> We basically buried Japan in steel Not entirely correct. We basically won the war at Guadalcanal, way before the war time production kicked in. At that point

> We basically buried Japan in steel Not entirely correct. We basically won the war at Guadalcanal, way before the war time production kicked in. At that point, the US was fighting a two-ocean war, and Japan had numerical superiority in the Pacific. Despite that, the US managed to win a close call at Coral Sea, a major victory at Midway, and then dominated on land on Guadalcanal and won an attritional naval contest there too. The US would have won the Pacific war even without all the Essex-class carriers and all the new stuff that came after mid-43. The US Navy was simply a much better fighting force than the Imperial Japanese Navy. However after the publication of the (otherwise phenomenal) Shattered Sword, the popular impression has been that Midway was not that consequential, and the US owed the Pacific victory to its industrial might. I think this is an unfortunate and unwarranted conclusion.