02.001 Generally, the requirements of warfare are this way...

[sonshi]

Generally, the requirements of warfare are this way: One thousand quick four-horse chariots, one thousand leather rideable chariots, one hundred thousand belted armor, transporting provisions one thousand li, the distribution of internal and on the field spending, the efforts of having guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, tributes in chariots and armor, will amount to expenses of a thousand gold pieces a day.

[markb287]

"Generally, the requirements of warfare are this way: One thousand quick four-horse chariots, one thousand leather rideable chariots, one hundred thousand belted armor, transporting provisions one thousand li, the distribution of internal and on the field spending, the efforts of having guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, tributes in chariots and armor, will amount to expenses of a thousand gold pieces a day."-Sun-tzu.

This quote doesn't really need to be analyzed because it holds no principles in warfare today.

mark287, I disagree.

I think what Master Wu is getting at is that one has to get their ducks in a row, so to speak, prior to going to battle. This means taking steps in advance to procure the needed weapons and systems in order to give your army the best chance possible of achieving victory.

You have to keep in mind that the Art of War is just as much about affecting the mind of your men as it is about impacting the perceptions and psychology of your enemy. And one way a Wise General can be sure to get his troops motivated and riled up, is to ensure that they have the best equiptment possible under the circumstances.

Having the right weapons and ample supplies impacts one's morale.

One of the reasons that the Iraqi's surrendered enmasse during the Gulf War is because they knew that they had no effective air cover to fend off the USAF sorties and Apache helicopters.

-BingFa

[willatlasshrug]

I think this can be looked at from a business perspective. If you are going to run a company, there are both initial start up costs and ongoing expenses which must be accounted for.

Dot-coms are a pretty good example of what can happen when people forget this.

how will get good people too run my war

[markb287]

I apologize, BingFa. I should have corrected myself. What I meant to say was, the equipment he stated has no relevance to the type of equipment we hold, physically.

/// *** Generally, the requirements of warfare are this way: One thousand quick four-horse chariots, one thousand leather rideable chariots, one hundred thousand belted armor, transporting provisions one thousand li, the distribution of internal and on the field spending, the efforts of having guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, tributes in chariots and armor, will amount to expenses of a thousand gold pieces a day.
*** ///
The greater one's endeavor is, the higher the cost is.

If I were to organize a world class embedded software development team and I have the personnel. it is important
that they have the best software and hardware tools.

And it is ok have a B+ grade quality communication
system that is configurable to be an A+ communication
system.

It is not recommended that each of the team member
brings a lot of their tools. When that happens,
standard becomes a deep memory.

CEOs, COO and CTO love to develop
spend their time developing
"Standards of Quality and Excellence"
once the mission is defined.

But, the problem that I encounter is that the company
fails to get the necessary tools that the techies
needs to get the job done.

[UV]

The deeper your understanding and appreciation of the details, the greater your probability of success.

In any great endeavour where much is sacrificed, attention to both large and small details, before and during execution, is one of the keys to reduced casualties and a victorious outcome.

[gonzo]

I believe the quote to be an example of what one may need to win a war. Nowadays replace chariot with cruise missile. Horses are range and speed, and armor type is ballistics.
And then of course having the money to maintain it all.

Gonzo

[MonteChristo]

Why doing battle at all? There should be a legitimate reason for doing so. When you divert your thoughts for a while from a battle and try to look at the broader picture you might conclude that the life of nations or organizations is a history of growth and destruction. It is a history of increasing or decreasing overall resources, which are available.

And thus there can be different ways of obtaining new resources. And doing the battle is one of them. You simply aim at achieving something that is valuable to you. But before you engage yourself I think one should ask oneself about the costs that are associated with carrying out the battle.

Some resources that before belonged to someone else now you would like to use for your own growth. Or you would like to take away resources from your enemy so he or she cannot use them against you. You would do this if he or she can threaten you or can do it in the future if she or he grows faster than you.

