Why the Allies Won

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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 09, 2021 8:49 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 1:04 pm

1. Because the resolve of the British/ANZAC/US citizens was greater than that of German citizens - the willingness to suffer for a greater good than self.

2. U-234 was too late to the party. ;) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-234

3. That’s the way God wanted the outcome to be.

4. Because my father and uncles served in WWII.

5. Because women didn’t serve in combat roles.

6. It’s an ENIGMA.


Sometimes the messages could not be decoded in time to take action. But this was obviously a major factor on the side of the Allies.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by SomeDude » Wed Jun 09, 2021 8:58 pm

The T-34 tank and ppsh-41
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by SomeDude » Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:01 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 1:04 pm
1. Because the resolve of the British/ANZAC/US citizens was greater than that of German citizens - the willingness to suffer for a greater good than self.
The Germans suffered about 20x any of those populations.

If you mentioned the Russian resolve, that would be a lot more accurate i think mountaineer.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by pp4me » Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:08 pm

I tend to think the amazing productivity of the American people in producing weapons of war must have been a major deciding factor even though you and the authors have already discounted it. Maybe Great Britain and Russia could still have won the war in the European theater without it but it's hard to imagine defeating Japan without being able to crank out all of those weapons with all the pent up economic energy brought about by the long lasting great depression.

Ultimately this led to the "bomb", of course. Or should I say "bombs" dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That sounds like a major deciding factor to me, at least in the Pacific theater.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:23 pm

pp4me wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:08 pm

I tend to think the amazing productivity of the American people in producing weapons of war must have been a major deciding factor even though you and the authors have already discounted it. Maybe Great Britain and Russia could still have won the war in the European theater without it but it's hard to imagine defeating Japan without being able to crank out all of those weapons with all the pent up economic energy brought about by the long lasting great depression.

Ultimately this led to the "bomb", of course. Or should I say "bombs" dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That sounds like a major deciding factor to me, at least in the Pacific theater.


Neither I or the authors discounted the productivity.

But that is all in hindsight of what actually happened. That would have never been predicted in 1939, 1940, 1941. Normally it took a good five years to turn from a consumer economy to a military economy. That the U.S. was able to do so much in two years was unprecedented and completely unexpected.

The bombs hastened the end. Even without them there was no way Japan was going to win the war.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by pp4me » Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:29 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:23 pm
pp4me wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:08 pm
I tend to think the amazing productivity of the American people in producing weapons of war must have been a major deciding factor even though you and the authors have already discounted it. Maybe Great Britain and Russia could still have won the war in the European theater without it but it's hard to imagine defeating Japan without being able to crank out all of those weapons with all the pent up economic energy brought about by the long lasting great depression.

Ultimately this led to the "bomb", of course. Or should I say "bombs" dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That sounds like a major deciding factor to me, at least in the Pacific theater.
Neither I or the authors discounted the productivity.

But that is all in hindsight of what actually happened. That would have never been predicted in 1939, 1940, 1941. Normally it took a good five years to turn from a consumer economy to a military economy. That the U.S. was able to do so much in two years was unprecedented and completely unexpected.

The bombs hastened the end. Even without them there was no way Japan was going to win the war.
Okay, waiting in suspense to find out what the real reason was.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:38 pm

pp4me wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:29 pm

vnatale wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:23 pm

pp4me wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:08 pm

I tend to think the amazing productivity of the American people in producing weapons of war must have been a major deciding factor even though you and the authors have already discounted it. Maybe Great Britain and Russia could still have won the war in the European theater without it but it's hard to imagine defeating Japan without being able to crank out all of those weapons with all the pent up economic energy brought about by the long lasting great depression.

Ultimately this led to the "bomb", of course. Or should I say "bombs" dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That sounds like a major deciding factor to me, at least in the Pacific theater.


Neither I or the authors discounted the productivity.

But that is all in hindsight of what actually happened. That would have never been predicted in 1939, 1940, 1941. Normally it took a good five years to turn from a consumer economy to a military economy. That the U.S. was able to do so much in two years was unprecedented and completely unexpected.

The bombs hastened the end. Even without them there was no way Japan was going to win the war.


