U.S. and manufacturing during WW2

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**Relapse**

One of the parts of my job that I enjoy is that I teach classes on TWI (Training Within Industry)Job Instruction. It's a technique of training people for work that originated with a man named Charles Allen in WW1 and really burst into full flower in the U.S. in WW2. One of the big advantages of JI is the major amount of time it can cut from training. a good example of this is the Lens Grinder job, which back then, took 5 years to go from apprntice to master. Between August and December of 1940, the TWI service cut that training time to 5 months. By wars end, it was reduced to 5 weeks. This is a major item that enabled us to create "Rosie the Riveter". After WW2, McArthur brought this, along with TWI Job Relations and Job Methods into Japan, where they formed the basis for Japanese Kaizen.
I read about the industry in our country and am continually amazed at what our country was able to accomplish on a total war footing. It's interesting to note that, depending on where you look, the U.S. militarily was ranked about 17th to 19th in the world around 1939 and speedily grew in power over the next few years.

Here's an pretty good site (among many)for more information:

http://www.pbs.org/thewar/at_home_war_production.htm

This is a fantastic site for TWI history:

http://www.trainingwithinindustry.net/

The point of this thread is to draw on some of the knowledge of you history buffs out there, as well as dispense with some of what I've learned.
One thing I'm interested in is the general overall military rankings of 1939. Again, depending on where you look, Russia and Germany alternate the number 1 and 2 spots. Anyone here able to fill the gaps between that and number 19?

**Easy E**

This article has a chart of GDP, but not military power:

http://www.onwar.com/articles/0302.htm

Edit: This one has some stuff on Military spending to GDP.

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/eloranta.military

**Allod**

Any ranking like this would be completely arbitrary. For many countries, even details on the OOB are hazy. How should differences in quality of troops and equipment be rated? How does one compare naval and air forces to ground forces?

Also, the US having been "ranked" (there was no such ranking back then) 19th sounds placative, until you realize that this "ranking" only counts total strength of unmobilized ground troops, which the US frankly didn't need. Its Navy for example was very impressive, though, and we all know how long it took them to build up a world power military machine from scratch, so does it really help understanding to say they only were the 19th-strongest nation military-wise?

If we look to contemporary analyses, we also learn to our surprise that

the French army is invincible on the defence

the Red Army is a complete push-over that won't survive contact with a modern force

the Polish will be able to hold off the German advance for at least half a year

the American lack of battleships in the Pacific renders them unable to neutralize Japanese control of the seas

In short, nobody had an inkling of the dynamics WW2 would expose, so everything they compared back then amounts to hogwash, and the data we learned we need to compare the nations reasonably simply wasn't collected back then.

To evaluate the "war capacity" of the involved nations, I would suggest to look at military production rates one year after their respective entry into the war. This will still give you stilted numbers due to the Germany obtaining large amounts of "foreign" production, but it's better than comparing a 1939 Germany that has been gearing up for war since 1936 to the 1939 USA which were still two years away from even gearing up properly.

If you have any more specific questions, I can probably make my library spit something out for you.

**chaos0xomega**

Its worth noting (because its something that isn't frequently taught in school or even mentioned) that the total war footing in the US actually severely impacted the economy. By wars end the country could easily be said to have been "running on fumes" given the heavy rationing that was in place to support the war effort. Thats actually part of the reason for the heavy investment into infrastructure (highways, rail network, oil reserves, etc.) following the close of the war.

**Relapse**

Allod wrote:
Any ranking like this would be completely arbitrary. For many countries, even details on the OOB are hazy. How should differences in quality of troops and equipment be rated? How does one compare naval and air forces to ground forces?

Also, the US having been "ranked" (there was no such ranking back then) 19th sounds placative, until you realize that this "ranking" only counts total strength of unmobilized ground troops, which the US frankly didn't need. Its Navy for example was very impressive, though, and we all know how long it took them to build up a world power military machine from scratch, so does it really help understanding to say they only were the 19th-strongest nation military-wise?

If we look to contemporary analyses, we also learn to our surprise that

the French army is invincible on the defence

the Red Army is a complete push-over that won't survive contact with a modern force

the Polish will be able to hold off the German advance for at least half a year

the American lack of battleships in the Pacific renders them unable to neutralize Japanese control of the seas

In short, nobody had an inkling of the dynamics WW2 would expose, so everything they compared back then amounts to hogwash, and the data we learned we need to compare the nations reasonably simply wasn't collected back then.

To evaluate the "war capacity" of the involved nations, I would suggest to look at military production rates one year after their respective entry into the war. This will still give you stilted numbers due to the Germany obtaining large amounts of "foreign" production, but it's better than comparing a 1939 Germany that has been gearing up for war since 1936 to the 1939 USA which were still two years away from even gearing up properly.

If you have any more specific questions, I can probably make my library spit something out for you.

Looking into the numbers of the U.S. industrial output militarily was fairly amazing in the way it went from 0 to 100. It's ironic that in the 80's, a Japanese engineer was telling his American counterpart that it was possible for Americans to learn Japanese production techniques, and for proof, produced an old stained and dog eared TWI manual from when the U.S. introduced the method into Japan. The Japanese group worked religiously according to these manuals.
According to the rankings I could find, the number 1and 2 spots were occupied by either Russia or Germany, depending on which one you looked at. In one, the U.S. made it all the way up to number 5 for 1939, based in part, I believe, off it's naval strength.
My father was in World War 2 and one of the things he told me was there weren't enough rifles to go around so they had to train with wooden weapons. Add in the huge isolationist movement at the time and you had a recipe for an under equiped military. Because of his time with the service,Roosevelt had a soft spot for the Navy and made sure it got good funding.

Billy Mitchell felt we needed a stronger air force and was later court marshalled, a victim of the attitude of that day:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell

It's an interesting thought to ponder what Russia would have done if we had entered the war in 1939, while they were still buddies with Germany, if the Germans would have tried persuading them to attack us and forstalled Barbarossa.

**Allod**

Thanks for the link, very interesting!

