We Have Reserves: Difference between revisions

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* A more subtle phenomenon happens in a war between comparable powers: that is powers capable of copying or countering each other, rather then having an inimitable weapon like the [[Hordes From the East]] did, when one starts with a performance advantage and one with a material advantage. The casualty rise on the first will sooner or later reach a point where it will counter the performance, because for instance officers will bleed off and the turnover will include large amounts of [[New Meat]]. In the meantime the second power will start to [[Surpassed the Teacher|learn from]], [[Sink or Swim Mentor|the First]], the excess of officers who have [[HAD to Be Sharp|seen and survived]] the first power's tricks will end up promoted. As a result performance changes until the materially superior power is also qualitatively superior.
**For instance in the beginning of the [[World War 2|Pacific War]]Japan was unquestionably superior in quality(it was also superior in material actually available but more was waiting to come on line for the Allies). They won a number of spectacular victories. In late 1942 through 1943 the odds were even but the Allies were getting better in both quality and quanity. And after that the Allies pretty much had the whip hand.
* In the Strategic Bombing Campaign over Europe in [[World War 2]] the US Eighth Air Force won by finally figuring out that trying to hit a "pinpoint" target from a heavy bomber was like trying to hit a nearby telephone line from a passing subway train by throwing a golf ball(and in any case the bomb was likely to land on some poor schmuck which is one reason they headed for cities where there was a multiplicity of poor shchmucks). In any event tactics were changed to make the bombers the bait and provoke as many dogfights as possible on the assumption that Germans would run out of planes and pilots first.
 
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