Okay, waiting in suspense to find out what the real reason was.


It's not "a" reason. It is multiple. Hopefully the next thing I put here will be illuminating for you.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 09, 2021 9:39 pm

Here is the last Amazon review on this book. It is an excellent, comprehensive review, covering much of what is detailed in the book. It surpasses anything I could attempt to communicate here.

Vinny


I read Richard Overy’s Why the Allies Won with little expectation of learning much that was new. Even the most casual student of WWII, of which I count myself, knows the conventional explanation about why the Allies won. The Allies’ industrial economies, the United States’ in particular, simply out-produced and overwhelmed the Axis. Once the Allies’ war economies hit their stride, victory was all but guaranteed -- end of story. Overy argues this oft-repeated narrative is illusory and suggests a high degree of historical determinism. To even ask the question of why the Allies won, the author submits, is to propose that other outcomes, short of absolute victory, were possible. This is precisely Overy’s argument: other outcomes were entirely possible. In fact, Overy contends the outcome in the middle years of the war was anything but certain as the “conflict was poised on a knife’s edge.” The author builds his case with familiar primary and secondary WWII sources. The strength of Why the Allies Won and the power of its argument, however, is Overy’s critical analysis and thoughtful interpretation of his sources.

The essence of Overy’s case is that the Allies’ ability to consistently improve the qualitative performance of their forces, technology, and logistics coupled with their ever-increasing quantitative supremacy in numbers were the keys to victory. In other words, the Allied economies made victory possible, but by no means automatic. The Axis, on the other hand, did little to modernize and improve the effectiveness of their forces and support arms after their stunning successes against France and Great Britain in 1940 and the Soviet Union in 1941. Similarly, when they had the upper-hand from an economic perspective – which they had from 1939 to 1942 – the Germans failed to fully utilize their industrial power and vast resources.

Overy makes his case for the Allies warfighting ascendency and ultimate victory using two historical approaches. The first is a review of four decisive “zones of conflict” between 1942 and 1945 where the Allies applied maximum efforts and prevailed: the war at sea (Coral Sea and the Battles of Midway and the Atlantic), the Battles of Stalingrad and Kursk on the Eastern front, the tactical and strategic air war against Germany, and the invasion and reconquest of Western Europe. In each of these zones, Overy illustrates how the Allies’ strategic and operational decision cycles were faster and their tactical performance more effective than the Axis. Similarly, the Allies consistently outpaced the Axis in translating emerging battlefield requirements and lessons learned into the mass production of technology that improved warfighting.

The Eastern front is an example of Overy’s ability to apply critical thinking and get beyond the numbers. At Kursk, the conventional wisdom held that the Soviets did not win; the Germans lost due to overwhelming Soviet numbers and Hitler’s meddling. Overy blows-up the overwhelming numbers argument by illustrating that the 1941 Soviet Army vastly outnumbered the Germans in machine and men, but still suffered catastrophic defeats. Similarly, it was the German General Staff, not Hitler, that planned and executed Operation Citadel. Finally, the Soviet’s modest advantage in numbers at Kursk cannot explain the enormity of the German loss. Instead, Overy argues effectively that, by 1943, the Soviets had bested the Germans in every warfighting discipline that made the difference at Kursk: doctrine, leadership, combined arms operations, communications, intelligence, and logistics. Pound for pound, the Soviets were simply better than the Germans. In each of these zones of conflict, Overy demonstrates that, without the means to employ it effectively at the operational level, quantitative superiority was no guarantor of victory.

Overy’s second approach deals with factors that enabled the operational success in the zones of conflict – production, technology, leadership and moral rectitude. Here the book shines as Overy shifts the analysis and interpretation into high gear. The author is especially effective at contrasting what the Allies did right and what the Axis did wrong. On the economic front, the Soviets relied on clear lines of authority and central planning to restore their wrecked 1941 economy and get it running in high gear by late 1942. The United States empowered the nation’s captains of industry to mass produce everything from B-17 bombers to Sherman tanks. By 1944, Soviet and United States workers were twice as productive their counterparts in Germany and four times better than the Japanese. Overy also successfully argues that, until early 1943 when the Soviets were making the most of their “attenuated resources”, the “new German Empire failed to make the most of its economic advantages” (182). Had the Germans chosen to do otherwise, and they could have, the course of the war might have been much different.