Regarding your "what if..." question, I don't think Russia would ever have contemplated throwing in their lot with Hitler; there simply was nothing to gain for them, and they would just have strengthened their single most dangerous rival. It might even stand to reason that the plans for a pre-emptive strike on Germany that were floating around by 1941 would have been concocted much earlier and actually come to fruition.

Also, Barbarossa was scheduled to take one and a half years (half a year for the decisive phase and a year for mopping up), so I guess Hitler would still have gone through with it. The US couldn't possibly have finished preparations for an invasion of the European mainland in less than two years, so the immediate threat from that direction was rather low.

Finally, Hitler woefully underestimated the power of the US, seeing their main strengths in the size of the country and the population, rather than their industrial output - a notion that underlines almost everything he did and only serves to demonstrate how much he was grounded in 19th century rural logic instead of actual world politics of the early 20th century.

In the end, I'd go as far as to say that the US already were invincible by the 1930s, and only their prosperity was threatened as opposed to their sheer existence. That doesn't make their achievements any less impressive, but I do not think that any amount of "what if..." could lead to a worse outcome than a (forcefully) isolated American continent in a kind of Cold War situation with the rest of the world. And that outcome already needs a crushing Axis victory in Eurasia, not exactly a very likely prospect.

**Relapse**

Perhaps, but at the start of WW2, don't forget that Russia made territoriall gains in conjunction with Germany and the only country left with any hope of opposing the whole thing by mid 1940 or so was Britain.
Definatly a lot of what ifs involved. Thanks for the link appreciated, I have been picking up a lot of interesting information over the years teaching this class, both from people like you and study.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Relapse wrote:
Perhaps, but at the start of WW2, don't forget that Russia made territoriall gains in conjunction with Germany and the only country left with any hope of opposing the whole thing by mid 1940 or so was Britain.
Definatly a lot of what ifs involved. Thanks for the link appreciated, I have been picking up a lot of interesting information over the years teaching this class, both from people like you and study.

Yeah, Britain tends to get overlooked when discussing WW2 industrial output, and there is much talk about the 'decline' of the British Empire, but here are a few facts about Britain on the 3rd September 1939.

1) Had the world's largest navy

2) Made more small arms than any nation on earth. Yes, even more than America, which surprised me.

3) The BEF were the world's first fully mechanised army. They may only have been 100,000 men, but every unit had transport. When the Germans went over the beaches of Dunkirk after the British evacuation, they were amazed at how many trucks the British left behind (bulk of Germany army still horse drawn)

4) Had an average calorie content higher than any nation on earth apart from the USA. You may think this a minor thing, but you can measure a nation's wealth by how much they eat.

5) RAF/Radar was the most sophisticated air defence system around. Had radar controlled anti-aircraft guns which was a first as well. They were hopeless to start off with, but the idea was years ahead of its time!

6) World's largest merchant fleet, world's largest oil importer. In fact, Britain bought very few war goods from the USA. it was only the entry of Japan into the war that made Britain more reliant on the USA. Even the fall of France wasn't the disaster it was made out to be.

7) Loads more stuff which I can't be bothered to type

**chaos0xomega**

Allod wrote:
Thanks for the link, very interesting!

Regarding your "what if..." question, I don't think Russia would ever have contemplated throwing in their lot with Hitler; there simply was nothing to gain for them, and they would just have strengthened their single most dangerous rival. It might even stand to reason that the plans for a pre-emptive strike on Germany that were floating around by 1941 would have been concocted much earlier and actually come to fruition.

I disagree. The Soviets (specifically Stalin and certain top-level political leaders) very much saw Hitler as a 'friend'. The plans for pre-emptive strike were never endorsed by any of these, Stalin was in fact quite furious that his military officers would even contemplate it, and he was actually somewhat devastated (emotionally speaking) when Germany actually did invade. It was a rather odd relationship, really...

6) World's largest merchant fleet, world's largest oil importer. In fact, Britain bought very few war goods from the USA. it was only the entry of Japan into the war that made Britain more reliant on the USA. Even the fall of France wasn't the disaster it was made out to be.

That's really not very true at all...

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

chaos0xomega wrote:

That's really not very true at all...

Hmm.

There are many interesting sub-topics within this thread. One point I would contribute is that Britain out-produced Germany when it mattered. The Battle of Britain was won because the Brits out-produced Germany, who were not even making enough fighters to compensate for wear, tear and crashes on take-off.

The Brits spotted many of the key drivers in the war early on; limiting consumption and waste, and moving women into industrial production. Speer argued for years trying to make Hitler do the same, but instead relied on slave workers - more of whom died making the V2, than its intended victims.

There was a very interesting contrast in priorities; one good book to read is Most Secret War by RV JOnes, head of scientific intelligence, who noted that German electronic equipment was much better-finished than the British stuff, and more accurate. But the British equipment was good enough to work within the required parameters, and was much cheaper to build.

Finally, American industrial muscle was crucial, as was RUssian manpower, but the Brits paid for everything they got, and at their lowest point in the war had to hand over a bunch of naval bases and islands, for some mothballed, obsolete destroyers!

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

chaos0xomega wrote:
Allod wrote:
Thanks for the link, very interesting!

Regarding your "what if..." question, I don't think Russia would ever have contemplated throwing in their lot with Hitler; there simply was nothing to gain for them, and they would just have strengthened their single most dangerous rival. It might even stand to reason that the plans for a pre-emptive strike on Germany that were floating around by 1941 would have been concocted much earlier and actually come to fruition.

I disagree. The Soviets (specifically Stalin and certain top-level political leaders) very much saw Hitler as a 'friend'. The plans for pre-emptive strike were never endorsed by any of these, Stalin was in fact quite furious that his military officers would even contemplate it, and he was actually somewhat devastated (emotionally speaking) when Germany actually did invade. It was a rather odd relationship, really...

6) World's largest merchant fleet, world's largest oil importer. In fact, Britain bought very few war goods from the USA. it was only the entry of Japan into the war that made Britain more reliant on the USA. Even the fall of France wasn't the disaster it was made out to be.

