pugsville wrote:"Both UK, France and Soviet Union had armies comparable to the Wehrmacht - in the case of the SU their army was several times bigger in war materiel. Not to mention that Germany was the last state in WW2 to align their production to war status. "
Are you seriously saying the UK army was comparable to the Wehrmacht? IT was much smaller.
Neither the US and the UK had armies comparable to the size of the German army, their field armies were much smaller as they allocated most of their resources to the Navy and the Airforce, while Germany allocated most of their resources to the field army. UK's army was 1/4 of Germany's, US's was 55% of Germany's size:
German army 1944:
296 divisions, manpower slice of 14,500 men per division, size of the field army:
4,290,000
US army 1944:
91 divisions, manpower slice of 26,000 men per division, size of the field army:
2,370,000
UK's army in Europe was 35 divisions by the end of the war, that's ca. 900,000 men, less than a quarter of the size of the German army. Germany produced more ammunition than the US or the UK because their larger army needed it: UK production of heavy caliber ammunition was 64 million rounds from 1940-44, German production was >300 million rounds, 5 times larger, to supply an army that was 5 times larger and engaged in more intense combat.
German vs American production of army ammunition:
Total military expenditures were similar, in billions of 1939 dollars converted using official exchange rates:
United States -------------- 189.24
Soviet Union --------------- 86.56
Germany ------------------ 210.70
sources:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 9#p1923931
Germany spend most of that on their ground forces (85%, considering the Luftwaffe had significant ground forces and AA battalions), US and UK, much of it the navy and airforce.
Notice also that according to mathematical models used to predict outcome of battles (i.e. Numbers Prediction and War), the German army was ca. 150% more efficient than UK and US forces in Italy in 1943-44, Zetterling arrived at similar conclusions using the data from Normandy battle (also ca. 150%), which means that to defeat the 4.3 million men German field army, the Allies would need to put an army of
6.5 million men in Europe (without USSR's help), that's nearly 3 times the total size of the United States army, including the divisions in they deployed against Japan, in Europe the US deployed 61 divisions out of their 91 divisions army.
To win the war against Germany without Soviet help the Western Allies would need to cut back expenditures on navy and airforce and focus their resources on the army. Notice that actually both the UK and the US were fully mobilized:
Notice that even though the US and the UK had much smaller armies than Germany, they had numerical superiority because most of the German field army was deployed in the Eastern front and some of it occupying Norway and Yugoslavia. These forces would never have survived if the Eastern front wasn't active in 1944-45.
Relative size of armies facing Western Allies:
1940 - France, 143 divisions of 21,000 men each, or 3,000,000 men
1944 - Normandy, 37 divisions of 14,500 men each, 540,000 men
Allied daily losses in 1940 were 12,000 men daily, compared to Allied losses of 2,900 men daily in Normandy.
The USSR managed to defeat the bulk of the German army but at enormous cost in casualties: 29 million counting wounded, killed, sick, missing and frostbitten. Without the USSR, the Western Allies wouldn't have a large probability of defeating the army that Germany deployed against France in 1940 and that was defeated by the USSR (at an exorbitant cost).
Facing that half a million men for 3 months implied in casualties of 240,000 men for the Western Allies. If they had to fight the whole German army their casualty rate would have been much higher, maybe around 5 times higher, or 1,200,000 men lost over 3 months (considering size of the field army and rates of ammunition consumption in the Eastern front versus Normandy). That's about the size of the whole field army the Allies deployed in France by the end of August.
The Allies won the war but overall they suffered several times the number of killed and wounded than Germany did (German KIA+WIA was ca. 7 million by January 1945, Allied KIA+WIA (including French, Dutch, Belgian, Polish casualties) was 4 times larger up to the same point in time.
The Germans always had more of their economy geared to their war effort. The Myth that they were not on war footing till later in the war is just that a myth. (you can agree that it was badly organised different debate)
German production of aircraft and ammunition was much smaller in 1941 compared to 1944 (respectively, 3 and 5 times) because they did not need that much since the consumption of ammunition was smaller and losses of aircraft were small.
German production levels: --- 1941 --------- 1944
aircraft ------------------------- 11,000 ------- 40,000
army ammunition ------------- 550,000 ------ 3,350,000
Though that's reflected in losses of aircraft and consumption of ammunition in the fronts, the Eastern front consumed about 580,000 tons of ammunition in 1941, but 2,100,000 tons in 1944, I estimate the Western front consumed 500,000 tons and Italy, 300,000 tons, plus 350,000 tons in the AA defense of Germany. Consumption of ammunition increased from 580,000 tons in 1941 to ca. 3,250,000 tons in 1944.
But it is true that Germany mobilized a larger fraction of their resources towards war in 1943-44 than in previous years. Taxation rates in occupied France were 37-38% in 1941-42, increasing to 55% in 1943-44. Military expenditures were 74 billion marks in 1941, in 1944, were 120 billion marks, while GNP increased only 10%. Germany started mobilizing more resources to the war effort after they started losing the war.
Production of armaments in Germany's case increased greatly from 09.1939 to 06.1940 and declined after peaking in June 1940, beginning to increase fast again after January 1942. In other words, Germany had two periods of military mobilization: start of the war up to the defeat of France, a period of "cold war" from June 1940 to June 1941 (including some small military operations such as terror bombing of the UK), and resumption of large scale war with Barbarossa, and resumption of mobilization of industry after Barbarossa failed to knock out the Soviet Union. So it's true that Germany did not mobilize for total war in the first 2 years of the war, as they did not expect that would be needed to do so to defeat the Soviet Union, after Barbarossa failed they did but it was too late. They lost the war due to overconfidence.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz