Did the Allies win WW2 mostly due to brute force?

Did the Allies win WW2 mostly due to brute force?

  • Yes

    Votes: 97 27.2%
  • No

    Votes: 99 27.8%
  • To a degree

    Votes: 160 44.9%

  • Total voters
    356
I'd relook at the numbers there. The Soviets had a 3:1 superiority over the Axis in the East in Summer 1942 and a slightly better than 3:1 superiority by November.

The US in 1942 got insanely ASB lucky at the battle of Midway, which seriously changed the naval paradigm in the Pacific for the rest of the war, while in the land fighting the Japanese were badly overstretched in the island campaigns. At Guadalcanal the Japanese were outnumbered 2:1 on the ground.

I am sort of the expert on Midway, Wiking. The Americans had no luck at all, not even in the decrypts which needed massive additional un credited Australian help (FRUMEL) to pull off. In air operations, Miles Browning probably KILLED more American pilots than the Japanese did, playing the part to Spruance what that incompetent flag signals officer did for Beatty at Jutland, when he botched the battlecruiser action. America's "luck" and it was not luck but skill, was having Spruance fix Browning's mistakes and having a competent Fletcher as an added insurance pad to bring off the dive bomber strike.

As for Japanese operations in the Solomon Islands which I am plowing through now in another thread; the Japanese barge war operations kept them competitive clear to Christmas on Guadalcanal. Too many people confuse the Guadalcanal air garrison with the line marines when touting combat noses on Guadalcanal island. In the front lines, the numbers were infantry even. And by front lines, when I add the air war, I include the Rabaul air garrison. There the Japanese HAVE SUPERIORITY.

Russian front, south the point of contact equation appears about the same. Here the Germans actually helped the Russians out with their Caucasus round trip to set up Stalingrad, but the mistake not-withstanding, the Russians needed skill to pull together the logistics required and they needed skill in the fighting troops to make it work. I don't take Mannstein as gospel any more now that we have the Russian records. The Russians were with their backs to the river, their mass de maneuver was too far north and they had to do some fast and fancy two stepping to move it to meet the German threat at that time and place. In February 43 it was 2 to 1 after the Germans were corked. Not in October 42 when it mattered.
 
The Soviets had a 3:1 superiority over the Axis in the East in Summer 1942 and a slightly better than 3:1 superiority by November.

While it is true that the Soviets had strategic numerical superiority in the summer of 1942, it certainly was not 3:1. Excluding Axis allies, it was 3 million German soldiers vs 5.2 million Soviet soldiers, a ratio of 1.7:1. Including Axis minors brings that up to just over 4 million men, a ratio of 1.3:1. Similarly, for November 5.6 million Soviet soldiers against 4.4 million Axis soldiers again produces a ratio of about 1.3:1.

The US in 1942 got insanely ASB lucky at the battle of Midway, which seriously changed the naval paradigm in the Pacific for the rest of the war,

That's the myth. In reality, the American victory at Midway comes down to good solid planning on the part of the Americans and egregiously bad planning on the part of the Japanese.

while in the land fighting the Japanese were badly overstretched in the island campaigns.

For which they had to blame their own poor strategic planning which sought to do too much with too little. The US actually encountered many of the same sorts of problems in regard to supply shipping at Guadalcanal as the Japanese did, but managed their resources better and hence overcame them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Uranus
The Soviets heavily outnumbered and outgunned all combined Axis forces during Uranus, many of which were strangled for supplies and were suffering badly from the winter. For some reason the strength column includes Italian and Hungarians forces, which were not involved in Operation Uranus, which means that German-Romanian forces were at least outnumbered 2.5:1.

And to assemble those levels of superiority, and increase them to 5:1 or even 10:1 on the key sectors, from a superiority of just 1.3:1 required the Soviets exercise every bit of operational maneuver expertise as the Germans had demonstrated in their earlier campaigns.
 
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I'd relook at the numbers there. The Soviets had a 3:1 superiority over the Axis in the East in Summer 1942 and a slightly better than 3:1 superiority by November.
The US in 1942 got insanely ASB lucky at the battle of Midway, which seriously changed the naval paradigm in the Pacific for the rest of the war, while in the land fighting the Japanese were badly overstretched in the island campaigns. At Guadalcanal the Japanese were outnumbered 2:1 on the ground.