That's really not very true at all...

When it comes to oil, America had Texas oilfields, hence it wasn't reliant on importing the black stuff. Britain had a large percentage of car ownership and industrial use, and pretty much controlled the oilfields of Arabia, hence why I said it imported more oil.
As for the world's largest merchant fleet, it makes sense for an island nation with a global empire to have the world's largest merchant fleet. Incidentally, Norway was number two in this regard, with America 3rd or 4th. You have to remember that the USA in the 1930s is not the USA of today. It was isolationist, and didn't even exercise half of it's global influence. A lot of people in Britain were disdainful of America, and when you have a global empire at your disposal, why would you buy raw materials from your main competitor? It was only in late '40/early 41 that Britain looked to America to make up the shortfall on key war goods. Very early on in the war, America was not seen as a market except in emergencies.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
chaos0xomega wrote:

That's really not very true at all...

Hmm.

There are many interesting sub-topics within this thread. One point I would contribute is that Britain out-produced Germany when it mattered. The Battle of Britain was won because the Brits out-produced Germany, who were not even making enough fighters to compensate for wear, tear and crashes on take-off.

The Brits spotted many of the key drivers in the war early on; limiting consumption and waste, and moving women into industrial production. Speer argued for years trying to make Hitler do the same, but instead relied on slave workers - more of whom died making the V2, than its intended victims.

There was a very interesting contrast in priorities; one good book to read is Most Secret War by RV JOnes, head of scientific intelligence, who noted that German electronic equipment was much better-finished than the British stuff, and more accurate. But the British equipment was good enough to work within the required parameters, and was much cheaper to build.

Finally, American industrial muscle was crucial, as was RUssian manpower, but the Brits paid for everything they got, and at their lowest point in the war had to hand over a bunch of naval bases and islands, for some mothballed, obsolete destroyers!

Yeah good point, this is worthy of a thread itself. As for the Battle of Britain, from what I've read of Richard's Overy's books, Britain had better defences (radar) better organisation, an edge with the spitfire, and as you say, better production. Overy reckons it would have been a bigger surprise if Britain had lost, and much of the facts regarding the BOB, have been lost to the 'myth' surrounding it.

**Allod**

chaos0xomega wrote:

I disagree. The Soviets (specifically Stalin and certain top-level political leaders) very much saw Hitler as a 'friend'. The plans for pre-emptive strike were never endorsed by any of these, Stalin was in fact quite furious that his military officers would even contemplate it, and he was actually somewhat devastated (emotionally speaking) when Germany actually did invade. It was a rather odd relationship, really...

"Friend" is probably overstating things a bit. Germany was a useful partner for the Soviet Union while the former was weak and the latter was a global pariah, but became dangerous once it expanded its influence over practically all of Europe and ran out of "targets".

I've always been highly sceptical of anecdotes like the ones you refer to. Stalin might have been a lot of things, but he was no fool, and Hitler's almost life-long ambition to crush Russia was not exactly a secret. Maybe Stalin thought he could put himself into a safe position by outproducing Germany and making invasion too much of a risk; the German high command certainly was convinced of this. And in our "what if..." scenario, if Germany was threatened early by the Allies (now including the USA), those "enraging" plans might have seemed a better idea in light of the risk of losing Europe to the British Empire and the United States.

The partition of Poland was not a friendly joint venture, either - it was the Soviet Union's condition in order to accept the German annexation of "Congress Poland". It's not like Germany had a lot of choice in the matter.

**Grey Templar**

The Russian/German friendship was really just a friendship of convenience. Neither really intended it to last longer than it was beneficial for their side. At best it would have been a war front the Germans were not involved in.

If Hitler had been smart, he would have simply fortified his border with the USSR against an invasion and made every effort to keep peace between them so he could focus on the west. The Russians would have probably been content with this situation to build up their own army.

The Cold War might have been between Nazi Europe and the USSR instead of the US and the USSR.

The Soviets and Germans certainly weren't friends, but the Soviets weren't quite interested in a war just yet. heck, the German invasion of Russia almost succeeded. if they had only managed to catch the industrial centers before the equipment was moved farther east they could have destroyed their capacity to make weaponry. The Soviets would have been left with very little other than bodies to oppose the Germans with.

**Ensis Ferrae**

I personally think that if we are looking at the manufacturing/output of the major powers in the lead up and during WW2, we have to look at the designs of what was being built...

Ie, the American Sherman tanks were easy to mass produce, had good all around performance, were easy to maintain, drive, and also had acceptable firepower (for what the US fighting doctrine at the time of development called for).

The German tanks were engineering marvels... a bazillion tiny pieces that had to be hand carved from hardened steel (slight exaggeration), they took forever to produce, were so complicated that you practically needed a PhD to repair anything more than the most basic of problems, but they had firepower for days.

The Russian tank... well, it looked like a 5 year old drew up the plans with crayon, had little success in the firepower department, but they were so tough that the Russian tank doctrine basically became, "ram the germans, and once you make contact, keep pushing, while firing your main gun until you penetrate"

I mean, this is a fairly simplistic view on the design philosophy, but we can see it in the aircraft as well.

WW2 was a war where our vast size played a major part in our ultimate success... I mean, we have wooden stocked guns, the metal for the gun barrels, ship steel, tank armor, aluminum plane pieces, etc. EVERYTHING was able to be mined, farmed or produced on American soil, and with the "Rosie the Riveter" movements, we can see that manpower is not an issue either... All of which was helped by the fact that there was no land fighting on our soil.

**Grey Templar**

A little simple. T34s had a decent gun and a revolutionary suspension system. But lacked radios and other modern necessities. Other soviet tanks had better guns and training. T34s were where the disposable grunts went.

**welshhoppo**

Actually German production increased massively towards the end of World War II as Albert Sheer began to re-organise the entire German industrial machine. This is including the fact that the allies bombed most of it flat.

Whilst I'm not too good on America's production during WWII, I know that once they got their act together, they could build an entire merchant ship in less than a week, that is a challenge and a half in the least.

