Book or other source on US Navy spending in WW2?

[TheMarcksPlan]

am I to understand that only the AGF did not suffer from the venality, corruption, patronage of stupid Congresscritters that infected the other services?

That's not implied by anything I said but the effort required to explain that to you - and its near certain futility - counsel in favor of ending the discussion here. You're welcome to have the last word.

[Tom from Cornwall]

It was laying down and/or working on useless heavy cruisers, large cruisers, battleships, and extraneous fleet destroyers while our boys in Europe were having an ammunition crisis.

I thought the ammunition crisis wasn’t due to a lack of production capacity but do a decision by War Department in Washington to send less to Europe than SHAEF was asking for. More to do with a misjudged assumption that the war was over in Europe in late summer 1944. I think there are letters in the Eisenhower Papers that show that. My volumes are stored at the moment though so going off memory.

Regards

Tom

[TheMarcksPlan]

It was laying down and/or working on useless heavy cruisers, large cruisers, battleships, and extraneous fleet destroyers while our boys in Europe were having an ammunition crisis.

I thought the ammunition crisis wasn’t due to a lack of production capacity but do a decision by War Department in Washington to send less to Europe than SHAEF was asking for. More to do with a misjudged assumption that the war was over in Europe in late summer 1944. I think there are letters in the Eisenhower Papers that show that. My volumes are stored at the moment though so going off memory.

Regards

Tom

That may be a small part of the story but the larger strategic picture is this:

US and UK did not want to the fight on land. Because of that desire, they consciously chose an air/sea heavy strategic orientation or unconsciously were motivated by bad arguments that such orientation was wise. An emphasis on air power was probably a bigger factor than USN's programs but they both contributed to the US Army's weakness.

Some proof:

Churchill's anti-land orientation stretched all the way back to the 1930's:

While Churchill fulminated about airpower, he insisted that all would be well if the French army and the Royal Navy remained strong enough, and if Bomber Command... were strengthened. At no time did [Chuchill] advocate the two courses of action that might actually have deterred Hitler: a commitment to a continental strategy through an alliance with France, and conscription to match the French army. from Churchill's Shadow

The US always was averse to a large army but this orientation showed decisively during Fall 1942 when it confronted a "feasibility crisis" and needed to cut its planned armaments program dramatically. What did it choose? Minor cuts to air/sea forces and a ~60% reduction of army size:

From Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943

reducing the
planned total of divisions and expanding
air power generally at the expense of
ground combat forces. At the end of 1942
the troop basis envisaged a ground army
of only one hundred divisions, instead of
the two hundred or more in earlier plans

The items inthe revised program, according to the
JCS, were "balanced within themselves and against each other." 23
But the "must" items, formerly 52 percent of the whole
military program, now engrossed 57 percent of it. The emphasis, more than ever,
was upon air power, ocean transportation,
and aid to the USSR, at the expense of
ground and naval power (in major combat vessels) and lend-lease to countries
other than the Soviet Union. The aircraft
objective alone had risen relatively, despite its absolute reduction, from 40 to almost 42 percent, while the ground army
program had dropped from 20 to about 18 percent.

Although this round of discussion (Fall '42) included some cuts to major combat vessels, USN continued to battle these cuts all war and successfully reversed many of them (thus the useless cruisers, battleships, carriers, DD's that kept flowing). I've provided cites for these facts upthread. As the JUSSC noted, the US had no real strategy at this time - therefore FDR's focus on air/sea power prevailed:

The lack of an overall strategic plan upon
which to base production planning is deplored. Production programs are now geared
to the equipment and employment of forces
for which no general strategic plan has been
enunciated. The size and general composition of the forces which will result may not
be adequate or suitable for successful conduct of the war

As GLS sums up:

Yet the production
and manpower programs that emerged
late in 1942 had a definite emphasis and
a definite shape. The most obvious emphasis was upon air power.

More interesting discussion:

. The WPB Planning Committee, for example, expressed the opinion,

. . . the United States could contribute
more toward a successful termination of the
war by producing and shipping to our Allies
the great quantities of munitions needed,
than by shipping and supplying large numbers of American troops, which would interfere with our munitions production. . . .
Although foreign labor cannot be brought in
to relieve our industrial manpower shortage,
foreign soldiers can be substituted for American soldiers in many of the theaters of war.
A true combined strategy of the United Nations would free shipping and rationalize the
use of manpower.32

General Marshall suspected that this
"fallacious and humiliating proposition,"
as his staff immediately styled it, lay behind the President's
perplexing oscillations during October and November on
the matter of the 1943 troop basis

So the WPB (War Production Board - dominated by grandees of American industry, finance, and politics) is explicitly recommending that the US let others do the fighting while we mostly make stuff. The Army's highest officer suspects FDR agrees...

-------------------------------------------------------

At base we have an enormously powerful Anglosphere with a core population roughly 2.5x Germany's who were unable to engage much more than 15% of Germany's army until mid 1944.

We functionally preferred perhaps 10 million more deaths of Soviets, occupied Europeans, and German children to maybe 100,000 more deaths on our side (the difference between earlier and stronger invasion of Europe, minus losses in our wasteful bombing campaigns that killed non-combatants, including French/Dutch/etc).

[OpanaPointer]

Command Decisions has a chapter entitled "The 90 Division Gamble", may be of some help. (Haven't read it in thirty years or so.)

[TheMarcksPlan]

Command Decisions has a chapter entitled "The 90 Division Gamble", may be of some help. (Haven't read it in thirty years or so.)

I've read it.

[TheMarcksPlan]

The problem with having such good official US Army histories is that official histories do not ask questions such as, "Was Western Allies strategy stupid and/or cynically calculated to trade millions of European lives to save a few thousand Anglo-Americans?"

