[davidmr]

I agree with you in every paragraph but the last and maybe even then. While the economy is obviously different than it was 70 years ago, what made the US so dominant in WWII was our ability to design and build things. In four years, we built something like 300,000 airplanes, 10,000 ships, an atomic bomb, etc.

I'm reading A World at Arms (https://www.amazon.com/World-Arms-Global-History-War/dp/0521...) at the moment, and what has struck me most so far is what a mistake the Axis made underestimating American manufacturing mobilization.

Today, I'm not sure if we could ramp up actual production as quickly.

[chiph]

An interesting story from that time period - German intelligence was reporting that the US had a locomotive that weighed 1.2 million pounds (including the tender) and could pull a 3,600 ton (US) consist of railcars up a 1.14% grade, and also run at 80 mph on flat land. This was the Union Pacific articulated Big Boy. And Hitler didn't believe such an engine was possible, much less that the UP had 25 of them in service. So he directed that the forecasts of American transportation exclude these "absurd" numbers.

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/bigboy/