But it came down to production in the end, Russia produced more tanks that the Germans could gun down, there were instances where the Russians would over run anti-tank guns but sending so many tanks at them they would run out of ammunition. Much like in WWI, Germany eventually choked to death.

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

Ensis Ferrae wrote:

The Russian tank... well, it looked like a 5 year old drew up the plans with crayon, had little success in the firepower department, but they were so tough that the Russian tank doctrine basically became, "ram the germans, and once you make contact, keep pushing, while firing your main gun until you penetrate"

Is that why Heinz Guderian, towards the end of the war, was asked what he needed and he replied, "Stalin tanks". IN terms of reliability, mobility, firepower and ease of produciton, the Soviet tanks were demonstrably superior to their German counterparts. Russian lenses and aiming gear were inferior to the Germans, for sure. But the 76.2mm on the original T34 (or the KV1) was far superior to the 40mm guns on its German opposition.

The T34 was actually a very beautiful, functional piece of industrial design. When the Germans tried to copy it with the Panther, due to stupid infighting, they ended up with a far inferior suspension system - and a gearbox that didn't work. They got all their priorities wrong, and went for flash toys that were over-complicated and functionally inferior.

Grey Templar wrote:
A little simple. T34s had a decent gun and a revolutionary suspension system. But lacked radios and other modern necessities. Other soviet tanks had better guns and training. T34s were where the disposable grunts went.

Actually, more profoundly than that, T34s were where the short guys went.

Germans designed tanks that all their soldiers could fit in. Bulky. The Soviets built their T34 low, harder to hit. And chose short crews (often Mongolian) to fit in them. In exactly the same way that with the Soyuz program, they designed just one size of space suit, and chose the crew to fit the suit. Much more efficient!

**Allod**

welshhoppo wrote:
Actually German production increased massively towards the end of World War II as Albert Sheer began to re-organise the entire German industrial machine.

The first part is true, the second one a myth. Speer's reorganization had little to do with it, as Scherner / Streb finally proved in their 2006 publication. Basically, what you are seeing is the learning effect on production lines running since 1939/1940 combined with a new calculation method for the armament index by Wagenführ and, last but not least, Speer's own fudging of the numbers. The USSBS immortalized the myth by confirming Speer's numbers - using only documentation from his own ministry.

**xruslanx**

I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this - is modern warfare really all about GDP? Is there no tactical, organizational or equipment differences?

**Allod**

xruslanx wrote:
I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this - is modern warfare really all about GDP? Is there no tactical, organizational or equipment differences?

No, but total warfare is, at least to a large extent. I'm not sure where you want to go with your question?

**Relapse**

Here is a speech Roosevelt made in December of 1940 that will raise the hairs on the back of your kneck when you think about the context in which it was given;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7BKvlobfBY

**sebster**

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Yeah, Britain tends to get overlooked when discussing WW2 industrial output, and there is much talk about the 'decline' of the British Empire, but here are a few facts about Britain on the 3rd September 1939.

While that's true, ultimately the British were a generation behind the technological curve with many of their platforms. Look at the Spitfire for instance, which was only deployed in late 1938, a year after the Bf 109, which by that time had been produced in sufficient numbers to become the main fighter for the Luftwaffe. Because of this Spitfires were largely held back from operations over France, and the British only deployed Hurricanes in large numbers (which went pretty badly).

At the same time, at the outbreak of the war a carrier born version of the Spitfire, the Seafire, was still being argued about. In the meantime the Royal Navy was using Gladiators, freaking biplanes. It wasn't until late 1942 that Seafires were in service.

The same story is true of other British weapon platforms - that vast navy was largely outdated, and in need of either refurbishment or replacement. British tanks in France were reliable and good enough, but the Germans already had next generation tanks and upgrades to existing models, which put the British behind the curve, and never able to really catch up.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I disagree. The Soviets (specifically Stalin and certain top-level political leaders) very much saw Hitler as a 'friend'.

Stalin's concept of 'friend' is very different is very different from what ordinary, people who aren't psycopaths think of the term. Stalin planned an invasion of Germany in 1943 or '44, when his own military was fully prepared, during which time he expected the Western Allies and Germany to have ground each other into dust in a protracted war in France.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
The Russian tank... well, it looked like a 5 year old drew up the plans with crayon, had little success in the firepower department, but they were so tough that the Russian tank doctrine basically became, "ram the germans, and once you make contact, keep pushing, while firing your main gun until you penetrate"

Not at all. At Barbarossa the T34 was able to threaten German tanks at a far greater range than the Germans could threaten the T34. The T34 also had superior mobility and was far more reliable ... and was basically just an all around superior weapon platform to the German tanks. It was just deployed incredibly poorly, because it was part of a Russian war machine that was almost in complete collapse.

It was the T34 that prompted the rapid development of the Panther, which was specifically a T34 killer, and the acceleration of the Tiger program (after the Germans saw the value of the KV tanks to the Soviets, and their ability to just plonk themselves down in a spot and dominate it through their near invincibility).

That's where the story gets kind of interesting, because the rapid deployment of the Panther actually caused a change in Soviet tank design. The Soviets had been planning to deploy a new design, the T43, as part of their own upgrade program. The T43 would have had armour roughly equal to the Panther, and basically been an up-armoured variant on the T34, still primarly focussed on breakthrough and deep operations. But with the Panther and its new long 75mm gun able to take out T34s at range and also likely the T43... why bother upgrading the armour on their own design? Instead they just plonked a nice, big 85mm gun on their existing T34 and figured I can kill you and you can kill me, but my tank is much cheaper and has way more effective range.

They then set about pouring design resources in to heavy tank designs, producing the IS and ISU range of tanks, which were at least the equal of the much vaunted heavy tanks the Wehrmacht produced in the late war period.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
The T34 was actually a very beautiful, functional piece of industrial design. When the Germans tried to copy it with the Panther, due to stupid infighting, they ended up with a far inferior suspension system - and a gearbox that didn't work. They got all their priorities wrong, and went for flash toys that were over-complicated and functionally inferior.

