Wozza said:
"Sighs and shakes head sadly" Time to go into alot of statistics and interpretations.
Lets take a look at Statistics by Michael Freeman's Atlas of Nazi Germany pg. 110. Between 1934 and 1935 fiscal year, military spending was 3 billion RM and 4.5 billion RM respectively while Civilian investment was 5 billion RM and 6 billion RM. Basic Industry was half -a- billion RM and 1.7 billion RM. Major Transport and Roads was 1 billion RM and 1.5 billion RM.
1936 Military spending increase above Civilian Investment, but it still was below combined non-military spending. Most of that military spending went into building bases and training. 1937 saw the first order of Panzer 4s delivered. Because most of the military funding was still invested in training the Wehrmach so it would equal the size of France's Army in Infantry, few Panzer 4s are created. With Speer the initial 45 delivered tanks would 135. Panzer 3s would go from 75 made in 1937 to 230. Thats really helps later on.
http://www.battle-fleet.com/pw/his/Tank_Production_Germany_ww2.htm
The Link will show production numbers.
As for your contention about the Luffwaffe. That rings false. The BF 109 went into production in 1935 followed by the Stuka.
1938 saw mass training excercises followed by the annexation of Austria that greatly aided the German Economy. Then Sudtenland and so forth.
However due to ineffiency in planning and different groups doing duplicated work, though not as bad as Italy, there were bottlenecks. Speer erases those bottlenecks.
Updated equipment creates no problems as you are not doing something radically new. Adding a longer barrel gun is simpler than building a whole new tank. Likewise existing vehicles can always be updated in the field as well.
Further, what you keep forgetting my friend is that prior to 1935, the German Army only had 100,000 men. It takes time to train a vastly enlarged army as you must break up the regular army, train new Officers and NCOs, build bases, buy uniforms, get rifles, get ammunition, etc before you can even begin to start adding Panzers in. Panzers then require reorganization and a specialised logistics tail and etc... The true wonder is that the Germans were able to launch a war on a shoestring and last as long as they did.
As for the Italians, you forget several things. One they don't have access to a wide variety of raw materials like Germany and their B... Ah, Dale Cozort can explain it better than me.
http://members.aol.com/althist1/Jan01/italian.htm
Look, the point is with Speer's reforms, things get better for the Germans as Speer will cut costs across the board and enable the Reich to purchase more Panzers and Trucks. Thats helps greatly in Russia.