Really an excellent question. As noted above, it's a bit dependent on where in the world you're looking, and what kind of battles (ie, land or sea) and in what time periods. Generally speaking (pun intended, and I mean, in the broadest possible sense as well) a pitched battle was decisive for an entire war. They were very rare, and often consciously avoided due to the immense risk. Some of the most brilliant war leaders in history actually intentionally forced pitched engagements to quickly defeat logistically superior foes. Examples: Genghis Khan, Subotai, Alexander the Great, Hannibal Barca, and Cao Cao (who ironically got spanked in a decisive fight too). Siege warfare was the expectation in western europe and the near east for a long time. Taking castles meant taking land meant expanding logistical base. This pattern is broadly true in the far east as well, with the caveat that the Chinese, especially during the warring states period, skirmished and battled in very large (possibly exaggerated) numbers.

Great answer and writing! Very very interesting read

The Colorado river is full of rapids and waterfalls though, how could it have ever been navigable by steam?

Can’t ignore the influence of military equipment/arms manufacturers, who would likely have made more $$ using their own IP and design, and would lobby accordingly. Also, perhaps a touch of patriotism in that not adopting Nazis arms would be seen as the high road? Conjecture, but my two cents.

Ever heard of the M2 carbine? Was heavily utilized in Korea along with the Garand.

Why retool and then mass produce the STG when you have close to 6 million M1 carbines that can be converted to a select fire, intermediate caliber platform that can utilize already existing ammo reserves, magazines, and spare parts.

It’s actually not navigable up to this point anymore, since the river has been heavily dammed in Montana and the Dakotas

Why isn’t the Amazon or Nile a longer trip?

The river is actually navigable for another ~120 miles, but there are restrictions on what type of boats can go because it's a national historic and scenic stretch of the river. At the end of that stretch is the Fort Peck Dam. So I guess if you went all the way in a kayak or a canoe you could conceivably go from the Gulf all the way to Fort Peck.

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It is worded kind of oddly, and it's not a phenomenon people usually think about.

I wonder what the largest boat can make it to this point? Clearly fairly large at this point since the bridge needs to move.

If you think thats bad, you should look into the MK14 Torpedo fiasco.

I focus more on Western Europe during this time, but you are right to say that pitched battles were much less common than sieges. Pitched battles often resulted in the end of a campaign for one side. Whereas strategically sieging castles/cities gave broad command of an area, losing a pitched battle could effectively mean loss of the war as a whole in an instant. Capture of key figures like high nobles or the king himself could be the undoing of an army regardless of their number or quality. Unlike TV/Fantasy portrayals, in a feudal society a leader had to convince vassals to come to war with him. Famously, English kings struggled to get Northumbrian barons (northern England) to go to war in France because they saw very little gain for themselves being so far removed. Even more than just losing simple lives, losing a battle cost a king one of the most vital resources he had: confidence. Powerful nobles would often change sides or abandon the cause, sometimes right before a battle. For these reasons and many more, a methodical campaign of sieges was preferred.

To your question, the first thing a ruler needed was a cause. I think of Plantagenet kings like King John trying to reconquer their familial holdings in France. Kings were known to come up with wild reasons to go to war, many of which were over exaggerations or outright lies. But, there had to be a specific aim and a reason to fight (especially when warring against another Christian nation). The next thing they needed is the money to carry out a campaign. Funding would come from taxes levied on barons (the same Kings depended on to fight with them), the church, and even peasants through royal sheriffs and taxes on trade/products. Some kings ran wild with taxation, like charging Barons insane sums just to inherit their father's land and estates. The funds a king extracted would be needed for supplies, transport, and most importantly, mercenaries. When cash on hand ran out, many kings would borrow from other nations (like Italian bankers) who were basically speculating on the outcome. Many of these bankers lost their lunch when the king they financed lost his war.