The Panther was rushed through design and in to production, and while that meant lots unreliability at first, those problems were corrected fairly rapidly, and it meant Germany did manage to have a design that was very effective against the Soviet T34.

Seriously, the Panther wasn't the problem. It also wasn't the solution the Nazis wanted it to be, but it wasn't the problem.

Germans designed tanks that all their soldiers could fit in. Bulky. The Soviets built their T34 low, harder to hit. And chose short crews (often Mongolian) to fit in them. In exactly the same way that with the Soyuz program, they designed just one size of space suit, and chose the crew to fit the suit. Much more efficient!

There's like 20cm difference in height compared to the Mk IV. Have you got a cite for that?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

xruslanx wrote:
I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this - is modern warfare really all about GDP? Is there no tactical, organizational or equipment differences?

GDP is a big deal, but there's plenty of scope to win the war before the other side gets its production together. France had a greater GDP than Germany, and they had the British alongside them in addition to that. But they had a lot of misspent military resources, and outdated military doctrine. By the time they figured out what was wrong the Nazis had a clear march in to Paris.

Russia also outproduced Germany, and while their only military doctrine was sophisticated, in the first months of the war they were plagued by a failure of command at the top level. They were only able to survive because Moscow is a really long way from the Polish border, and the German army was nowhere near as motorised as the modern myth will have believe (German troops in the fall of France did much of their blitzkrieging by marching day and night... that's not really going to cut it in Eastern Europe).

These days, though, troops have truck transport at the absolute least. There's also APCs to allow a balance of aggression and rapid movement, and helicopter deployment and all that. But more than anything, these days the logistics train that follows an army is incredible. If you could inlict a serious defeat on an unprepared Russian army on its border, you could easily and rapidly move to Moscow before they had a chance to build any replacement gear.

**Hivefleet Oblivion**

sebster wrote:

While that's true, ultimately the British were a generation behind the technological curve with many of their platforms. Look at the Spitfire for instance, which was only deployed in late 1938, a year after the Bf 109, which by that time had been produced in sufficient numbers to become the main fighter for the Luftwaffe. Because of this Spitfires were largely held back from operations over France, and the British only deployed Hurricanes in large numbers (which went pretty badly).

To some extent this is true; the Brits simply weren't spending the money the Germans were, for political reasons. But the Brits had a good grasp of priorities, spotting that fighters needed 8 machine guns to bring down bombers, and training intensively in the use of radar, so that their overall system, for the first two or three years of the war, was far superior to the German one.

IN terms of tanks, in particular, the lag in technology was scandalous. Actually, the early British tanks, like the Matilda, were decent designs, but complacency - in particular from Monty, who stuck with the Sherman even after the TIger appeared on the scene - meant they were always a generation behind.

That's where the story gets kind of interesting, because the rapid deployment of the Panther actually caused a change in Soviet tank design. The Soviets had been planning to complete deploy a new T43 design, which would have had armour roughly equal to the Panther, and an 85mm gun more or less equal to the long 75mm on the Panther, and been an excellent killer of lighter German tanks and an equal of the Panther... But the Soviets made an interesting observation - both tanks would have been able to penetrate the armour of the other at pretty long engagement distances... so why bother upgrading the armour on their own design? Instead they just plonked the 85mm gun on their existing T34 and figured I can kill you and you can kill me, but my tank is much cheaper and has way more effective range.

Very interesting, where's that info from? I thought they abandoned that tank because it had the same 76mm gun, so they went for the existing design with a bigger gun instead.

The Panther was rushed through design and in to production, and while that meant lots unreliability at first, those problems were corrected fairly rapidly, and it meant Germany did manage to have a design that was very effective against the Soviet T34.

Functionally, the Panther simply had too many parts and took too long to produce. THis was why Germany kept producing the Mk IV and the StuG and, i memery serves, towards the end were intending to rationalise production. As, for instance, they were doing with the MP40, which was far too expensive, and forced the introduction of the MP3008, more or less a copy of the Sten. Yes, the Sten was crappy compared to the MP40, but it did the job and was a fraction of the cost.

Not particularly arguing, every view here is tenable, but there's a statistic I noticed recently, which said that Germans had around 350 Panthers on the Eastern Frobt, whereas the Soviets were producing 1,200 T34s per month..

There's like 20cm difference in height compared to the Mk IV. Have you got a cite for that?

I can't remember the source, but the American army conducted tests on various foreign armaments around 1946; they found that, for instance, the German steel helmet was far more efficient than the US version, and that the T34 had significant advantages due to the steep slope of the armour - but was too small for American troops to be able to fit. The Panzer IV was in general a smaller tank.

Russian tank crews were recruited over-proportionately from Mongolia, and there were also more than a few women drivers. There were also disadvantages because of the low profile and cramped interior; when a shell actually penetrated it was far more likely to do damage, and the crew worked less efficiently - especially in the 76mm versions with a 2 man crew.

It's a bit OT, but there is a fantastic breakdown of how the Germans tackled Soviet tanks in a book called Kampfgruppen, I think by James Lucas. They were ludicrously outnumbered and used absolutely rigorous fire control, always hitting the radio-equipped tanks first, then picking off the rest systematically. Geman tactics were indeed far superior to Soviet ones.

**sebster**

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
To some extent this is true; the Brits simply weren't spending the money the Germans were, for political reasons. But the Brits had a good grasp of priorities, spotting that fighters needed 8 machine guns to bring down bombers, and training intensively in the use of radar, so that their overall system, for the first two or three years of the war, was far superior to the German one.

It's a lot more complicated than that. Sure, Fighter Command had superior support resources, especially with the advantage radar granted to command and control, and overall superior tactical doctrine(emphasis on squadron performance compared to the German fixation on ace pilots), but there were plenty of instances of the opposite being true. For instance, the much vaunted Ju 87 was more or less an okay plane that happened to acquire a fearsome reputation... this was largely due to how well it was used in close co-ordination with Wehrmacht operations. In comparison the RAF's place in the British military was highly political RAF, and in searching for a reason to argue the RAF had to remain a seperate wing apart from the army, the RAF ended up concluding despite a scarcity of evidence that strategic bombing operations were the best use of air resources... because they feared being swallowed up in to the army if they focused on operations more co-ordinated with the army.

