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

Ian_W

Banned
Except for Normandy all the examples were of the defenders outnumbering the attackers and the attackers having worse supply, with the exception of Moscow in October, but the weather was a serious factor there. Normandy was also proof of the Allies being able to overpower fix positions by masses of greater firepower and manpower. Anyway there were any number of factors in each of those situations beyond defensive terrain lines that determined the outcome.


I'd really double check on the Bagration offensive. The Soviet plan was sound as was their deception, but their success and in fact even their successful deception efforts were a function of their grossly larger numbers and the Allied offensive in Normandy drawing off the German strategic reserve. Operation Point Blank was mostly a function of the greater reserves of the Allied air forces grinding the Luftwaffe down to dust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointblank_directive

Wiking,

On the German surrender, there were 400 000 German troops in Norway.

Some of them being used on more active fronts might possibly have been a plan.

Regarding Bagration, to realise how stupid you sound, I've edited your comment to be about another battle.

"I'd really double check on the 1940 Ardennes offensive. The German plan was sound as was their deception, but their success and in fact even their successful deception efforts were a function of their grossly larger numbers and the German offensive in Belgium drawing off the Allied strategic reserve. "
 
If the German Army had been half as competent as some of the "well, they only lost because of numbers" folks claim they would have taken Leningrad, and Moscow, and Stalingrad. They would have held along the Rhine or the Dnieper or any of the other superb defensive positions that mark Western/Central Europe. They failed at all of them.

Case in point.


Even Stalin can learn how to beat them. Short version: Russians figured out about the German 480 kilometer supply reach limitation. The Germans keep swinging at nothing trying to encircle empty steppe, burning up gas, wearing out troops and machines and not learning what the Russians are actually doing to them. The Germans did not learn and adapt.
 
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Deleted member 1487

The British penetrated Enigma and ran the entire German agent "network" in Britain out of MI5. This isn't a brute force-related problem and it is a combined intelligence failure of unprecedented gargantuan proportions. "Tremendous" Axis intelligence failed to gauge the strength of the British air force. In contrast, the Dowding system dramatically improved British ability to concentrate forces in the air.

German intelligence did manage some early success against British convoy traffic although I suppose this should probably be more than offset done by the damage to German shipping and naval forces by the Allies.
The Germans also broke the British naval codes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-Dienst
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_code_breaking_in_World_War_II
Plus they rolled up the British intel network in Europe pre-war leading to the creation of the SOE:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venlo_Incident

The Germans of course had their major failures as well, increasing from 1940 on. The Germans actually had very good data on the RAF's strength in 1940 right before the Battle of Britain per "Most Dangerous Enemy", with their failure being about the increase in production achieved by the Brits during the battle. The Dowding System was pretty much unknowable to anyone outside of the British. Also despite the British later success with the Double Cross system, they were being played for a while by a German spy, Arthur Owens, who was feeding the Germans reasonably accurate intel since before the war. As I said though British/Allied intel coups only started stacking up during the war and overcame the Germans ones by 1942.

So in other words, the Nazis didn't encounter logistics problems as long as they stayed within a day's drive of their borders. Whoop-de-doo.

Wouldn't want to wear out the horses, I suppose.
Everyone had that problem. They were able to cope with it to a point when operating on Western European infrastructure (same as the Allies), but the situation in the East was a different order problem, one that the Wallies never had to deal with in Europe and where they did they only were able to overcome it with huge investments in material that they were afforded by the US production system. What the British did with the North Africa rail system was a function of US LL and lacking any other front in Europe. Meanwhile the Germans had to effectively rebuild the entire Soviet rail system behind their lines in the face of Soviet partisan attacks and continued operations at the front. Show me where the Allies had to cope with that.

The Allies are sending equipment thousands of miles from the factory across the ocean to England across the ocean to France through occupied territory to the advancing front lines. The Germans couldn't manage to send both clothing and bullets to the Moscow front simultaneously.
Shipping material is actually quite a bit easier/cost effective than railing or driving it on land. Especially when you have the US production system able to out produce everyone in the world. You do realize with the situation in front of Moscow there was the wee issue of Soviet infrastructure being incompatible with the rest of Europe by design. The Wallies didn't have that problem in 1944-45 and they were out of gas by the German border despite holding the Channel ports and having ungodly amounts of everything.

Wiking,

On the German surrender, there were 400 000 German troops in Norway.