Edit:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Uranus
The Soviets heavily outnumbered and outgunned all combined Axis forces during Uranus, many of which were strangled for supplies and were suffering badly from the winter. For some reason the strength column includes Italian and Hungarians forces, which were not involved in Operation Uranus, which means that German-Romanian forces were at least outnumbered 2.5:1.

Midway is in line with pre war US war gaming of carrier on carrier battles, and it’s not luck it’s good training. Luck would have been the Hornet group arriving or ? McLusky giving the right order.

Guadalcanal is ordered commuting the entire available US ground force in the face of a superior Navy in range of Japanese but not allied land based air.

I think the reference is to the Kotluban operations in the east, but it does need to be more specific.
 
That's the myth. In reality, the American victory at Midway comes down to good solid planning on the part of the Americans and egregiously bad planning on the part of the Japanese.

I would amend that to politics and Yamamoto's incompetence, ON. The IJA dissipated the IJN strike force by insisting on the Aleutians operation as a block action to protect Hokkaido. The Yamamoto incompetence part comes into play with Operation MO, which he laid on when his own staff told him that First Air Fleet needed a full training cycle to recover from the lunatic Indian Ocean Raid.

I agree with Parcells and Tully that frittering away First Air Fleet into packets when it should have been massed is an essential part of Midway often overlooked as prima defeatum, but we see that Yamamoto was not thinking clearly as early as Pearl Harbor when he used multiple task groups and multiple objectives out of mutual air support distance of each other in the same cockamamie operation. He is not the only Japanese admiral to be so "interesting" (Inoue at Coral Sea, same exact thing.), but he was supposed to be their best. What was Wake Island but a pre-signal to the Americans on how to beat those guys, if they so obligingly offered their throats to be cut in detail? Nimitz's genius was to recognize it early and act on that weakness.
 

Deleted member 1487

While it is true that the Soviets had strategic numerical superiority in the summer of 1942, it certainly was not 3:1. Excluding Axis allies, it was 3 million German soldiers vs 5.2 million Soviet soldiers, a ratio of 1.7:1. Including Axis minors brings that up to just over 4 million men, a ratio of 1.3:1. Similarly, for November 5.6 million Soviet soldiers against 4.4 million Axis soldiers again produces a ratio of about 1.3:1.
Going by Glantz's numbers the Soviets had about 9.5 million men of which >5.6 million were deployed at the front. Then he compares them against all Axis forces at various periods, not just the Axis forces at the front in a like to like comparison; he warped ratio then is still 1.5:1 in favor of the Soviets. He also has the Germans at about 2.5-2.6 Million TOTAL on the Eastern Front. Total Axis force including minor powers (not just the units at the front) were 3.7 million per When Titans Clashed. So he has about 5.6 million Soviets at the front vs. 3.7 million Axis forces in total in the East. Table C pp.302-3.
By November his warped ratio is 1.74:1 Soviets v Axis as the Germans had only 2.4 million men in the East in total at the time and total Axis forces were 3.5 million, again a number that doesn't distinguish between forces at the front vs. in the hospital or behind the lines like with the Soviet numbers he gives.
No matter which way you slice it strategically the Soviets had a pretty massive advantage, which meant operationally having major superiority during the winter fighting at Rzhev, during Uranus, and at Kholm.

That's the myth. In reality, the American victory at Midway comes down to good solid planning on the part of the Americans and egregiously bad planning on the part of the Japanese.
And the Japanese being caught with their pants down in an incredibly unlikely situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway#Attacks_on_the_Japanese_fleet

For which they had to blame their own poor strategic planning which sought to do too much with too little. The US actually encountered many of the same sorts of problems in regard to supply shipping at Guadalcanal as the Japanese did, but managed their resources better and hence overcame them.
Sure, but the US didn't have the sort of commitments the Japanese did all over Asia and the Pacific, while the US also had the British shipping fleet that they relied on pretty heavily in 1942. The Japanese ran on what they had and what they captured.
 
The Allies, particularly the British and Americans, played to their strengths in the strategy realm to cover their relative weaknesses in the tactical realm. While they weren't as good as the Germans in fluid encounter battles their materiel superiority made them virtually unbeatable in set piece battles.

So the answer: organise a series of set piece battles in such quick succession that the Germans never had a chance to fight an encounter battle at anything other than the lowest level.
 
