"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
...

"Bill Phillips" wrote in message
...

snip

Then you would have had to scrap the entire US military production
strategy,
which was based upon getting a LOT of "good enough" stuff produced
as
opposed to the German approach of building a few really good
items--we
know
which side lost, so I would side with the winning strategy.

I can't find any evidence that the USAAF were pursuing this strategy;
on
average its aircraft were as good or better than the enemy's.

Your own example was in regards to *tanks* for gosh sakes!

Your reply was in regards to "the entire US military production"

And I have detailed how that applied to land, air, and sea systems.


If you want USAAF
examples, ask yourself why, despite the availability of better aircraft,
projects like the P-40 continued in production as long as they did? Why
did
the B-25 continue in production when the B-26, and later the A-26, were
already entering service in great numbers? Because the US valued mass,
that's why.

That's why I said "on average" both sides kept some poor aircraft in
production, and both produced some first class aircraft.

Who cares what the Germans did? The issue here was the US philosophy of
producing a lot of stuff that was "good enough" versus a few things that
were demonstrably superior.


Much the same can be said of rifles, artillery, ships, etc.

OK. You think the M3 Grease Gun was the best possible quality SMG we
could
produce? Of course not--but it provided the *numbers* that we could not
acheive with the Thompson production.

The M3's main fault was the single feed magazine, copied from the MP38/40.

The M3 was a stamped out, mass produced clunker in comparison to the
Thompson. It had a strange rate of fire (it tended to increase its rate as
you held the trigger down, sort of a bam...bam...bam..bam..bam.bam.bam.bam
situation--we still had them as standard weapons for tank, CEV, and AVLB
crewmen in the late eighties, not becuse they were *good*, but because we
had nothing to replace them until the M4 came along), was heavy as hell, and
was never considered to be very accurate weapon. Your single feed magazine,
whatever that means, was the least of its problems.


In regards to tanks, the Sherman was
adequate in many ways, good in a few ways, and barely adequate in others
(such as firepower)--but we were still rolling the original 75mm version
off
the lines when the war ended.

They were worse that the average German tank.

Yep, they were in terms of firepower. They were pretty good from a
mechanical reliability standpoint (probably significantly better than their
German counterparts), and relatively fast and agile for the period. They
also did not tax the supporting infrastructure as much as heavier products
like the Tiger would have had it been in allied hands (things like standard
tactical bridging systems, and even shipping--unlike the Germans, we had to
transport all of the Shermans overseas before they could even get into the
fight). The later higher velocity 76 mm gun was better than the 75mm, but it
never really matched German firepower (until the Israelis upgunned them
later in life to the Super Sherman standard).


Were Liberty and Victory ships the highest
quality merchent vessels going? No again--but by golly we could turn
them
out like pretzels.

No German competition, so no comparison possible.

You don't need a comparison--it just goes to show that we were turning out
stuff to acheive mass, with acceptable performance versus lower production
with optimal performance.


Artillery? We did fairly well in that area--but more due
to better tactics and C-2 than any inherent advantage of the guns--and
again, turning out zillions of guns also helped.

Those numbers were combined with quality comparable to the German weapons.

Yes and no. We did not do nearly as well as the Germans in terms of
versatility, where their 88mm was king. And IIRC the Germans had better SP
guns than we did (the old M7 105mm Priest being about the best we managed),
with products like the Sdkfz 165 Hummel and its 150mm gun. Our comparable
M12 and M40 did not become available until later in the war. The M7 remained
the standard divisional SP gun in the armored divisions throughout the war.

snip

I am well aware of the need for technology, I am also aware that the
first
airborne radars went to the bombers, so that they could bomb through
cloud.

That would be because those first radars would have been LOUSY U-Boat
detectors.

Then why were slightly modified versions subsequently used to hunt
U-Boats?

I don't believe they were "slightly modified". IIRC, and someone around here
who specializes in the field can correct me if I am wrong, it took a shorter
wavelength radar to acheive the ability of detecting a surfaced U-Boat than
waht was available on the bomber radars that were used for gross mapping
(which was about the best they could manage).

snip for bevity's sake


Logic failure. Get back to the subject at hand--the sheer number of
personnel dedicated to the flak forces, the number of guns that went to
support that defense effort that were NOT available to directly support
the
Wehrmacht, the critical resources that went into producing those guns
and
ammo that instead could have flowed also to the Wehrmacht efforts, the
lack
of Luftwaffe support over the battlefield because of the need to resist
the
CBO, etc.

