How big could U.S. ground forces realistically be in WWII?

In much of my reading on WWII, I've come across many books and articles claiming the the U.S. devoted a relatively small amount of its available manpower to its ground forces in WWII as compared to the other belligerents. Here is a link to one of multiple articles that have made that claim: http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_15.htm

Now, my first question is obviously whether anyone here agrees with this assessment. For those that do, my question is how much larger the U.S. ground forces could realistically have been in WWII? When I say "realistic," I mean taking into account the population of the U.S. and the need to transport its ground forces to combat zones thousands of miles away and still have adequate equipment.

Let me state that I do NOT consider the following possibilities to be ASB and I would ask anyone responding to my post to please consider them:

-utilizing women and racial minorities to a greater extent;

-an earlier military build-up (while I understand that having Cold War level readiness is unrealistic, I do think an earlier military build-up is conceivable);

-shifting more resources from Navy and Air Force (again, to the realistic extent possible. I do realize that the U.S. needed to develop a large navy and air force, but is it possible that some portion of available resources that were shifted to navy and air force be shifted to ground forces instead?

-altering industrial production levels. I'm on the fence with this, I just like to suggest that this variable be taken into account. If someone out there believes that the U.S. would be better served by having larger army but perhaps producing slightly fewer armaments, I would like to hear their opinion.

And of course, if anyone thinks that the U.S. already did have the largest possible ground forces under the circumstances, or that any of the variables I listed are ASB or were already done in OTL, I would love to hear their opinion too.

It's a matter of logistics. It takes time to move millions of troops across the ocean with their tanks and other supplies. The Brits could not produce these things for American troops, they were already maxed out. And it's not good to have troops out there on the front lines if the minimum in supplies, ammo, gasoline, etc are not available. As I recall from my reading, there were times between D-Day and the German surrender when the Allies were logistically stretched to the point that more troops would have simply been in the way. And at the end, with the Germans collapsing, the U.S. may have had more troops than it actually needed, except for the largely symbolic task of keeping the Soviets from moving too far westward. The question as posed would be more interesting if it included a POD resulting in the Soviets not doing very well against the Germans and still being stuck at war's end near the eastern Polish border.

The USA, by 1944 or so, was producing as much as they needed plus stuff for the British Empire and the USSR. There was still unused capacity for more war production, and contracts were actually being reduced even before the Nazi surrender. The Army also had planned a hundred divisions, but stopped at least 20 short, simply because they were not needed. So...the US Army could have been at least 100 divisions.

The USN, USMC, and USAAF were also capable of more expansion.

sloreck said:

The USA, by 1944 or so, was producing as much as they needed plus stuff for the British Empire and the USSR. There was still unused capacity for more war production, and contracts were actually being reduced even before the Nazi surrender. The Army also had planned a hundred divisions, but stopped at least 20 short, simply because they were not needed. So...the US Army could have been at least 100 divisions.

The USN, USMC, and USAAF were also capable of more expansion.

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The '100 Division Plan' was cut back to provide manpower and resources for the B-29 Program. A good resource is the U.S. Atmy 'Green Book' series.
Here is a link to the section on Army Ground Forces

http://www.history.army.mil/html/bookshelves/collect/ww2-agf.html

The US army originally planned for a 213-division army, in fact. This was predicated upon the assumption that the USSR might collapse, leaving the US and UK alone.

The us ground forces slice in ww2 was about 48% the rest was split between the navy and aaf, the British land forces slice was 56% and the Germans about 80%. So the us could dedicate more of its resources to ground forces or it could have built bigger ground force although I don't know how much capacity the was the grow them to 150-200 divisions without impacting on the aaf and navy.

We had approximately 90 divisions. If you take the non-divisional units units and do away with the tank destroyer concept, pooling and Task Force idea you could get another 90 divisions.

Realistically, it couldn't. Who else were going to produce in the Arsenal of Democracy that saved the Soviet Union from complete demographic collapse?

Daewonsu said:

Realistically, it couldn't. Who else were going to produce in the Arsenal of Democracy that saved the Soviet Union from complete demographic collapse?

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Agree on point 2, disagree on point 1. Others above have pointed out ways the U.S. could have had more troops, with the "No tank destroyer" point near the top of the list. But if the U.S. HAD too, they could reduce L-L to the USSR, and use that to supply more American forces.

