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We only won World War II because we could produce our tanks faster than the Germans could destroy them and we could destroy their tanks faster than they could p

We only won World War II because we could produce our tanks faster than the Germans could destroy them and we could destroy their tanks faster than they could produce them. The Germany tanks were superior but our supply lines and manufacturing capacity are ultimately why we won. If we fought a large scale war today, we would be supply constrained by China and other 'rivals' who we can't rely on. We've outsourced everything in the name of efficiency, but have left ourselves spread incredibly thin and exposed huge weaknesses. Remember how fast supply chains broke down during the pandemic? Imagine how fast that breaks down for complex logistics needed to produce complex weapons... I think America is one war away from losing its 'super power' status and being diminished to a much lower status. Look at how we've already empowered Iran into an even more powerful adversary through this war/conflict.

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
And ships. We ended the war with (EDIT: practically) none of the carriers we started out with.
- cpgxiii 5mo ago
  Famously, of course, not at all the case, with Enterprise, Saratoga, and Ranger all surviving. Yes, losses of pre-war carriers were severe (Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet, and Wasp).
rf15 5mo ago
Is that really true regarding what we know of WW2? I thought their designs had major flaws, not just the goldplating issues you mention. Besides, they mostly lost because they spend all their manpower and material on pointless incursions far away from their country.
- rwmj 5mo ago
  Wars between great powers are won and lost on manufacturing base. The classic book on this topic is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great_Powers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great...
  - elnerd 5mo ago
    Same goes for logistics, which is an extension to your point: https://walton.uark.edu/clc/posts/when-supply-chain-is-the-battle.php https://walton.uark.edu/clc/posts/when-supply-chain-is-the-b...
  - dgoldstein0 5mo ago
    yep... other factors do matter in determining the length of the war, whether the manufacturing base can be defended / get the raw materials it needs, etc. The enigma machine is estimated to have reduced WWII by a few years. but there's really no winning when the enemy can put more planes, tanks, guns, boats and troops than you by a large factor, if they are even somewhat competent at using them.
  - don_esteban 5mo ago
    Hm, is this still true in the age of nukes? Would Russia/China/US not use their nukes if in risk of being overrun by conventional forces of another superpower?
    - rwmj 5mo ago
      It's true my abiding thought after reading the book was what about nuclear weapons. The great powers would absolutely use their nukes if in danger of being overrun, and I think long before that, in a total war.
- dghlsakjg 5mo ago
  German tank and aircraft design and logistics had their own issues that made things worse, but largely, the biggest issue was just not being capable of keeping up with American manufacturing and Russian willingness to throw bodies at the fight. Just for context Allied tank production was 276k to the axis 67k. Most other production categories show similar ratios. Your tanks can be perfectly reliable, and superior in every way, but it will be hard to win a fight when you are outnumbered 4:1. Even now, the emerging doctrine from Ukraine, and now Iran, is to fight using asymmetric production advantages. Ukraine is taking out multimillion dollar facilities and ships with five figure UAVs. Iran has depleted US air defense stocks costing billions with a few million dollars worth of drones powered by motorcycle engines.
  - lukan 5mo ago
    "Russian willingness to throw bodies at the fight." Russia also build some tanks while being invaded, ~90k at the end of the war outcompeting german output at 3:1 (I suppose they are included in your allied 276k number?)
    - dgoldstein0 5mo ago
      with the help of US industrial advisors who helped them set up factories / production lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrclztGCg6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrclztGCg6M is a decent watch, though really only tells the "US out produced everyone" part of the WWII story. I recall seeing a better article that talked about WWII tank production but I can't find it right now.
      - senderista 5mo ago
        The USSR was also able to protect most of their factories from bombing raids by moving them to the Urals. Germany and Japan never had that luxury.
  - diogenescynic 5mo ago
