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Ody's war

A virtual pub for off topic, light hearted pub related banter and discussion. No trainers
Howard
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Ody's war

#351567

Postby Howard » October 28th, 2020, 4:09 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:
Forgive me for giving you a couple of hints from the General's training manual:

It's important to be able to tell the difference between these two statements by your leader Elon:

1. I’m going to Germany and will meet the CEO of VW.

2. There will be a million Tesla robotaxis by the end of 2020.

The first statement is likely to be proved correct.

The second statement is a trick. If you indicate you believe it, your front-line infantry will believe you are deranged, and you may not last long as a General!

Can I suggest watching from 1min 40seconds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rblfKREj50o

kind regards

;)

Howard


This encompasses everything in a nut shell.

On one level Tesla are UPOD's: Under Promise, Over Deliver

On another they are evangelists for the new methods of personal and commercial transport.

Both of the two statements exhibit the full range of the craft of a General.

In the former, not only does he meet VW, but later he drives one of their cars and he does all manner of other stuff with Tesla: Say one thing, do a lot more.

In the second question he is all about putting Tesla as the car company of the future, showing they have grand ambitions and are working towards how cars will be.

One is a purely factual thing, the other appealing to the soul.

Meanwhile we have Mercedes Benz saying: We are going to carry on as we have been. We are not going to make the cars of the future.

Regards,


Yes, General Melchett, I'm sure you are right! ;)

regards

Howard

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Ody's war

#351572

Postby odysseus2000 » October 28th, 2020, 7:45 pm

Yes, General Melchett, I'm sure you are right! ;)

regards

Howard


It is worth noting that the UK won the First World War. The characters of Black Adder are great comedy vehicles and there were horrendous mistakes and acts of stupidity on the Western Front, but the UK invented Tanks, Rolling barrage, modern sniping, the technology of massive armaments manufacture on the West coast of Scotland and a whole of other things from blowing up hills via tunnelling, through hand grenades to create a total war machine, on the ground, in the air and at sea, the latter starved Germany via blockade after the Royal Navy, to use Churchill's words Paraphrase: Reached beneath the sea to strangle the enemy u-boats/

The predominately males who did all of this work orchestrated by Generals was what brought the UK victory.

If you study the UK first war effort you will see many of the things that the UK did to win that war are being used by Tesla to build its business. The whole effort UK first war effort was secular change across many technological fronts in a very short time that completely eclipsed what the enemy did and lead to appliance of miltary force and power that was recorded by Winston Churchill as an overwhelming force breaking through their lines, an experience that he often could not set down for the horrors he witnessed.

Regards,

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Ody's War

#351573

Postby ReformedCharacter » October 28th, 2020, 9:11 pm

odysseus2000 wrote:
It is worth noting that the UK won the First World War.

That's rather a UK-centric view if I may say. Also, France, Russia (both in greater numbers killed), Italy, Romania, the US and other countries.

odysseus2000 wrote:... the UK invented Tanks, Rolling barrage, modern sniping, the technology of massive armaments manufacture on the West coast of Scotland and a whole of other things from blowing up hills via tunnelling, through hand grenades to create a total war machine, on the ground, in the air and at sea, the latter starved Germany via blockade after the Royal Navy, to use Churchill's words Paraphrase: Reached beneath the sea to strangle the enemy u-boats/

I rather doubt that tanks made much difference to the outcome. One notable success at Cambrai IIRC. Hand grenades have been around in various forms for hundreds of years and quite probably the German stick-grenades were more effective. Air superiority changed hands several times as planes were developed. Both sides tunnelled but it could be said that the largest mining \ tunnelling battle at Messines was significant in moving towards the defeat of the Central Powers.

odysseus2000 wrote:The whole effort UK first war effort was secular change across many technological fronts in a very short time that completely eclipsed what the enemy did and lead to appliance of miltary force and power that was recorded by Winston Churchill as an overwhelming force breaking through their lines, an experience that he often could not set down for the horrors he witnessed.

I agree that technological development, particularly of artillery, made a significant difference to the outcome but it is hard to agree that the Germans were 'completely eclipsed', apart from anything else they had better tactics of 'defence in depth' and certainly made better use of machine guns. Surely a significant aspect of the defeat of the Central Powers (mainly Germany in 1918) was the prospect of the US manpower and machinery which promised to materialise in 1919 in large quantities, causing the Germans to over-extend themselves in 1918. I'd suggest it was a close run war which the UK was near to losing due to the destruction of its manpower, it was running out of men to be killed.