The promise of plunder and a regular paycheck was very appealing to mercenary bands, and for that reason medieval nations rarely went to battle with only their own troops. Mercenaries were often times more loyal than nobles but were prone to running wild when the fighting was over. Sometimes they had to be physically driven out by the lords that hired them. Flemish mercenaries were widely hated by the English in particular.

I'm a little less well read on campaign planning as a whole, or maybe we just don't know how it was done in any great detail. Generally, the English would try to capture a castle along the coast that could serve as a hub for further attacks (see Harfleur). Supplies brought from home would only last so long, so it was commonplace for nearby villages to be raided of food and any valuables. These supplies were carried behind armies in what is known as a baggage train. Cart after cart of supplies was often a target for opposing armies, who could defeat an opponent without fighting them in the open by starving him.

Crop burning and general destruction was rampant as well. The English caused especially visceral damage to the French as a dedicated strategy during the Hundred Years' War, partly to try and force a pitched battle. Many losses in any campaign came from disease, especially dysentery (called bloody flux at the time) because siege camps were mostly disgusting places with cramped conditions and very little sanitation.

Victory or defeat was usually cemented by the signing of a treaty, which would have terms that could include the secession of land, money, and even marriages. Usually a country was brought to its knees in a flashpoint, like the capture of a vital position or massive defeat in a pitched battle. I think The Hundred Years War: The English in France 1337-1453 by Desmond Steward is a book you would like. This series of conflicts has fundamental tenets of warfare that I think apply broadly to any ruler going to war in the Middle Ages. Most of my answer has an English slant because that's the only area I feel comfortable answering for.

This is a pretty simplified rambling explanation, but I hope it at least points you in the right direction!

Can we please have one thread where people don't just focus on one small inconsequential part of the headline and instead discuss the actual article?

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canoes are still a form of trade right? i realize i'm speaking from a more theoretical viewpoint, but the basic premise of what i've been saying seems to hold true.

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Aswan low dam, about 1000km/600mi. Maybe lower depending on the season

American here in the early US there was a strong early push to regimental and formalize rail road engineer education.

Peter Cooper was an inventor and self-described "tinkerer" who apprenticed as a coach maker at 17. He was noted be have an excellent command of letters and numbers which hints that he was well-educated at home. He went on to found several profitable businesses, had a respectable number of useful patents, founded the Cooper Union for the Advancements of Science and the Art which is still active and relevant to this discussion as he invented the 1st American locomotive the Tom Thumb, and served as its 1st engineer. Cooper put a premium on education and he had a strong influence on early railroad culture.

From the beginning American 1st rail company, the B&O had in house education and is one of the earliest companies that published data on its educational expenses. As early as the mid 1830s the B&O was paying experienced engineers to teach new prospective engineers and by the 1840s they were talking about curriculums.

Most potential engineers would start as menial laborers at a railroad at a young age. Literate kids who picked up numbers could get apprenticed in maintenance sheds and if they showed promise they could move on to be a fireman and would start being educated by their employers eventually working up to becoming an engineer. Specifics varied widely but the general arc was the same.

Another path was opened to men with formal education which involved running them through an in house program of engineering. When they finished they were rated to run a locomotive but the programs tended to be geared towards management. These men would spend some time on the rails but the idea was to give them practical experience they could use when later in their careers they were building timetables, managing groups of engineers etc.

Either way, by the the 1860s you had railroad companies lead by life long railmen who often had worked up through the ranks. These guys as a group valued formal education to such a degree that they pushed hard for the Morrill Act of 1862 which set aside government land and funds for education in the Mechnical and Agricultural arts.

the 1st Quarter Century of Steam Locomotives in America

The Education of Engineers in America before the Morrill Act of 1862

Reporting for Success: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Management Information, 1827-1856

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/civil_war/MorrillLandGrantCollegeAct_FeaturedDoc.htm#:~:text=First%20proposed%20when%20Morrill%20was,law%20on%20July%202%2C%201862.