IMO, in regards to the Soviet Union, whether the Soviets had an advantage of 1.3:1 or 1.7:1 or 3:1 is less materially important than the fact that it certainly wasn't the official fiction in Cold War movies and German generals' memoirs: the familiar portrayal where the Soviets have a 10:1 numerical advantage and only won because they used human (and T-34) wave tactics and Lend-Lease Studebaker trucks, and that the Germans only lost because they didn't have enough winter coats and Hitler stopped listening to his generals.
 

Deleted member 1487

I am sort of the expert on Midway, Wiking. The Americans had no luck at all, not even in the decrypts which needed massive additional un credited Australian help (FRUMEL) to pull off. In air operations, Miles Browning probably KILLED more American pilots than the Japanese did, playing the part to Spruance what that incompetent flag signals officer did for Beatty at Jutland, when he botched the battlecruiser action. America's "luck" and it was not luck but skill, was having Spruance fix Browning's mistakes and having a competent Fletcher as an added insurance pad to bring off the dive bomber strike.

As for Japanese operations in the Solomon Islands which I am plowing through now in another thread; the Japanese barge war operations kept them competitive clear to Christmas on Guadalcanal. Too many people confuse the Guadalcanal air garrison with the line marines when touting combat noses on Guadalcanal island. In the front lines, the numbers were infantry even. And by front lines, when I add the air war, I include the Rabaul air garrison. There the Japanese HAVE SUPERIORITY.
Catching the Japanese carrier fleet defenseless and rearming wasn't luck? Even the American commander thought of it as a huge gamble sending in small waves of aircraft, while the Japanese commander's dithering meant they were maximally vulnerable when the US aircraft showed up.

As to Guadalcanal, 2/3rds of Japanese losses were due to starvation and disease, which was the result of massive logistical failures. You can include the Rabaul air garrison, but the Japanese weren't able to mass their forces for a variety of reasons including logistics.

Russian front, south the point of contact equation appears about the same. Here the Germans actually helped the Russians out with their Caucasus round trip to set up Stalingrad, but the mistake not-withstanding, the Russians needed skill to pull together the logistics required and they needed skill in the fighting troops to make it work. I don't take Mannstein as gospel any more now that we have the Russian records. The Russians were with their backs to the river, their mass de maneuver was too far north and they had to do some fast and fancy two stepping to move it to meet the German threat at that time and place. In February 43 it was 2 to 1 after the Germans were corked. Not in October 42 when it mattered.
What are you basing your numbers on? When the Soviets attacked the forces just massed for Uranus, not Little Saturn, heavily outnumbered the Romanian-German forces. German forces in the Caucasus (Army Group A) had advanced into a logistical/strategic vacuum and as the Soviet fell back they fall back on their L-L via Iran supply hub.
Behind Soviet lines, east of the Don-Volga, they were largely without obstacles to their massing of supplies; in fact they had fallen back on their supply hubs while LL was increasing month by month. Besides the Germans were locked down due to their lack of supplies and exhaustion at Stalingrad, while the Romanians were a force with a fraction of the combat abilities of the Germans due to their lack of modern weapons and poor training. I don't know why you bring up Manstein's PoV given that we have the numbers from both sides about the situation. The Soviets had fallen back on their supply lines and were able to overmobilize their economy in part thanks to LL, while the Axis made a very serious strategic mistake and left themselves prostrate when the Soviet offensive started. So while the Soviets certainly were not without skill, the position the Axis had left them in required some epic level mistakes not to take advantage of.

What does October have to do with anything? Soviet forces within Stalingrad were basically crushed in that month. What mattered was what happened in November when Soviet flanking forces attacked, who were the Soviet reserves and outnumbered the Axis forces they attacked over 2:1.
 
And the Japanese being caught with their pants down in an incredibly unlikely situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway#Attacks_on_the_Japanese_fleet

Uh... no.

Spruance ordered the striking aircraft to proceed to target immediately, rather than waste time waiting for the strike force to assemble, since neutralizing enemy carriers was the key to the survival of his own task force.

