Chandler's "The Campaigns of Napoleon" places fairly heavy emphasis on the significance of "lines of communication" for Napoleon and his opponents; what exactly were these methods of communication, and how were they established/secured in a way that made them more efficient than a typical courier system for dispatching orders?

Also a side question, the Vietnam War was a big catalyst for the counterculture movement in the US, in the USSR was the Afghanistan War a potential factor?

Why were the Russian people strong enough to fight the Tsar regime when their lives were tough but couldn't take over the totalitarianism of the CCCP? Is it that they weren't as miserable as we've been taught in text books and didn't want to change, or is it that Stalin was too powerful?

Reading a few articles about WW2's Eastern Front, it seems to me that the Soviets always seemed to suffer huge casualties during battles with the Germans. Even during their victorious battles in the later stages of the war, the ratio of casualties never seemed to be in the favor of the Soviets.

Why did this occur? Were Soviet tactics inferior, or were their troops more poorly trained?

Like in terms of standard of living in a city in the year XXXX compared to ancient Rome for example.

Context: My friend and I are having a discussion about military roles in medieval times compared to Fantasy RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons, or Pathfinder.

Edit: I suppose I should clarify now to note I'm primarily interested in the early Medieval period from 400AD to 1000 or so AD, but information about the later Medieval Period would of course be welcome.

Many things that are obvious to us aren't so much to earlier humans, do we have any records of this?

I've had a few CFL partisans insist to me that players in the Canadian league were as good or better than those in the NFL up to the sixties. Is there any basis for this? (And if so, could it have something to do with the CFL being more open to African-American "skill position" players?)