Eastern Front and land warfare was not decisive in WW2

1) i know this and most people know this :for 1944 the German oil imports were 1 million ton and domestic production was 5.3 million ton . Nothing new

2) This is wrong : Germany did not prioritize air power and U Boats and especially : it was NOT at the cost of the army .less fuel for the LW and the U Boats does NOT mean more fuel for the Ostheer . Besides, horse pulling divisions in the east were NOT hapless : most Soviet divisions also were hapless .

3) One can not explain the fall of the LW on the lack of oil : in 1941 Germany had 8.3 million ton oil available ,and in 1943 10.3 million : more oil does not result in a better strategic situation .

 

1) Even their biggest factory admitted that in 1944 only 27% of new T-34's didn't pass the test of their own. On the other hand there are good reasons to say that compared to trucks America sent to USSR those Soviet own were indeed obsolete and crap. Go on!

2) How can anyone claim something such stupid like your downplaying the importance of aluminium for Soviets. Let's face some facts, OK:

Source (citation): Sherwood, The White House Papers of Harry L. Hopkins, vol. I p.329
Source: Phillips Payson O'Brien, "How The War Was Won", page 170

 

Again...What is your point?

As I said previously, Japanese war production was not very much when compared to the US, and even less when compared to the US & UK.

20% of US war production is a large sum than 85% of Japanese war production.

 

The volume of warfare generally was much bigger in 1943 than in 1941. The problem Luftwaffe was now facing : lacking enough fuel for training new pilots. As Galland had confirmed training programs for new pilots were reduced not in 1944 but already in late 1943. Luftwaffe itself calculated in 1943-44 that optimum amount of aviation fuel for month was about 300 000 tons. However they estimated to cope somehow (while reducing training and non-vital flights) with 130 000 tons per month. In spring 1944 they didn't get even that "K-point" in their death spiral.

I have no idea how much training programs (for e.g 400 flights for new pilo)t needed aviation fuel. Let's play it was something like 300 litres per flight. For new well trained pilot of western standards that would have meant 120 tons and for 10 000 new pilots 1 200 000. And this after what Luftwaffe combat units were hogging. Those figures are underlining the demise of LW - lost pilots, lost aircraft production, heavy pressure increasing numbers of lost pilots --> need for new pilots, lacking fuel, reducing training programs ---> even more increased figures of lost pilots etc....

After May 1944 German aviation fuel production was never higher than 50 000 tons per month. And their numbers of lost pilots peaked in summer of 1944 (because western allied). At the same time when Allied strategic bombing was targeting transport systems in France, Belgium and Germany + etc W-weapons, aircraft production peaked in July 1944. There was indeed lots of new aircraft, but lacking fuel and well trained pilots. They had huge deployment problems too. The consequence was: pulling experienced pilots from East and West to Reich trying to secure production and leaving army divisions on their own. In the end Allied anyway destroyed their divisions and their munition production. After July 1944 German war production went down almost 30% until Dec 1944 with U-boat production one those of exceptions.

 

There was no war production of any other country great compared to that of USA. The point is that Japanese, just like all the other powers (USA, UK and Germany) gave not much for their armies. Actually both UK and USA cut heavily budgets of their armies in 1942-44. Of course there were armour apostles but ignored by decision makers. In WW2 armour was not near as vital as so many are believing. But also - the Japanese war production compared to that of USSR was not far behind if taking period from 1942 to mid 1944. Just because historians are too Eurocentric and too much focusing land warfare (fall in love with tanks and romanticizing "huge land battles") they have downplayed Japanese production and easily ignoring their Navy production. Japan itself had destiny to face the most powerful killing machine of WW2 - US Navy & Air power supported by weapons like B-29, the most expensive military project of WW2 (cost of even 3.7 billion dollars).

 

1)This is nonsense

2) This is nonsense and an anecdotal quote : the SU deed not need AA guns .

Your argument is stupid (to use your words) : you don't even know how much aluminium the Soviets needed for the production of aircraft .Thus saying that 60 % of the aluminium came from LL is total meaningless .

 

"i have no idea " : thus your argument can be discarded .

let's not play .

