The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

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The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Old No7 »

I didn't want to take anything away from the successes, exploits or sacrifices of the Brits during the Battle of Britain, so I'll add this tidbit of history about the Allied "War Machine" here, instead of on that recent posting about the last B.O.B. Ace (RIP).

Many folks don't give enough credit to the U.S.'s WAR MACHINE well behind the front lines that mass produced all the war material in record time and in record numbers. Most WWII vets or historians would agree that most German tanks were superior to our own Shermans, but we could lose 3 or so to 1 of theirs -- at an extreme human cost, it's true -- but the U.S. could have won a "war of attrition" based on production output alone. The same or higher ratio applies to fighter planes too.

In fact, in 1944 alone the U.S. built more planes than Germany did from 1939 to 1945 combined, as shown in this table of:

World War II Aircraft Production
Country-----1939-----1940-----1941------1942-------1943-----1944------1945*******Total
U.S.-----------2,141----6,068---18,466---46,907-----84,853---96,270---45,852*****300,557
Germany-----1,928----7,829-----9,422---12,822----20,599---35,076-----7,052******94,622
USSR---------10,382---10,565---15,737---25,436----34,900---40,300---20,900*****158,220
UK-------------7,940---15,049---20,094---23,672----26,263---26,461---12,070*****131,549
Japan---------4,467----4,768-----5,088----8,861----16,693---28,180-----8,263******76,320


Pretty amazing ramp up in production in '43 onward.

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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by piller »

It just shows how powerful an industrialized Country can be when it has a reason to work hard.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Jay Bird »

I'll really ya what amazes me...the b-29 Super Fortress....completed in '43.....I just got got done reading a story on it and how it had mechanical computers to coordinate the twin 50 Brownings from multiple locations...while the gunners set elsewhere in the pressurized cockpit. The guns had built in lead, drop, and parallax. Effective range doubled to 900 Yds. All kinds of electric motors ran it all with an override in case bad things happened.

Yea, the Russians made a lot of planes and tanks but the Germans made short work of them all, destroying them as fast as the Russians could make them. Russians are pretty much like the Polish...25 watt light bulbs.

There's enough reading in the website warfarehistorynetwork to keep you interested for a long time. The many stories on the Pacific theater are most interesting.---6
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by gamekeeper »

If it wasn't for the US War Machine supplying Russia during WW2 they would not have been so successful in pushing the Nazis back to Berlin.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by TraderVic »

gamekeeper wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2020 5:43 am If it wasn't for the US War Machine supplying Russia during WW2 they would not have been so successful in pushing the Nazis back to Berlin.
Good point Gamekeeper, the "Murmansk Run", as it was called, cost many lives in the Merchant Marine, getting those supplies to the Russians.

The North Sea is an awful place, without German submarines.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Bill in Oregon »

Surprised by the volume of Soviet aircraft production. My understanding is their planes were OK for strafing and bombing the Finns and that's about it.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Deaf Smith »

No, the Yak-3 was a pretty good plane. Bu5 some of their top aces used the P-39 Airacobra (the Iron Dog.) Most of their fighting was below 15,000 ft and thus the P-39 ran well!

Notice Germany and Japan's output was far below the USA...

And also note the Brits read the German mail (Ultra) and we read the Japanese mail (Station HYPO).

Massive production and knowing what your enemy is doing. Hard to lose a war that way!
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by piller »

The Russian method of soaking up all the enemies bullets and winning through attrition was only effective in WWII due to the massive help from the U.S. Even though the P39 Aircobra was an outwardly capable plane, its constantly changing point of balance made it difficult to fly and fight. Not impossible, just difficult. The main gun going right through the center of the propeller was amazingly helpful to accuracy. Guns on the wings could be set to converge the point of impact at a set distance. Shooting straight where your nose was pointing was easier at all distances. Their tanks were underpowered, undergunned, and too lightly armored when compared to the German tanks. Where the American tanks had a pretty good speed advantage over the German tanks, the Russian tanks had only numbers and the simple rugged reliability to operate in the extreme cold. The cold weather froze up enough German tanks that the Russians were able to win a war of attrition there.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by mark »

It's worth reading the book:

"The Arsenal of Democracy"

By A.J. Baime

Regards Mark
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by KWK »

Sixgun Sr wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:07 amRussians are pretty much like the Polish...25 watt light bulbs.
I don't think that a fair assessment. The German general staff knew Germany couldn't win against the Russians. Logistics alone showed that. Hitler believed Russia was ripe to collapse politically, and he lost that gamble. One thing which surprised the generals was running into the T-34 tank, which was quite superior to those of the Uebermenschen at that time.

