This is only the toy version of the actual problems solved by the Allies, which were more nuanced, and involved reasoning about the tank manufacturing pipeline. The write-up [0] doesn't go into the math but makes an interesting read.
Yeah, I can't imagine the assumption that tanks captured were "randomly uniformly distributed" is a good one. I can imagine all sorts of reasons that wouldn't be the case.
There were the infamous raids on the ball bearing factories in Schweinfurt. (At the time the allies didn't have escort fighters with sufficient range, and the bombers suffered heavily.)
But AFAIK those targets were selected based on pre-war "traditional" intelligence what the likely bottleneck resources would be, not statistical analysis of captured equipment.
Except that the data on the number of tanks, thier increased weight and number of wheels, pointed to a likely increase in the need for bearings. (And all the other wheeled non-tank things too.)
Comments
This is only the toy version of the actual problems solved by the Allies, which were more nuanced, and involved reasoning about the tank manufacturing pipeline. The write-up [0] doesn't go into the math but makes an interesting read.
[0] https://sci-hub.tw/10.2307/2280189
Yeah, I can't imagine the assumption that tanks captured were "randomly uniformly distributed" is a good one. I can imagine all sorts of reasons that wouldn't be the case.
How accurate did the allies' model turn out to be when compared to the real number?
Quite well, see pg. 86 for a plot of all predictions
I recall something about targeted bombing of ball bearing factories.
There were the infamous raids on the ball bearing factories in Schweinfurt. (At the time the allies didn't have escort fighters with sufficient range, and the bombers suffered heavily.)
But AFAIK those targets were selected based on pre-war "traditional" intelligence what the likely bottleneck resources would be, not statistical analysis of captured equipment.
Except that the data on the number of tanks, thier increased weight and number of wheels, pointed to a likely increase in the need for bearings. (And all the other wheeled non-tank things too.)