Re: Why Isn't Socialism Dead?
James A. Donald
> On Dec 16, 9:29 pm, James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> > --
> > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > Without US logistics, Russians would have continued
> > > > to collapse. The Soviet system had very limited
> > > > ability to move, feed, and arm troops, as we saw in
> > > > their conflict with Japan.
> > ar...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > > The Soviets fought two conflicts with Japan - in 1939
> > > and 1945. Both times the Japanese were decicively
> > > defeated.
> >
> > In the sense that the Japanese stopped advancing.
> >
> > Stopping someone from advancing is not "a decisive
> > defeat", and inability to roll them back after a
> > "decisive defeat" is evidence of logistic failure.
> >
> > In other words, the Russians twice inflicted what would
> > have been decisive defeats on the Japanese, were it not
> > for the Russian's logistic failure.
>
> From http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-soviet-and-japanese-forces-battle-at-khalkhin-gol.htm/3:
>
> "While Japanese leaders squabbled over their commitment of forces in
> Mongolia, Zhukov and others began to focus on overcoming the daunting
> logistical challenges of maintaining a sizable defensive force in the
> region. In an impressive effort that would provide valuable lessons
> for future operations, Russian truck convoys drove day and night over
> desert tracks, a grueling round trip of 868 miles. The Soviets
> employed 3,800 trucks and 1,375 fuel tankers in their supply
> organization. Those trucks transported 18,000 tons of artillery
> shells, 6,500 tons of bombs and 15,000 tons of liquid fuel, as well as
> troops and weapons. Much of the credit for that remarkable feat of
> logistics must go to a veteran Soviet general, Grigori M. Shtern,
> commander of the Trans-Baikal military district."
>
> So apparently logistics was not the reason why the Soviets failed to
> advance in 1939.
That communists think their achievements remarkable is not evidence
that their achievements were remarkable.
"Maintaining" a "defensive" force, means your logistics has failed.
Logistics does not mean you are able to keep your forces in place, it
means moving them to where the enemy is unprepared to deal with them.
That the objective of this supposed logistic triumph was to "maintain"
a sizeable defensive force, means that the logistics was an utter
disaster. The hard problem of logistics is to supply a moving
aggressive force, not a stationary defensive force. That communists
found the easy problem challenging demonstrates a logistic failure,
demonstrates inability to solve the hard problem.
The events in Poland and the Baltics, as well the
> fact that both USSR and Japan had an important common ally seem like
> more likely reasons.
> And of course in 1945 they did advance, within 2 weeks capturing
> territory the size of Western Europe, although at that time they
> probably were still in possession of the Lend-Lease trucks.
ar...@hotmail.com
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:09:33 -0800 (PST), ar...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > On Dec 16, 9:29 pm, James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> > > --
> > > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
> > > > > Without US logistics, Russians would have continued
> > > > > to collapse. The Soviet system had very limited
> > > > > ability to move, feed, and arm troops, as we saw in
> > > > > their conflict with Japan.
> > > ar...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > > > The Soviets fought two conflicts with Japan - in 1939
> > > > and 1945. Both times the Japanese were decicively
> > > > defeated.
>
> > > In the sense that the Japanese stopped advancing.
>
> > > Stopping someone from advancing is not "a decisive
> > > defeat", and inability to roll them back after a
> > > "decisive defeat" is evidence of logistic failure.
>
> > > In other words, the Russians twice inflicted what would
> > > have been decisive defeats on the Japanese, were it not
> > > for the Russian's logistic failure.
>
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
If you read the passage that I quoted you will notice that it talks
about moving troops and supplies to where they are needed and
overcoming difficulties along the way.
And if "maintaining a defensive force” involves moving that force
across the desert, it does not mean that logistics has failed.
I was not aware that Historynet are commies. If their facts are wrong,
perhaps you can point me to a more reliable source.
In any case, your prior statement implied that the Soviets failed to
advance against the Japanese in 1945. I don't think this is
defensible.
James A. Donald
> On Dec 19, 12:43 am, James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> > That the objective of this supposed logistic triumph was to "maintain"
> > a sizeable defensive force, means that the logistics was an utter
> > disaster. The hard problem of logistics is to supply a moving
> > aggressive force, not a stationary defensive force. That communists
> > found the easy problem challenging demonstrates a logistic failure,
> > demonstrates inability to solve the hard problem.
ar...@hotmail.com wrote:
> If you read the passage that I quoted you will notice that it talks
> about moving troops and supplies to where they are needed and
> overcoming difficulties along the way.
But where they were needed is not changing, and the difficulties do
not include enemy attack on logistic forces. This is the easy problem
of logistics, that no one except communists finds difficult.
ar...@hotmail.com
Moving large number of troops and supplies across desert tracks does
seem like a challenge to me but I am not an expert.
For all I know you may be right about the weakness of Soviet logistics
but the two examples you chose do not support that conclusion. Because
in 1945 the Soviets did advance, and the operation of 1939 did involve
moving troops to where they were needed.