Granted I don't see the U.S. doing so unless it was earnestly felt the Soviets would collapse or couldn't launch successful offensives, but the option still exists whether or not its optimal.

Agent of SHIELD said:

Agree on point 2, disagree on point 1. Others above have pointed out ways the U.S. could have had more troops, with the "No tank destroyer" point near the top of the list. But if the U.S. HAD too, they could reduce L-L to the USSR, and use that to supply more American forces.

Granted I don't see the U.S. doing so unless it was earnestly felt the Soviets would collapse or couldn't launch successful offensives, but the option still exists whether or not its optimal.

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Or American leaders were so very opposed to the Soviets, and worried about a strong postwar USSR, that they deliberately limited L-L.

For production I agree on limiting Lend-Lease to Russia (thus allowing a slower advance of the Red Army) - but if done too early that could lead to more German reserves in the West - that could defeat D-Day and prolong the war. If done after D-Day the newly built up units probably either come late for the war, or would not be needed. After all the allies (Western) had seldom not enough troops available. Basically the US army size is determined by the amount of "troops needed" and not manpool available.

So basically a "bigger" army is not made because it was not needed.

Reducing either the "share" of the Navy or Airforce is possible, but would not be wise from a pure military viewpoint. ships are needed to make a save transit from the US to Europe, they are also needed to fight the Japanese.

Even a few (capital) ships less could make a different in battles in the Pacific - a clear win can be turned in a defeat. If the usn gets defeated as the Japanese did at Midway (loosing a few carriers) the war could be prolonged considerably. Having a numerical advantage like teh usn guarantees that even if you lose a battle badly you can immediately come back with "more of the same and better".

Air force: if you don't "bomb" your enemy he can produce more - in 1942 and on the European front in 1943 and half of 1944 the US could not fight their enemies on land - at least not to an extent that a bigger army is needed. With bombers and ships they COULD fight, but not on land.

All this factors contribute to the final size of the US land forces

So, as I expected, the consensus that the U.S. was better off with the OTL's allocation of armaments production vs. ground forces. And I agree with that assessment.

However, I disagree with the argument that the U.S. didn't need a larger army. Yeah, maybe by 1945 when the war was near the end a larger ground force wouldn't have been of much use. That claim assumes that between 1937-1941, the U.S. military build-up develops the same way as in OTL. In 1941-1942, a larger army conceivably makes a huge difference. During the negotiations with the British in 1941-42, the U.S. had to defer to the British on most matters because the British were contributing more manpower to the war than the U.S. up until the D-Day landings. Plus, it took nearly a year to go from the invasion of France in June of 1944 to the surrender of Germany in May of 1945. A larger army wouldn't have helped speed that up?

Given that we don't want to shift more resources away from the navy, air force, or domestic production, there are still 2 other possibilities that we can consider:

-an earlier military build-up: While I do realize the isolationist bloc in the U.S. was strong, I have to think that the U.S. could have begun shifting to war footing a little bit earlier. In 1939, the U.S. Army numbered 189,000 poorly equipped men. While I realize a draft prior to 1940 is totally unrealistic (In 1941, Congress extended the draft by a 1 vote majority), I can't help thinking that the army could have been somewhat larger and better equipped than in OTL. Maybe a voluntary recruitment drive during the New Deal (say, in addition to public works projects, FDR raises the compensation for soldiers who voluntary enlist and more men join the army just to get a job). Could the U.S. conceivably have an army of 500,000-750,000 men in 1939? An then have that number proportionally grow as the war in Europe goes badly for the Allies? Is this ASB?

-greater involvement of women and racial minorities in war effort: there is some controversy on this. Some commentators have argued that women and racial minorities were in fact heavily utilized in OTL, while others have argued that "Rosie the riveter" was a myth and traditional barriers largely remained in place during WWII. Could women and minorities have been more heavily utilized than they were?

Simply numbers, or operational formations/units?

JRH1234 said:

In much of my reading on WWII, I've come across many books and articles claiming the the U.S. devoted a relatively small amount of its available manpower to its ground forces in WWII as compared to the other belligerents. Here is a link to one of multiple articles that have made that claim: http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_15.htm.

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Simply numbers, or operational formations/units? Two different questions.

Best,

Perhaps there could have been larger ideological reasons - perhaps massive war crimes during the Polish, Baltic and Winter War campaigns had become public knowledge in the West prior to Germanies Attack on Russia - resulting in the US and Britain to not providing as much or any Lend Lease to Russia and instead using those resources / and manpower to build more divisions / equip other allies.

