[ARC5] Re off-topic

[gordon white]

      This, I'm afraid, is quite a bit off-topic, but I have been 
reading Wolfgang Schneider's book about the German Tiger tanks in 
Normandy.in 1944. It is a cautionary tale about having a significantly 
better weapon that could easily beat a large number of inferior weapons.

     The Tiger - fortunately there were only about 134 of them in the 
west in June, 1944 - was equipped with a high-velocity 88 mm gun that 
could defeat the British Cromwell and Churchill and U.S. Sherman tanks 
at distances where the Allied 75 mm guns were outranged. The Tigers had 
about twice the frontal armor, too. In many instances  single Tigers 
killed 20 or more Allied tanks in an engagement. The Allies lost 2,395 
tanks in Normandy, while at least a third of the Tigers survived, though 
on the retreat from Fallaise most were unable to get across the Seine 
because the bridges had been blown.

     Miscalculations by the Germans put most of the Tigers in the wrong 
place in June, and Allied fighter-bombers and destruction of the French 
railways kept most of them out of action until two weeks after the 
invasion, still, they did great damage.

     Clearly it is vital to have better weapons than your enemy, not 
just more poorer ones.

  - Gordon White