Some of them being used on more active fronts might possibly have been a plan.

Regarding Bagration, to realise how stupid you sound, I've edited your comment to be about another battle.

"I'd really double check on the 1940 Ardennes offensive. The German plan was sound as was their deception, but their success and in fact even their successful deception efforts were a function of their grossly larger numbers and the German offensive in Belgium drawing off the Allied strategic reserve. "
How many of those 400,000 were combat troops? They were there because of how critical Norway was to their war effort; besides the Swedish iron ore issue there was a few mines in Norway that provided the Germans were minerals not available elsewhere, especially Molybdenum. Then there was the ability to cut off Uboat operations if Norway fell and potentially invade Germany via Denmark.


Regarding Bagration, to realise how stupid you sound, I've edited your comment to be about another battle.
Classy as always Ian.

"I'd really double check on the 1940 Ardennes offensive. The German plan was sound as was their deception, but their success and in fact even their successful deception efforts were a function of their grossly larger numbers and the German offensive in Belgium drawing off the Allied strategic reserve. "
If only you were right about the numbers. Thing is the Germans were outnumbered by the Allies in 1940.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_France
Strength
Germany
: 141 divisions[1]
7,378 guns[1]
2,445 tanks[1]

Germany had mobilised 4,200,000 men of the Heer, 1,000,000 of the Luftwaffe, 180,000 of the Kriegsmarine, and 100,000 of the Waffen-SS. When consideration is made for those in Poland, Denmark and Norway, the Army had 3,000,000 men available for the offensive on 10 May 1940. These manpower reserves were formed into 157 divisions. Of these, 135 were earmarked for the offensive, including 42 reserve divisions. The German forces in the west in May and June deployed some 2,439 tanks and 7,378 guns.[56] In 1939–40, 45 percent of the army was at least 40 years old, and 50 percent of all the soldiers had just a few weeks' training. The German Army was far from fully motorised; just 10 percent of their army was motorised in 1940 and could muster only 120,000 vehicles, compared to the 300,000 of the French Army. The British had the most enviable contingent of motorised forces.[57] Most of the German logistical transport consisted of horse-drawn vehicles.[58] Only 50 percent of the German divisions available in 1940 were combat ready, often being more poorly equipped than their equivalents in the British and French Armies, or even as well as the German Army of 1914. In the spring of 1940, the German Army was semi-modern. A small number of the best-equipped and "elite divisions were offset by many second and third rate divisions".[59]

Allies: 144 divisions
13,974 guns
3,383–4,071 French tanks[1][3]

France mobilised about one-third of the male population between the ages of 20 and 45, bringing the strength of its armed forces to 5,000,000.[72] Only 2,240,000 of these served in army units in the north. The British contributed a total strength of 897,000 men in 1939, rising to 1,650,000 by June 1940. In May, it numbered only 500,000 men, including reserves. Dutch and Belgian manpower reserves amounted to 400,000 and 650,000, respectively.[73]
So the Allies had at least had parity if not superiority in manpower and certainly more tanks. Twice the artillery. Aircraft numbers are odd, because the German count includes gliders and non-combat aircraft, while the Allied side does not AFAIK.

Meanwhile for Bagration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bagration
German Strength Initially:
Frieser:
486,493 personnel[1]
118 tanks[2]
452 assault guns[2]
3,236 field guns and howitzers[2]
920 aircraft[2]
In total:
Soviet sources:[3]
1,036,760 personnel
800 tanks
530 assault guns
10,090 guns
1,000–1,300 aircraft

Soviets Initially:

Frieser:
1,670,300 personnel
3,841 tanks[2]
1,977 assault guns[2]
32,718 guns, rocket launchers and mortars[2]
7,799 aircraft[2]
In total:
Frieser:
2,500,000 personnel
6,000 tanks and assault guns[2]
45,000 guns, rocket launchers and mortars[2]
8,000 aircraft[2]
Glantz and House:[4]
1,670,300 personnel
5,818 tanks
32,968 guns and mortars
7,790 aircraft[5]

Even at the peak during the offensive the Soviets outnumbered the Axis 2.5:1 in manpower and many more times that in tanks, artillery, aircraft, etc.
 
Even at the peak during the offensive the Soviets outnumbered the Axis 2.5:1 in manpower and many more times that in tanks, artillery, aircraft, etc.