IN terms of tanks, in particular, the lag in technology was scandalous. Actually, the early British tanks, like the Matilda, were decent designs, but complacency - in particular from Monty, who stuck with the Sherman even after the TIger appeared on the scene - meant they were always a generation behind.

Blaming Monty for problems in British tank design seems about as appropriate as blaming the girl who got the coffee. Nor does it really make any sense, the British problems largely occurred in Africa, and before Monty was given command (and when given command one his cleverer ideas was to stop trying to achieve tank breakthroughs with tanks that weren't up to the task, and instead grind the Nazis with artillery and air power). After that the British were well aware of the shortfalls of their tanks, hence the Firefly as a means to match German tanks. The problem by then was building, from scratch, a whole new design that could carry the 17 pound gun and have armour to provide reasonable protection (remember the Tiger was in design long before the war began, and the Panther was an incredible piece of rapid design).

Very interesting, where's that info from? I thought they abandoned that tank because it had the same 76mm gun, so they went for the existing design with a bigger gun instead.

Check my edit

In my head I thought it had the 85mm gun, and so I went and checked, and then correct my earlier post.

That said, I think the T43 would have been as agreeable to an 85mm upgrade just as the T34 was. The issue was in deciding that some armour increase was pointless, given the performance of the long 75mm of the upgraded Mk IV and Panther.

Functionally, the Panther simply had too many parts and took too long to produce. THis was why Germany kept producing the Mk IV and the StuG and, i memery serves, towards the end were intending to rationalise production.

Yeah, the Panther was over-engineered, but the continued production of the Mk IV is hardly a mark against it. Russians kept producing T34s after they deployed their IS tanks... because they do different things. You can't just build 45 ton tanks, because then you end up with far too few tanks overall, and tanks that are broadly too slow to achieve proper breakthrough.

As, for instance, they were doing with the MP40, which was far too expensive, and forced the introduction of the MP3008, more or less a copy of the Sten. Yes, the Sten was crappy compared to the MP40, but it did the job and was a fraction of the cost.

The MP40 was never that wonderful (a long clip straight under the barrel makes sense in its original role as a weapon for tank crews, but is more than a little problematic when it became a main infantry weapons), and the latter models were just pressed steel and pretty easy to knock out. And its important to remember the Sten actually had several benefits through the war, the latter versions were a long way from the cheap and nasty early versions intended to be mass produced in workshops.

But yeah, in the latter stages of the war the sten became a nice option for a military that's making whatever it can wherever it can... funny to think at the same time the Nazis were still pumping resources in to a bomber that could reach New York

Not particularly arguing, every view here is tenable, but there's a statistic I noticed recently, which said that Germans had around 350 Panthers on the Eastern Frobt, whereas the Soviets were producing 1,200 T34s per month..

Oh, absolutely, the Soviets just out produced the Nazis. But the Panther and its intense level of production wasn't why that happened. As I said before, the Panther wasn't the problem. It was over-engineered and probably not where the Nazis should have focused their resources... but the bigger problem was that the Russian level of production was just far beyond what Germany could manage.

I can't remember the source, but the American army conducted tests on various foreign armaments around 1946; they found that, for instance, the German steel helmet was far more efficient than the US version, and that the T34 had significant advantages due to the steep slope of the armour - but was too small for American troops to be able to fit.

Yeah, hence the design of the modern US helmet. And Soviet armour sloping is well known, I've just never heard the one about other people not being able to fit, and I love quirky stories like that. If you can think of where you heard that, it'd be much appreciated.

The Panzer IV was in general a smaller tank.

It's numbers line up almost equally with a T34.

Russian tank crews were recruited over-proportionately from Mongolia, and there were also more than a few women drivers. There were also disadvantages because of the low profile and cramped interior; when a shell actually penetrated it was far more likely to do damage, and the crew worked less efficiently - especially in the 76mm versions with a 2 man crew.

It's a bit OT, but there is a fantastic breakdown of how the Germans tackled Soviet tanks in a book called Kampfgruppen, I think by James Lucas. They were ludicrously outnumbered and used absolutely rigorous fire control, always hitting the radio-equipped tanks first, then picking off the rest systematically. Geman tactics were indeed far superior to Soviet ones.

It depends on what stage in the war you're talking about, and which tank divisions really. The performance of Grossdeutschland through the war was just incredible, but by the mid and late war era you see plenty of Soviet divisions with doctrine and performance at least as sophisticated and effective as their Wehrmacht equivalents.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

sebster wrote:
Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Yeah, Britain tends to get overlooked when discussing WW2 industrial output, and there is much talk about the 'decline' of the British Empire, but here are a few facts about Britain on the 3rd September 1939.

While that's true, ultimately the British were a generation behind the technological curve with many of their platforms. Look at the Spitfire for instance, which was only deployed in late 1938, a year after the Bf 109, which by that time had been produced in sufficient numbers to become the main fighter for the Luftwaffe. Because of this Spitfires were largely held back from operations over France, and the British only deployed Hurricanes in large numbers (which went pretty badly).

At the same time, at the outbreak of the war a carrier born version of the Spitfire, the Seafire, was still being argued about. In the meantime the Royal Navy was using Gladiators, freaking biplanes. It wasn't until late 1942 that Seafires were in service.

The same story is true of other British weapon platforms - that vast navy was largely outdated, and in need of either refurbishment or replacement. British tanks in France were reliable and good enough, but the Germans already had next generation tanks and upgrades to existing models, which put the British behind the curve, and never able to really catch up.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
I disagree. The Soviets (specifically Stalin and certain top-level political leaders) very much saw Hitler as a 'friend'.