Hitler also failed to see the fatalistic resolve of the average Russian. It was their determination to fight to the last man, and the willingness of Stalin's minions to employ them so, that stopped the Germans. When surrounded, the French would surrender. The Russians fought stubbornly, to the dismay of the German front line troops. This wore down the Wehrmacht and prevented the great German pincer movements from having the effect they did in France. Then the logistics sealed the Wehrmacht's fate.

By end of the war those 25 W bulbs had developed fighter planes superior to those of the Germans and had an active nuclear bomb program, fortunately one well behind that of the US. The US's nuclear program, by the way, was initially urged on by the British, who simply didn't have the resources to do so on their own.

The 25 W light bulbs were Stalin's politically appointed military overseers. They were quite willing to waste manpower they knew they had in abundance.

On the other side, the Russian people generally fail to acknowledge the remarkable assistance the US provided them in the war. Trucks, ammunition, fuel, airplanes, etc were all supplied in great quantity. Without US materiel assistance, the Russians would have needed several more years to do the job. Add to it the hampering of German industrial production by British and US bombing, and I do have to wonder if the Russians could have done any better than a stalemate on their own.

Over here, we commonly believe the A bomb ended the war with Japan, but it was the Russian steamroller through Manchuria combined with the bomb that showed the Japanese the gig was up. Some claim it was more important than the bomb in their decision. Manchuria was the source of Japan's iron and coal, and the 25 W bulbs accomplished an amazing feat of logistics in swinging their massive army from their west front across a large continent to a new, eastern front. Without that, millions more, in Japan and from the US, would have died in war.

The US came out of the war with a fairly superior attitude. I'm not sure that serves us well today. It was several years ago I first read that US war games figured China could take us in a conventional war. We need to tread carefully. It's a different world than 20 years ago.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Old No7 »

KWK wrote: Thu Feb 06, 2020 10:43 am The US came out of the war with a fairly superior attitude. I'm not sure that serves us well today...
I'd prefer to think that the U.S. -- as a country and as a people -- came out of WWII with a positive "we-can-do-anything-together" attitude, which I'd say is LOST today.

But if your comment is correct, then I'd say...

“History is Written by the Victors."

(Often attributed to Winston Churchill, but its origins are unknown.)

Cheers.

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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by KWK »

Old No7 wrote: Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:42 am... came out of WWII with a positive "we-can-do-anything-together" attitude, which I'd say is LOST today.
"Can do" is perhaps the better description. Thank you.

As for loosing the "we can do anything together" attitude, the Dems have it in spades: "We can equalize wealth. We can get you your fair share. We can overcome poverty. We can sustain your standard of living with green power." They are very myopic.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by piller »

The Polish had superior airplanes to the Fokker in WWI, they had anti-tank rifles that could and did destroy Panzers and Tigers in WWII. The Lie about their horse cavalry attacking tanks came from one of the many Nazi Sympathizers on staff at the New York Times. If their Political leadership had been any good, General Sobieski could have possibly kept Poland free. He was about a 300 watt lightbulb. His Great Granddaughter Kathleen, known as Kat and in a class with me back at Kansas University was a rather intelligent and beautiful woman.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by KWK »

piller wrote: Thu Feb 06, 2020 11:55 am... a rather intelligent and beautiful woman.
Polish women can be quite fetching. There's a small number of Polish families living in this town. One winter Friday evening, friends and I were gathered at a favorite bar, and we couldn't help but notice the table of lovely, slender, 40-something gals murmuring away in some Slavic language, a few tables over. I walked over to ask what was their language, and on learning it was Polish asked if they knew any of the Polish engineers where I worked, which of course they did. Every one of them was slender, fit, and well dressed, somewhat in contrast to the American gals seated at the other tables. Maybe these gals were only 25 W, I didn't get to know them, but they sure were kindling more than 25 W in our table of guys.
Last edited by KWK on Thu Feb 06, 2020 3:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Jay Bird »

What makes America great is that we are all allowed to have our opinion and speak freely about them.....

Some things cannot be erased...fact and history....

