Quality vs Quantity

Kehsct wrote:

Quasi-duck wrote:

Ellio_98 wrote:

1 perfect weapon

This is impossible to have.

It is, but I think Ellio means something as close to a perfect weapon as possible.

quantity has a quality of it's own. we used to say in the British Army that it'll be disappointing having to face a T55 having fired your last Milan missile.

If you have 100 guys with spears fight 1 guy with an machine gun the guy with the machine gun will win (historically proven) Quality > Quantity.

GreatbigHippo wrote:

If you have 100 guys with spears fight 1 guy with an machine gun the guy with the machine gun will win (historically proven) Quality > Quantity.

Give them rifles, you will see a difference, as well as it being more "realistic".

A modern tank can beat 100 WW1-era cavalry.

Quasi-duck wrote:

GreatbigHippo wrote:

If you have 100 guys with spears fight 1 guy with an machine gun the guy with the machine gun will win (historically proven) Quality > Quantity.

That is like saying 1 guy with a hammer can beat 1000 fish out of water. It is also an unfair fight to "prove" (it isn't really) your argument.

Give them rifles, you will see a difference, as well as it being more "realistic".

How about 10,000 untrained civilians armed with rifles and handguns against 3,000 soldiers with rifles, machine guns, and bombers. Again, this happened in real life, and the 3,000 won. Quality > Quantity.

the example of a man with machine gun versus the 100 spear wielding men is not a fair example.

it assumes that :

a. He has over 100 rounds (not everyone will die from a single shot, not every shot will hit its target)

b. if the machine gun uses a magazine, that he can switch magazines effectively and quickly enough.

c. if the machine gun is belt fed then, it assumes that the belt is of sufficient length to be able to provide enough bullets without having to fit another belt, often a lengthier process than magazine changing.

d. that he spots all 100 spear wielders with sufficient time to shoot them all before any come into spear launching range.

e. that all spear wielders come from sameish direction with no sneak attacks from rear.

so given a nice long belt of say 200 rounds with a spare belt. 100 spear wielders coming at me from a distance across a nice flat, recently trimmed lawn, I'd say that barring an unfortunate breech explosion, or a broken firing pin, or have the base of a round shearing during extraction leaving remainder of shell in barrel and other such like, then yes, your machine gun toting soldier would win.

however if I run into 100 spearmen, in a rain forest, at night, during a thunderstorm carrying say an MP40 with 30 round magazines (I'd carry perhaps 6) then I doubt very much that I could neutralise all 100 before someone made a shish kebab out of me.

so my nice modern machine gun (well sub machine gun) has nice quality but 100 spears have a quality all of their own due to their quantity.

GreatbigHippo wrote:

How about 10,000 untrained civilians armed with rifles and handguns against 3,000 soldiers with rifles, machine guns, and bombers. Again, this happened in real life, and the 3,000 won. Quality > Quantity.

You may all think that quality is better, but quantity was both Soviet and American policy in WWII, in conjunction with other tactics.

Quasi-duck wrote:

GreatbigHippo wrote:

How about 10,000 untrained civilians armed with rifles and handguns against 3,000 soldiers with rifles, machine guns, and bombers. Again, this happened in real life, and the 3,000 won. Quality > Quantity.

Is this not in a military situation, rather than civil uprisings?

You may all think that quality is better, but quantity was both Soviet and American policy in WWII, in conjunction with other tactics.

5 SAS vs 15 Local Miltia

Normal load outs for SAS.. G36c, MP5 etc

Miltia have there hunting rifles, etc..

Id put my money on SAS

There is a point, at which quantity outweighs quality, but it varys..

Like one million miltia vs 5 SAS.. yea militia win

so obviously, there is a point on a curve at which, quality becomes inferior to quantity

But usually in most of our cases Quality is better

But it could be said that modern tanks are useless against a few guys with RPG's running and hiding. Also the one machine gun and 100 spear men example is poor since the machine gun cannot kill them all, if they go at multiple angles the guy with the machine gun is dead.

Quasi-duck wrote:

but quantity was both Soviet and American policy in WWII,

This is how you win

Pablo22510 wrote:

Yes, but the quality different wasn't that big. No matter how many M2A2 LTs you produce, Tigers that are 10 times less will always beat them.

Something that hasn't been mentioned is better quality tactics, compared to a banzai charge which could be considered a "quantity tactic".

Quasi-duck wrote:

That wasn't what they did though..... Apples and oranges....

Guys, there is a scale.. There is a point at which Quantity beats Quality

We have all been saying stuff like one Pv IV vs Abrams= Abrams

But 10000 Pv IV vs Abrams? see... there is a point at which Quantity beats quality, and that cant be debated..

The point at which that that happens, depends..

oceanhawk wrote:

Guys, there is a scale.. There is a point at which Quantity beats Quality

GreatbigHippo wrote:

Something that hasn't been mentioned is better quality tactics, compared to a banzai charge which could be considered a "quantity tactic".

Also, 1,000,000 poorly trained men, even 1,000,000 of the best trained men certainly wouldn't stand a chance against a few nukes.