In 1941, at the time of Pearl Harbor, the US economy alone was five times the size of the Japanese. By 1945, the US economy was ten times the size of the Japanese.
- .. US submarines had sunk the bulk of Japan’s shipping, leaving Japan on the verge of starvation.
Our Navy Is Big Enough
The $3.3 billion Zumwalt destroyer uses all-electric propulsion, employs stealth features, carries a huge arsenal of guided missiles, and mounts advanced cannons that can hit targets 63 miles away. Most likely it will never be tested in battle, because no other nation is even attempting to build a warship like the Zumwalt ..
.. The Pentagon’s new budget request asks that the Navy receive a large increase: $161 billion for the 2016 fiscal year, versus $149 billion in the current fiscal year. Last month, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told the House Appropriations Committee that the Navy must get bigger — increasing to a total of at least 300 ships, versus the current 275.
What is the difference between a “tactical advantage” and a “strategic advantage”, in military affairs?
This was because Germany had many tactical advantages:
- Having radios on all your tanks is a tactical advantage.
- Making better use of your weapons is a tactical advantage.
- Having better trained officers is a tactical advantage.
- Being able to kill more of the enemy than they can kill of you is a tactical advantage.
But despite the German’s tactical advantages, the Soviets still won the war on the Eastern Front, because they could absorb huge losses of men, equipment and territory and still keep fighting. They had strategic advantages:
- Having a much bigger population than your enemy is a strategic advantage.
- Having an enormous country to retreat into is a strategic advantage.
- Having your factories beyond enemy bombing range is a strategic advantage.
- Being in an alliance that controls more than twice as much of the world’s GDP than your enemies is a strategic advantage.
How effective was the German defense of Germany in WW2?
What made the German Army so effective was that every soldier was expected to think, not just follow orders, and take effective independent action to achieve a goal. The Russian Army was exactly the opposite. The Russian soldier was expected to do nothing more than follow orders, even to his detriment and was punished severely for independent thinking. As a result, the Germans were able to accomplish astounding feats, because everyone was thinking, not just the commander who might have limited situational awareness.
.. Bagration, the Russian attack in the East, was the most successful offensive operation along a long front in the history of warfare. Despite warnings from Gehlen and German Generals such as Kietel that the entire Eastern Front was a house of cards, Hitler wouldn’t let the Germans retreat and the Russians cut through them like a knife through butter.
.. He made his astounding “battle cuff” order so shaming the German Army, telling his SS men that they were no longer worthy of wearing a divisional battle cuff. For men fighting to the last man despite being severely wounded, with no equipment and for a lost cause, this was not a good morale builder. General Balck refused to implement the order at risk to his own life, but by then, it was just weeks before the end
.. Something like 75,000 Allied aircraft were destroyed by the Germans during the war
.. Had they been well supplied and manned, the Germans could have held off the Allies indefinitely, but their shortages kept them on the run.