In other words you try to manage a balance between resources you have and your opponent has. Thus both your resources and your opponent ones should not be wasted in war. In general no resources should be wasted. Otherwise battle makes no sense.

In business terms one should aim at maximization of profits, minimization of resources employed and minimization of the time required to obtain new resources. It is about your operational efficiency. Whether in war or business.

Doing battle or engaging yourself in a large business project will consume considerable amount of your strength. Before doing it you should be sure that this is the most profitable course of actions. Maybe there is alternative way you can gain more resources or more profits. Maybe price war with your business opponents is not necessary. Maybe there is another market niche you can enter. Maybe there is another place where opponent is weak and will not take part in a battle.

[HALBLEU]

Once the phase of strategic assessments is over and the decision to fight is made. ... The next phase is organizing the basic parameters of the plan by being aware to the large and small details when calculating the cost to start (or to join) a war.

Sun Tzu said, "Generally, the requirements of warfare are this way: One thousand quick four-horse chariots, one thousand leather rideable chariots, one hundred thousand belted armor, transporting provisions one thousand li, the distribution of internal and on the field spending, the efforts of having guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, tributes in chariots and armor, will amount to expenses of a thousand gold pieces a day."

The materiel needed for war is expensive and the logistics needed to move the materiel can be complex. An army can not fight without its "Beans and Bullets". The cost to provide the necessities of war can not be ignored.

[MaDDoX]

Although historically obsolete, Master Tzu's numbers, if carefully examined, lead us to some interesting conclusions. Leather chariots were very resistant at their time, their efficiency could be relatively compared to modern day tanks. He presented 1000 of them as a base number. Ok, now compare this to the number of fast forces - equally 1000. That means that the master gave equal importance to the brute force units *and* the fast response units. That's something we don't see actually practiced nowadays. Blitzkrieg was considered inovative in WWII and was basically a modern day's implementation of this Sun-tzu's idea. Enough fast reaction forces are imperative to deceive the enemy, something many call "hit-and-run". They're equally effective in fast raids to quickly annihilate enemy artillery and disrupt enemy defense line. But being weak, their loss ratio is high. Nevertheless, since their actual warfare results are outstanding, losses are quite acceptable. As for the infantry, Tzu calculated it to be 100:1, ie. 100 times the numbers of the main battle unit. Interesting how much this is close to modern days estimates for infantry x tank forces. Infantry is basically there to cover the tanks, assuring they'll deal as much damage as they can before being destroyed. At Tzu times, leather chariots could be easily set on fire, nowadays tanks can be easily blow up by a well placed grenade if there's no close-range cover for it.
As for the rest of the quote, although it's very hard to measure how much "Lis" and "gold pieces" meant at the time, what we can understand is the high importance of enough provisions and the infra-structure to assure these provisions reach your forces timely to avoid any down time. Recent american war efforts in Iraq show with great clarity how much one may delay the enemy advance by actually hitting its supply line.

"Generally, the requirements of warfare are this way: One thousand quick four-horse chariots, one thousand leather rideable chariots, one hundred thousand belted armor, transporting provisions one thousand li, the distribution of internal and on the field spending, the efforts of having guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, tributes in chariots and armor, will amount to expenses of a thousand gold pieces a day. "

The creation of an army is very expensive, and it can impoverish the nation, therefore military supply and equipment are important and could determine who will win the war.
Never underestimate logistics!

BTW if I remember correctly, this quote is one of the best to establish the probable date of birth of this book: war chariots became less important after the Warring States Age.

[Dan]

Generally, the requirements of warfare are this way: One thousand quick four-horse chariots, one thousand leather rideable chariots, one hundred thousand belted armor, transporting provisions one thousand li, the distribution of internal and on the field spending, the efforts of having guests, materials such as glue and lacquer, tributes in chariots and armor, will amount to expenses of a thousand gold pieces a day.

One of the passages in AoW which is not really that applicable today. The point of this is pretty much just ot calculate the expenses needed to fight a war before fighting and to make sure you have enough men, materials, supplies, and industry/money to obtain more.