So to cut a long violin sonata short you are saying that the Soviets were better at the operational art than the Germans as they were better allocating resources from their 5 million men than the Germans were from their 3 million on the Eastern Front?

Yeah the allies all of them did in the course of the war turn out to be better at least some aspects of fighting than the Germans, it is why they won.
 

Deleted member 1487

So to cut a long violin sonata short you are saying that the Soviets were better at the operational art than the Germans as they were better allocating resources from their 5 million men than the Germans were from their 3 million on the Eastern Front?
No, they had more men across the front. In mid-1944 they had about 6.5 million men at the front (10 million total per Glantz) compared to 2.4 million Germans. 2.7-3:1 depending on which quarter of 1944 you're looking at.
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/2011/11/strength-and-loss-data-eastern-front.html

Not really any serious art to massing as many men as your average overall strength advantage.

Yeah the allies all of them did in the course of the war turn out to be better at least some aspects of fighting than the Germans, it is why they won.
In some ways sure. In terms of having a large numerical advantage and using it, they did that too. It worked even if it was highly costly.

Look guys, I'm not trying to argue 'it was just numbers' but let's also not pretend that it wasn't a major factor. Plus don't push back so hard on the Wehraboo narrative that you end up creating new fictions and biases.
 
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No, they had more men across the front. In mid-1944 they had about 6.5 million men at the front (10 million total per Glantz) compared to 2.4 million Germans. 2.7-3:1 depending on which quarter of 1944 you're looking at.
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/2011/11/strength-and-loss-data-eastern-front.html

Not really any serious art to massing as many men as your average overall strength advantage.


In some ways sure. In terms of having a large numerical advantage and using it, they did that too. It worked even if it was highly costly.

Historiography is not your strength

I have the following table from Axis History forum user Qvist :

So the source for your source is a forum poster from another forum

The German figures are a bit of work in progress, and should not be relied upon to be exactly correct, but they are not much off. Unlike the Soviet figures they include no air forces, but that should be more than outweighed by the fact that they are Iststärke,...

From Qvist himself, tying himself in knots there asking that people to not hold him accountable for missing a lot of German soldiery but to take those figures as gospel because they suit his argument...hum.
 
If 'brute force' is taken to mean superiority in manpower and resources, then it played a role, but that seriously downplays the strides that both the Western Allies and Soviets had made in both operational and tactical warfare throughout the war. In the case of the British indeed, as someone else mentioned, their manpower concerns during the war meant that their victories relied on 'brute force' to an even lesser extent.
 

CalBear

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Donor
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No, they had more men across the front. In mid-1944 they had about 6.5 million men at the front (10 million total per Glantz) compared to 2.4 million Germans. 2.7-3:1 depending on which quarter of 1944 you're looking at.
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/2011/11/strength-and-loss-data-eastern-front.html

Not really any serious art to massing as many men as your average overall strength advantage.


In some ways sure. In terms of having a large numerical advantage and using it, they did that too. It worked even if it was highly costly.

Look guys, I'm not trying to argue 'it was just numbers' but let's also not pretend that it wasn't a major factor. Plus don't push back so hard on the Wehraboo narrative that you end up creating new fictions and biases.
Of course there is an art to massing troops, arguably it is THE Art of modern warfare. It is called logistics. Really doesn't matter if you have a 2.5:1 advantage if your troops run out of fuel and ammunition. Not incidentally German logistics were pathetic compared to the Allies. Sure the WAllies had a huge advantage in vehicles in the West, they also had come up with a fairly brilliant plan to get fuel TO those vehicles, although it did not quite anticipate just how quickly, and on how wide a front, the Heer's defensive lines would rupture after the Breakout from the bocage country. The "brute force" Red Army managed to keep that simply huge force supplied with beans, bullets and gas while in near constant contact AND while pursuing an exceptionally resource intensive strategy of hitting anything that even appeared that it might, at some point, have been exposed the color of field gray with a 30 minute mass artillery barrage.

Remarkably German logistics CONTINUED to suck while they were retreating closer to their supply sources.
 
The Germans of course had their major failures as well, increasing from 1940 on. The Germans actually had very good data on the RAF's strength in 1940 right before the Battle of Britain per "Most Dangerous Enemy", with their failure being about the increase in production achieved by the Brits during the battle. The Dowding System was pretty much unknowable to anyone outside of the British. Also despite the British later success with the Double Cross system, they were being played for a while by a German spy, Arthur Owens, who was feeding the Germans reasonably accurate intel since before the war. As I said though British/Allied intel coups only started stacking up during the war and overcame the Germans ones by 1942.