    Exactly. Iran is beating us with balsa wood (paper airplane) drones. We're outspending them, but they can produce them faster and cheaper. We have to spend hundreds of thousands/millions per drone and missile. They are producing them for a fraction of that. We're being sold an expensive military industrial complex that actually is going to fail when put to the test of reality.
- scheme271 5mo ago
  It is and isn't. I think even if the germans had switched to making mass quantities of Sherman or T42 style tanks, it would have failed because they had shortages things like labor and fuel. The allies essentially had huge industrial bases in the US and Russia that were safe from the threats of bombing and attacks. The entire German supply chain from the factories to field repair sites were constantly being attacked.
- lukan 5mo ago
  "Besides, they mostly lost because they spend all their manpower and material on pointless incursions far away from their country." The whole point of the war for the Nazis was to conquer new land in the east (and destroy the bolshewists). They initially did not wanted to have war with UK or France or US. They wanted to fight with them against the inferiors. It was a racist war - the aryans against the slavs - to establish the right place for the aryans as rulers (it was also not so much about "german", it was about race). Also it was not just the US fighting and winning against them - I believe there was another power to first capture Berlin (that also was good at mass producing). And technically it was mixed. Some german designs were quite good, reliable and mass producible, others overcomplicated and too heavy. I doubt the war can be reduced to this question, nazi germany had enough weapons and its war industry was working full power, it was just so stupid to get itself into a war on all fronts (and for example declare war on the US in solidarity with Japan, but did not demand Japan to declare war on soviet untion in return).
  - watwut 5mo ago
    They have seen French and Brits also as not-aryans. Below aryans, above slavic. The western front was a choice, not something they did not wanted to do.
    - lukan 5mo ago
      "They have seen French and Brits also as not-aryans" Not so simple, they also divided the german population by aryan and non aryan tried to "improve" by breeding programms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn) and well hunting down all "inferior jews" and less so other people like sinti and roma. And it is pretty established that Hitler wanted the UK as ally (who have been pretty racist at the time as well). See also the flight of Rudolf Heß, which he did to make a favor to Hitler. (pretty interesting story, showing the delusion of the whole thing)
      - watwut 5mo ago
        I mean sure, it was about race, not about passport. German Jews were not seen as of german race. None of that contradicts what I said. Hitler wanted UK as ally, just like he wanted Russians as allies as step 1. The plan was not to treat them as equals in step 2. UK jist was not dumb to fall into that trap. Rudolf Heß was his initiative and attempt to avoid war, he was very much in minority.
- locknitpicker 5mo ago
  > Besides, they mostly lost because they spend all their manpower and material on pointless incursions far away from their country. If I'm not mistaken, one of the factors behind their Eastern Front collapsing was how their tanks suffered major design flaws, from failing to start in cold weather and their electrical components being vulnerable to rodents. Also, their inability to mass produce their tanks is a critical design flaw.
- senderista 5mo ago
  I mean sure, the Eastern Front absorbed the vast majority of German manpower and materiel. But the conquest of Eastern Europe and European Russia was a central component of Hitler's ideology, so from his point of view at least it wasn't "pointless".
scheme271 5mo ago
The German tanks were superior when functioning but quite a few of them were difficult to produce, maintain, and use. Do better armor and weapons really imply a superior tank if it requires significantly more maintenance and breaks down more often. And that's ignoring the issues were the sheer weight of the tanks meant that they couldn't cross certain bridges or function in certain terrain.
SanjayMehta 5mo ago
The allies only won WW2 because the Soviets and China expended millions of lives weakening the Nazis and Japan. Note I'm saying Nazis and not Germany: there were plenty of Finnish, Polish and Ukrainian Nazi battalions as well. It would be amusing to watch the same forces lining up to take on the Russians yet again, save for the orange lunatic with nukes, currently installing a UFC cage on the White House lawns, making the world an even more dangerous place for the rest of us. The UFC cage fight is itself is a sign that the US is already in rapid decline. Every empire collapse has been preceded by arrogant excess. The comparisons with the Roman stadiums and Caligula write themselves. The US and its NATO vassals have already lost The Ukraine. They just haven't realised it yet. Iran is beating the US strategically. Here I think some of the inner circle have realised it, but the real powers behind the throne just won't give up.