Stalin's concept of 'friend' is very different is very different from what ordinary, people who aren't psycopaths think of the term. Stalin planned an invasion of Germany in 1943 or '44, when his own military was fully prepared, during which time he expected the Western Allies and Germany to have ground each other into dust in a protracted war in France.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ensis Ferrae wrote:
The Russian tank... well, it looked like a 5 year old drew up the plans with crayon, had little success in the firepower department, but they were so tough that the Russian tank doctrine basically became, "ram the germans, and once you make contact, keep pushing, while firing your main gun until you penetrate"

Not at all. At Barbarossa the T34 was able to threaten German tanks at a far greater range than the Germans could threaten the T34. The T34 also had superior mobility and was far more reliable ... and was basically just an all around superior weapon platform to the German tanks. It was just deployed incredibly poorly, because it was part of a Russian war machine that was almost in complete collapse.

It was the T34 that prompted the rapid development of the Panther, which was specifically a T34 killer, and the acceleration of the Tiger program (after the Germans saw the value of the KV tanks to the Soviets, and their ability to just plonk themselves down in a spot and dominate it through their near invincibility).

That's where the story gets kind of interesting, because the rapid deployment of the Panther actually caused a change in Soviet tank design. The Soviets had been planning to deploy a new design, the T43, as part of their own upgrade program. The T43 would have had armour roughly equal to the Panther, and basically been an up-armoured variant on the T34, still primarly focussed on breakthrough and deep operations. But with the Panther and its new long 75mm gun able to take out T34s at range and also likely the T43... why bother upgrading the armour on their own design? Instead they just plonked a nice, big 85mm gun on their existing T34 and figured I can kill you and you can kill me, but my tank is much cheaper and has way more effective range.

They then set about pouring design resources in to heavy tank designs, producing the IS and ISU range of tanks, which were at least the equal of the much vaunted heavy tanks the Wehrmacht produced in the late war period.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
The T34 was actually a very beautiful, functional piece of industrial design. When the Germans tried to copy it with the Panther, due to stupid infighting, they ended up with a far inferior suspension system - and a gearbox that didn't work. They got all their priorities wrong, and went for flash toys that were over-complicated and functionally inferior.

The Panther was rushed through design and in to production, and while that meant lots unreliability at first, those problems were corrected fairly rapidly, and it meant Germany did manage to have a design that was very effective against the Soviet T34.

Seriously, the Panther wasn't the problem. It also wasn't the solution the Nazis wanted it to be, but it wasn't the problem.

Germans designed tanks that all their soldiers could fit in. Bulky. The Soviets built their T34 low, harder to hit. And chose short crews (often Mongolian) to fit in them. In exactly the same way that with the Soyuz program, they designed just one size of space suit, and chose the crew to fit the suit. Much more efficient!

There's like 20cm difference in height compared to the Mk IV. Have you got a cite for that?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

xruslanx wrote:
I guess this is as good a place as any to ask this - is modern warfare really all about GDP? Is there no tactical, organizational or equipment differences?

GDP is a big deal, but there's plenty of scope to win the war before the other side gets its production together. France had a greater GDP than Germany, and they had the British alongside them in addition to that. But they had a lot of misspent military resources, and outdated military doctrine. By the time they figured out what was wrong the Nazis had a clear march in to Paris.

Russia also outproduced Germany, and while their only military doctrine was sophisticated, in the first months of the war they were plagued by a failure of command at the top level. They were only able to survive because Moscow is a really long way from the Polish border, and the German army was nowhere near as motorised as the modern myth will have believe (German troops in the fall of France did much of their blitzkrieging by marching day and night... that's not really going to cut it in Eastern Europe).

These days, though, troops have truck transport at the absolute least. There's also APCs to allow a balance of aggression and rapid movement, and helicopter deployment and all that. But more than anything, these days the logistics train that follows an army is incredible. If you could inlict a serious defeat on an unprepared Russian army on its border, you could easily and rapidly move to Moscow before they had a chance to build any replacement gear.

I skip commenting on the tank stuff (too much to read

) and reply to your Spitfire stuff.

I would disagree with your spitfire comments. The spitfire and its variants proved to be far superior to the Me109, so I wouldn't say the Brits were behind in the technological curve. The reason spitfires weren't deployed in number in France, as France was deemed to be 'kost' and the spits were pulled back for the defence of the UK.

I hear a lot about the Luftwaffe, but I would put Britain ahead of them. Frank Whittle, and my all time favourite warplane the mosquito, is proof of British design and innovation.

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
sebster wrote:

While that's true, ultimately the British were a generation behind the technological curve with many of their platforms. Look at the Spitfire for instance, which was only deployed in late 1938, a year after the Bf 109, which by that time had been produced in sufficient numbers to become the main fighter for the Luftwaffe. Because of this Spitfires were largely held back from operations over France, and the British only deployed Hurricanes in large numbers (which went pretty badly).

To some extent this is true; the Brits simply weren't spending the money the Germans were, for political reasons. But the Brits had a good grasp of priorities, spotting that fighters needed 8 machine guns to bring down bombers, and training intensively in the use of radar, so that their overall system, for the first two or three years of the war, was far superior to the German one.

IN terms of tanks, in particular, the lag in technology was scandalous. Actually, the early British tanks, like the Matilda, were decent designs, but complacency - in particular from Monty, who stuck with the Sherman even after the TIger appeared on the scene - meant they were always a generation behind.

That's where the story gets kind of interesting, because the rapid deployment of the Panther actually caused a change in Soviet tank design. The Soviets had been planning to complete deploy a new T43 design, which would have had armour roughly equal to the Panther, and an 85mm gun more or less equal to the long 75mm on the Panther, and been an excellent killer of lighter German tanks and an equal of the Panther... But the Soviets made an interesting observation - both tanks would have been able to penetrate the armour of the other at pretty long engagement distances... so why bother upgrading the armour on their own design? Instead they just plonked the 85mm gun on their existing T34 and figured I can kill you and you can kill me, but my tank is much cheaper and has way more effective range.

Very interesting, where's that info from? I thought they abandoned that tank because it had the same 76mm gun, so they went for the existing design with a bigger gun instead.