So on the one we have a naval code broken for a period of time, a few spies rolled up, and one effective double agent.

And on the other we have the deconstruction of the principal German encryption system and the turning of the entire German intelligence apparatus in England.

I mean, I don't want to jump too far into the "Garbo made D-Day possible!!!!" mythos that seems to have sprung up in recent years thanks to some TV documentaries, but it doesn't really seem like the two are operating on the same scale here.

Plus it's a little unsporting to judge with the benefit of hindsight, but it's worth noting the dramatic intelligence failures at the core of both the Battle of Britain and the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Everyone had that problem. They were able to cope with it to a point when operating on Western European infrastructure (same as the Allies), but the situation in the East was a different order problem, one that the Wallies never had to deal with in Europe and where they did they only were able to overcome it with huge investments in material that they were afforded by the US production system. What the British did with the North Africa rail system was a function of US LL and lacking any other front in Europe. Meanwhile the Germans had to effectively rebuild the entire Soviet rail system behind their lines in the face of Soviet partisan attacks and continued operations at the front. Show me where the Allies had to cope with that.

The Allies had to build a temporary port system to compensate for the lack of captured ports. And with respect, I think you're underestimating the difficulty that goes into maintaining a fighting force thousands of miles away from the factories just because the Allies made it look easy. I don't recall the Germans engaging in any sort of logistical innovations on par with the Mulberry Harbours before launching off into the Soviet Union. Instead they seem to have tried to brute-force a solution through railway rebuilding and lots of horses.

And no, before you ask, I have no idea what such innovations might be. But then, I'm not the one who chose to launch the invasion. It's not my problem. Arguably this might be something you'd want to sort out BEFORE invading the Soviet Union.

Look, before this goes any further, I think we really should be clear what we're arguing about here, if anything, because my point is not that the Allies were perfect, it's just to me that the question of "Did the Allies win through brute force or something else?" isn't really useful because it's an either-or question. The Allies were simply bigger. They had more resources. They had more people. But if "brute force" simply means throwing Asiatic hordes or cheap American tanks against mechanized German divisions until a breakthrough appears, then I would object to that characterization because I think it oversimplifies the level of Allied sophistication. Conversely, the Germans came up surprisingly short in a number of these same areas and their capabilities have been somewhat blown out of proportion ever since, I suppose stemming from their lucky roll of the dice in France.
 

Deleted member 1487

Of course there is an art to massing troops, arguably it is THE Art of modern warfare. It is called logistics. Really doesn't matter if you have a 2.5:1 advantage if your troops run out of fuel and ammunition. Not incidentally German logistics were pathetic compared to the Allies. Sure the WAllies had a huge advantage in vehicles in the West, they also had come up with a fairly brilliant plan to get fuel TO those vehicles, although it did not quite anticipate just how quickly, and on how wide a front, the Heer's defensive lines would rupture after the Breakout from the bocage country.
What did the Red Ball Express do that the Grosstransport Raum trucks didn't? Or the Soviets for that matter.
The Germans ran out of men before supplies in Normandy in part thanks to having to fight on three land fronts, while the Wallied troops were increasing in strength in France every week. In the East the Soviets outnumbered their foe by at least 2.5:1 if not 3:1 as of Summer 1944, especially as the German strategic reserve was deployed to Normandy.

The "brute force" Red Army managed to keep that simply huge force supplied with beans, bullets and gas while in near constant contact AND while pursuing an exceptionally resource intensive strategy of hitting anything that even appeared that it might, at some point, have been exposed the color of field gray with a 30 minute mass artillery barrage.
You do realize this is hardly true. The Soviets were able to mass huge artillery, but after the initial breakthrough they were left behind as they weren't able to motorize everything, while the mobile work was largely done by a limited number of mechanized units relying on L-L supplied trucks (captured Axis stuff too to a limited degree) and air support. The Soviets often ran out of supplies in their advance too, which is primarily what stopped them as Bagration petered out. Contrary to the memes about Soviet supply fecundity they did actually have to be sparing of their stocks and weren't at the Wallied level of expenditure. German units that fought in the East and West said they had never encountered any artillery attacks as bad as they experienced in Normandy in the East.