My point has never been that no resources would have been freed for the
German front line, just that they would be less that the resources freed
for
the allied front line.

First, I seriously doubt that. "In January of 1944 there were 20,625 FLAK
guns (7,941 heavy guns and 12,684 light/medium guns) with 6,880 searchlights
defending Germany. Stationed on other fronts were another 9,569
anti-aircraft guns and 960 searchlights, these totals do not include Army
and Navy FLAK units." (www.ww2guide.com/flak.shtml ). That is a lot of
resources right there. How many men were required to keep each gun and
searchlight in service? How many men and how much other resources were
required to provide the early warning needed, supply the guns, etc.? How
many fighter squadrons were tied up in the defense of the Reich in 1943-44?

If we use a SWAG of eight men per heavy gun and four per lighter gun, and
maybe four per searchlight, that gives you some 125,000 personnel *just in
the weapons crews themselves*. Even if you assume that the Flak units
required less service support committment than frontline combat units (where
the teeth-to-tail ratio was probably in the five or six-to-one range at
best) and assumed a one-to-one ratio, you are talking another 125K personnel
right there. That is already 250K personnel tied up in the defense effort
without even starting to consider the Luftwaffe flying assets. I'd be very
surprised if the total number of German personnel tied to the defense effort
against the CBO was not well in excess of 500K personnel...at a time when
Wehrmacht units were furiously disbanding some units in a vain effort to
keep others in a fill-status that *remotely* resembled their TO&E
requirements.

Which brings us to the second point--the allies could *afford* to dedicate
personnel and resources to the CBO because we had an over-abundance of
manpower and equipment resources. We were challenged to support the scope of
the force that we DID have fighting on the continent--tossing more manpower
into the equation would just exacerbate the support constraints. OTOH, the
Germans were already short manpower and equipment almost across the
board--keeping tank strength in their panzer units up to minimal levels was
a nightmare, and they were lacking infantry and artillerymen as well. Their
tactical air support efforts were seriously hampered by the need to continue
the defense effort back home. So in the end the CBO, if it accomplished
nothing else, applied additional pressure to the German manning and
equipment shortfalls affecting their frontline units that would not have
been present had the CBO not occured.


The secondary point is that without bombing to enrage the population the
Germans would have produced less war material, so there would have been
less
to share around.

That argument has never been adequately supported. The reason German
production was still climbing was more due to the effect of their belated
shift to a wartime effort, and the improved efficiencies resulting from the
efforts of Speer and his folks, than due to "rage" on the part of the german
workforce. As another poster has noted, that workforce exhibited an
increasing absence rate as the war progressed--hardly an indicator of a
motivated workforce.

snip


No, the biggest "single problem" was that they went to Arnhem in the
first
place, amidst reforming German Panzer units that light airborne troopies
were ill equipped to fight, while depending upon an unrealistic advance
rate
from the XXX Corps ground elements along a single axis of advance. Had
they
been able to drop the Polich Brigade on day one that would have just
allowed
the German's to roll them up with the majority of the British division,
instead of having it available to support the withdrawl of what British
elements were able to finally accomplish that move.

The airborne did have some quite effective anti-tank weapons, fighting a
defensive battle in Arnhem they could have held the very under strength
Panzer Divs for a long time.

They did? And what were they? The PIAT? You are dreaming here--they faced
those panzers, and they did NOT hold out "for a long time". Their AT
capabilities were ABYSMAL. And you have again ignored the REAL problems with
Market Garden--the poor and limited capacity axis of advnace given to XXX
Corps, the lack of decent DZ's around Arnhem close enough to the targets,
and that great unknown--the weather.


If they had all been dropped on the first lift then they would have
quickly
seized the bridges, and established a strong defensive position around
them.
Add a supply drop on D+1 and some CAS to weaken the Germans and they
could
have easily held during the bad weather, and weeks after.

I sincerely doubt that. It would not have changed the fact that they
were
dropped too far from their objective, nor would it have changed the fact
that they were facing a lot of German troops and tanks that they had not
planned on encountering. In all likelihood, you would have just given
the
Nazis a larger bag of POW's to handle when it was all over.

They hung on for quite a long time despite all the problems.

And they ended up withdrawing what they could. Had the entire division
dropped in on day one it would not have sped up XXX Corps advance one iota,
and you'd have been left with the germans having more POW's in hand than
they actually got in the end.

Brooks