[rf15]

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.

[dghlsakjg]

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.

[diogenescynic]

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.

[lukan]

"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]

with the help of US industrial advisors who helped them set up factories / production lines.

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]

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.

[rwmj]

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...

[elnerd]

Same goes for logistics, which is an extension to your point:

https://walton.uark.edu/clc/posts/when-supply-chain-is-the-b...

[don_esteban]

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]

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.

[dgoldstein0]

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.

[scheme271]

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.

[locknitpicker]

> 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.

[lukan]

"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).

[dgoldstein0]

> I believe there was another power to first capture Berlin (that also was good at mass producing).

US sent tons of war material to the USSR as well as experts to help them get their manufacturing up and running. The success on the eastern front was partially due to US support. I just saw a video claiming something like 2/3 of vehicles the Russians used were made in the US.

also as far as who was first to capture Berlin... pretty sure the western front commanders decided/were ordered to slow down and let the USSR get some parts of Germany for themselves.

[jltsiren]

The USSR had already reached Oder (less than 70 km from Berlin) around the time the Battle of the Bulge ended. They stopped there for over two months to regroup and to secure their flanks, rather than advancing on relatively undefended Berlin. While taking the capital early would have been a symbolic victory, the Soviets didn't believe it would be enough to end the war at that point.

[lukan]

"I just saw a video claiming something like 2/3 of vehicles the Russians used were made in the US."

Considering that 90 000 tanks were produced in russia alone, I really doubt those numbers, as it would mean Russia would have had 270 000 tanks on their own.

[mopsi]

Vehicles, not only tanks. For instance, the mobility of the Red Army relied on Studebaker trucks. The US delivered about 115 000 of them. In total, including other types of vehicles like Jeeps, the USSR received about 400 000 vehicles.

Roughly 50-65% of Red Army's transport pool was US-made.

[dgoldstein0]

Yep that. Definitely far less share of tanks. Not sure if the red army had any American made tanks, I've never heard that talked about.

[watwut]

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.

[senderista]

Which is hilarious given that calling Germanics "Aryans" (i.e., Indo-Iranians) makes no sense, while Slavs are just as closely related to Indo-Iranians as the Germanics (as another sister lineage from the Proto-Indo-European-derived Corded Ware culture).

[lukan]

"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) 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]

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.

[lukan]

"The plan was not to treat them as equals "

I think the honest plan was to accept UK as sea power and germany as the mainland power. Later .. open how things developed.

See also

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joachim_von_Ribbentrop

"I mean sure, it was about race, not about passport. "

But we agree it seems. I was just arguing against the common missconception of trying to understand the Nazis as Ultra-nationalists, while they were mainly thinking in racial terms. Not germany should have ruled the world, but the Aryans. (With germany at it's heart, but that was more a side point)

[senderista]

A parallel mistake is the widespread belief taught in schools that the essence of the Nazi ideology was anti-Semitism, rather than anti-Communism.

[senderista]

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".