This was his immediate command decision after Browning got into a fight with the captain of USS Enterprise over the air tasking order which Browning had BOTCHED. Spruance had to chart it out on his own plot board and do the math in his head and HE had to fix it. It was also about the time that Spruance finds out that Browning did not notify Hornet to join Enterprise in the strike on Nagumo. Hornet is notified about it after Browning is time outed at this point, so she is just beginning to get her own planes ready. That is an hours delay. Stanhope Ring, the Hornet strike leader is wrong briefed from the original Browning ATO which is not corrected on Hornet as it was on Enterprise (Mitscher is to blame.) and he, Stanhope gets lost over empty ocean. That fiasco is compounded in a later Browning ATO, also screwed up, which further involves the incredibly mendacious and incompetent Marc Mitscher again in the cruiser strike force fiasco which bedevils Spruance further. (the strike on Kurita).

You can read that in "The Shattered Sword" in the foot notes or in the US naval records.

You say the Americans had luck?
 
Going by Glantz's numbers the Soviets had about 9.5 million men of which >5.6 million were deployed at the front. Then he compares them against all Axis forces at various periods, not just the Axis forces at the front in a like to like comparison; he warped ratio then is still 1.5:1 in favor of the Soviets. He also has the Germans at about 2.5-2.6 Million TOTAL on the Eastern Front. Total Axis force including minor powers (not just the units at the front) were 3.7 million per When Titans Clashed. So he has about 5.6 million Soviets at the front vs. 3.7 million Axis forces in total in the East. Table C pp.302-3.

For your first sentence: Yeah, Glantz's numbers are somewhat different from the ones I pulled, although even they come out to 1.6:1 and not 3:1. Your second sentence is wholly incorrect: Glantz is comparing Soviet forces, both in total and at the front, against all Axis forces at the Eastern Front in a given period. He is NOT comparing them against all Axis forces in a given period like you are claiming, otherwise his numbers would be more then double what they were. If your gonna count the ~4 million Soviet soldiers who weren't at the front because they were performing administrative functions or garrison duty elsewhere, then we're gonna have to pull in the millions of German soldiers who were themselves performing administrative functions or garrison duty elsewhere, because otherwise you are the one not making a like to like comparison.

And the Japanese being caught with their pants down in an incredibly unlikely situation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway#Attacks_on_the_Japanese_fleet

No, it was not. As your own link points out, it was the result of Japanese doctrine and decisions already made:

Japanese carrier doctrine preferred the launching of fully constituted strikes rather than piecemeal attacks. Without confirmation of whether the American force included carriers (not received until 08:20), Nagumo's reaction was doctrinaire. In addition, the arrival of another land-based American air strike at 07:53 gave weight to the need to attack the island again. In the end, Nagumo decided to wait for his first strike force to land, then launch the reserve, which would by then be properly armed with torpedoes.

In the final analysis, it made no difference; Fletcher's carriers had launched their planes beginning at 07:00 (with Enterprise and Hornet having completed launching by 07:55, but Yorktown not until 09:08), so the aircraft that would deliver the crushing blow were already on their way. Even if Nagumo had not strictly followed carrier doctrine, he could not have prevented the launch of the American attack.

Nagumo was merely following his own military's doctrine and the American strike forces which dealt the relevant blows were already en-route. Everything else followed from them.

Sure, but the US didn't have the sort of commitments the Japanese did all over Asia and the Pacific, while the US also had the British shipping fleet that they relied on pretty heavily in 1942. The Japanese ran on what they had and what they captured.

The US if anything had more commitments then the Japanese did as they had to commit not just all over the Pacific, but also too Europe as well.
 

Ian_W

Banned
The Allies, particularly the British and Americans, played to their strengths in the strategy realm to cover their relative weaknesses in the tactical realm. While they weren't as good as the Germans in fluid encounter battles their materiel superiority made them virtually unbeatable in set piece battles.

So the answer: organise a series of set piece battles in such quick succession that the Germans never had a chance to fight an encounter battle at anything other than the lowest level.

Hi, Monty.
 
I find people argue a question with the word 'mostly' in it in absolute rather than relative terms, hence the Midway roundabout. The point about Midway isn't tactical, it's that even if the US got totally flogged they would have won the war, and not too much later than OTL.

Similarly while the Germans were the best tactically that doesn't make the US Army utterly useless tactically, nor does it mean that tactical superiority is the be all and end all.
 