In the area of technology, Overy argues that standardization, limited types of major combat equipment such as tanks, trucks and airplanes, and production simplicity carried the day for the Allies. So, while the Soviets and United States were producing simple T-34 and Sherman tanks by the tens of thousands, the Germans were producing expensive, over-engineered, albeit effective, Tiger tanks. By 1944, Soviet tank production in one month exceeded an entire year of German output. The key, Overy contends, is that the Germans could have taken a different course of action to even the odds, but chose not to do so.

The decisive factor, Overy contends, for Allied success on the economic and technology front was decidedly effective strategic leadership. Unity of command and unity of effort characterized the Allies efforts across the board. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, each with their own particular leadership style, communicated their strategic intent to clear-thinking senior military officers and civilians who in-turn delegated tasks to a focused and responsive bureaucracy that made things happen. Hitler’s regime on the other hand was handicapped by his own well-documented meddling and inability to think strategically. Hitler’s General Staff was similarly ineffective and focused almost exclusively on combat operations at the expense of logistics, and there was little unity of effort among the German and Japanese military services. Instead, competition, back-biting, and inter-service rivalry characterized the Axis armies, navies and air forces. Finally, the German economy was plagued by a lethargic bureaucracy, a lack of coordination, and a dearth central planning.

Overy’s final point is that Allied morale and fighting spirit was higher because they were “fighting the good fight” against monstrous totalitarian regimes. This argument is somewhat thin given that Axis soldiers fought just as hard as the Allies without holding the moral high ground. For whatever reason – ideology, fear of the enemy, fear of the regime, unit cohesion, et al – Axis soldiers battled ferociously until the bitter end. The American in me wants to take Overy’s side in this argument; however, it just does not wash given the reality of what made the WWII soldier fight.

In the end, however, this is a small blemish on an otherwise powerfully written and highly readable work. Overy makes his argument – that the Allied victory was not predetermined by economic primacy – with rock solid analysis and clear-thinking interpretation. Why the Allies Won is a worthwhile read for the academic and WWII buff. It also offers a valuable lesson in applying a healthy dose of scholarly skepticism when a historical event is presented as a fait accompli.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:03 pm

Another great review, explaining much of what is in the book..

Vinny

Author Richard Overy provides excellent analysis and answers to the question posed by the title of his book, "Why the Allies Won."

His central premise is that, unlike some who have looked at the contending sides in World War II in terms of overall population, GNP and resources, and pronounced Allied victory as a historic inevitability, the Germans (the Japanese are not a major part of the assessment in this book) could have been victorious up through about 1942-43.

Overy makes a good and persuasive case for why the allies emerged victorious in this world contest by focusing on major factors involved in setting the state and environment for each side's prosecution and conduct of the war.

In about a dozen very good chapters, the author assesses his question through basically four lenses: military, economic and technology, leadership and the moral factor. In the military sphere, the Allies were better learners than the Axis. Overly argues that smashing German victories in the early part of the war basically froze their tactics, deployment and organizations in time due to their arrogance in believing that they had developed a "better" way of waging war. The allies, however, learned from their drubbings. On the sea, organization and tactics (convoys, depth charges and ASDIC, increasing air coverage) turned what would have been a decisive strategic advantage for the Germans into a sinkhole of resources and losses - 70% of all U-boats got sunk - that completely reversed the advantage in that sphere of the war over about a twelve month period to the Allies in a decisive way. Likewise, the Russians overhauled their land forces and learned to better deploy, when to commit and retreat, and how to create their own form of "blitzkrieg" that suited their character and great availability of manpower.

The author makes the argument for the air war that has been advanced by many before, but that doesn't make him less correct. While Allied bombing of German industry would have a much lesser impact (as revealed by data after the war) than thought contemporaneously, it had the salutatory effect of keeping better than a million German fighting men and great amount of equipment (think 88's which would have been a great aid if deployed at the front in the anti-tank role in which they were unsurpassed) at home defending the skies above Germany. That effort also destroyed the Luftwaffe as an effective combined arms component and left the German army bereft of air support by 1944.