There is no proof that the training program was shortened because a lack of fuel . It is also possible that the training program was shortened because the front units suffered huge losses and needed more replacements .

other point : there were in 1944 NO experienced pilots in the West ,the LW had ceased to exist in the West already before D Day .

 

Hardly surprising considering the relatively cheap cost of infantry weapons as opposed to that of a fighter, bomber, destroyer, or battleship.

A curious remark considering that the US built some 60,000-90,000 AFVs(numbers vary according to source).

Well, more to the point, it is mechanized forces, and not just armor in particular. Remove those, and you are back to the trench warfare of World War I. However, armor & mechanized forces were decidedly less important in Asia and the Pacific: The Japanese and Chinese did not have much in the way of mechanized forces due to their lack of industry, developed fuel supply sources, and an overall undeveloped road & rail network in China. However, the British would make good use of what armor they had in the CBI, and the Russians in their final offensive against the Japanese in Manchuria & China.

The USSR had a far greater warmaking potential, on the eve of the German invasion,than Japan. The substantial territorial losses, and the mass movement of factories to the east, took away a chunk of that potential.

Careful now, your bias is showing.

Japan was always considered second fiddle, hence the "Europe First" strategy of the Allies, simply because Japan never represented the global threat that Germany did.

Downplay Japan's production? Anyone that looks at the numbers cans see why Japan's production is downplayed.

The IJN's production was ignored?
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
Any guesses as to why? And, that is just compared to the US...The UK is not even factored in to the article.

 

To give an exemple how meaningless the claim is that LL aluminium was 60 % of the total Soviet supply (it was also wrong : not 60 % ,but 55 %):

German supply of aluminium : 1.888.000 ton (consumption : 1.702.000)

German aircraft production : 120000


Soviet Union supply :

domestic production :264000

LL supply : 328.000

Total :592000

Soviet aircraft production : 140000

This means that with an aluminium supply of 31 % of the German supply,the Soviet Union produced : 16 % more aircraft than the Germans .This can be partially explained by the fact that the Soviets replaced for the aircraft production a big part of aluminium by wood . Wood was also used in the place of coal .

Thus,the importance of aluminium for the aircraft production is still a query .

The rigid use of raw figures does not help the discussion .

May I also say that a book with the arrogant title :"How the war was won " is a dubious source .

 

Downplaying the loss of 20% of oil production due to the occupation of the oilfields is ridiculous, the allied air forces would have been overjoyed had they been able to cut German production by 20%, but they didn't even come close.

USSR aircraft production relied on wood for a lot of parts due aluminium shortages, and they did outproduce Germany despite the loss of the European factories, the disruption caused by the relocation of the factories East is possibly as significant as what the bombers did to the Germans.

In the end the "poor bloody infantry" had to fight in Berlin block by block, the war against Germany could not be won by airpower. I would also be a bit careful about what the German generals told the Allies post war, there was a lot of "telling them what they wanted to hear" there.

 

Good luck conquering Russia with air and naval powe

 

I see you go on to try and prove your initial sentence by your latter ones. The last two sentence illustrating the point. PLS note that they are both unsupported and indeed unproveable opinions and the first one is quite questionable depending on the details.

 

Amazing I actually agree with your first point. Your second however is a mishmash of opinion and fallacy. The third is demonstrably incorrect. The 4th opinion although depending the details it may have some validity. The 5th again opinion and quite questionable as it assumes that it's a matter of one or the other which is demonstrably wrong.

 

If one looks at naval engagements in the Pacific decisive victories were hardly rare. Not sure how the Battle of the Marianas had the impact on Japanese production you seam to indicate either. Please remember that correlation does not imply causality.

A basic problem with your whole economic argument is that the cost of outfitting and supporting armed forces personnel for different environments varies considerably. An infantry soldier is relatively cheap to outfit and support a pilot much less so. One determines the desired mix of forces and then goes about outfitting and supporting them. That doesn't mean that their impact on the war is determined by their cost. Especially when you consider that much of the naval and air component was used to support the ground forces (and the armored (and artillery) units were designed to support the infantry.

 

But the USN and USAAF were there to support the Marines and Army in takng islands back from the Japanese. The whole point was taking and holding the ground.