RC

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Ody's war

#351574

Postby odysseus2000 » October 28th, 2020, 10:00 pm

I rather doubt that tanks made much difference to the outcome. One notable success at Cambrai IIRC. Hand grenades have been around in various forms for hundreds of years and quite probably the German stick-grenades were more effective. Air superiority changed hands several times as planes were developed. Both sides tunnelled but it could be said that the largest mining \ tunnelling battle at Messines was significant in moving towards the defeat of the Central Powers.

odysseus2000 wrote:
The whole effort UK first war effort was secular change across many technological fronts in a very short time that completely eclipsed what the enemy did and lead to appliance of miltary force and power that was recorded by Winston Churchill as an overwhelming force breaking through their lines, an experience that he often could not set down for the horrors he witnessed.

I agree that technological development, particularly of artillery, made a significant difference to the outcome but it is hard to agree that the Germans were 'completely eclipsed', apart from anything else they had better tactics of 'defence in depth' and certainly made better use of machine guns. Surely a significant aspect of the defeat of the Central Powers (mainly Germany in 1918) was the prospect of the US manpower and machinery which promised to materialise in 1919 in large quantities, causing the Germans to over-extend themselves in 1918. I'd suggest it was a close run war which the UK was near to losing due to the destruction of its manpower, it was running out of men to be killed.

RC


History is one of the subjects where I prefer to get first hand accounts written at the time.

There is no question that the war was nearly lost at the beginning and had the German's carried on they could have been victorious and it also the case that much of the early UK tactics and equipment were unsatisfactory, but then there was a huge armaments program powered by Lloyd George that tapped into many brilliant minds. Churchill had previously forced through the adaption of oil fuel for the navy rather than coal and that led to significant advances

I mentioned the hand grenade as, according to Churchill, this was a contest set up to develop a useful weapon and what UK inventors came up with is still, as I understand it, used today.

Similarly I wrote of UK forces breaking through and eclipsing German forces as this was how Churchill described his observations in the final battles of the war. Of course he was responsible for tanks and so one would not expect him to be neutral, but he writes of how the German developed anti-tank rifle bullets but not enough and according to Churchill tanks made important contributions.

Whether this analysis is too superficial I can not know. There have been many books written about the war and perspectives have changed and changed. However, no matter how much weight one wants to put on uk technological growth, there is ample evidence that many major contributions were made to war technologies by the UK. How important they were compared to all the other factors I can not say, but there seem imho very many parallels to what the UK did in the first war to what Tesla are doing in the automotive industry. In both cases problems are being tackled with practical engineering solutions, not by lobbying and diplomacy.

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Re: Ody's war

#351725

Postby odysseus2000 » October 29th, 2020, 2:30 pm

Very kind of DSPP to preserve this thread and as a resource for considering how secular change leads to huge real world events I think it may be instructive to consider technologies that came from military need and how that provided opportunities for investors even if they may not be recognised.

As a contribution to this I will start with this statement: "Sputnik lead to the greatest investment boom ever!"

For those who do not know, Sputnik was the first human orbital satellite launched by the USSR.

You may be thinking, well sure this led to the world space industry, but even with all the money spent on that it was not the world's greatest investment boom.

I agree and the world's space industry is the wrong answer.

When Sputnik went up there was huge super power rivalry with both the US and USSR capable of creating a major exchange of nuclear weapons. Nerves were often stretched and there was endless talk of bomber gaps, rocket gaps,... To counter all of this uncertainty there was plenty of cold war spying and the development of spy planes like the Blackbird and the U2 and yet there was still great fear that the one side was gaining a massive advantage and so there was a massive over production of thermonuclear weapons with ever increasing dangers that a war would start by accident and that would have sent us back decades and we would not have had the great booms that world peace has brought.

After Sputnik came many satellites, many with cameras so that it became impossible for either side to build up the necessary border forces needed for a war without the other side knowing. The danger of a Pearl Harbour like surprise attack vanished, if one side did launch the other side would see it within seconds and get off all their missiles as well, adding a near certainty of mutually assured destruction.

Sputnik therefore, imho and no doubt others will argue differently, lead to peace more or less and gave us the greatest investment boom ever.

I can think of many other examples of secular change that lead to huge consequences for humans, but hopefully others can suggest their own. As of now the greatest secular trends I see are renewable energy, electric transport, AI and robotics. The lessons from what happened in previous secular change, some with military connections, is what drives how I view all of these.

Regards,


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