Remarkably German logistics CONTINUED to suck while they were retreating closer to their supply sources.
What are you talking about? In 1944 moving the supplies to the front was the least of the issues the Germans had, the problem was making supplies and fuel under the bomber offensive. During Bagration there was partisan attacks on supply lines which disrupted things and wasn't specifically a problem of poor logistical planning.

Historiography is not your strength

I have the following table from Axis History forum user Qvist :

So the source for your source is a forum poster from another forum

The German figures are a bit of work in progress, and should not be relied upon to be exactly correct, but they are not much off. Unlike the Soviet figures they include no air forces, but that should be more than outweighed by the fact that they are Iststärke,...

From Qvist himself, tying himself in knots there asking that people to not hold him accountable for missing a lot of German soldiery but to take those figures as gospel because they suit his argument...hum.
Um I think you missed the operative phrasing there. There isn't a mission 1 million men or even 300,000 to add that would alter the basic number of men. So what is your point?
 

Deleted member 1487

So on the one we have a naval code broken for a period of time, a few spies rolled up, and one effective double agent.

And on the other we have the deconstruction of the principal German encryption system and the turning of the entire German intelligence apparatus in England.

I mean, I don't want to jump too far into the "Garbo made D-Day possible!!!!" mythos that seems to have sprung up in recent years thanks to some TV documentaries, but it doesn't really seem like the two are operating on the same scale here.

Plus it's a little unsporting to judge with the benefit of hindsight, but it's worth noting the dramatic intelligence failures at the core of both the Battle of Britain and the invasion of the Soviet Union.
K. I never said the Allied successes weren't bigger in the end, just that the Axis ones earlier on where greater until the intelligence war flipped on the Axis in 1941-42 and then they lost it badly. In much the same way that people complain about the Germans writing the history of their war, the Allied intel services did the same and left out their failures and Axis successes. Max Hasting's book 'The Secret war', among other papers and books on the subject, does a decent job pointing out the successes and failures of all sides in the conflict.

The Allies had to build a temporary port system to compensate for the lack of captured ports. And with respect, I think you're underestimating the difficulty that goes into maintaining a fighting force thousands of miles away from the factories just because the Allies made it look easy. I don't recall the Germans engaging in any sort of logistical innovations on par with the Mulberry Harbours before launching off into the Soviet Union. Instead they seem to have tried to brute-force a solution through railway rebuilding and lots of horses.

And no, before you ask, I have no idea what such innovations might be. But then, I'm not the one who chose to launch the invasion. It's not my problem. Arguably this might be something you'd want to sort out BEFORE invading the Soviet Union.
The Mulberry harbors weren't really that great and were washed out in a storm early on; most supplies were just delivered straight to the beach as they were in Sicily.
The Allies were able to do what they did because of the enormous capacity of the US to produce shipping and other materials. Hats off to their effort.
The Germans didn't need a technological innovation to do logistics on the ground, they had their organization one, which was motorizing their supply apparatus to cut loose somewhat of rail line limitations. At that point nothing like it had been tried before.

Look, before this goes any further, I think we really should be clear what we're arguing about here, if anything, because my point is not that the Allies were perfect, it's just to me that the question of "Did the Allies win through brute force or something else?" isn't really useful because it's an either-or question. The Allies were simply bigger. They had more resources. They had more people. But if "brute force" simply means throwing Asiatic hordes or cheap American tanks against mechanized German divisions until a breakthrough appears, then I would object to that characterization because I think it oversimplifies the level of Allied sophistication. Conversely, the Germans came up surprisingly short in a number of these same areas and their capabilities have been somewhat blown out of proportion ever since, I suppose stemming from their lucky roll of the dice in France.
I agree with you, though recently it seems that there has been an overcorrection in the narrative that stretches the truth beyond the breaking point.
 
There isn't a mission 1 million men or even 300,000 to add that would alter the basic number of men. So what is your point?

Actually on the German there is very really the chance that he is ignoring 300,000-1,000,000 men so yes that is precisely my point. While I suspect he is probably shaving somewhat closer to the lower figure off the German numbers he is rather upping the apparent size of Soviet ground forces by about a million men by folding in the air forces troops. It is that sort of tilting the image that is one by far and away one of the most annoying features of "Brute Force" apologists for Axis defeat.

