From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Mon Jan 06 2003 - 23:10:48 PST
Hi Joe,
>Sure it does, trucks and jeeps were in short supply in
>1941, heavy trucks weren't all that common, all wheel
>drive trucks were really rare! Amphibious vehicles=
>space shuttle!
Not relevant to the Cavalry statement. The Cavalry was progressively
pushed out of most armies in the mid to late 1930s as mechanization
theories turned into reality. However, every army that I can think of
still had some, if not a sizable, cavalry force in the mix during WWII.
This was absolutely, and without any doubt, because of politics. It
would be like today trying to phase out tanks, which is in fact a fight
that is being fought at least in the US Army. Same thing happened with
Battleships within the US Navy. It is VERY hard to retire redundant or
antiquated forces, weapons, or ways of thinking. Technology and even
common sense often have nothing to do with the decisions made.
And the technology still had nothing to do with it. All these vehicles
existed and worked very well. They got better quickly, but advances
continue to this day so that really isn't relevant either. The problem
with numbers was the result of budgets and resource issues, not technology.
>Well, that and the Nazis finally realized they didn't
>have the stranglehold on the German people that they
>thought they had, just how many assassination attempts
>were made on Hitler's life?
Three that I can think of, with the first one in 1938.
But I did not mean to open the floor to thoughts on why the Germans lost
the war. That is a debate I have seen before and it never goes anywhere
:-) I was only pointing out that again technology wasn't the issue.
Will and means to produce already developed equipment is.
>That's right! But our small population was spread all
>over the world, too.
There was nothing small about either the US population or its armed
forces. It was also adequate in size for the tasks it assumed. Contrast
this with the German Army which faced numerically superior forces on
three fronts on ground, sea and in the air.
>Industry was screaming for help.
>I really doubt we could have kept up that pace for
>another year.
If the US couldn't, then they would have gone down in history as the
nation greatest nation of whimps. The sacrifices made by other nations
far exceeded what the US went through and yet they kept on going, and
going, and going, and going. The US could have gone on for many more
years without much noticable military decline. No other nation in 1945
could say the same, including the Soviet Union. Political will is an
entirely different thing, however. Americans have a typically low
threshold for fighting bloody wars when its imediate interests are not
clearly threatened (and even then...).
>+++++++
>So was radio for that matter, its importance wasn't
>fully realized until during the war.
Nope, the Germans realized it much sooner than this. But this isn't
really relevant to gasoline powered engines :-)
>Yes, they had it. But it was difficult to maintain
>because the techs weren't available, it took too long
>to train them and the Nazis, especially, weren't
>focussing on that type of training, they
>inherited/stole the people who developed that stuff,
>many of them left the country and fought against them.
> The Nazis also stole American inventions and put them
>to use.
Er... don't know where you got this notion. If anything it was the other
way around. And it was CERTAINLY the other way around as Germany started
to be overrun. It was a race between the US, Britain, and the Soviet
Union to see how many of Germany's scientists and technitions could be
grabbed before the other guy got them. The US reached the moon only when
and how they did because they got the cream of the rocket crop.
>Ok, so we agree for different reasons.
Sorta ;-)
Steve
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