Well, Hitler could have learned something about this from Bobby Lee. There's a very interesting page at Wikipedia that breaks down the arms production and compares production by the Axis powers to that of the Allies. It gives you information like this:
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| Click to enbiggify |
It doesn't matter if you have better tanks when you're out produced 4.5:1. And arguably, the T-34 was the best tank of the war, especially in its up-gunned 85mm version. Reading this list is astounding, and makes you wonder what Adolf was thinking, because it sure wasn't about the material.
Detailed reading if you, like me, are a nerd.
18 comments:
Given the history of appeasement, I'm sure he expected the US to stay out of it. Also, there was a lot of pro Nazi Germany sentiment in the US in the 30s. It could have easily gone the other way.
You can only state " It's generally accepted that the Confederacy had the finer fighting army in the War Between The States" by ignoring the Western theater and the speed and ease in which Grant backed Lee into the trenches of Richmond.
As I've mentioned before, the Eoropeans paying attention to the myth of Lee rather than the considerable accomplishments of Grant cost them dearly in WWI.
Sorry, typing this on my phone, I meant to end with...
How repeating that error have helped them in WWII?
There's actually some very though provoking data on that Wikipedia page, particularly the one about oil production. The German reliance on horses makes a lot more sense when you realize just how dependent they were on coal.
Case in point Rommel was arguably one of the best generals in WW2 Panzerarmee Afrika one of the best armies ever. Yet when Churchill found his Grant a certain Montgomery, Panzerarmee Afrika were well and truly trounced by the Eighth army. It retreated from Egypt to Tunisia.
There were two major land battles that can be said to be the turning point of WW2 in the allies favour Stalingrad and El Alamein.
The reason Monty won El Alamein was simple he knew he had to have a superiority of arms and men of at least three to one, he got it thanks to Roosevelt sending much needed Sherman tanks etc. Rommel never got the supplies he needed for victory, superior tactics and good troops can only take you so far.
I'd be interested in how that data would look if you took the Russians out of the picture, and again if you took the US out of the picture. When Hitler kicked things off Russia and the US were both on the sidelines. I highly suspect that without the choice to attack Russia, Germany probably could have handled the US and British.
Anon, actually the Wikipedia page breaks a lot of this down by country. There's a lot of data there.
Hitler certainly expected the UK to stay out of it. He also couldnt have guessed that the Japanese would open up a new front against the US, nor that the US would use the loose axis alliance as an excuse to intervene against Germany. As far as Russia is concerned Moldbug has his interesting thesis that the asinine winter invasion was because the Germans caught wind that the Soviets were planning on turning on them eventually.
I would suggest that there is another factor that might carry more weight, and even explain some of the numbers in the chart.
Name a WWII German heavy bomber.
They didn't build them, and that was a fatal oversight.
During the Battle of Britain the had to make do with Heinkel 111s and Dornier 17, a medium and light bomber respectively, as well as -- incredibly enough -- the useless Stuka dive bomber.
Forget "never have so few", imagine English cities getting hit by heavy bombers. imagine what they could have dine in Russia?
The Germans, drew the wrong conclusions from the Spanish Civil War and ended up building the wrong air force for WWII. It was tactical rather than strategic. The result of that error was their cities and industries got leveled while their opponent's suffered much, much less.
Yeesh, I must remember -- proofreading is your friend.
Read Heinz Guderein's book "Panzer Leader". He pretty much made up modern armored doctrine and had much to say about how it was handled by the General Staff (badly). In support of the material angle of this thread, Guderein argued (after the war) that they weren't ready to invade Russia but Hitler wanted the element of surprise, which he certainly got. Everyone "knew", and Stalin certainly "knew", that the Reich would not be ready to invade for another two to three years as they simply didn't have the army for it. When 190 divisions crossed the border they caught everyone by surprise and almost succeeded. Guderein goes onto say that they used Panzer 1's and 2's that weren't supposed to be used in war but were only experimental vehicles for training. "We achieved everything we did by sheer audacity".
I can sorta-kinda-almost understand Adolf Hitler's fatal underestimation of how crushingly the USA's war-making potential could be brought to bear against Germany.
That being said, exactly what part of industrial capacity did Tojo Hideki fail to understand?
BTW, I find it quite entertaining that this thread began on the 71st anniversary of the beginning of Operation Barbarossa. ;-)
Auric Tech, this blog is a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.
A five rotor enigma, I might add. ;-)
Anon: "I'd be interested in how that data would look if you took the Russians out of the picture, and again if you took the US out of the picture."
I want to see the numbers broken down by year. I suspect that up through about late 1942, Axis production kept pace with Allied production. Well, German production kept pace. Japanese war production never managed to do much more than replace combat losses.
AuricTech: Tojo was a victim of his culture. The pre-war Japanese leaders were all raised on the myth of bushido and hagakure, and genuinely believed that the Japanese soldier's combat spirit could overcome Western material advantages. They never expected a long war; they expected the Pacific War to go the same way that the Russo-Japanese War had gone: a short war ended by a crushing victory and a quick peace treaty signed by a whipped and broken enemy, letting the Japanese keep everything they'd conquered.
I'll argue your T-34 comment. :)
Most revolutionary tank? T-34 for sure. Best? Not a chance. The T-34-85 was at best equal to or inferior than a Sherman E8: poor metallurgy and construction methods made for sub-par armor protection for weight and thickness, crappy ballistics and penetration for the 85mm gun and ammo, and with the HVSS suspension, the E8 found comparable ground pressure.
The Panther, IMO, overengineered product of the fecktard Nazis that it was, holds the "best" tank title for WWII.
Stalin's minions were told about Barbarossa by Richard Sorge from Nippon. He just refused to believe/act on it.
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Everyone "knew", and Stalin certainly "knew", that the Reich would not be ready to invade for another two to three years as they simply didn't have the army for it. When 190 divisions crossed the border they caught everyone by surprise
It's been said, regarding military history, that while amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics. This is not even a recent development. Nor even a Civil War development...witness Napoleon's quip about armies marching on their stomachs. In war after war, throughout modern history, decisive advantage has fallen upon the side better able to produce supplies and get those supplies delivered to the front lines effectively.
Which makes it all the more amazing that so many political "leaders" have completely ignored it, when they get their countries into wars.
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