The Panther was rushed through design and in to production, and while that meant lots unreliability at first, those problems were corrected fairly rapidly, and it meant Germany did manage to have a design that was very effective against the Soviet T34.

Functionally, the Panther simply had too many parts and took too long to produce. THis was why Germany kept producing the Mk IV and the StuG and, i memery serves, towards the end were intending to rationalise production. As, for instance, they were doing with the MP40, which was far too expensive, and forced the introduction of the MP3008, more or less a copy of the Sten. Yes, the Sten was crappy compared to the MP40, but it did the job and was a fraction of the cost.

Not particularly arguing, every view here is tenable, but there's a statistic I noticed recently, which said that Germans had around 350 Panthers on the Eastern Frobt, whereas the Soviets were producing 1,200 T34s per month..

There's like 20cm difference in height compared to the Mk IV. Have you got a cite for that?

I can't remember the source, but the American army conducted tests on various foreign armaments around 1946; they found that, for instance, the German steel helmet was far more efficient than the US version, and that the T34 had significant advantages due to the steep slope of the armour - but was too small for American troops to be able to fit. The Panzer IV was in general a smaller tank.

Russian tank crews were recruited over-proportionately from Mongolia, and there were also more than a few women drivers. There were also disadvantages because of the low profile and cramped interior; when a shell actually penetrated it was far more likely to do damage, and the crew worked less efficiently - especially in the 76mm versions with a 2 man crew.

It's a bit OT, but there is a fantastic breakdown of how the Germans tackled Soviet tanks in a book called Kampfgruppen, I think by James Lucas. They were ludicrously outnumbered and used absolutely rigorous fire control, always hitting the radio-equipped tanks first, then picking off the rest systematically. Geman tactics were indeed far superior to Soviet ones.

That's another misconception about Britain in the run up to world war 2 - that Germany outspent them. Britain spent more cash, but the money went on the Royal Navy, upgrading the defences of Hong Kong and Singapore, upgrading Britain's air defences, and of course, maintain a global empire. There was trouble in Egypt and Palestine (nothing new there) in the 1930s. Germany by contrast, was able to upgrade its panzer divisions to a level above Britain, but of course, the Germans didn't have global commitments.

People are critical of the UK when it comes tanks and armoured division, but they forget that the early war doctrine was for the French army to do the bulk of the fighting, the Royal Navy to rule the seas, and the RAF to rule the skies.

**Kilkrazy**

It isn't just logistics that wins world wars but look at the production statistics and consider that not only did the Allies manufacture all that stuff, they also recruited and trained the men to operate it all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II

Also, though German tactics were very superior at the start, (and the Japanese, in the Pacific) the Allies learned and started to catch up in areas where they were weak. That was land warfare, of course.

**Relapse**

One of the points
of interest for me was the fact that 65% of factory workers maling planes in the U.S. were women and overall, about 37% of the factory workforce acrossthe board were women.
I know women comprised a large part of the workforce, taking the place of men going into the military, but I was amazed at what a huge percentage it was.

**LordofHats**

Stalin's concept of 'friend' is very different is very different from what ordinary, people who aren't psycopaths think of the term. Stalin planned an invasion of Germany in 1943 or '44, when his own military was fully prepared, during which time he expected the Western Allies and Germany to have ground each other into dust in a protracted war in France.

This. Stalin was so shocked when Hitler invaded, because he thought he'd outwitted Hitler and would be ready to attack first, he went totally bipolar and spiraled in a 3 day depression. Some of Germany's early success in Barbarossa can be connected to party leaders not issuing orders because Stalin wasn't around.

The Panther was rushed through design and in to production, and while that meant lots unreliability at first, those problems were corrected fairly rapidly, and it meant Germany did manage to have a design that was very effective against the Soviet T34.

Yep. The first Panthers to hit the field at Kursk spent the battle sitting in mud... Filled with mines. Other than the early models though the Panther's 'unreliability' is horribly overstated. As overstated as the Sherman being cannon fodder.

I would disagree with your spitfire comments. The spitfire and its variants proved to be far superior to the Me109, so I wouldn't say the Brits were behind in the technological curve. The reason spitfires weren't deployed in number in France, as France was deemed to be 'kost' and the spits were pulled back for the defence of the UK.

The Luftwaffe was tactically, way ahead of the bell curve. They decimated enemy air forces and shocked the RAF so much they didn't want to send anyone in until they fixed their doctrinal problems. RAF aircraft tended to adhere to very tight very inflexible formations in combat, and it left them easy targets for a more flexible Luftwaffe that also had combat experience from Spain. The RAF caught up really fast though on that front.

Blaming Monty

But I love to blame Monty! But not for that. British tank design, in one of my favorite quotes, "bordered on treason." It was atrocious but I think it had more to do with the British not really know how to handle their tank design process. I have a book written by one of the leaders in British tank production during the war that he wrote in the 70's. I'll see if its not buried in one of the boxes in the back of the closet to refresh myself.

I can't remember the source, but the American army conducted tests on various foreign armaments around 1946; they found that, for instance, the German steel helmet was far more efficient than the US version

Studies conducted by the Ordinance Department. Pretty much everyone just repeats the results phrase for phrase.

I don't know about the Mongolian thing, but the T34 was notoriously cramped. The commander didn't even have room to sit up straight. He had to hunch over or hit his head against the hatch.

**Ketara**

sebster wrote:

Russia also outproduced Germany, and while their only military doctrine was sophisticated,

Presuming we're talking about tanks, hardly. Most Russian tanks didn't have radio to allow battlefield communications, and a basic handbook of Russian tank warfare doctrine wasn't even compiled and distributed until the Germans were pushing in on Moscow. The Russians were complete and utter novices when it came to armoured warfare in the field, even if they did have the best tanks of the lot.

From the tactical level right up to the strategical, the Russians were outplayed repeatedly for the first few years of the war. It's a testament to the superiority of their armour initially, the sheer volume of geography, and the vast numbers of men they could sacrifice that the Soviets managed to survive long enough to learn from their mistakes and begin to get a grip on (what was then) modern warfare.