Germany was a speck in the world..a country the size of Texas......and they dang near took over the whole world....that would be like Texas vs. the world. Germany is full of highly intelligent people where other countries only have token smart people.

Things would be a lot different today if Hitler's forces would have destroyed the British at Dunkirk........there's no way the Americans could have launched an invasion from the Atlantic Ocean. Ultimately, we would have prevailed but it would have been years down the road....the Germans are 1,000 watt light bulbs. :D ----6
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by KWK »

I've never understood the claim the Germans nearly won the war. As I read the history books, it wasn't even close.

At Moscow, they had reached the end of their tether. They had neither the manpower nor the resources to go further. The Russians alone turned them, not the whole world. In late '41 when the German advance was reversed, the Russians were not receiving great military assistance from the West--but they were receiving great materiel assistance from both the UK and the US. Our pummeling of the Nazis began in late '42, a year after the Russians had stopped them.

Dunkirk did not make the difference. The Germans couldn't cross the Channel regardless. The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force were both superior to their German counterparts. It wasn't going to happen with the river barges the Germans tried to group in France.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Beaker »

KWK wrote: Thu Feb 06, 2020 10:43 am
Sixgun Sr wrote: Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:07 amRussians are pretty much like the Polish...25 watt light bulbs.
I don't think that a fair assessment. The German general staff knew Germany couldn't win against the Russians. Logistics alone showed that. Hitler believed Russia was ripe to collapse politically, and he lost that gamble. One thing which surprised the generals was running into the T-34 tank, which was quite superior to those of the Uebermenschen at that time.

Hitler also failed to see the fatalistic resolve of the average Russian. It was their determination to fight to the last man, and the willingness of Stalin's minions to employ them so, that stopped the Germans. When surrounded, the French would surrender. The Russians fought stubbornly, to the dismay of the German front line troops. This wore down the Wehrmacht and prevented the great German pincer movements from having the effect they did in France. Then the logistics sealed the Wehrmacht's fate.

By end of the war those 25 W bulbs had developed fighter planes superior to those of the Germans and had an active nuclear bomb program, fortunately one well behind that of the US. The US's nuclear program, by the way, was initially urged on by the British, who simply didn't have the resources to do so on their own.

The 25 W light bulbs were Stalin's politically appointed military overseers. They were quite willing to waste manpower they knew they had in abundance.

On the other side, the Russian people generally fail to acknowledge the remarkable assistance the US provided them in the war. Trucks, ammunition, fuel, airplanes, etc were all supplied in great quantity. Without US materiel assistance, the Russians would have needed several more years to do the job. Add to it the hampering of German industrial production by British and US bombing, and I do have to wonder if the Russians could have done any better than a stalemate on their own.

Over here, we commonly believe the A bomb ended the war with Japan, but it was the Russian steamroller through Manchuria combined with the bomb that showed the Japanese the gig was up. Some claim it was more important than the bomb in their decision. Manchuria was the source of Japan's iron and coal, and the 25 W bulbs accomplished an amazing feat of logistics in swinging their massive army from their west front across a large continent to a new, eastern front. Without that, millions more, in Japan and from the US, would have died in war.

The US came out of the war with a fairly superior attitude. I'm not sure that serves us well today. It was several years ago I first read that US war games figured China could take us in a conventional war. We need to tread carefully. It's a different world than 20 years ago.
+1: Correct on all counts
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Beaker »

KWK wrote: Thu Feb 06, 2020 3:36 pm I've never understood the claim the Germans nearly won the war. As I read the history books, it wasn't even close.

At Moscow, they had reached the end of their tether. They had neither the manpower nor the resources to go further. The Russians alone turned them, not the whole world. In late '41 when the German advance was reversed, the Russians were not receiving great military assistance from the West--but they were receiving great materiel assistance from both the UK and the US. Our pummeling of the Nazis began in late '42, a year after the Russians had stopped them.

Dunkirk did not make the difference. The Germans couldn't cross the Channel regardless. The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force were both superior to their German counterparts. It wasn't going to happen with the river barges the Germans tried to group in France.
If Hitler would have let his generals run the war, while maybe not winning in the end, it would have been much longer and bloodier than what it was. As it turned out, Hitler was his own worst enemy.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by Jay Bird »

Yep...Russia is where the Germans screwed up......well known fact that the German generals tried to dissuade Hitler from invading Russia.......Britain was pretty much at the end of their rope during the Battle of Britain where the Americans were not yet involved militarily...........Let's pretend Hitler did not have two fronts and consolidated their forces on England......they would have figured out a way to get their war machine over the channel.

