War Factories on Yesterday.
Discussion
Really fascinating, if you like this sort of thing. I watched the one on British war production, mainly Vickers and was surprised to see we out produced ze Germans in pretty much every thing, once we’d got going, even without American help. The Germans, at least in WWII, were pretty much useless at everything, too hidebound by officialdom, too many variants of weapons, inefficient work practices; it seemed to me the only area in which they held the upper hand was in manpower. The programmes on American war production are eye opening; I don’t even think they were trying.
wolfracesonic said:
The Germans, at least in WWII, were pretty much useless at everything, too hidebound by officialdom, too many variants of weapons, inefficient work practices; it seemed to me the only area in which they held the upper hand was in manpower. The programmes on American war production are eye opening; I don’t even think they were trying.
'Stupid Nazis' is a modern trend. Nobody thought they were stupid when it was happening.In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
Don’t forget, Britain had all the resources and people of the Empire to call on, Germany had very little international trade to lean on, and zero once war started. The Nazis were not stupid, but they needed a short war before their resources ran out.
Their hope was that the occupied countries would be stripped to support the Fatherland, but in reality once asset stripped, they just became another problem/population to feed.
Their hope was that the occupied countries would be stripped to support the Fatherland, but in reality once asset stripped, they just became another problem/population to feed.
Simpo Two said:
'Stupid Nazis' is a modern trend. Nobody thought they were stupid when it was happening.
In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
This ^^^^^ is wrong on so many levels. Then and now. In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
Uber efficiency in one sense, utter lack of lateral thinking in another. This still rings true today ..... Well of what I’ve seen in my career dealing with them.
Lastly how you can state they didn’t expect the Americans to join in after Pearl Harbour makes little sense ..... Hitler declared war on them.
I started watching this earlier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5WP-IqICI8
The relevant part to this thread is early on, about 3 mins in.
The relevant part to this thread is early on, about 3 mins in.
Wozy68 said:
Simpo Two said:
'Stupid Nazis' is a modern trend. Nobody thought they were stupid when it was happening.
In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
This ^^^^^ is wrong on so many levels. Then and now. In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
Uber efficiency in one sense, utter lack of lateral thinking in another. This still rings true today ..... Well of what I’ve seen in my career dealing with them.
Lastly how you can state they didn’t expect the Americans to join in after Pearl Harbour makes little sense ..... Hitler declared war on them.
As Piginapoke says, they didn't plan on a long war - the plan was to grab as much of Europe as possible (not GB), then Russia. The second front was a most unwelcome development.
Edited by Simpo Two on Saturday 28th December 23:49
Simpo Two said:
Wozy68 said:
Simpo Two said:
'Stupid Nazis' is a modern trend. Nobody thought they were stupid when it was happening.
In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
This ^^^^^ is wrong on so many levels. Then and now. In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
Uber efficiency in one sense, utter lack of lateral thinking in another. This still rings true today ..... Well of what I’ve seen in my career dealing with them.
Lastly how you can state they didn’t expect the Americans to join in after Pearl Harbour makes little sense ..... Hitler declared war on them.
Hitler declares war on America, around the time of Pearl harbour in late 41, so at what point wouldn’t he imagine they might be a little interested in taking the war to him.....
Hitlers problem was his arrogance towards the Americans...... Something he very much came to regret.
If he hadn’t declared war on them, there’s a possibility they would never have got directly involved in the the European side of the War, or at least for some time.
Wozy68 said:
You’ve stated ‘After Pearl Harbour’ in your post..... nothing in it says anything about America in 1939.
Exactly. In 1939 when Hitler said 'Right let's kick off' he could not have known that America would enter the war, still less to the extent it did. We look back on things today and say 'Ah yes well they should have done this, and that, but not that... any fool can see' etc. We are all armchair generals, a luxury we have because we were fortunate our generation never had to fight. Simpo Two said:
Wozy68 said:
You’ve stated ‘After Pearl Harbour’ in your post..... nothing in it says anything about America in 1939.
Exactly. In 1939 when Hitler said 'Right let's kick off' he could not have known that America would enter the war, still less to the extent it did. We look back on things today and say 'Ah yes well they should have done this, and that, but not that... any fool can see' etc. We are all armchair generals, a luxury we have because we were fortunate our generation never had to fight. Wozy68 said:
Simpo Two said:
'Stupid Nazis' is a modern trend. Nobody thought they were stupid when it was happening.
In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
This ^^^^^ is wrong on so many levels. Then and now. In the second half of the war the Germans were suffering from pretty much round-the-clock bombing on their factories and transport systems. Where they went wrong was in trying to fight most of the world at once. They didn't expect Britain to declare war and neither did they plan on the US joining in after Pearl Harbour. History has 20:20 vision!
Uber efficiency in one sense, utter lack of lateral thinking in another. This still rings true today ..... Well of what I’ve seen in my career dealing with them.
Lastly how you can state they didn’t expect the Americans to join in after Pearl Harbour makes little sense ..... Hitler declared war on them.
Rather than being efficient, they are methodical. They follow very rigid, set patterns and can be infuriatingly inflexible.
