There is usually much discussion about the capabilities of the German economy during 1933-45 if it wasn't run by people who were, generally speaking, rather insane and incompetent, to the extent that the Soviet Union, while 1/3 occupied and generally with less money and steel production than Germany (I'll need to back that up, hopefully I can get some kind of good source on that), was able to produce many times the number of, say, tanks per month as Germany could.
However, what could Britain have done after 1929 in order to have brought it closer to the United States and Soviet Union in terms of produced goods for the war effort. What were the factors that lead to it being more of a Germany-tier producer rather than the US and USSR?
Organisational inefficiency? Size? Proximity to German bombing?
Or did Britain reach the greatest amount of performance that was manageable?
Joking apart. The premise is flawed in two major respects.
Tanks are a massively wrong metric because they comprise such a small proportion of war production.
For all the major players the cost of production ( and whether that’s in £$ or whatever or overall man power) shows.
Half on air war, half on everything else.
July 44 ( the peak month for German Tank Production, low month for naval production) has 48 % aircraft, 24% ammunition, 9% weapons, 8% AFV, 5% naval vessels, 2.5% Motor vehicles, 1.6% half tracks, 2% powder.
Of that 24% ammo 8% is ammo for the luftwaffe and navy, and about 4% of the weapons production the same ( all that FLAK).
Comparisons with the USSR and USA are deeply flawed. With the USSR for example,
UK manpower allocation, 43, is 1.8m aircraft production, 0.8m Admiralty, 1.8m Ministry of Supply which does everything else.
The USSR produces lots of tanks. Basically no ships. The UK has around 18% of workforce allocated to shipbuilding. Make that 14% you probably have the potential to double the tank production.
The USSR produces lots of planes, but it does not produce much Al, in fact by 43 lend lease Al to the USSR exceeds the Al allocation to the USN, who have a lot of planes. The planes in general are less sophisticated and capable than British aircraft of a comparable date and ofc the Brit have a massive, sophisticated and strategic air force, repair and supply establishment.
e.g. if the USSR has 1,000 a/c able to fly 1 sortie per day the RAF has 500 a/c able to fly 4 sorties per day – who has the bigger air force? You can apply the same issues to ground forces, what’s the serviceability rate of AFV. The Germans for example at Kursk are able to maintain the strength of panzer forces very close to establishment every morning because they can repair overnight. The absolute loss happens after Kursk when they are retreating and unable to repair. How long does it take the USSR to recover and repair a tank?
The USSR produces 13,000 SU76 in the AFV numbers, there is no equivalent in the UK (or US) inventory. The SU is a mobile direct fire artillery weapon ( all of them except the 85 which is AT) The Western Allies call in indirect fire for the same purpose.
Incidentally with very few exceptions for everyone Aircraft and AFV production exceeds losses throughout the war by some margin. The net effect of Kursk in pure numbers is for the germans to lose a large number of clapped out P3 and P4 and replace them with a larger number of more modern P4, Panther and Tiger. And lots of dead experienced crews and infantry a long way further west.
The USA is in a league of its own. German manpower allocation for aircraft production is about the same as US at 2.8m. With that allocation produces fewer and less sophisticated aircraft than Britain with a million less workers, and a lot fewer than the US. The German are producing in caves the US at Willow Run.
It is hard to underestimate the scale of the US. One metric. In order to supply Stalingrad the estimate was 9,000 ton per month and failed. For the US Operation Matterhorn (B29 out of China) the US was able to manage 20,000 ton per month, over the Himalayas. The plan if ever fully enacted would have been the equivalent of supplying 11x 6th armies. It was only one of three plans for the Pacific (!) and the USN captured the Mariana’s and allegedly the Pacific was a secondary theatre, where the UK was maintaining a million man army.
Noone is going is going to match the USA and both the USSR and UK production numbers are heavily distorted because the US is involved.