From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Thu Jun 13 2002 - 10:43:50 PDT
Ed,
>Perhaps it should have been said that thanks to the
>Allied ground and air campaigns, did Germany lose the
>war.
This was a big part of it, of course, but there were more fundamental
reasons than that which had nothing to do with external military
pressure. The Third Reich was one of the most inefficiently run
government/industrial systems of this century. On top of that Germany is
natural resource poor.
The amazing thing is not that Germany didn't take over Europe and keep
it, rather it is that they managed to take what they did in the first place!
>Interesting that in some venues, such as aircraft
>production, the numbers were higher in 1944 and into
>1945.
This is explained mostly by the fact that until 1943 Germany's industry
was not mobilized for total war. If it were not for Allied air attacks,
and later ground assualts, the production would have been even higher.
Amazing as it sounds, they went through four years of constant warfare
before they kicked their production into high gear. But like many things
related to the Third Reich, it was too little too late.
The overly complex nature of their machines was a huge factor in their
defeat. Not only did it mean producing less of what they needed more of,
once at the front they had a hard time keeping them operational. And
when lost for good replacements were slow in coming. This was compounded
by the supply problems imposed on them when they moved the bulk of their
forces East. One Tiger Battalion on the Eastern Front had between 1 and
20 Tigers operational on any given day during a rather critical battle.
Most were not operational for non-combat reasons.
As a follow up, the Germans produced about 20,000 of the 250 and 251
halftracks from 1936? to 1945. The US produced nearly 42,000 of the M2
and M3 family of HTs during a much shorter period of time (1941 to mid
1944). I don't have production figures for the M5 and M9 families, but I
suspect it was at least 10,000 between the two.
Steve
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