- watwut 5mo ago
  It was very much Germany as such that lost WWII. Really. > The US and its NATO vassals have already lost The Ukraine. What are you on about here. NATO never owned it, but member countries helped it. Except USA big NATO countries are still helping it. It is fascinating that EU countries became "vassals" when they went against USA wish in a major way. No one called them vassals when they were allies, the word is thrown around when they visibly diverge. Trying to stir emotions?
  - SanjayMehta 5mo ago
    The EU and NATO were always vassals. The EU was created so that the US would have one entity to control instead of many. NATO was created as a captive marketplace for US weapons. Coming back to the Ukraine issue, Russia is facing off 50 plus countries supplying materiel and intelligence using the Ukrainian proxy regime. I could not care less about your emotions. I'm not a romcom writer.
    - watwut 5mo ago
      > The EU and NATO were always vassals. No one used that word until Trump got pissed they did not invaded Iran. > Coming back to the Ukraine issue, Russia is facing off 50 plus countries supplying materiel and intelligence using the Ukrainian proxy regime. Russia is facing Ukraine that it invaded who is getting help from countries who find invasion disgusting or simply think Russia will invade them next. Funny, USA moved to Russia side but the vassals did not.
dgoldstein0 5mo ago
I wouldn't say "only". But the industrial advantage that the US brought to the allies made an Allied victory almost inevitable - in hindsight, the only way the Allies could've lost was if the situation looked so hopeless that the US chose to stop fighting - or never entered the war in the first place. Maybe if the Nazis had overrun Britain and either avoided engaging the USSR until they were ready to give it undivided attention, or somehow have conquered it, then maybe the US could've looked and said "we don't want to pick this fight" ... of course the moment Hitler declares war without actually being ready to invade the US, he's made a huge mistake. Perhaps there's an alternative history where Germany was less incompetent with their production and had less stupid leadership. But even in those, as long as the US got into the war and the war continued until one side or the other was fully conquered - I think it would've been Nazi Germany being conquered. The US started at a huge disadvantage of not having much of a military, weapons or ammunition ready, but we got to ramp up production for a good ~4 years before going over to Europe to kick ass and ran circles around the Axis powers with our production.
- Paradigm2020 5mo ago
  American weapons, Soviet blood. Both on the eastern front and the western front the soviets were responsible for the ultimate defeat of the Axis. Note: I'm not pro russia or pro America... Unlike the current team putin / Trump / Zelinsky / Taylor Swift and they can't do anything wrong we should always strive to discuss events > people.
- senderista 5mo ago
  I think the USSR would have won the war regardless of US involvement, but it might have taken a few more years.
  - dgoldstein0 5mo ago
    Maybe. They had the strategic depth and political will. But that forgets that they had major amounts of supply and industrial expertise brought in from the US. With none of that, perhaps they would've lost Moscow and the rest of the East. That could've given the Nazis significant more supply - especially if they got their hands on Soviet oil in the Urals - would could've made them hard to kick out. We'll never know for sure.
mikewarot 5mo ago
>I think America is one war away from losing its 'super power' status and being diminished to a much lower status. We were one poorly chosen voluntary conflict away from being shown to be a paper tiger. Now we've proved it, thanks to the fool in the White House and everyone who supports him. Focusing our efforts away from mass produced drones is a huge mistake in my opinion. We need to produce drones by the million. We also need both .50 caliber and shotgun sized proximity rounds by the billions to enable local defense against them.
- diogenescynic 5mo ago
  Yep, the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine have shown how weak our strategy is. Iran is beating us with balsa wood drones. Cheaper is better in this case. But we still like buying the best/most expensive/most over-engineered option available. We should be figuring out how to design a supply chain that can mass produce these in the event of a real conflict from local materials... not building the most high spec exotically sourced version... which is what we are currently doing.

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago

And ships. We ended the war with (EDIT: practically) none of the carriers we started out with.

cpgxiii 5mo ago
Famously, of course, not at all the case, with Enterprise, Saratoga, and Ranger all surviving. Yes, losses of pre-war carriers were severe (Lexington, Yorktown, Hornet, and Wasp).

rf15 5mo ago

Is that really true regarding what we know of WW2? I thought their designs had major flaws, not just the goldplating issues you mention. Besides, they mostly lost because they spend all their manpower and material on pointless incursions far away from their country.

rwmj 5mo ago
Wars between great powers are won and lost on manufacturing base. The classic book on this topic is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great_Powers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great...
- elnerd 5mo ago
  Same goes for logistics, which is an extension to your point: https://walton.uark.edu/clc/posts/when-supply-chain-is-the-battle.php https://walton.uark.edu/clc/posts/when-supply-chain-is-the-b...
- dgoldstein0 5mo ago
  yep... other factors do matter in determining the length of the war, whether the manufacturing base can be defended / get the raw materials it needs, etc. The enigma machine is estimated to have reduced WWII by a few years. but there's really no winning when the enemy can put more planes, tanks, guns, boats and troops than you by a large factor, if they are even somewhat competent at using them.
- don_esteban 5mo ago
  Hm, is this still true in the age of nukes? Would Russia/China/US not use their nukes if in risk of being overrun by conventional forces of another superpower?
  - rwmj 5mo ago
    It's true my abiding thought after reading the book was what about nuclear weapons. The great powers would absolutely use their nukes if in danger of being overrun, and I think long before that, in a total war.
dghlsakjg 5mo ago
German tank and aircraft design and logistics had their own issues that made things worse, but largely, the biggest issue was just not being capable of keeping up with American manufacturing and Russian willingness to throw bodies at the fight. Just for context Allied tank production was 276k to the axis 67k. Most other production categories show similar ratios. Your tanks can be perfectly reliable, and superior in every way, but it will be hard to win a fight when you are outnumbered 4:1. Even now, the emerging doctrine from Ukraine, and now Iran, is to fight using asymmetric production advantages. Ukraine is taking out multimillion dollar facilities and ships with five figure UAVs. Iran has depleted US air defense stocks costing billions with a few million dollars worth of drones powered by motorcycle engines.
- lukan 5mo ago
  "Russian willingness to throw bodies at the fight." Russia also build some tanks while being invaded, ~90k at the end of the war outcompeting german output at 3:1 (I suppose they are included in your allied 276k number?)
  - dgoldstein0 5mo ago
    with the help of US industrial advisors who helped them set up factories / production lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrclztGCg6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrclztGCg6M is a decent watch, though really only tells the "US out produced everyone" part of the WWII story. I recall seeing a better article that talked about WWII tank production but I can't find it right now.
    - senderista 5mo ago
      The USSR was also able to protect most of their factories from bombing raids by moving them to the Urals. Germany and Japan never had that luxury.
- diogenescynic 5mo ago
  Exactly. Iran is beating us with balsa wood (paper airplane) drones. We're outspending them, but they can produce them faster and cheaper. We have to spend hundreds of thousands/millions per drone and missile. They are producing them for a fraction of that. We're being sold an expensive military industrial complex that actually is going to fail when put to the test of reality.
scheme271 5mo ago
It is and isn't. I think even if the germans had switched to making mass quantities of Sherman or T42 style tanks, it would have failed because they had shortages things like labor and fuel. The allies essentially had huge industrial bases in the US and Russia that were safe from the threats of bombing and attacks. The entire German supply chain from the factories to field repair sites were constantly being attacked.
lukan 5mo ago
"Besides, they mostly lost because they spend all their manpower and material on pointless incursions far away from their country." The whole point of the war for the Nazis was to conquer new land in the east (and destroy the bolshewists). They initially did not wanted to have war with UK or France or US. They wanted to fight with them against the inferiors. It was a racist war - the aryans against the slavs - to establish the right place for the aryans as rulers (it was also not so much about "german", it was about race). Also it was not just the US fighting and winning against them - I believe there was another power to first capture Berlin (that also was good at mass producing). And technically it was mixed. Some german designs were quite good, reliable and mass producible, others overcomplicated and too heavy. I doubt the war can be reduced to this question, nazi germany had enough weapons and its war industry was working full power, it was just so stupid to get itself into a war on all fronts (and for example declare war on the US in solidarity with Japan, but did not demand Japan to declare war on soviet untion in return).
- watwut 5mo ago
  They have seen French and Brits also as not-aryans. Below aryans, above slavic. The western front was a choice, not something they did not wanted to do.
  - lukan 5mo ago
    "They have seen French and Brits also as not-aryans" Not so simple, they also divided the german population by aryan and non aryan tried to "improve" by breeding programms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensborn) and well hunting down all "inferior jews" and less so other people like sinti and roma. And it is pretty established that Hitler wanted the UK as ally (who have been pretty racist at the time as well). See also the flight of Rudolf Heß, which he did to make a favor to Hitler. (pretty interesting story, showing the delusion of the whole thing)
    - watwut 5mo ago
      I mean sure, it was about race, not about passport. German Jews were not seen as of german race. None of that contradicts what I said. Hitler wanted UK as ally, just like he wanted Russians as allies as step 1. The plan was not to treat them as equals in step 2. UK jist was not dumb to fall into that trap. Rudolf Heß was his initiative and attempt to avoid war, he was very much in minority.
locknitpicker 5mo ago
> Besides, they mostly lost because they spend all their manpower and material on pointless incursions far away from their country. If I'm not mistaken, one of the factors behind their Eastern Front collapsing was how their tanks suffered major design flaws, from failing to start in cold weather and their electrical components being vulnerable to rodents. Also, their inability to mass produce their tanks is a critical design flaw.
senderista 5mo ago
I mean sure, the Eastern Front absorbed the vast majority of German manpower and materiel. But the conquest of Eastern Europe and European Russia was a central component of Hitler's ideology, so from his point of view at least it wasn't "pointless".

scheme271 5mo ago

The German tanks were superior when functioning but quite a few of them were difficult to produce, maintain, and use. Do better armor and weapons really imply a superior tank if it requires significantly more maintenance and breaks down more often. And that's ignoring the issues were the sheer weight of the tanks meant that they couldn't cross certain bridges or function in certain terrain.