I do realise that as pointed the main point is that the Soviets were able to organise the logistics to swiftly concentrate large numbers of troops despite most of those troops being as reliant on horses to tow their artillery and a chunk of their supplies as the Germans but it is the kind of shifting important details and not only being less than open about but then trying to imply those evil pernicious Allies and associates are under counting their forces which really annoys me.
 
If anyone here can acknowledged that allied commanders, logistics, military hardware, operational doctrine, and intelligence apparatus were on par with or better than their German opponent, what exactly is there to argue? In most all areas which can be classified as "quality", the allies were at or better than Germany. The Germans were worse in many respects, and it taking the allies the better part of three years to defeat a modern industrial juggernaut fully mobilized in a total war shows just how outclassed they really were. To go from the stunning victories of France and Barbarossa by the end of 1941 which saw the Nazi regime dominant on the European continent, to the complete dismemberment and ruin of a nation state which scrapped the bottom of its barrel to fight on until the bitter end shows just how outclassed they became relative to the allies in not just material production, but all those technical qualities which put that production to a use which saw the Nazi regime go from an entity which stretched from the Atlantic coast and within sight of the Kremlin, to the fragmented nation which it became for half a century. All of this took three years. In one year, through all of the strategic blunders of Case Blue, Soviet intelligence deception prior to Uranus, the resultant better concentration of material forces, and an operational and strategic theory which baited the German High Command straight through all of the aforementioned blunders, the Soviets dealt a crushing defeat to Germany in the East with a material force which was not even greater in number.

Where was the purported German quality during this time? The Soviet position of 1942 was most certainly not one of material abundance relative to the Germans in any respect, yet the year ended with the Soviets in a much better position then they had been at the start of it.

The Germans didn't get overwhelmed by the brute force of the Soviet war machine from their previous position of dominance and strategic initiative during the year of 1942. They just sucked and kept loosing while they should have been winning, and started loosing even harder when they should have been loosing.
 
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CalBear

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Except for Normandy all the examples were of the defenders outnumbering the attackers and the attackers having worse supply, with the exception of Moscow in October, but the weather was a serious factor there. Normandy was also proof of the Allies being able to overpower fix positions by masses of greater firepower and manpower. Anyway there were any number of factors in each of those situations beyond defensive terrain lines that determined the outcome.


I'd really double check on the Bagration offensive. The Soviet plan was sound as was their deception, but their success and in fact even their successful deception efforts were a function of their grossly larger numbers and the Allied offensive in Normandy drawing off the German strategic reserve. Operation Point Blank was mostly a function of the greater reserves of the Allied air forces grinding the Luftwaffe down to dust.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointblank_directive



Except this isn't true. The Axis had tremendous counter intel and regular intel successes in 1938-42 against the Allies and it is when that advantage broke down and the Allies scored their successes that the Axis really fell apart. Logistics largely worked just fine for the European Axis until they miscalculated Barbarossa pretty badly; the book "Blitzkrieg Legend" gets into the logistic planning for the 1940 offensive and it was actually pretty darn well planned. The issues cropped up after when the Germans got victory disease and though radical maneuver would solve all issues, which history proved it did not. Of course the Allies had their own problems of logistics planning in western Europe in 1944, which was partially dealt with through expensive masses of material thrown at the problem in quantities that the Soviets could have only dreamed of.

That said, yes the designs for their 'mid war' new weapons generally were seriously flawed and cost them badly when it mattered.



The Germans intel and counter intel were so bad that, to this day, I'm about 3/4 convinced that the Abwehr's chief, Wilhelm Canaris was a actually working to destroy the Reich. NOT ONE agent in Britain managed to stay undetected. Those flipped agents managed to do more damage to the V-1 & V-2 campaigns than the entire RAF. Missile missed by 40 miles, agents reported it went right into the pickle barrel, missile hit the X-ring, report was it landed 26 miles beyond the target. Set up a spy ring in the U.S., one of the agents (William Sebold) flipped before he left Germany and the Abwehr never realized it. Sebold spent two years cheek to jowl with the Canaris' hand picked spymaster, had every name, of every agent and SIX MONTHS before the U.S. entered the war the FBI scooped up every mother's son and daughter (unlike the British, the FBI lacked subtlety, but it did have plenty of prison cells). In 1942 the Abwehr landed eight agents near New York with orders to conduct acts of sabotage. Two of then decided to flip before they left Europe, one stayed to keep and eye on the half dozen who were still planning to go forward with their mission, the other went to DC as soon as his socks dried out, walked into the FBI office, got into see the Deputy Director and convinced him he was on the level by dumping the groups entire budget on the DD's desk. Until the U.S. set execution dates, the Abwehr had no clue they had been arrested.

