Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Italian Forces and Industry in Early World War 2" video.

  1. Italys warproduction also failed because Germany took most of the Axis valuable resources (such as Romanian oil) for their own consumption, and thus leaving little over for Italian consumption. One could say that Germany was a bit parasitical on Italian warproduction, rather than co-operating. More than 2 million italians worked as guest workers in German industry 1944-45. And when Italy gained some German resources, it was never gifts, but rather exchange under harsh terms from the Germans. Germany never gave italy any StuGs or so, because they prioritized their own needs first. Italys warproduction was like you say a failure even from the start of the war, and lack of resources was their largest handicap. And not only that, Italian industry was non-existent in World War I, and Mussolini took the lesson and tried to build up an industry, but progress was slow and Italy was not really an industrialized country making ships, planes and automobiles, but instead it was a poor country with a textile industry. Anyhow, the needs of war forced Italy to pool her resources into building her own industry as best as she could for the sake of victory. She lost the war, but she won the peace, because those investments made Italy come out of the war with a stronger industry than she had at the outbreak of the war. Many Italians had became trained into skilled industrial workers, and the loss of human lives in the war was light, especially in comparison with her losses in World War 1. Most of the war damages was suffered in southern Italy, while most of the industry was in northern Italy, and Germany kept control over these areas and tried to expand warproduction there as best as they could.
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  2. why wouldnt they wait to build up and get a decent military? Military spending made up 20% of GDP before ww2, and 40% in 1941. Compare that to other countries like Germany and UK who put 70-80% into their war effort. Its simply easier to mobilize your economy for war when you have a high income per head in your country. * Italy did suceed in squeezing private consumption and transfering the recources to the government, but too much of the government spending was not devoted to war and much money had to be invested in building up the industrial capacity, with plants and machines. why couldnt they get industrial output up to speed? Firstly, resource constraints. Especially liquid fuels,which showed a decline in avaiblity already in 1940. And Italy had too few firms, and too small. They had too many lines of production, fragmentation into other lines, and the plans to enlarge scale of production were too hastly made, too many types of weapon prototypes were built, and none adequatly testested and none produced in suffiecent numbers. And the most scarce resource of all was organization. * UK and USA had the highest incomes per head among the major powers in WW2, and they could therefore afford expensive tractors to replace human workers so they could be sent to they therefore could be sent to the army or to the factories. And they could also afford to use machines in mines and factories to increase output, and replace workers so even more men could be sent to the front. As you see, when you got a rich country you can use machines to free up men for the fight, and therefore mobilize your economy for war more effiecently. When you have a country like Russia with a low productivity, you need to use more men in order to produce the same amounts of stuff as a one guy with a machine. So you therefore need more men in agriculture, mining and industry just to produce the same amounts, and you got less men to spare to fight at the front. But Russia did suceed in mobilizing their economy despite these handicaps thanks to using female workers to replace the men, and by good central planning, and large pre-war stockpiles of resources vital for war production.
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  3. "Why didn't people in ww2 just have infantry with diffrent support weapons in response to wathever threat they might face?" Because of failed doctrine. Before world war 2 there was a belief in a breaktrough doctrine of modern weapon systems. Douhet spoke of huge airfleets of bombers who would breakthrough any air defences and transform every enemy city into rubble, and Liddle Hart instead spoke of huge fleets of tanks that would breaktrough any defences and force enemy to surrender. Both of those doctrines failed in World War2. German warproduction rose the entire war despite the bombings, and at the end of the war production started to decline because Lorraine's steel and Romanias oil fell into Allied hands. And Germanys early victories had nothing to do with massconcentration of all tanks at one place, but people later on started to believe it. The list of failures of this tank doctrine can be made endless... allies in Normandy and Pattons failed breakout, and Montgomerys failed attacks at Caen, followed by Hitlers failure to learn from his enemies mistakes that attacking with tanks in bocage terrain with narrow roads is a terrible idea, launced his Arracourt offensive. Then they all decided to repeat their mistakes, with Patton at Metz, Monty at Operation Market Garden, and Hitler with the Ardennes offensive. Tanks aren't invinceble machines, not even Tigers and Panthers. They can't move and fight in all kinds of terrain, such as forrests and towns. And even if they got good cross-country abilty, their supply trucks can't get there, and those wheeled vehicles are also vulnerble to enemy fire, and if the supply lines to the tanks are cut off, even the best tanks become worthless. So the tanks can only move as fast as the supply tracks can supply them. And the supply trucks needs protection by friendly troops (usally the footsoliders), so the movement becomes limited. And that explains why the German troop movements in World War2 was no faster than in World War 1, since they were both determined by the phase of the foot-soliders. The German army was famous for its rapid speed, but that has to do with auftragstactic and their extremly skilled NCOs. In fact, the German army was less motorized than the British, French and American armies, and still relied much on horses for transports.
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  4. Japan had 0% chance of win a war against USA. And Germany had their odds stacked against them. Maybe theres a slim chance that they could have won if they had taken Caucausus so Russia would have lost both 90% of their oil production as well as their black sea fleet and industrial capacity, while the Germans would have gained oil, self-suffiency in food production, plus secure a safe traderoute for their Turkish chrome, and gained other resources as well such as coal and timber and political prestige. Not only would such a blow be devestating to the Russian economy at the moment in its most critical moment. It would also open up strategic possibilites. Germany could then attack Persia, or launch stratigic bombing against Russian industry in the Ural mountains, or use the Russian weakness to push deeper into Russia, or use the time to push back the western allies so they later could get free hands to deal with the Russians. The problem with all "what if's" is that you get no line to draw when the scenario becomes too unrealistic. I don't fully believe the situation of a German Stalingrad victory would be fully as optimistic as I written above, but all things said is still possible, and the situation after a German victory would nonetheless be very problematic for the allies. Furthermore, all "what ifs" are endless and when you add them up you can always get the conclution you want; what if the Germans not only invented SAM-systems, what if Germany had access to more resources so their steel quality didn't turn into shit? what if Germany didn't had wasted men in the battle of Moscow, Rhzev, and evacuated the Afrika Korps, and never launched the Arracourt offensive or the armour offensives at Budapest and the Ardennes, and made an organized retreat in Belorussia instead of having army group Mittle destroyed? Would the Germans been better off if they had taken Malta? What if Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain and Finland had contributed more into the war effort?
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