fodde^H^H^H soldiers...
- the_af 11y ago
  It probably didn't sound like anything because it's most likely a misattribution (see the more detailed answers here: https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-its-own https://www.quora.com/Who-said-Quantity-has-a-quality-all-it...). Not saying that Quora or Wikipedia are authoritative sources, but many of this sort of alleged quotes by Stalin are usually either what someone thought Stalin might have said, or coined by Western authors writing about Stalin and later misattributed to him. Most references I've found point to an American saying this quote (or similar) in the 70s.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

At Agincourt, England beat France on pure fluke. We were effectively running away to Calais when the French trapped the English and attacked. The battle was lost more than won - the French just bunched up and got stuck in mud, and got slaughtered It was not a reflection on any economic models. Ps on the crossbow front - the cost of arrows relative to the firing mechanism is key

afarrell 11y ago

> I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield. Yes. There was an article that reached the top page here about the cultural/organizational problems of information-age Arab armies from the perspective of a US Army soldier who had worked with several. Let me see if I can dig it up.

wollstonecraft 11y ago
http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars http://www.meforum.org/441/why-arabs-lose-wars

vinceguidry 11y ago

> I wonder if the advantages of a democracy - political stability and a (usually) advanced economy - also translate into the modern battlefield. There are many, many, many examples throughout history of this happening. In WWII, the British kept the European theatre alive until the Americans finally showed up. I learned in a Quora thread that opposing soldiers thought the British incredibly disciplined and reliable, while the Americans were absolutely nuts, making up in sheer bravado what they lacked in training. People will fight very, very hard to save their political system when they are personally invested in it. In the French Revolutionary wars, the generals led from the front of the army. Absolutely fearless, total badasses, fighting for the glory of the French Republic. Things changed of course after Napoleon grabbed the brass ring, but Napoleon did not make the army himself, it was the efforts of his revolutionary predecessors that forged the army that Napoleon commanded. Strongly democratic nations enjoy virtual invulnerability in battle, particularly when defending. The political stability is important when creating a national army that could conceivably be usurped by internal threats. The economy is essential for that oft-overlooked aspect of conducting a war, managing the supply train. Unless you're the Mongols, everything you use to wage war has to be maintained, and fed. Democratic countries simply do this better than autocratic ones.

eru 11y ago
> Strongly democratic nations enjoy virtual invulnerability in battle, particularly when defending. Tell that to all the smaller countries overrun by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. (Or the native north-American tribes.) (Lots of them did put up a great defence, though.)