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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [World War II] >> Norm Koger's The Operational Art Of War III >> Scenario Design >> RE: SS

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RE: SS - 11/30/2007 11:26:13 AM

golden delicious

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

No -- the Holocaust was not war. Tamerlane's massacre of 250,000 prisoners at Delhi was not war.

Yeah. War implies a mutuality.

_____________________________

"What did you read at university?"
"War Studies"
"War? Huh. What is it good for?"
"Absolutely nothing."

(in reply to ColinWright)

Post #: 151

RE: SS - 11/30/2007 4:05:32 PM

Curtis Lemay

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

All I can say is that there's a difference between the United States and George Bush.

..really

..is that the US as a whole or just the bits that didn't vote for him...twice...

And then there are those of us who voted for him four times (twice for gov and twice for pres).

Now if only Jeb would run.

Hmm. Well, personal differences notwithstanding, when I become president I may appoint you my goodwill ambassador to the world's liberal community. I'd say you may have potential.

Surely wargaming will be compulsory in such an administration - which would rapidly eliminate liberals via its enhancing effect on neural connections.

(in reply to ColinWright)

Post #: 152

RE: SS - 11/30/2007 4:23:32 PM

a white rabbit

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

All I can say is that there's a difference between the United States and George Bush.

..really

..is that the US as a whole or just the bits that didn't vote for him...twice...

And then there are those of us who voted for him four times (twice for gov and twice for pres).

Now if only Jeb would run.

Hmm. Well, personal differences notwithstanding, when I become president I may appoint you my goodwill ambassador to the world's liberal community. I'd say you may have potential.

Surely wargaming will be compulsory in such an administration - which would rapidly eliminate liberals via its enhancing effect on neural connections.

...or just make them better able to usefully run a country..

..but then as a fox-huntin' with dogs, frankly an anything huntin' with dogs, who detests fishin' and guns, i would say that..

..legalise hare-coursing, s'great fun...

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(in reply to Curtis Lemay)

Post #: 153

RE: SS - 11/30/2007 9:06:07 PM

ColinWright

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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

And that thing about Neanderthal, there is evidence that Neanderthal actually died out because of the glacial period that began 40,000 years ago, the one that ended at the beginning of the Neolithic.

This doesn't make much sense. Neandarthals were actually bigger than us, which makes them better suited to cold climates. Contraversially, it's believed they were also more intelligent- which would make them more adaptable. We, however, worked in groups.

I doubt they were more intelligent. They had bigger brains -- but apparently a smaller frontal lobe.

I was reminded of the phenomenon of Neaderthal's brain size when I was reading something about dolphins. Apparently, although dolphins have big brains, that may not mean they are especially intelligent: there's no correspondingly large number of some sort of connector, apparently. The large size appears to be an adaptation to permit the brain to maintain the proper operating temperature even though the case is immersed in what can be very cold water. This isn't to say dolphins are stupid -- but notions that they are as smart as us appear to be groundless.

Now, in most respects Neanderthal was simply a species of Homo Erectus -- but physically bigger, and with a larger brain size. Among animals, larger size often is an adaptation ot a colder climate -- the total mass/surface area ratio falls the bigger the animal gets. A Siberian wolf might weight 150 lbs -- an Arabian wolf perhaps 40 lbs.

So we can readily see how Neanderthal's unusual size could simply have been an adaption to cold. Particularly in view of the absence of any other indications that he was especially bright, could the large brain size have simply been such an adaption as well? There is little evidence other than that big brain pan that he was somehow mentally superior to the general run of Homo Erectus types. My impression is that he didn't make art, it's debatable if he could talk, none of his weapons are technologically remarkable, etc.

So it might have been relatively easy for us to whack Neanderthals. Like getting the village idiot to stand in a tub and try to pull it up.

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Post #: 154

RE: SS - 11/30/2007 9:11:07 PM

ColinWright

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quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

No -- the Holocaust was not war. Tamerlane's massacre of 250,000 prisoners at Delhi was not war.

Yeah. War implies a mutuality.

Yeah -- but what level of mutuality?

Wounded Knee is generally accounted a massacre -- even though the Indians actually managed to inflict about one casualty for every five received. That probably compares favorably to the Japanese performance on Saipan -- which is generally accounted a battle. It would be considered wildly tenditious to condemn Desert Storm as a massacre -- and yet what was the casualty ratio there?

Presumably, some desperate Chinese householder somewhere in Nanking managed to kill a Japanese soldier engaged in raping his daughter. Does that make the Rape of Nanking a 'battle'?

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Post #: 155

RE: SS - 11/30/2007 9:12:43 PM

ColinWright

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

quote:

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

All I can say is that there's a difference between the United States and George Bush.

..really

..is that the US as a whole or just the bits that didn't vote for him...twice...

And then there are those of us who voted for him four times (twice for gov and twice for pres).

Now if only Jeb would run.

Hmm. Well, personal differences notwithstanding, when I become president I may appoint you my goodwill ambassador to the world's liberal community. I'd say you may have potential.