The Abwehr was like the friggin' Marx Brothers of Intel. Now the Soviets... those bastards were experts at the game.
 

Deleted member 1487

The Germans intel and counter intel were so bad that, to this day, I'm about 3/4 convinced that the Abwehr's chief, Wilhelm Canaris was a actually working to destroy the Reich. NOT ONE agent in Britain managed to stay undetected. Those flipped agents managed to do more damage to the V-1 & V-2 campaigns than the entire RAF. Missile missed by 40 miles, agents reported it went right into the pickle barrel, missile hit the X-ring, report was it landed 26 miles beyond the target. Set up a spy ring in the U.S., one of the agents (William Sebold) flipped before he left Germany and the Abwehr never realized it. Sebold spent two years cheek to jowl with the Canaris' hand picked spymaster, had every name, of every agent and SIX MONTHS before the U.S. entered the war the FBI scooped up every mother's son and daughter (unlike the British, the FBI lacked subtlety, but it did have plenty of prison cells). In 1942 the Abwehr landed eight agents near New York with orders to conduct acts of sabotage. Two of then decided to flip before they left Europe, one stayed to keep and eye on the half dozen who were still planning to go forward with their mission, the other went to DC as soon as his socks dried out, walked into the FBI office, got into see the Deputy Director and convinced him he was on the level by dumping the groups entire budget on the DD's desk. Until the U.S. set execution dates, the Abwehr had no clue they had been arrested.

The Abwehr was like the friggin' Marx Brothers of Intel. Now the Soviets... those bastards were experts at the game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oster_conspiracy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarze_Kapelle
 

CalBear

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Wasn't that actually the case? I seem to recall him being executed (in the nude for some reason) for that exact charge.
He was, but it was following the July 20 plot. Anyone who was in a senior slot and had ever looked crooked at any of the senior Nazi leadership was in grave danger. The Gestapo executed almost 5,000 people. No way that many people knew about the plot. Zero chance that many people could keep there mouths shut in a society with as active a internal security service as the Gestapo & SS.
 
The Germans intel and counter intel were so bad that, to this day, I'm about 3/4 convinced that the Abwehr's chief, Wilhelm Canaris was a actually working to destroy the Reich. NOT ONE agent in Britain managed to stay undetected. Those flipped agents managed to do more damage to the V-1 & V-2 campaigns than the entire RAF. Missile missed by 40 miles, agents reported it went right into the pickle barrel, missile hit the X-ring, report was it landed 26 miles beyond the target. Set up a spy ring in the U.S., one of the agents (William Sebold) flipped before he left Germany and the Abwehr never realized it. Sebold spent two years cheek to jowl with the Canaris' hand picked spymaster, had every name, of every agent and SIX MONTHS before the U.S. entered the war the FBI scooped up every mother's son and daughter (unlike the British, the FBI lacked subtlety, but it did have plenty of prison cells). In 1942 the Abwehr landed eight agents near New York with orders to conduct acts of sabotage. Two of then decided to flip before they left Europe, one stayed to keep and eye on the half dozen who were still planning to go forward with their mission, the other went to DC as soon as his socks dried out, walked into the FBI office, got into see the Deputy Director and convinced him he was on the level by dumping the groups entire budget on the DD's desk. Until the U.S. set execution dates, the Abwehr had no clue they had been arrested.

The Abwehr was like the friggin' Marx Brothers of Intel. Now the Soviets... those bastards were experts at the game.
Yeah, it's tempting, but it feels more like generalized institutional incompetence to me. Earlier I said I wasn't going to put as much stock in the Garbo story as some people, but honestly, the backgrounds of some of these "spies" turned by the Twenty Committee is just preposterous.

"Hi, Nazis. I'm a refugee from Eastern Europe and you've just invaded my country. But if you pay my way to England I promise to spy there for you."

"Okay, here's your travel papers and enough money to set you up in England. Good luck and stay in touch!"

"We're Welsh fascists who want to overthrow the British Empire."

"Cool. Let us know if you see anything!"

I mean, honestly. What did they think was going to happen?
 
Fascists are scum and all - but I don't know how any intellectually honest analysis can conclude that the Allies would not have won without a 5x advantage.
 
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