Deleted member 1487

For your first sentence: Yeah, Glantz's numbers are somewhat different from the ones I pulled, although even they come out to 1.6:1 and not 3:1. Your second sentence is wholly incorrect: Glantz is comparing Soviet forces, both in total and at the front, against all Axis forces at the Eastern Front in a given period. He is NOT comparing them against all Axis forces in a given period like you are claiming, otherwise his numbers would be more then double what they were. If your gonna count the ~4 million Soviet soldiers who weren't at the front because they were performing administrative functions or garrison duty elsewhere, then we're gonna have to pull in the millions of German soldiers who were themselves performing administrative functions or garrison duty elsewhere, because otherwise you are the one not making a like to like comparison.
Glantz 9.5 million compared to 3.7 million Axis in the East in Summer 1942 is close to 3:1. But even looking at the breakdown he gives for the Soviet side (front vs. hospital vs. not at the front) is absent for the Axis number, which is all Axis forces in the region regardless if they are at the front, in the hospital, training behind the lines, occupying, etc. The Soviet not at the front numbers would be comparable to Axis units nominally in the East, but not at the front either, not Axis forces in on other fronts or on occupation duty out of the East; strategic reserve units that ultimately ended up in the East could arguably also be comparable to Soviet units off the front line, but those were relatively limited in 1942.

The problem too is that German force numbers quoted by Glantz for 1942 are the nominal paper numbers of what units should have had rather than what they actually had on hand, so not really comparable to the Soviet 'front strength' numbers. Of course it is probably most fair to count up all Allied forces in 1942 in a given month and compare them to all Axis forces to get a true idea of the strategic balance. Especially there the Axis were badly outnumbered.

The US if anything had more commitments then the Japanese did as they had to commit not just all over the Pacific, but also too Europe as well.
In 1942??? North Africa was only invaded in November and the USAAF didn't really launch their first mission in Europe until August. Even then their commitments were relatively minor. Through most of 1942 they committed more in the Pacific than they did to Europe, which was still well below what the Japanese had done in Asia and the Pacific.
 
Who cares about numbers? It's not as if they have a consistent bearing on outcomes, and its outcomes that win and lose wars.

For example in mid 1942 the Russians had 5 times as many planes as the Germans, but flew only 500 sorties per day whereas the Luftwaffe flew 2500 sorties with a fraction of the aircraft.
 
Did the Allies win WW2 mostly due to brute force (larger manpower and industrial capability) as opposed to superior skill and fighting prowess?
To some degree yes, but I'm not sure I'd say mostly.

Either way I don't think that's really a bad thing, ask the Italians how well relying on the ferocity of their soldiers and the mobility of their lighter divisions panned out for them.
 
I find people argue a question with the word 'mostly' in it in absolute rather than relative terms, hence the Midway roundabout. The point about Midway isn't tactical, it's that even if the US got totally flogged they would have won the war, and not too much later than OTL.

We could argue that Midway would have been replaced by something else, but the key about Midway from the operational and strategic level, which is why I think it is decisive is that Nimitz and crew killed the First Air Fleet when the Japanese offered it up far earlier than it should have been if the Japanese had any strategic sense or knew about the naval operational art. My beef with US operations in the same vein is the political interference from Washington that prevented Coral Sea from being a clean sweep, too. The Doolittle Raid scattered US carriers the same way Yamamoto's goofy operations scattered Japanese carriers.

Similarly while the Germans were the best tactically that doesn't make the US Army utterly useless tactically, nor does it mean that tactical superiority is the be all and end all.

I will dispute that the Germans in 1944 were tactically the best. I can say that their Normandy campaign was a "how not to do it" from start to finish. Certainly the British were able to bemuse the Germans long enough to set up Cobra. And to be fair, it was an infantry manpower shortage that mostly made Caen such a shambles, (Although I think British planning was a little slack there, too. Poor Canadians.)

Defense in 44 on was something on the upswing against offense and yet the Germans could not do it at the op-art level, or recognize it when it was done to them. Bulge (44) and Vistula (45), two flips of the same coin.
 
Glantz 9.5 million compared to 3.7 million Axis in the East in Summer 1942 is close to 3:1.

