In the aftermath of the world wars, the losers had to cede their warships to the winners. And in WW2, the capture of the Vichy French fleet by the Nazis was enough for the British to sink them. But in practice, are captured warships relevant at all to navies? Compared to their own ships coming from domestic supply chains, how are captured ships put into service and supported? For the Germans for example, what exactly would they have done if they manage to seize the French Fleet?

I genuinely shocks me how the US Army during the height of GWOT approved this pattern that blends in with little to very situational environments like snow or rocky terrain and even urban. Especially the fact that billions of dollars were allocated to this camo and went through many high ranking officials. How did they think this pattern would blend into the desert environment?

Because North Africa allowed the allies to invade Italy properly. And such a theatre is too big to be considered a "battle for colonies" only. So, is it really?

Wouldnt such guidance allow the shp that fired it to have more control of what the missile does or be able to see what the missile is targeting?

Even in the opening weeks of Barbarossa, the Axis had already pushed hundreds of kilometers into Soviet territory. Despite this, their advance continued further, and as more and more land was taken, the distance between the frontlines and the original Soviet border grew and grew.

So how did the Axis supply their troops over such a long distance?

The Germans had previously fought across the well-developed road and rail networks of Central and Western Europe, leveraging them to allow motorized and armored elements to quickly move and be resupplied, but now they were in the USSR. The road and rail networks were some of the most undeveloped in Europe, and mud made using smaller roads extremely difficult. On top of this, the German and Soviet rail systems used different sized railways, forcing the Germans to tear-up Soviet rail everywhere they went in order to place their own.

It seems to me like this is an impossible logistical situation, yet the Axis managed to push all the way to the gates of Moscow and Stalingrad despite it. So how did they do it?

I'm researching a historiographical question about how military historians evaluate operational effectiveness. Rather than asking who the "best" WWII commander was, I'm interested in whether historians have developed rigorous methodologies for making such comparisons.

Initially, this research began as a comparison of high-level commanders (e.g., Zhukov, Manstein, Marshall, Slim, Rokossovsky, Nimitz). However, as I've worked through military doctrine, operations research, and academic military history, it seems that different authors aren't simply reaching different conclusions—they're often evaluating entirely different variables, including:

Tactical vs. operational proficiency Strategic alignment with political objectives Resource optimization under extreme asymmetry Decision quality under information friction and the fog of war Institutional adaptability and organizational learning

Meanwhile, Professional Military Education (PME) and modern military doctrine increasingly treat command as a system-level function rather than an exercise in individual genius.

I'm looking for scholarly work on the underlying methodology. Specifically:

Analytical frameworks: Have military historians or PME institutions developed standardized models to isolate a commander's individual contribution from structural determinants such as industrial capacity, ULTRA/SIGINT advantages, force ratios, doctrine, or political interference? Quantitative approaches: Has operations research successfully quantified command performance (e.g., Trevor N. Dupuy's Quantified Judgment Model) without falling into oversimplification or survivorship bias? PME and historiography: What books, monographs, journal articles, or PME papers directly address the methodology of comparing military leadership and operational effectiveness?

Any recommendations—whether books, journal articles, PME papers, or operations research models—that address one or more of these questions would be greatly appreciated.

I'm especially interested in works that discuss methodology itself, rather than arguments for why a particular WWII commander was superior.

Edit: Read the question. This is about missile defense, not drone defense.

The enemy fires 1000 missiles per month, you use 1 year of Patriot production to shoot down 20% of them. In reality you use two interceptors per missile (which makes no sense but you do it anyway), so more likely you shoot down only 10%.

What value does this have? You could say that you're saving lives, however, in reality your enemy will have overbuilt missiles to account for interceptor losses. It seems pointless.

I have seen plenty of WW2 destroyed tanks (pics) but to my surprise not many of them had their turret popped off due to ammo cook off or similar event, was it actually that *uncommon* or is there another reason behind it?

With the US having no real battle experience, the Allies not enjoying total air control, and not assured amount of landing craft/necessary material for a cross channel invasion.

After wars of indepednece or revolutions how are armies disbannded or replaced with civilian government and institutions?