Surely wargaming will be compulsory in such an administration - which would rapidly eliminate liberals via its enhancing effect on neural connections.

I take it you don't find our actions in Iraq evidence that brainlessness is equally distributed across the political spectrum.

_____________________________

I am not Charlie Hebdo

(in reply to Curtis Lemay)

Post #: 156

RE: SS - 11/30/2007 9:14:51 PM

ColinWright

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Joined: 10/13/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: a white rabbit

...or just make them better able to usefully run a country..

..but then as a fox-huntin' with dogs, frankly an anything huntin' with dogs, who detests fishin' and guns, i would say that..

..legalise hare-coursing, s'great fun...

Unusually incoherent even by your standards.

_____________________________

I am not Charlie Hebdo

(in reply to a white rabbit)

Post #: 157

RE: SS - 11/30/2007 11:17:53 PM

desert

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quote:

Well you and I are going to be dead in 70 years. So right now is what concerns me. Your methods might be all very well, but they're as theoretical now as the atom bomb was 100 years ago. I don't see them being applied in my lifetime.

Two words - stem-cell research.

quote:

Maybe -- but see Iraq. Personally, I tend to see that as not constituting 'war' -- but it certainly gets called a 'war' a lot.

Would you rather we call it conflict?

PS: Homo erectus??? The ones that died out half a million years ago?

< Message edited by desert -- 11/30/2007 11:28:48 PM >

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Post #: 158

RE: SS - 11/30/2007 11:25:07 PM

ColinWright

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quote:

ORIGINAL: desert

Would you rather we call it conflict?

'Fiasco' comes to mind. 'Farce' would also seem to be applicable. 'Waste' is another relevant word.

Then there are the phrases. 'Exercise in futility.' 'Mind-numbing stupidity.' 'Criminal arrogance and ignorance.'

Maybe when Bush goes to that Great Ranch in the Sky, we could build him something like the Lincoln Memorial. Only it has to be something unpleasant, depressing, and pointless. Made out of solid gold.

< Message edited by ColinWright -- 11/30/2007 11:28:09 PM >

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I am not Charlie Hebdo

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Post #: 159

RE: SS - 12/1/2007 1:02:57 AM

Curtis Lemay

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From: Houston, TX
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quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
I take it you don't find our actions in Iraq evidence that brainlessness is equally distributed across the political spectrum.

I can't come up with a case of it ever being done better. Of course, it's hard to come up with relatively equivalent circumstances, but try comparing to Yugoslavia 41-45.

For that matter, try comparing to Poland 39 or France 40. Both cases so exalted they coined the term "Blitzkrieg" and losses were considered miraculously light. Now check the German dead totals. And that's without factoring in the resistance that followed.

The Iraq War is being held to an absurd standard.

(in reply to ColinWright)

Post #: 160

RE: SS - 12/1/2007 2:58:58 AM

ColinWright

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Joined: 10/13/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

quote:

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
I take it you don't find our actions in Iraq evidence that brainlessness is equally distributed across the political spectrum.

I can't come up with a case of it ever being done better. Of course, it's hard to come up with relatively equivalent circumstances, but try comparing to Yugoslavia 41-45.

For that matter, try comparing to Poland 39 or France 40. Both cases so exalted they coined the term "Blitzkrieg" and losses were considered miraculously light. Now check the German dead totals. And that's without factoring in the resistance that followed.

The Iraq War is being held to an absurd standard.

We're talking about apples and oranges here. I have few problems with our actual invasion -- either in principle or execution. It's the post-game show I have problems with. However, this would seem to be exactly the sort of topic we're not to discuss here, so...

However, as to 'the resistance that followed.' I won't comment on Poland, and I certainly won't comment on Yugoslavia, but I can't resist noting that it wasn't until August 1941 that the German forces occupying France logged their first fatality. In other words, zero (0) losses to resistance activity for over a year.

< Message edited by ColinWright -- 12/1/2007 3:02:13 AM >

_____________________________

I am not Charlie Hebdo

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Post #: 161

RE: SS - 12/1/2007 3:23:34 AM

desert

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quote:

but I can't resist noting

_____________________________

"I would rather he had given me one more division"
- Rommel, when Hitler made him a Field Marshall

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Post #: 162

RE: SS - 12/1/2007 5:01:36 AM

Ike99

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quote:

For that matter, try comparing to Poland 39 or France 40. Both cases so exalted they coined the term "Blitzkrieg" and losses were considered miraculously light. Now check the German dead totals. And that's without factoring in the resistance that followed.

The Iraq War is being held to an absurd standard.

The Iraq war is a failure no matter what the losses. The purpose of war is to serve a political purpose. War does not serve itself. In Poland and France the Germans were able to achieve their desired political effect.

This has not happened in Iraq.

(in reply to desert)

Post #: 163

RE: SS - 12/1/2007 7:46:24 AM

JAMiAM

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Despite my continued warnings to the contrary, it seems that this thread keeps getting dragged back into current political events. Please find another venue to get politics out of your systems.

Closed.

(in reply to Ike99)

Post #: 164