I'm familiar but IMO Citino is squeezing far too much from a decent insight.Peter89 wrote:Robert Citino
Yes, the Prussian military tradition so held. No, the descendants of that tradition did not set German grand strategy.
So the WW2 Heer should have had the best of both worlds: an operational/tactical concept based on aggression backed by deep logistics/production set at the strategic level. It's what they had in France even though the latter part turned out to be unnecessary.
As previously noted - and there's IMO no reasonable grounds for debate - Hitler planned a long war. The Soviet portion of this long war was the only part planned as a Blitzkrieg.
Had Hitler planned the Eastern campaign to be long(er), the Heer would have been appropriately backed logistically and economically; the Prussian tradition had no relevance to those factors in WW2.
For far too many folks here, the only intellectual satisfaction available to them is to point out something they think somebody else doesn't know. The pleasure of concept formation/analysis/revision in a dialectical exchange is entirely foreign to them.Peter89 wrote:when I tried to ask the beloved community about "what if the Japs conquer the Hawaii Islands in 1941"
Biggest yes, most mechanized no. Red Army had fewer trucks than Ostheer (400k vs. 600k) for more men. It was more horse-reliant than Ostheer and the bulk of it remained so through 1945:Peter89 wrote:The SU fielded the biggest and most mechanized army in the world
https://www.hgwdavie.com/blog/2020/1/2/ ... -transportFrom a transport perspective, the field army in the later war years did not improve its level of motorization — rifle divisions remained largely horse-drawn, and additional vehicles were used to pull a greater quantity of supporting artillery.
What numbers? If the Axis conquers or "Vichy's" the SU, it controls more of the world's 1938 GDP than the Allies. The population of Germany, Japan, and lesser Axis was about the same as US, UK+Dominions (both ~200mil).But if we take a look at the numbers at the end of 1943, the Wallies could have won the war, if Britain is not knocked out. And why would they be knocked out, if the Germans would focus on their ongoing campaign in the SU?
Again big topic but short version:It also meant the the Americas couldn't be attacked... so it was imperative to keep them out of the war.
You're assuming that Germany can't "win" the war simply by being unassailable on the continent. I disagree. If the Germans demonstrate that (conventional) bombing won't end the war (something I think would be true), then the W.Allies have to put hundreds of divisions into Europe. IMO it's far from clear that we'd have had the stomach for the ensuing millions of dead. Especially if the European theater comes to be viewed as a war of choice.