Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Did the Axis have a chance achieving Production Parity with the Allies?" video.
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Germany started to massproduce things from 1943 onwards. And Germany couldn't do any "American style massproduction" before then, simply because it lacked factories for massproduction and enough skilled workers.
The Americans could on the other hand start massproducing tanks almost right away, since they already had huge factories for massproducing cars that could be converted into producing tanks and there was lots of skilled workers. And America and Britain was also richer countries than Germany, so those countries could afford more tools and machines which made their workers more productive.
So I would say that Germany couldn't have done much about their low military production prior to 1943. Maybe they could have increased workhours, removed weekends and used women in the war effort earlier.
But I think that Germany was at an disadvantage from the start, since they lacked oil and had to waste industrial capacity to get oil by other means (converting coal into oil), and Germany was also under allied bombing while Germany could do nothing against America, and Germany had been suffering under the Versaille treaty and their automotive industry was not used to massproduction.
The only trumpcard the Axis had was their superb, experienced military and skilled leadership.
And all this was thrown away in 1942, with the defeats at Midway, Guadacanal, El Alamein and Stalingrad.
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Fact remains that the US had the strongest economy in world war II by far, even if they started to demobilize their economy before the war was over. It doubled its GDP during the war years, it created more planes than the rest of the world combined in 1943, it not only expanded its agricultural output and industrial production at the same time but it did also let the military grow from less than 200.000 men to 12 million.
And yet, so did America not even mobilize more than a fraction than what they potentionally actully could have.
The Soviet economy was more mobilized for war than the American - which is an impressive feat, since poor countries usally lacks the tools and effectivness in production in order to spare manpower from civilian agriculture so they could be put into the industry to make military equipment, or so that the farmers can provide the army with enough food.
Russia had large stacks of supplies before the war and thanks to skilled centralplanning it could even for a short while use 80% of its GDP to fight the war. Which is normally something that only the richest countries in the world are able to pull off.
Russia survived and won the war, but the price for victory was enormous. Millions of workers/taxpayers/consumers were dead. Factories, bridges, homes and roads had been destroyed all over western Russia - where 60-70% of Russia's GDP had laid in German hands. More than 13.000 villages and hundreds of towns had been under German occupation.
One could also compare GDP between the Axis powers and the Allied countries here:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.590.924&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Of course does GDP not tell everything. But it can oftentimes help to get the bigger picture of things. And in this case it can clearly demonstrate the American superiority. But I would go even further, and say that it understates Americas strenght, since it doesn't say anything about technological superiority, fighting morale, or the armount of resources at hand. And oil is the lifeblood of any economy, now as then.
And since America was the largest oil producer inte world and had plenty of cheap oil, I would say that that gave them a huge advantage to the rest of the world. They could replace human labour with cheap energy. And they didn't have to waste money and having to research facilities that could transform coal into oil.
Instead they could just focus all of their industrial capacity towards winning the war.
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Its still a relevant comparison. America like most countries suffered from the great depression during the 1930s, which meant that ineffiecent car firms got knocked out while the most effiecent firms could grow their share of the car market. And that is the point in having what's called a "structural rationalization". It is this increase in effiecency and productivity that enables larger economic grow when economic crashes are over.
And this is also a reason why countries like America would do so well during world war 2, and the horrible structural rationalization Sweden suffered before all others in the early 1920 also helped Sweden to gain an economic leadership position in the world post world war2 since it had eliminated all outdated ineffecient production methods and was able to produce more stuff at a lower cost than all other countries during the 1950s and 1960s before others had catched up.
Anyways.. back to the topic.
Germany never undergone any real structural rationalization in its automotive industry during the 1930s, since Hitler had made the economic wheels of Germany go in high spin with his re-arment policies.
So the German industry never switched to American style massproduction methods with high levels of productivity. Speer also compared the productivity of nazi-slave labor with a rifle production plant in Springfield and concluded in his memoirs that Germany lacked productivity levels anyware near the United States.
And the German production of military trucks continued to be split up among many producers - which in turn created logistical problems with servicing the vechiles and pilling up spare parts for trucks of all kinds... Opel, MAN, Phänomen, Mercedes, Borgward, Hansa-lloyd Goliath, Hanomag, Henchel, Krupp, Magirus, Büssing-NAG, Ford, Daimler, Steyr, FAUN, Vomag, Adler, Framo, Nacke, Tempo
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What about the Japanese though ? Could they have achieved any semblence of parity with the allies?
Nope. The average income per head was much lower in Japan than in Britan or USA, which meant that Japan could afford fewer tools and machines and tractors, which in turn meant that the amount of stuff a normal worker could produce was much less.
So Japan needed more farmers to feed their people when they had less tractors, and they needed more men in industry just to produce the same amount of tanks as their enemies since their production was much less effiecient. And the lower effectivity in turn meant that it was harder for Japan to both increase the army and production at the same time. Meanwhile did the worlds richest country - USA - not have any problems of massproducing weapons, increasing food production an buildng an enormous military all at the same time. And all this was simply possible because of Americas effective production methods and her ability to rely more of machines and tractors and mechanized agriculture than doing all work by hand.
Also, let's presume here if the Americans do not get involved in the war, how would it have panned out then?
Japan did not have the resources to win against China either, and much less so to take on USSR and GB at the same time. And the US sanctions on Japan would have doomed the country and its war effort in China. Japan needed to attack the western powers in Asia in order to get all resources it needed - oil. rubber, rice, sugar, cotton, copper, aluminium etc.
How was british industrial capability in the homeland and the colonies compared with the axis capabilities?
Britain could easily have crushed Italy and Japan. And it was also slightly richer country than Germany in average income per head. And the empire also had great natural resources.
Germany could have outproduced UK, but Japan would never ever even be close at doing that.
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If Hitler thought that Russia was about to fall, then there would be no need to get Japan involved to share the booty. The Japanease Navy was an impressive addition to the Axis, but I think Hitler made a huge misjudgement when one compares the benifits of having Japan as an ally compared to having the USA as an enemy.
But as I said earlier, Hitler and Japan had to make a quick decision. Because Japan was quickly running out of resources, and without those resources the war in China would be doomed to fail. And Japan was furious on USA for their blockade, but on the other hand did they fear a war with this mighty power. And Hitler made the decision that he wanted to have Japan as his brother in arms, so he tried to impress them and make them believe that the war in Russia was almost over so Japan would be convinced to join the Axis and fight America togheter with Germany.
Personally I think that Hitler had reason for some optimism in 1941 and 1942. The Russian military disasters of 1941 was simply happening at an unsubstainable rate. He had misjudged the opposition and it was guessed that he would face opposition from 150 Russian Divisions, but a few months into Barbarossa it was estimated by his own military that he had been facing 300 Division equalents, and by late October over 150 Russian Divisions had been destroyed.
The German losses had also been heavy of course, but not as severe as the Russian losses. And as 1942 started Germany began the war with a decimated force, and so did the Russians. But in terms of firepower Germany was better off. Her tank losses had mostly been among the outdated garbage with shitty armour and guns, while all newly produced tanks were powerful machines - such as the excellent PzIVF,G and H models.
While Russia had lost of her good equipment in 41 and her industry was in great trouble with all movement to the Ural. Germany also had total control over the skies.
And after the catastrophic Soviet winter offensive and the disasterous Kharkov offensive in 1942, I would say that the Axis had its finest hour and Victory was almost at sight. The road to Southern Russia laid open for Germany to take and Japan was still having the upper hand in the sea battles of the pacific.
But just a few weeks later things would change forever with the battle at Midway. And Japan would lose her naval dominance. And later that year the Afrika korps would get defeated, and the battle for the Atlantic would turn bad for the Germanz, and the year would end with the disaster at Stalingrad. And the war would be lost.
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