Beth's Poll

Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2000 15:50:50 +1000
From: Beth Fulton <beth.fulton@marine.csiro.au>
Subject: Re: Beth's Poll

G'day Tom,

** G'day Beth. 

As usual I've probably got the wrong end of a very pointy stick here,
but... if communists (and thus ESU) by extension don't have good armed
forces becuase they're poor, poorly trained, can't think for themselves
how
come the cold war lasted so long? Shouldn't they have got trounced damn
smart?

** Hmmm. See my other post about quantity having a quality all its own.
The
Soviets had superior numbers (like 2 to 5x in most classes of stuff) to
the
NATO guys, and a way to think of it would be that, if we awarded NATO
40% of
its force at Tech 5 (arbitrary number), 40% at Tech 4, and 20% at Tech
3,
the Soviets may have had 10% Tech 5, 25% Tech 4, 50% Tech 3, 15% Tech 2.
So
they had their few "good" assets cushioned by lots of expendables.
That's
quite a viable strategy. They were backward, but they knew how to
compensate
for that defficiency. 

In my warped opinion I think the ESU ships maybe spartan and may not
have
the latest wizz-bang consoles of the FSE?UN?NAC etc etc, but I do think
that they'd have crews that were just as good (given they've been
through 3
solar wars).

** If you recall my ratings of the ESU, I gave them high marks for
experience. They did a LOT of fighting. But the problem is I suspect
they
also purge dissidents, which tends to take out some good officers and
junior
leaders - Ask Stalin or the Polish Army of days gone by. 

 I just have this feeling that if the ESU was to survive that
far then a) it wouldn't necessarily actually be very communist anymore
or
b) they'd figured out a better way to make it work, either way I just
figured you'd end up with something a bit more polished.

** Communism is just a name for what they have - a centrally planned and
controlled government. It isn't idealistic communism. And I don't see it
likely that China (which took over Russia) will ever entirely let go of
central planning. They're very traditionalist and almost reactionary
(the
leadership specifically). They'll allow some cracks around the edges,
but I
think it'll be a while till capitalism and democracy crack the ESU. 

** If you have numbers, or experience, that can often substitute for
other
kinds of quality. I think people (others) have underrated the effects of
all
the fighting on the ESU - it would have (I believe) have produced an
experienced cadre for their officer corps. Now purges may weaken this,
but
it isn't going to erase such broad spectrum combat experience. And a
willingness to expend people and cheap ships in a fight if necessary to
beat
a higher tech, better quality force is probably the only option and
might be
affordable if you have people and your ships don't cost too much to
build. 

Based on the results of the poll (for all its grand sample size), the
difference in power staus obviously comes down to resource base not
level
of technology/training/integration etc as there was no clear distinction
in
ranking between the major/minor powers.

** Well I'd agree that resource base has a lot to do with it. But
imagine
you didn't have a lot of granularity to your survey... let's say I have
a
smaller force - I have to pick the guys that are in it, and they HAVE to
be
good, so the whole force looks good if I'm resource and man shy. OTOH,
the
big boy with lots of cash and guys, he doesn't have the need to have his
guys as great on a per guy basis, and he's got such a huge force that he
can't afford it even with more resources, and by having a big force,
instead
of just having the top 1% in his navy, he has the top 5% and that's a
big
difference in quality. Anyway, there's also probably an argument that a
nation would not be a major power if it had not found a way to
compensate.
You'll note I don't suggest the ESU is 3rd rate. If you asked if it had
a
bigger force than anyone else, I'd say yes so as to result in a balance
with
the quality of the NAC for example. 

Better get back to my compile too.

** ditto again. 

Cheers

Thomas Barclay
Software UberMensch
xwave solutions
(613) 831-2018 x 3008