I'll just requote myself on that:

If your gonna count the ~4 million Soviet soldiers who weren't at the front because they were performing administrative functions or garrison duty elsewhere, then we're gonna have to pull in the millions of German soldiers who were themselves performing administrative functions or garrison duty elsewhere

But even looking at the breakdown he gives for the Soviet side (front vs. hospital vs. not at the front) is absent for the Axis number, which is all Axis forces in the region regardless if they are at the front, in the hospital, training behind the lines, occupying, etc.

That latter assertion is actually not clear if that is the case. It is quite possible that the Axis numbers exclude those in the hospital and in rear-area garrison duty, which could account for the discrepancy between my numbers and his (at least, as far as the Axis side is concerned).

The problem too is that German force numbers quoted by Glantz for 1942 are the nominal paper numbers of what units should have had rather than what they actually had on hand,

Blatantly false. Glantz's numbers are pretty clearly about what the Germans had on hand. They are too low by around a million-and-a-half for what the Germans should have on hand according to their TO&Es.

In 1942???

Yes. In addition to supporting Torch and Guadacanal, the US had to field convoys to Britain, to Russia through three different routes, to Egypt, to India, to Australia, and to operation bases throughout the rest of the Pacific... just to name a few. The Americans very much felt this at Guadalcanal. Supporting the operation was a nightmare for the Americans, and in the words of Admiral Turner "we were living from one logistic crisis to another." When Nimitz asked Turner how many transports and cargo ships he could make available to support MacArthur's upcoming offensive operations, Turner through a fit, explaining that he barely had enough ships as it was, and he certainly didn't have enough to give any to anyone else. For all that Guadalcanal may have been a logistical nightmare for the Japanese, don't for a moment think that the Americans just blithely shipped men and equipment thousands of miles on unlimited numbers of ships without a logistical care in the world.
 
In 1942??? North Africa was only invaded in November and the USAAF didn't really launch their first mission in Europe until August. Even then their commitments were relatively minor. Through most of 1942 they committed more in the Pacific than they did to Europe, which was still well below what the Japanese had done in Asia and the Pacific.

What about the New Guinea campaign; Southwest Pacific; Australia; China-India-Burma [Ledo Road]; Lendlease to Russia; Iran operations, South American operations; Iceland; the weather war; ALCAN operations, etc. The Japanese committed about 54 division equivalents, 1 air force and 2 strike fleets to the Pacific.

For Europe...

the US had committed the Atlantic fleet, equipped 1 air force, and put the equivalent of an army group (Russians) on wheels plus had sent technical specialists to rationalize railroads and factories in three allied countries, supplied 3000 sets of machine tools 100,000 trucks 1 million tonnes of food, 100 freighters (and crews) (to the Russians) and supplied oil and explosives besides. What is this in 1942, but not committing force on force in Europe and that far in excess of what the Japanese (or the Germans) are doing anywhere?
 
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Catching the Japanese carrier fleet defenseless and rearming wasn't luck? Even the American commander thought of it as a huge gamble sending in small waves of aircraft, while the Japanese commander's dithering meant they were maximally vulnerable when the US aircraft showed up.

No it was not luck. Spruance had been told the Tone plane had spotted him and he had to act. That was actually Fletcher who had been spotted, but surprise was gone. Spruance knew plane characteristics and to within the quarter hour how soon Nagumo's decks would be fouled from the Tomonaga strike return from Midway. Midway was talking to him, too. It was cold blooded pre-meditated murder calculated down to the minute for Spruance as he spent pilots and planes to commit that murder of the First Air Fleet. You should read my account of how he dressed down Miles Browning in my thread. He said as much to Browning when Browning accosted his admiral about a Honolulu newspaper Spruance read and the article about a bank robber wanted for murder. Spruance told Browning that the bank robber and he, Spruance, were doing the same thing, planning a crime to get what they wanted. The bank robber reminded Spruance of Browning because as Spruance said; "the bank robber was not good at his job and neither are you."

If the Japanese were surprised by Spruance, that was their fault.

As to Guadalcanal, 2/3rds of Japanese losses were due to starvation and disease, which was the result of massive logistical failures. You can include the Rabaul air garrison, but the Japanese weren't able to mass their forces for a variety of reasons including logistics.

Ah, that was due to Cactus and the US and Australian navies winning the barge war in December 42.

What are you basing your numbers on? When the Soviets attacked the forces just massed for Uranus, not Little Saturn, heavily outnumbered the Romanian-German forces. German forces in the Caucasus (Army Group A) had advanced into a logistical/strategic vacuum and as the Soviet fell back they fall back on their L-L via Iran supply hub.

