"Game Changers"

Fair point, my knowledge on the subject is limited to the British army. They had good traditions on hygiene in particular as a result of their colonial warfare. What I would argue on the subject is that the real effect is when "what you got" is lost due to poor logistics.

I cannot comment on effects of medicine advances in relation to recovery or prevention, simply because I have no clue on the differences with many of the main protaganists.

 

I stand corrected. I thought I had read every post but somehow missed the first page. I would rate Cryptogtology high on my list GB

 

So, what do we do now?

 

In this respect, penacillin. As the first internal anti-biotic it made a huge difference in treating a variety of infections effectively. It also allowed the Allied armies to largely eradicate STDs. This alone prevented hundreds of thousands of men from becoming debilitated because of their performance off the battlefield......

 

Penacillin is included here:

Just trying to keep the laundry list effect to a minimum. Another biggie would be stabilized whole blood and blood plasma as well as the myriad surgical techniques and precedures used to treat wounds.

And not to take the medical analogy too far; but, it kind of looks like Germany was more concerned with fighting the symptoms of war instead of the conditions.

 

Interesting to note some information concerning the Germans and their atomic weapons research. I am referring to Luigi Romersa and his eye witness account of a test. His connections with Wernher von Braun, Kurt Diebner and his access to sensitive US material and programs should raise an eyebrow. I have a personal connection with someone who worked at Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. The Allies racing the Communists for the Wehrmacht's technology at the close of the war, makes the developments, much non operational, a definitive game changer albeit not necessarily for the NSDAP regime but for struggle against communism. The V2 weapon was a somewhat effective terror weapon against the English. Although it didn't defeat them, it did create fear in the hearts of those on the receiving end. In the end it was the german psyche of being overly precise and obsessively correct that was the real game changer in delaying the application of game changing German technology. In closing, I would say that the simple, yet effective and massed produced Russian and American designs, were a game changer in WWII.

 

That's really the crux of the thread: The Third Reich's inability to exploit, or significantly gain, from their weapons research and development during the war. I think there is little doubt that Germany produced some of the most advanced and forward thinking weapons of the period; weapons which influenced current designs. The rub is that they were unable to either employ/ deploy/ produce them in sufficient numbers to affect the outcome.

That is where the "Arsenal of Democracy" paradigm comes into play. Foot work is just as important as throwing punches.

 

Brad, this might be shot down pretty easy but I just re-read a book on the wartime service of the RMS Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, and wondered if they could be considered.

Large troopships had been used in WWI, but nothing compared to the size, speed, and troop carrying capacity of the Cunard Queens.

Over the war, their carrying capacity was encased more and more, with risk factors taken up by Gen. Marshall himself.

The Queens were instrumental in bringing the commonwealth soldiers from Austrislia to fight in N. Africa. On average, the two ships carried 60,000 U.S. And Canadian troops each month at their peak. The QM held the record number for a crossing: 15,740 troops. Most trips though had at least 12,000.

The two ships could carry an entire division across. The QM alone carried the 1st Infanrty, in half of the time that it took the 34th, and it took 21 ships to carry the latter.

The speed from these Greyhounds was their best defense against Uboats, and they were considered their own convoys, thereby, saving the navies the trouble of only escorting them close to land.

After Overlord, where they are said to of carried half of the allied divisions that fought that day, they were also instrumental in carrying swift reinforcement after the breakout, and setbacks in casualties such as in Market Garden, the Bulge, and such.

By war's end, they carried over a million and a half men across the ocean, including POWs away from Europe. Impressive figures for two "floating palaces".

This is from "Warrior Queens" by David Allen Butler. I can't vouch for some of the accuracies of statistics in the book without further study though.

 

I wouldn't consider "them" a changer nearly as much as what they were able to accomplish or how they were implemented. Converting ocean liners to troop ships isn't especially innovative; I think the Germans had one boat "The Scharnorst" (sp) that putted around the baltic.

Unless youare thinking in different terms and I am missing something.

 

Think of it reversed, how far would Germany go without the Reichsbahn, or the Allies without its sealift?

 

I would compare the Reichbahn/ Autobahnen more with the WPA, pre war US, than I would Sea Lift.

With that direction though; did Germany do anything to improve the rail systems to better facilitates the movement of men and materiel?

 

Well, it did greatly facilitate the mass movement of Jews, political prisoners, and undesirables to the camps at the expense of moving men and material to the fronts.

 

There is that. Mis-allocation of transportation resources...maybe?

 

That was a game-killer for the Germans. Men and materials came second to transporting what the Nazis referred to as the undesirable elements to the camps. Maybe it could called blind allegiance to Nazi ideology or just plain stupidity.

 

I think this goes to illustrate how so many of Germany's 'Wonder Weapons' proved that the 'squeeze' wasn't worth the 'juice'.

Did Germany actually have anything that could have won the war for them? I am thinking it doesn't look like it.

 

I will go with the liberty ships and the jeep carriers as being the game changers.

With the mass production of liberty ships, everything US industry was capable of making, could be transported. And with the jeep carriers, you can have effective ASW that protected those liberty ships.

And dont forget the T-2 tankers. A good many of them were needed to bring the POL to the fleets and AF/Army units.

 

Trying to avoid 'Laundry Listing' what did the development of these ships represent and how were they utilized to affect the outcome of the war is really what we are looking for here.

 

The AoD could be used as a blanket "catch-all" to include the liberty ships, jeep carriers and tankers I believe.