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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by KWK »

German militarism is blamed for WW-II, but it was Hitler's reading of the politics, not his high command, that lead to the war. The military didn't want to do the invasions of Poland, France, or Russia. They knew Germany's resources were limited and didn't buy into Hitler's superman theories. Hitler's reading of the Allied response to the Czechs and the Poles, plus the debacle in France, lured him to thinking he knew more than his generals, which was false. Yes, he did overrule sound military opinion throughout the latter half of the war, fortunately for us, for that surely accelerated his downfall.

The UK's danger early in the war was not invasion but starvation. Had Hitler before the war invested more in his U-boats than in showy items like the Bismark and Tirpitz, he might have been able to force the UK to submit. Then, as now, the UK is a net importer of food. With Europe in Nazi hands, the ocean was their link to food, and without it, they would have lost.

As for the Battle of Britain, though, the UK was turning out fighter planes and pilots faster than the Germans were. The Germans weren't going to win that way.

Would their losing have prevented Germany's defeat: No way. Russia was pounding from the east, and the Germans weren't able to stop the invasion of Africa, whence came the invasions of Italy and southern France two years later. Germany had bit off far more than it could possibly chew.

As an aside, one thing I learned this past year is that Hitler was no complete fool regarding military strategy. He independently came up with the plan that subdued France. He was hesitant to make it known beyond his attaches, but when he learned of von Manstein's nearly identical plan, he pushed the reluctant generals to go his way, quite successfully.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by yooper2 »

A good book if you can find it is "Industrial Mobilization for War" put out by the US Civilian Production Administration. It's dry and presented plainly but the numbers are utterly staggering when you stop to consider it. The depth of our nation's manufacturing ability at that time was pretty incredible.


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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by KWK »

yooper2 wrote: Thu Feb 06, 2020 5:57 pmThe depth of our nation's manufacturing ability at that time was pretty incredible.
Indeed, and its decline in the last three decades is remarkable. It’s the nature of capitalism to move capital where it’s needed most. Unfortunately that place has been one with nuclear missiles pointed at us. I believe our military is well aware, but I think the politicians have had their heads in the sand.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

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Think about who was making all those great planes here in the US during WWII! All the young men were mostly serving their country in the military, so it was older men and women that took up the slack mostly, and not only produced huge numbers of planes, but with great quality control! And when the war was over most simply went back to taking care of their families with little fanfare.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by piller »

It took over an entire month to subdue Poland. How long did it take to subdue the rest of Europe? Just about 30 days.

Who taught the Germans how to mass produce their war equipment? Heinrich Ford.

What was the best airplane engine of WWII? Rolls Royce Merlin.

Where did Germany learn about Nuclear Fission? That dim bulb Polish woman, Marie Curie.

The New York Times pushed the idea that the Polish were stupid and backwards. No more so than the average person, and actually not nearly as stupid as the New York Times reported.
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Post by yooper2 »

The gent that married my wife and I had been the curator of the Henry Ford Museum in the 70s. He showed me a Polaroid of the medal that Hitler gave Henry Ford for his contributions to German manufacturing, needless to say that isn't on display at the museum!


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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

Post by GunnyMack »

Let's not forget the Liberty Ships! Without those ships we never would have been able to supply, support or invade anyone anywhere.
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Re: The U.S. "War Machine" in WWII (Fighter Plane output)

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yooper2 wrote: Fri Feb 07, 2020 5:36 am The gent that married my wife and I had been the curator of the Henry Ford Museum in the 70s. He showed me a Polaroid of the medal that Hitler gave Henry Ford for his contributions to German manufacturing, needless to say that isn't on display at the museum!
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It's a historical, well known fact that Henry Ford was pro Nazi, and against us going to war against Germany. But he had no say so in helping with the war effort and building both vehicles and airplanes during the war, but Edsel Ford was really the spearhead of the war effort. The government knew Henry Ford was a supporter of Germany, and they asked Edsel to return from military duty and run Ford during WWII. He did so, and had it not been for Edsel's patriotism Ford's part in the war effort would not have been as productive.
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