Going to be a bit of a lengthy post, but a lot of it is copied and pasted, as I've been reading a bit more than usual and I've finished a few books

Finished Blindfold and Alone: British Military Executions in the Great War by Cathryn Corns John Hughes-Wilson

>3.75/5. Maybe worth a read if very interested in WWI but it can be skipped. It's informative but not a must read.

>Writing style is fine, mostly matter of fact rather than emotional or outraged about the topic. First 100 or so pages covers the background and context - military law, shell shock, British views on mental health prewar etc. The next 300 pages, the bulk of the book, covers the various executions, with most of the chapters divided by the offence that led to execution - desertion, cowardice, murder etc or are dedicated to specific cases. These chapters tend to be the stories of the individuals and the trials, as well as the factors that led these specific men to be executed (mainly previous behaviour and offences, value as a soldier, the discipline of the unit) when the vast majority of death sentences (9 out of every 10) were not carried out. The final 50 pages covers the postwar debates around the death sentence for military crimes, and the legacy of the executions. This includes some discussion of the campaign at the time of publishing (2001) to pardon all the executed, which the authors opposed, but since that succeeded it doesn't really add anything now.

>The book doesn't particularly argue against the executions on moral grounds, saying that we shouldn't judge the past by today's standards and by the standards of the time many of the accused were clearly guilty of the offences they committed (the main reasons being long term desertion and murder, very few for cowardice) and that few soldiers had a problem with the sentences at the time. But the authors do include when they believe that actually carrying out the death sentence was unreasonably harsh or the mental health of the executed wasn't considered enough. Additionally towards the end of the book the authors also argue that the death sentence wasn't particularly effective as a tool of discipline anyway.

A long time after I started it I've finally finished The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918 by Nick Lloyd

>(Read this as a Kindle commute read over the course of a month rather than focusing on it quickly at home, in case that affects my view on it)

>4.25/5

>Not much to say about it. In-depth military history of the Western Front, mostly focussed on the operational side of things and the factors behind successes and failures. While the experiences of the ordinary soldiers are mentioned they are secondary to the bigger picture topic and the views of the generals and leaders. It has a good balance between the generals of the various countries and doesn't overly focus on the views of one set of leaders. Well written but a bit too in-depth to recommend as a first book on World War One but if you like military history a lot then it is worth a read. I liked the book enough to read the other books Lloyd is intending to write about the Eastern Front and also the other fronts.

>(Personally I thought the author's Hundred Days: The End of the Great War was a bit better)

Also finished British Armoured Car Operations in World War One by Bryan Perrett

>3/5 niche but ok.

>Very short at 150 pages in the hardcover, plus a 1 page not very useful bibliography. Some maps at the front but fairly poor quality. 32 pictures of varying quality and interest, but all have longish captions which is nice. Despite the title the writing isn't as dry as you'd expect, at least in my opinion. It doesn't get bogged down in technical detail and tells a decent story. My favourite parts of the book (and these are a decent chunk of the book) were anything to do with the British armoured cars on the Eastern Front - the Caucasuses in 1916, Romania, and the Kerensky Offensive in 1917. Sticking with the Russian theme there is also a strong chapter on Dunsterforce in the Caucasus in 1918 after the Bolshevik takeover which I enjoyed. Outside of that the chapters on the Senussi campaign in Libya and the chapter on the Palestinian front were also decent. The parts of the book I didn't like were the Western Front bits as they were very brief and the Mesopotian front part, as for whatever reason (lack of personal accounts or other sources maybe?) it is less about the armoured cars and more just a brief overview of the whole campaign. There is also a chapter on the war in the German colonies in Africa which was ok I guess, not particularly memorable.

On Kindle I am now reading 24 Hours in Ancient Rome: A Day in the Life of the People Who Lived There by Phillip Matyszak which I am enjoying and making rapid progress through and for my physical read it is An Officer and A Spy by Robert Harris, historical fiction about the Dreyfus Affair in 1890s France (never read a Harris book before and I only know the bare basics about the Dreyfus story so this is all new to me)

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I read this book a couple months ago and really enjoyed it too. So many fascinating dynamics at play.