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This unstructured agglomeration of historical information is not a replacement for thought. I tried to illustrate my point to the best of my ability, but this

This unstructured agglomeration of historical information is not a replacement for thought. I tried to illustrate my point to the best of my ability, but this disappointing reply just highlights how absurd your narrative is. There were large armies in Europe, but there was also a balance of power, and armies kept each other in check. Prussia could have an army of 187,000, but they could not commit a significant portion of their army to an American campaign without being invaded by their neighbors. That's how a force that would be considered small by European standards of the time, could project significant military power circa 1776.

village-idiot 8y ago
Be nice. Implying that I’m not thinking is rude. I never said that the Americans didn’t have the correctly sized force for their situation, I in fact pointed out that our numerically small armies were partially explained by weak neighbors. I was disputing the idea that we had a “large” army, which we for certain did not. You are correct in pointing out that “large” is not the same as “effective”, but that wasn’t the point I was making. You are correct that European powers would have a very hard time projecting power over the Atlantic. If you had said that America was highly capable of defense because of its army and the high logistical cost of mounting an invasion across the Atlantic in pre-modern times, I would agree with you whole heartedly. France’s disastrous invasion of Haiti would also be a nice example to back this theory up too. But you said “large” and large in this context is an absolute without other qualifications (unlike say “effective”), which can be examined numerically.
- partycoder 8y ago
  Large is a vague predicate. What is large, exactly? If a large person was 1% smaller, would that person be still large? How doing this repeatedly and asking the same question each time? In the context of North America in 1776, the American army was large. QED, have a good life.

village-idiot 8y ago

Be nice. Implying that I’m not thinking is rude. I never said that the Americans didn’t have the correctly sized force for their situation, I in fact pointed out that our numerically small armies were partially explained by weak neighbors. I was disputing the idea that we had a “large” army, which we for certain did not. You are correct in pointing out that “large” is not the same as “effective”, but that wasn’t the point I was making. You are correct that European powers would have a very hard time projecting power over the Atlantic. If you had said that America was highly capable of defense because of its army and the high logistical cost of mounting an invasion across the Atlantic in pre-modern times, I would agree with you whole heartedly. France’s disastrous invasion of Haiti would also be a nice example to back this theory up too. But you said “large” and large in this context is an absolute without other qualifications (unlike say “effective”), which can be examined numerically.

partycoder 8y ago
Large is a vague predicate. What is large, exactly? If a large person was 1% smaller, would that person be still large? How doing this repeatedly and asking the same question each time? In the context of North America in 1776, the American army was large. QED, have a good life.