A brilliant point on the economy and technology is made by the author. Yes, American capitalism and productive capacity and the herculean Russian efforts to physically relocate tools, equipment and factories to the Urals in advance of German overrun gave the Allies an incredible productive advantage (although the Germans were close in some areas of tanks and planes produced through 1942 and even 1943). But the Germans got bogged down in two major ways. First the Nazi economic system (fascist corporatism) curtailed the free market and corrupted the allocation of resources through favoritism and the incessant internal competition by German factions to win favor, contracts and keep senior governmental officials "happy." German leadership constantly muddled in the design and productive process which curtailed and/or delayed the output of necessary weapons and systems. Most importantly, the author discuss how this German command interference and the desire to produce a wide array of very sophisticated tanks and planes that were ever changing ended up severely curtailing the total amount of needed weapons that could be produced and sent to their fighting units. Thus, the Germans produced some of the best tanks of the war; Panther, Sturmgeschütz, JagdPanther, King Tiger, etc., while the Russians stuck with the T-34 once they found it and we Americans turned out Shermans like they were Chevrolets. The image of ten Shermans engaging one King Tiger not only speaks to the great design of the Tiger, but to the vastly greater number of Shermans that were able to be deployed. The Tiger might get three of the Shermans, but some of the other seven would be able to work their way around to the rear of the Tiger and eventually take it out. His point is that the Germans would have been much better off, and had much more equipment, if they produced solid designs, stopped tinkering with them, and didn't waste resources on a multitude of variants of the tanks and planes they tried to develop.

Another factor that the author cites as key is the ability of Allied leaders to both work together and let their generals run the actual war (after major strategic decisions had been made by their political leadership). Stalin of course came late to this realization and Churchill never got tired of meddling or pet projects, but in comparison to Hitler's insistence on serving as his own general-in-chief for every theater of war and incessant micro-managing, the allies wisely left major as well as minor military decisions up to the generals who had been trained for it. This ground is not new, but Overy does a good job of making a case that has been made many times before about the different command philosophies and the German strategic bungling that arose from Hitler convincing himself that he was a military genius and that his Generals lacked will and were weak.

I thought the author's weakest argument was on the relative moral components of each side's war fighting. Yes, the Allies all having been attacked (forgiving Stalin's attack of eastern Poland as Hitler's ally) and the nature of the Nazi and Japanese regimes of course gave our side the moral high ground and helped rapidly build public support and fervor in support of ruthless prosecution of the war (ignoring of course that one is willing to get into bed with a Stalin when fighting a Hitler). And he does marshal some good anecdotal evidence that the German population was somewhat ambivalent about commitment to the war from the get-go, despite the great public enthusiasm that greeted some of Hitler's amazing early triumphs. However as the author discusses in his section on strategic bombing, even wholesale devastation of German cities and massive casualties from the Eastern front didn't really break the fighting ability of German field units and caused no mass uprisings or civilian threats to Nazi war prosecution. I've read too much about the incredible unit cohesiveness and continued willingness to slog it out even into 1945 by German soldiers, sailors and airman to be convinced that the moral component had nearly as much impact as the other prisms through which Overy assesses Allied success.

This is a very well researched and written book. Overy handles facts, assessment and conclusions in a straightforward and lucid manner that makes this book an easy read. Highly recommended to those interested in World War II from a strategic level.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:18 pm

Yet another comprehensive review...

Vinny


Richard Overy's answer to why the allies won WWII is history at its best, not just a loose collection of details in chronological order, but a solid facts based analysis designed to answer a question of value and importance. As someone who felt like I already knew a decent amount about WWII, my view of this most important conflict in the modern world was significantly and surprisingly changed.

In a world that seems starving for silver bullet, quick answers to problems Richard Overy's in depth analysis instead paradoxically delivers believability in equal proportion with a lack of any clarifying simplicity. He divides his book into two general sections, the first half on the most decisive battles of the war, and the second half exploring the underlying factors that translated into fighting ability for all the major combatants.