[OpanaPointer]

Seriously?

[R Leonard]

Ok, let's have it your way.

We're sorry, Mr Hirohito, we accept your apology for attacking Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. We shall allow you to extend you dominion as far as you you wish with no interference from our part. That way we don't waste our national assets building an inordinate supply of warships, airplanes, artillery, rifles, and all and any other war related paraphernalia to stop you. The same to goes you Mr Hitler, we are out of it, you can do as you will.

Happy now?

[Richard Anderson]

Ok, let's have it your way.

We're sorry, Mr Hirohito, we accept your apology for attacking Pearl Harbor and the Philippines. We shall allow you to extend you dominion as far as you you wish with no interference from our part. That way we don't waste our national assets building an inordinate supply of warships, airplanes, artillery, rifles, and all and any other war related paraphernalia to stop you. The same to goes you Mr Hitler, we are out of it, you can do as you will.

Happy now?

Rich, you don't understand, since you don't have the necessary logical tool set to understand the genius of TMP's post hoc ergo propter hoc analysis. There was obviously a conspiracy by a cabal of the Navy, politicians, and businessmen to ensure that 10 million more Soviets died and the US Army was starved of artillery ammunition in Europe. After all, he has citations that are air tight...as usual.

[TheMarcksPlan]

That way we don't waste our national assets building an inordinate supply of warships, airplanes, artillery, rifles, and all and any other war related paraphernalia

Difficulty with reading comprehension?

Build more shells and tanks, fewer bombers and cruisers. Invade France in 1943 or earlier, kill Hitler by Spring 1944. Stalin invades Manchuria in 1944; Japan finished no later than OTL.

Millions fewer dead in Europe, Anglo casualties probably about the same.

[Richard Anderson]

Instead of relying on a single source driving a conspiracy theory, it might be well to read the text sections "Army Ammunition and Bombs', pp. 352-353 in Official Munitions Production of the United States, along with Smith's The Army and Economic Mobilization, Green, Thomson, & Roots The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War, Thomson & Mayo's The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply. Hyde's Arsenal of Democracy, Baime's Arsenal of Democracy, Kreidberg & Henry's History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775-1945, and Gropman [ed] Mobilizing U.S. Industry for War, before arriving at a judgment.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Instead of relying on a single source driving a conspiracy theory, it might be well to read the text sections "Army Ammunition and Bombs', pp. 352-353 in Official Munitions Production of the United States, along with Smith's The Army and Economic Mobilization, Green, Thomson, & Roots The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War, Thomson & Mayo's The Ordnance Department: Procurement and Supply. Hyde's Arsenal of Democracy, Baime's Arsenal of Democracy, Kreidberg & Henry's History of Military Mobilization in the United States Army, 1775-1945, and Gropman [ed] Mobilizing U.S. Industry for War, before arriving at a judgment.

I've read most of these to one degree or another; I'd recommend you expand your reading list to Koistinen's Arsenal of World War II and more esoteric, non-Greenbook volumes such as Industrial mobilization for war: history of the War Production Board
and predecessor agencies, 1940-1945.

Among other things, these works would put you on a path to understanding the economic underpinnings of WW2.

I'd also recommend you develop an argument that isn't a peekaboo cite or a failure to distinguish the concepts of evaluation and description.

But I won't hold my breath.

[Tom from Cornwall]

That may be a small part of the story but the larger strategic picture is this:

US and UK did not want to the fight on land. Because of that desire, they consciously chose an air/sea heavy strategic orientation or unconsciously were motivated by bad arguments that such orientation was wise. An emphasis on air power was probably a bigger factor than USN's programs but they both contributed to the US Army's weakness.

Some proof:

Churchill's anti-land orientation stretched all the way back to the 1930's:

TMP,

Proof? Seriously? That's disappointing!

If you'd said that many (or even most) people in the UK in the 1930's didn't want to face another war like the First World War, then I would agree with you. If you'd said that British policy makers were keen to avoid a major land commitment in Europe, then up to a point I'd still agree with you.

It is worth digging deeper into the issue though, if you would like to understand British policy in the 1930's I'd recommend a look at:

Grand Strategy Volume 1 - NH Gibbs (for a broad overview of the political and strategic arguments and decisions made by UK governments in the 1930's)
The Royal Navy in Eastern Waters: Linchpin of Victory 1935-1942 (which shows how deeply the threat from Japan affected RN pre-war plans)
Raising Churchill's Army: The British Army and the War against Germany 1919-1945 (an essential primer to the British army in WW2 - warts and all!)
The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 - John Darwin (essential reading to set British strategic decisions made in the 1930's against the grand sweep of British imperial history)
The Long Shadow: The Great War and the Twentieth Century - David Reynolds (very broad look at impact of WW1 on later history)
The Morbid Age: Britain and the Crisis of Civilisation, 1919-1939 - Richard Overy (Britain between the 1930's; or at least intellectual Britain between the wars - full of doom and gloom and should be read in contradiction with...
We Danced all Night: A Social History of Britain between the Wars - Martin Pugh (a much broader survey of British life between the wars - includes improvements in heath, house building, pubs and football -subjects unlikely to concern the majority of correspondents in Overy's book!)

You might also want to explore the papers of the Anglo-French Supreme War Council from 1939-40 - that would explain how they saw a way to an Anglo-French victory without the devastating losses suffered during Round One.

Regards

Tom

Regards

Tom

Regards

Tom

[TheMarcksPlan]

if you would like to understand British policy in the 1930's I'd recommend a look at

You guys are funny. You hear something divergent from your views and you just know it's not right. You can't say why exactly, but you know that in the atmosphere of everything you've been told for decades there's something that would preserve your worldview.

[OpanaPointer]

Or we've read more than one book.