We are similar in many ways, but on others there are stark differences. We do have a propensity for dither and faff but we are more adaptable.
Somewhere between the two approaches, there’s a winning combination.
I have also worked with Germans, great guys who, apart from being dogmatic in many ways, they did make damn good coffee.
One question I'd have and meant to ask, apologies for going slightly off topic, but we had the "Spitfire girls" - Did the Germans have an equivalent given their large and productive Aero industry?.
One question I'd have and meant to ask, apologies for going slightly off topic, but we had the "Spitfire girls" - Did the Germans have an equivalent given their large and productive Aero industry?.
/https://public-media.si-cdn.com/filer/1c/5b/1c5b8311-46ad-48dc-b801-84a37090fffe/hanna_reitsch.jpg)
Pilot Observer badge in Gold with diamonds and test pilot for the Komet. She persuaded Hitler to create the "Leonidas Squadron" of German "volunteer" pilots.
Not sure how accurate this is Eric, hopefully you can confirm or deny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1aYEoqQgCY
Not sure how accurate this is Eric, hopefully you can confirm or deny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1aYEoqQgCY
Watching the episode on General Motors, it covered America’s rubber production: When the Japanese went on the march the US lost it’s supplies of natural rubber, the solution? The government built 51 synthetic rubber plants, gave them to private rubber companies with the result that in the space of four years, synthetic rubber production went from 231 tonnes a year to 70,000 tonnes a month.
wolfracesonic said:
Watching the episode on General Motors, it covered America’s rubber production: When the Japanese went on the march the US lost it’s supplies of natural rubber, the solution? The government built 51 synthetic rubber plants, gave them to private rubber companies with the result that in the space of four years, synthetic rubber production went from 231 tonnes a year to 70,000 tonnes a month.
The industrial capacity of the USA really was in a whole other universe to any other combatant. Not just in the ability to churn out existing products but, as in that synthetic rubber case, conjure up entire new industries from scratch while fighting a global war. Take shipbuilding as another example - the US essentially had no civilian shipbuilding industry before 1936 (due to a surplus of WW1-era Emergency Fleet Program vessels and the contraction of the shipping industry in the Great Depression stalling demand) and even by 1940 it was not a major industry on a global scale - between 1936 and 1940 the US built less civilian tonnage than the UK or Japan, for instance. Then the Emergency Shipbuilding Program kicked off in 1940 and in five years built 6000 ships. By the end of the war the US shipbuilding industry employed 650,000 people and there were more Liberty-size-and-above slipways on the banks of the Hudson River than there were in the entire British Isles. Only the USSR came remotely close to this level of industrial capacity - of course having made a deliberate attempt to import Fordist industrial systems wholesale in the interwar years. For all the shadow factories and so on the UK was far, far behind - we simply didn't have the space, infrastructure, capital, resources and manpower to churn out, say Lancasters on the scale that Willow Run could build B-24s (one every 63 minutes). We were very good at making the most of what we had - like the Flower-class corvette and the HDML which could be built by civilian boatyards, or the DH Mosquito with its wooden construction, or the Austerity WD locomotives (and let's not forget that the Liberty Ship was a British design) but we were heavily reliant on lend-leasing a lot of the essential high-volume materiel that we simply couldn't build ourselves and using domestic capacity to fill in the specific requirements.
Germany was on a lower level altogether. I really recommend the book 'The Wages of Destruction' by Adam Tooze, which lays out exactly how unprepared for total war the German economy was ,how far behind in industrial process Germany how the Nazis' political and ideological failings made the situation worse, and how the broad strategy of the Third Reich was doomed from the start on economic grounds - namely that Hitler had to invade the Soviet Union to obtain the raw resources that Germany needed in order to successfully fight the UK and the USA, but the lack of those same resources made ultimate victory on the Eastern Front impossible.
2xChevrons said:
The industrial capacity of the USA really was in a whole other universe to any other combatant.
Whilst I don't disagree with this, the fact that mainland USA was not being bombed or threatened in any way, most of the workforce hadn't been sent to war & the bulk of supplies were available (including food), allowed them to focus on production?But yes, their production line methodology and the sheer scale & ambition of their manufacturing couldn't be matched.
Almost spot on, but I’ve been watching too many of these type of war documentaries.
The Japanese sent over bombs on unmanned balloons. Might’ve been on the jet streams, can’t recall just now. Grey matter stirring- wasn’t it the USA that discovered the jet streams from their bombing raids on japan?
The Germans had submarines up and down the USA east coast sinking cargo ships.
Certainly no chip shops were flattened.
I agree that the output quantities of the American and the Russian war effort was hugely impressive.
The Japanese sent over bombs on unmanned balloons. Might’ve been on the jet streams, can’t recall just now. Grey matter stirring- wasn’t it the USA that discovered the jet streams from their bombing raids on japan?
The Germans had submarines up and down the USA east coast sinking cargo ships.
Certainly no chip shops were flattened.
I agree that the output quantities of the American and the Russian war effort was hugely impressive.
Gassing Station | Boats, Planes & Trains | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff