Boring but Practical/Real Life: Difference between revisions

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**** The civilian version of the C-47, the Douglas DC-3, was very successful in its own right. Several hundred of them are still flying today in active commercial service around the world, simply because nobody ever really designed an aircraft better suited to rugged conditions. The common saying among pilots is that "the only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3."

*** While the U.S. provided the Soviet Union with a number of tanks, bazookas and planes as part of the lend-lease act, many Soviet commanders were most grateful for the thousands of Jeeps that came with the deal since the Soviet union's main method of having its infantry keep up with the tanks was riding them (and you can only fit so many guys on top of a T-34 [[We Have Reserves|before the first AT shell blows them to pieces]]). Tens of thousands local copies of the Jeep would be made during and after the war and were much beloved by their owners.

***trucks were also exceedingly popular with the Red Army. They were satisfied with their own tanks, they just needed more of them. With someone else making their trucks there was more space at the factory. And Russia is a big place and needs [[Captain Obvious|lots of trucks.]]

***One more quirky but interesting item on the Russian order list was landlines. Russians never liked the fear of eavesdropers and wanted to keep radio silence as often as possible. Certainly the vanguard would have to cut loose as you can't fight a maneuver war without doing so. But the main body can be coming at a deliberate enough pace to rig landlines. Russians however didn't make good ones and they had to be flawlessly protected to stand the weather as one leak is equiv to cutting it. The Western Allies could ad did.

*** Napoleon once said an army fights on its stomach. All forms of cargo transportation in essence is the evolution of this. The most practical and boring thing in wars are the supply lines. Well, boring until they are attacked.

**** It was Julius Caesar who said an army marches on its' stomach. Napoleon said "The outcome of the battle is incidental to the decisive question of supply." He lost his campaign in Egypt, for instance, because the British Navy destroyed the French fleet that was providing Napoleon's army with supplies. The supplies on hand allowed him to operate for a time, but he left before things inevitably went south on him.