SanjayMehta 5mo ago

The allies only won WW2 because the Soviets and China expended millions of lives weakening the Nazis and Japan. Note I'm saying Nazis and not Germany: there were plenty of Finnish, Polish and Ukrainian Nazi battalions as well. It would be amusing to watch the same forces lining up to take on the Russians yet again, save for the orange lunatic with nukes, currently installing a UFC cage on the White House lawns, making the world an even more dangerous place for the rest of us. The UFC cage fight is itself is a sign that the US is already in rapid decline. Every empire collapse has been preceded by arrogant excess. The comparisons with the Roman stadiums and Caligula write themselves. The US and its NATO vassals have already lost The Ukraine. They just haven't realised it yet. Iran is beating the US strategically. Here I think some of the inner circle have realised it, but the real powers behind the throne just won't give up.

watwut 5mo ago
It was very much Germany as such that lost WWII. Really. > The US and its NATO vassals have already lost The Ukraine. What are you on about here. NATO never owned it, but member countries helped it. Except USA big NATO countries are still helping it. It is fascinating that EU countries became "vassals" when they went against USA wish in a major way. No one called them vassals when they were allies, the word is thrown around when they visibly diverge. Trying to stir emotions?
- SanjayMehta 5mo ago
  The EU and NATO were always vassals. The EU was created so that the US would have one entity to control instead of many. NATO was created as a captive marketplace for US weapons. Coming back to the Ukraine issue, Russia is facing off 50 plus countries supplying materiel and intelligence using the Ukrainian proxy regime. I could not care less about your emotions. I'm not a romcom writer.
  - watwut 5mo ago
    > The EU and NATO were always vassals. No one used that word until Trump got pissed they did not invaded Iran. > Coming back to the Ukraine issue, Russia is facing off 50 plus countries supplying materiel and intelligence using the Ukrainian proxy regime. Russia is facing Ukraine that it invaded who is getting help from countries who find invasion disgusting or simply think Russia will invade them next. Funny, USA moved to Russia side but the vassals did not.

dgoldstein0 5mo ago

I wouldn't say "only". But the industrial advantage that the US brought to the allies made an Allied victory almost inevitable - in hindsight, the only way the Allies could've lost was if the situation looked so hopeless that the US chose to stop fighting - or never entered the war in the first place. Maybe if the Nazis had overrun Britain and either avoided engaging the USSR until they were ready to give it undivided attention, or somehow have conquered it, then maybe the US could've looked and said "we don't want to pick this fight" ... of course the moment Hitler declares war without actually being ready to invade the US, he's made a huge mistake. Perhaps there's an alternative history where Germany was less incompetent with their production and had less stupid leadership. But even in those, as long as the US got into the war and the war continued until one side or the other was fully conquered - I think it would've been Nazi Germany being conquered. The US started at a huge disadvantage of not having much of a military, weapons or ammunition ready, but we got to ramp up production for a good ~4 years before going over to Europe to kick ass and ran circles around the Axis powers with our production.

Paradigm2020 5mo ago
American weapons, Soviet blood. Both on the eastern front and the western front the soviets were responsible for the ultimate defeat of the Axis. Note: I'm not pro russia or pro America... Unlike the current team putin / Trump / Zelinsky / Taylor Swift and they can't do anything wrong we should always strive to discuss events > people.
senderista 5mo ago
I think the USSR would have won the war regardless of US involvement, but it might have taken a few more years.
- dgoldstein0 5mo ago
  Maybe. They had the strategic depth and political will. But that forgets that they had major amounts of supply and industrial expertise brought in from the US. With none of that, perhaps they would've lost Moscow and the rest of the East. That could've given the Nazis significant more supply - especially if they got their hands on Soviet oil in the Urals - would could've made them hard to kick out. We'll never know for sure.

mikewarot 5mo ago

>I think America is one war away from losing its 'super power' status and being diminished to a much lower status. We were one poorly chosen voluntary conflict away from being shown to be a paper tiger. Now we've proved it, thanks to the fool in the White House and everyone who supports him. Focusing our efforts away from mass produced drones is a huge mistake in my opinion. We need to produce drones by the million. We also need both .50 caliber and shotgun sized proximity rounds by the billions to enable local defense against them.

diogenescynic 5mo ago
Yep, the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine have shown how weak our strategy is. Iran is beating us with balsa wood drones. Cheaper is better in this case. But we still like buying the best/most expensive/most over-engineered option available. We should be figuring out how to design a supply chain that can mass produce these in the event of a real conflict from local materials... not building the most high spec exotically sourced version... which is what we are currently doing.