Behind Soviet lines, east of the Don-Volga, they were largely without obstacles to their massing of supplies; in fact they had fallen back on their supply hubs while LL was increasing month by month. Besides the Germans were locked down due to their lack of supplies and exhaustion at Stalingrad, while the Romanians were a force with a fraction of the combat abilities of the Germans due to their lack of modern weapons and poor training. I don't know why you bring up Manstein's PoV given that we have the numbers from both sides about the situation. The Soviets had fallen back on their supply lines and were able to overmobilize their economy in part thanks to LL, while the Axis made a very serious strategic mistake and left themselves prostrate when the Soviet offensive started. So while the Soviets certainly were not without skill, the position the Axis had left them in required some epic level mistakes not to take advantage of.

What does October have to do with anything? Soviet forces within Stalingrad were basically crushed in that month. What mattered was what happened in November when Soviet flanking forces attacked, who were the Soviet reserves and outnumbered the Axis forces they attacked over 2:1.

October the Russians were massed in front of Moscow. They had to move all those guys south across an active front on the Russian transport network. In Russia in October? Weather is what I always look at when I want to know why some "genius" like Napoleon or Lee gets his butt kicked. Rain at Borodino. Wet grass at Gettysburg, Mud when Zhukov starts those tanks south, and rain squalls when Fletcher beats Nagumo at Eastern Solomons. By the way, those rain squalls at Eastern Solomons? Blinded the Americans' radar and optics. And yet Fletcher still won.... amazing.
 

Deleted member 1487

What about the New Guinea campaign; Southwest Pacific; Australia; China-India-Burma [Ledo Road]; Lendlease to Russia; Iran operations, South American operations; Iceland; the weather war; ALCAN operations, etc. The Japanese committed about 54 division equivalents, 1 air force and 2 strike fleets to the Pacific.

For Europe...

the US had committed the Atlantic fleet, equipped 1 air force, and put the equivalent of an army group (Russians) on wheels plus had sent technical specialists to rationalize railroads and factories in three allied countries, supplied 3000 sets of machine tools 100,000 trucks 1 million tonnes of food, 100 freighters (and crews) (to the Russians) and supplied oil and explosives besides. What is this in 1942, but not committing force on force in Europe and that far in excess of what the Japanese (or the Germans) are doing anywhere?
How many men were committed to Europe by the Americans in 1942? The US left the majority of the Asian theater to the Brits in 1942, same with the Atlantic. US Iranian participation was limited throughout 1942. In 1942 the US also did not supply the USSR with 100k trucks, about half of that for both 1941-42. Meanwhile the Japanese had to garrison and occupy Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, Indochina, China itself, attack and occupy the Phillipines and Indonesia, invade Burma, attack most of the Pacific islands to up Midway, while threatening and bombing Australia, etc. By comparison in most of 1942 if not all of it including the invasion of North Africa the Japanese moved far more men and material around their area of operations. 1943 would be a different story as US production and military expansion kicked into high gear, but 1942 was their lowest level of commitment compared to the rest of their war and what the Japanese were doing at the same time.


October the Russians were massed in front of Moscow. They had to move all those guys south across an active front on the Russian transport network. In Russia in October? Weather is what I always look at when I want to know why some "genius" like Napoleon or Lee gets his butt kicked. Rain at Borodino. Wet grass at Gettysburg, Mud when Zhukov starts those tanks south, and rain squalls when Fletcher beats Nagumo at Eastern Solomons. By the way, those rain squalls at Eastern Solomons? Blinded the Americans' radar and optics. And yet Fletcher still won.... amazing.
No. They massed part of their forces in front of Moscow and attacked in December for Operation Mars. They had been building up around Stalingrad for many months prior. Moscow reserves started moving to Stalingrad in July. The battle of Kalach in late July involved all the reserve armies being built up in 1942 around Moscow. Uranus forces started building up in September after the fighting for the city started. Soviet units did not move by road all the way from Moscow in October. Plus river shipping was extensively used by the Soviets before the Volga froze.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboats_on_the_Volga_River#World_War_II_and_beyond
During the Great Patriotic War, river transport carried approximately 200 million tons of cargo for the front and the rear.
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