The battles include the fight for control of the seas, which includes both Midway in the Pacific and the U-boat war in the Atlantic, the related battles of Kursk and Stalingrad, the bomber war in the skies over Germany, and the D-Day invasion of France. All of these battles were neccessary taken together in turning the tide from initial Axis victories to eventual Allied success. The amazing thing that Overy points out is how bitterly fought, closely contested, and just how razor thin the margins of victory were for the allied forces in each of these clashes. The Atlantic war was won only when a handful of long range patrol bombers that could close the Atlantic Gap became operational, and only then could supplies reach Britain to start the offensive in the West. Midway was won with just ten bombs out of hundreds dropped actually hitting their targets. The mere addition of drop tanks to allied fighters finally allowed them to fight and eliminate the Luftwaffe, and allowed the huge Allied bombing effort to finally work as envisaged. The drawdown of Luftwaffe power from the East to fight the bombers, and the miraculous regeneration of the Red Army contributed decisively to Stalingrad and Kursk. What he makes clear in this section is that World War II was not just a competition of steel production or factory line efficiency between the powers writ large on a Titanic scale, but a brutal, bloody slugging match, with small operational details well within the abilities of any of the combatants forging the difference between victory and defeat in the field.

The second half of the book is dedicated to the behind the front line factors that contribute to wars, including economic strength, technological prowess, national leadership ability and coalition unity, and morality and the will to fight. This was some of the best investigating in the book, with vivid and revealing comparisons between the Axis and Allies. Although the operational battles were where the actual victory of the war was secured, these behind the scene factors were what stacked the deck in favor of the Allies. Overy shows convincingly that based on the ability to field and fight large militaries WWII was mostly between Germany on one side, and The Soviet Union and the United States on the other. The extreme inferiority of Japanese and Italian industry made them actors playing in the wake of German fortunes only, and while Britain's contributions were more significant than the Japanese or Italians they too paled relative to the three prime players.

There are many striking themes in this second section. The failure of Nazi Germany in turning its vast technological and economic potential, -and the resources of its conquered territories- into an efficient military-industrial complex. The centralized use of terror, hatred, and superhuman effort that saved Soviet Industry from the Nazi onslaught, and then rebuilt it greater than before, contrasted to the capitalist, incentive based American industrial economy that sought companies to volunteer to mass manufacture what they thought they best could. The operational flexibility of the Allied forces wrought from disastrous early forays in battle, versus the ossified operational rigidity of the Axis stemming from too much early success. The central role that will and morality played in the ultimate defeat of the Axis. The ability of Allied nations as ideologically and culturally opposite to each other as the Soviet Union and US/UK to combine in the face of a common enemy, where Italy was mostly a diversionary drain on German power and cooperation with Japan was effectively non-existent.

Richard Overy makes some amazing conclusions. WWII's largest theater by far was between the Soviets and the Germans, with the blood of 20 million Soviets ultimately paying the price for destruction of the Nazis, and the contributions of the US and other allies, while key, were small in comparison. WWII merely saved democracy, but it made the world safe for communism instead as where the bulk of the fighting took place (i.e. Eastern Europe and China) became communist at the end of the war. The degree to which post war liberal western power and comfort were the result of Soviet brutality, depredation and death on an untold scale is unsettling to say the least.

So why did the Allies win? You'll have to -and definitely should- read the book to get the full answer, but the short answer is that miraculously every element of the allied war effort worked better than the axis effort. Without this the unconditional surrender of the fascist states could never have been brought about. His last chapter, with great insights on the centrality of will and morality on the outcome of the war, is one of the best pieces of war writing I have ever read and has the most import for our current war. It makes for a fitting capstone to a great book.

Perhaps the most striking fact of the whole book is how much Allied victory was not pre-ordained by national factors such as manpower and industrial might. No less a figure than Wintson Churchill himself attributed Allied victory to providence alone.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by Xan » Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:29 pm

Vinny, could you put the (IIRC) five reasons in bullet points for us?
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by pp4me » Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:35 pm

Mountaineer wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 1:04 pm
4. Because my father and uncles served in WWII.
My father served in WWII and earned a bronze star in the Army. As he told it, it was for flying over a war zone on his way to Okinawa where he was sent to build radio towers. Apparently they tightened up the requirements before I went to Vietnam or I would have had lots of bronze stars.