Imagine if just a fraction of the Valentine Tanks, Hurricanes and other resources sent to Russia had instead been sent to Malta, North Africa and Malaya/Singapore and other allies / Theatres during 1941!

Also the US perhaps building a 1.5 Ocean Navy instead of a 2 Ocean one would allow for more Army Divisions?

US forces could have been much larger, but weren't for a few reasons:
1) To some degree there's a choice between fielding huge armies and building the stuff that those armies (and several others) need to keep going

2) It's not a straight geometric progression because every time you add another division you also have to add shipping and logistics capacity to move an support that division, as well as industrial capacity to equip them

3) A democracy not threatened with destruction/conquest has a finite threshold of pain/cost that it's likely to endure. America wouldn't long have tolerated a much higher level of sacrifice without political unrest.

4) A question of need. For most of the war, we had all of the forces that we could reasonably employ in the operations we were ready to undertake.

5) It takes time to grow leaders and logistical and training capacity. If we had suddenly formed 100 divisions in 1942, they'd spend a lot of their time sitting on their hands waiting to get trained, equipped, or transported to battle.

The 90 division army figure, although accurate in

The 90 division army figure, although accurate in a basic interpretation, overlooks the reality the US Army had a large number of non-divisional formations (brigades and groups) and units (regiments and battalions) which together were the equivalent of (at least) ~20 more divisions.

And it overlooks the minor reality of the USMC, which by the end of the war had more divisions in combat than any Western army but those of the US, UK, India (including its British elements), and the French.

Yes, the Marine Corps had more combat divisions in action by 1945 than the Australians, Canadians, Poles, Italians, and and the rest. Not combined, of course, but still...

And Marine Aviation was probably (at least) the seventh or eighth largest air force on the Allied side, after the USAAF, USN, RAF, RN/FAA, RCAF, RAAF, and (possibly) the AdA...

Which speaks to the large issue: ground forces vs air forces vs naval forces. The US was in a unique strategic position in terms of the logistics and sea power necessary to project power in Europe or Asia. Even Canada did not really approximate, since the Canadians could rely on Britain in Europe and didn't really deploy much (absent C Force) to Asia and the Pacific during the war.

Best,

Cryhavoc101 said:

Perhaps there could have been larger ideological reasons - perhaps massive war crimes during the Polish, Baltic and Winter War campaigns had become public knowledge in the West prior to Germanies Attack on Russia - resulting in the US and Britain to not providing as much or any Lend Lease to Russia and instead using those resources / and manpower to build more divisions / equip other allies.

Imagine if just a fraction of the Valentine Tanks, Hurricanes and other resources sent to Russia had instead been sent to Malta, North Africa and Malaya/Singapore and other allies / Theatres during 1941!

Also the US perhaps building a 1.5 Ocean Navy instead of a 2 Ocean one would allow for more Army Divisions?

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The problem with this idea is that many people assume that Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union was a favor we were doing for the Russians, or that FDR and Churchill had a soft spot for Stalin. Lend-Lease was not intended to be a favor to the Russians, it was in the Western Allies best interests. Every German killed on the Eastern Front was a German who couldn't fight American or British troops. If the USSR fought Germany less, then the Western Allies would have to fight Germany more, thus leading to higher casualties.

Not to mention the fact that it was pretty well known that Stalin was a ruthless dictator and the Soviet Union was a tyrannical police state. Maybe the exact number of his killings wasn't known, but neither FDR or Churchill had any illusions about the nature of Stalin's regime (yes, FDR too. Despite what some post-commentators have stated, Roosevelt was no more trusting of Stalin than Churchill).

100 divisions? Doesn't sound that much. Thats the same amount as used for Operation Bagration, Operation Barbarossa and Operation Overlord. I am sure there were operations in China during the second Sin-Japanese war of that size.

What the French army did in 1944/5 was man the divisions whose kit was being sent from the USA to europe otherwise the USA would have had to send more troops instead.

lionhead said:

100 divisions? Doesn't sound that much. Thats the same amount as used for Operation Bagration, Operation Barbarossa and Operation Overlord. I am sure there were operations in China during the second Sin-Japanese war of that size.

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I believe American divisions were very large - certainly larger than Soviet or Chinese divisions. Japanese divisions were even larger, if I remember correctly.