The biggest difference between WWII and Vietnam, besides the scale of the whole damn thing, as he pointed out, was that when he enlisted in the Army there was no such thing as a specific "tour of duty". They were all in it until the end of the war ended and had no idea when they would be coming home.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:37 pm

This shorter review packs a lot in it...

Vinny

This is a book that gives you "The Big Picture" concerning how the Allies won WWII, but manages not to neglect "The Little Picture" either- no mean feat for a book that is only 330 pages long. The author doesn't have any one grand theme. He methodically takes you through all of the areas that he thinks are important and zooms in on each of these areas- brilliantly analyzing each area and always backing his opinions up with some very telling statistics. Mr. Overy also makes it clear how it was not pre-ordained that the Allies would win. Certainly up until 1943 things could have gone the other way. As the Duke of Wellington said in another context, "It was a close run thing..."
The areas that Mr. Overy concentrates on are: the naval war in the Pacific; the submarine war in the Atlantic; Stalingrad and Kursk; the bombing campaign; the invasion of France; mass production and technology; allies and leadership; etc. Within these large issues the author never forgets to include telling details. One example is when he discusses the Battle of Midway and explains how 10 bombs in the space of a few minutes made a huge difference. The reason? Japanese planes were caught "with their pants down." They had shot down so many of the lumbering American torpedo-bombers that they had to land on their supporting aircraft carriers to refuel. The carriers were left with no air cover and American dive bombers were able to swoop in with no oppostion. A few well-placed bombs ignited all of that fuel, which also blew up the bombs the carriers were carrying and in just a few minutes all the Japanese carriers were out of commission. Another example- in the submarine Battle of the Atlantic, what 2 things made a huge difference in turning the tide against the Germans? One was attaching an extra fuel tank to Allied bombers so they could extend their range into a "dead spot" in the ocean where previously the U-Boats had been safe from attack. The 2nd thing was the seemingly simple device of fitting a searchlight on Allied bombers so they could surprise U-Boats that surfaced at night to attack...
Mr. Overy is especially enlightening on how the Allies managed to outproduce the Axis once Russia and the United States were attacked. The Germans had been preparing for war for years. Why did they lose their initial advantage? Mr. Overy's hypothesis is that one reason is that the German economy was "neither fish nor fowl." It wasn't centralized enough on one hand or sufficiently capitalistic on the other. It was an inefficient mish-mash that turned out a bewildering variety of weapons- too many types of tanks, too many kinds of planes, etc. There was not enough standardization to allow sufficient mass production and when things broke down there were insufficient spare parts to supply all the different "makes and models." In comparison, the Soviet economy was highly centralized. Despite being surprised by the German invasion in 1941 the Russians managed to dismantle their factories, reassemble them further East (including Siberia!)and, within 2 years, outproduce the Germans. They stuck to making just a few models, keeping things as simple as possible. Likewise, the highly capitalistic U.S. economy was able to switch over to a war footing and, using mass-production techniques, within a year or so we were outproducing both the Germans and the Japanese. Mr. Overy gives an eye-opening exmple of this ability to "change gears." In 1941 the American auto industry produced three and a half million passenger cars. During the war production dropped to just 139 cars. (Yes, you read that figure correctly!) By 1945 the industry supplied almost all military vehicles and tanks and 1/3 of the machine guns. The Ford company alone produced more army equipment during the war than Italy!
Each section of the book goes into this kind of interesting detail, so that you have concrete examples of what Mr. Overy is talking about. No great abstract, philosophical theories but plenty of down-to-earth theories, logically argued and backed up with plenty of statistics. A great book!
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by Mountaineer » Thu Jun 10, 2021 6:42 am

Xan wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:29 pm
Vinny, could you put the (IIRC) five reasons in bullet points for us?
Yes, please.
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by Xan » Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:18 am

vnatale wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 9:56 pm
...I think I've read about four solid reasons why the Allies won WW II.

...

At the end I'll reveal all the reasons listed in the book.

I'm trying to memorize them all..

Vinny, you've presided over this thread like the Riddler, batting back everybody's guesses, and then when it comes time to reveal your "four solid reasons", you post four walls of text. Even if anybody were inclined to read all that, I think we still wouldn't know what four reasons you had gleaned from the book.

If you're trying to memorize all four, I doubt you're memorizing those reviews. You're probably memorizing four bullet points. What are they?
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by SomeDude » Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:41 am

1. Population size
2. Lack of natural resources for the Axis
3. No clear victory objective for the Axis
4. Russian resolve that never broke
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:49 am

Mountaineer wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 6:42 am

Xan wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 10:29 pm

Vinny, could you put the (IIRC) five reasons in bullet points for us?


Yes, please.


I have not yet finished the book. Hope to do so today.

But if you read through the three or four reviews I've put here you can see others interpretations of what were the reasons.

But going from memory from reading those reviews...

1) The Russians had a highly successful command economy. We had our business driven economy. Both were successful in their own ways. The German method of overseeing war production was terrible in comparison.

2) Like now....Germans then made exceptional finished product. This is great for a consumer society. Not so great for a war. It took too long to make their war products and the spare parts necessary to support them was enormous. In comparison both the United States and Russian made simpler war products with far less spare parts necessary to keep them going.

3) The German submarine warfare had initially been devastating to shipments coming to Europe. The Allies eventually came up with methods so as to make those submarines a non-factor.

4) Japan and its navel fleet ruled the Pacific. From Pearl Harbor the U.S. fleet was inferior. Japan was poised to make attacks on California. The Battle of Midway was key in greatly crippling the Japanese naval fleet, from which it never recovered. It all came down to 10 bombs that did all the damage during this battle. Absent those few fortunate bombs, the Japanese should have won that battle.

5) Both the United States and the USSR eventually let the military professionals run the war. It was chaotic on the German side, with Hitler being way too involved.

6) Normally it took five years to go from a consumer economy to a war economy. That the United States was able to do it so quickly was unprecedented in past history.

7) D-Day was a success. The Germans could have acquired prior information so as to have had the maximum defense against it. The weather could not have cooperated.

8) Our bombing campaign was highly successful in many ways. Mainly three. It reduced the output of German war materials. It diverted a lot of military personnel to defending Germany rather than being in battle. Finally, much German weaponry was deployed in a defensive fashion rather than being in battle.

9) Again Germany's advanced technology ended up hurting it. It attempted to fight the war with then futuristic 1950s technology which was not yet perfected. The Allies used the tried and true weapons based on 1930s technology.

10) In 1941 the USSR was on the verge of collapse. Stalin was considering a settlement. But then the Russian pure hatred of the Germans drove them to behave as they did during Stalingrad and then the final key battle at the place that begins with a "K".

11) Both Germany and Japan squandered many advantages they had as of1941. From 1941 the Allies improved in all ways while both Germany and Japan either were stagnant or went backwards. This again was not something that anyone would have predicted from the the viewpoint of 1941.

Those are the points I can come up with without referring to anything and just going by memory.

In sum, From the vantage point of 1941 it was not pre-ordained that the Allie WOULD win a war against the Axis. Japan ruled all the Pacific area. Germany held much of Europe and came close to defeating Russia and getting all its oil reserves. It was headed to the Middle East to do the same. At the time the United States was nowhere the world power that it emerged as being after the war. Due to a strong sense of isolationism in the United States the United States was not poised as being a major player in a war. At that point no one could imagine what the United States shortly became. That was why it took so long after Pearl Harbor for the United States to respond in an effective way. It took two and half years after Pearl Harbor for the United States to launch a D-Day.

For those of you with an interest in WW II I highly recommend reading the book. From reading the reviews it is evident that many of the reviewers believe that this book in "sui generis" in terms of how it treats WW II.

I am reading the 1995 version. I think I read in one of the reviews that the author came up with a revised 2007 version.

For me this is one of those books that I read quickly the first time but then once I finish it I want to again reread it in a slower, studying fashion so as to retain much of what is in the book. Just writing this post has helped cement many of the books concepts in my mind.

At some point I will obtain that revised version and read it in a slower, studying fashion.

I do have several other books by the author on both WW II and military history and I look forward to also reading those.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by Xan » Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:03 am

vnatale wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:49 am
9) Again Germany's advanced technology ended up hurting it. It attempted to fight the war with then futuristic 1950s technology which was not yet perfected. The Allies used the tried and true weapons based on 1930s technology.
I've linked before to Arthur C Clarke's Superiority, a short story that illustrates just this danger. http://www.mayofamily.com/RLM/txt_Clark ... ority.html
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:17 am

Xan wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:18 am

vnatale wrote:
Tue Jun 08, 2021 9:56 pm
...I think I've read about four solid reasons why the Allies won WW II.

...

At the end I'll reveal all the reasons listed in the book.

I'm trying to memorize them all..



Vinny, you've presided over this thread like the Riddler, batting back everybody's guesses, and then when it comes time to reveal your "four solid reasons", you post four walls of text. Even if anybody were inclined to read all that, I think we still wouldn't know what four reasons you had gleaned from the book.

If you're trying to memorize all four, I doubt you're memorizing those reviews. You're probably memorizing four bullet points. What are they?


I just gave you my best attempt. It's a lot more than four or five, though.

There were a multiplicity of weighty reasons why the Allies won. Not one. Not four of five.

In summary, Japan and Germany had tremendous advantage in 1941. It was not a foregone conclusion on December 7, 1941 what the actual results turned out to be in May 1945. If Japan and Germany had made many different choices the results could have been far different. Fortunately for us and the rest of the world they did make the choices that they did.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:23 am

SomeDude wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 9:41 am

1. Population size
2. Lack of natural resources for the Axis
3. No clear victory objective for the Axis
4. Russian resolve that never broke


1. Not really addressed so far in the book.

2. By 1941 Japan had acquired territory with the natural resources and the Germans were so close to acquiring the natural resources in the USSR. But again, in the natural resources that they did acquire in the USSR they completely bungled and mis-managed what they got out of it.

3. Not sure what that means. They were each after territory to add to what each country lacked.

4. It came close. But German resolve also never broke. Even in 1945 both the German people and the German military never broke. There was never any civil unrest regarding the war nor were there any ground level soldier revolt. I acknowledge all the assassination attempts on Hitler but those were on the part of high level military, who, on the other hand, while not supporting the war did their best to prosecute it so that the Nazis would win.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by Xan » Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:37 am

vnatale wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:17 am
I just gave you my best attempt. It's a lot more than four or five, though.

There were a multiplicity of weighty reasons why the Allies won. Not one. Not four of five.
Pretty big bait & switch on the whole premise of the thread, especially since you started out saying "no, that's not one of the five" to everybody's answers.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by vnatale » Thu Jun 10, 2021 12:49 pm

Xan wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:37 am

vnatale wrote:
Thu Jun 10, 2021 10:17 am
I just gave you my best attempt. It's a lot more than four or five, though.

There were a multiplicity of weighty reasons why the Allies won. Not one. Not four of five.


Pretty big bait & switch on the whole premise of the thread, especially since you started out saying "no, that's not one of the five" to everybody's answers.


These were my exact words: "I think I am about 1/3 the way through the book and, so far, I think I've read about four solid reasons why the Allies won WW II."

I was only 1/3 of the way through the book. I've since read more. Plus, I read many reviews last night based upon the reviewers having read the entire book.

There was nothing nefarious intended in my initial comments. It was mainly to convey that the outcome of WW II was not so certain and that there were many reasons why it did end up the way it did. It turns out that many of those reasons would never have been predicted from the viewport of 1940, 1941. And, that many who have read extensively of WW II (i put myself in that category) are unaware of these reasons.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by Xan » Thu Jun 10, 2021 12:57 pm

"Nefarious" is quite strong; I'm not accusing you of that! Frustrating, maybe.
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by Smith1776 » Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:37 pm

Neo-Nazis are alive and well. I do get concerned though that people on the left have a tendency to label people as "Nazis" just because they don't support democratic socialism, full on CRT, or other entities along those lines. This downplays the severity of what the Nazis actually did and basically amounts to an ad hominem attack. :(
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Re: Why the Allies Won

Post by Smith1776 » Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:38 pm

Vinny is awesome. He's probably the least nefarious person on the web. O0
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